tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-324598932024-03-07T01:31:14.743-05:00Dragon Island"Blimey, you can't help almost thinking it knows what it's saying."Shaylinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10284885669467260512noreply@blogger.comBlogger55125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32459893.post-5231319543338972322011-05-20T13:14:00.000-04:002011-05-20T13:14:30.545-04:00Party at the End of the World<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaVbxE9F8OCV-zLzAVDLzXR3myEPfBfuaP6QCqKo0GkWFMNSIbIrmRh_ozumqrl0eXpk5FGBhMneWhaP1f4apIxqBe3UENzEt_il2i9dpZmGmL6jcs_8D96q_-Y-tf8ExJXVynWw/s1600/End+of+the+World.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaVbxE9F8OCV-zLzAVDLzXR3myEPfBfuaP6QCqKo0GkWFMNSIbIrmRh_ozumqrl0eXpk5FGBhMneWhaP1f4apIxqBe3UENzEt_il2i9dpZmGmL6jcs_8D96q_-Y-tf8ExJXVynWw/s320/End+of+the+World.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<br />
So, this has been knocking around in my head for a little while now, and I figured I'd better go ahead and write it before it became another one of those posts I didn't get around to writing until the occasion for it had past (there are literally DOZENS of these; I'm such a horrible blogger it isn't even funny).<br />
<br />
So, as you may or may not have heard, there is a small group of Christians, led by one Harold Camping, who believe that tomorrow, Saturday, the 21st of May 2011, is the end of the world. More precisely, the Rapture (wherein God takes all the faithful to heaven prior to the Tribulation) is tomorrow; I gather the final end won't be until sometime in October.<br />
<br />
Pretty much everybody on the internet - at least, all the bloggers I read - has drawn attention to several significant weak points in Mr. Camping's theology. That's not really what I'm interested in. Leaving aside the question of whether a Rapture of the sort expected by Dispensationalist theology is actually Biblical (I'm convinced it isn't), leaving aside the fact that the New Testament explicitly and repeatedly warns against attempts to know the timing of the Second Coming, leaving aside that every single prediction of said Second Coming has been wrong, and leaving aside the fact that Mr. Camping himself made such a prediction in 1994 that was, of course, wrong; leaving all that aside, there is one aspect of Biblical teaching that Mr. Camping has ignored, but that really ought to keep him up nights. The Bible - Old and New Testaments - has strong words of caution for those who would teach, and harsh words for those who teach falsely. God, from what the Bible tells us, is highly concerned that those who lead His people lead them rightly, and gets particularly angry with those who lead them wrongly.<br />
<br />
In Deuteronomy 18 the people are warned to look out for prophets whose prophecy does not come true. If such a person appears in their midst - someone who claims to speak for God but whose prophecies do not come true - that person is to be put to death, because he has tried to lead God's people astray. Jesus in Matthew 23 speaks harshly to those whom he calls "blind guides" - teachers who claim to lead God's people yet teach wrongly. James 3 opens with an admonition that "Not many of you ought to become teachers," because "we will receive greater judgment."<br />
<br />
Now, I'm not suggesting that we stone Mr. Camping (tempting as it may be) for claiming to speak for God when he really doesn't and for claiming to know what the Bible explicitly says is unknowable. The point is that in addition to being, frankly, a fool, he also plainly cannot take his position as a teacher of God's people seriously, else he would be far more cautious about spreading this nonsense.<br />
<br />
Frankly, I find the whole thing rather depressing. I feel bad for the people who follow him. Some of these people have left everything to follow him and spread his silliness, and they're headed for a potentially catastrophic disappointment. How many of them will have their faith irreparably damaged? How many of their children will grow up to scorn Christianity? Should they (the adults, at least) know better? Yeah, they should. But there are always people who will follow any ridiculous path set for them. The fact that Mr. Camping has found them and fooled them so thoroughly is his fault, far more than theirs. What will be really interesting to me is what he says on Sunday morning. Will he repent and recant, as he should, or will he come up with some ridiculous explanation as to why he wasn't <i>really</i> wrong? My money's on the latter.Shaylinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10284885669467260512noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32459893.post-866465259340869512011-05-04T21:02:00.001-04:002011-05-04T21:02:20.571-04:00Quick Review: OtterBox Defender for iPadOver the weekend I discovered that AT&T was selling certain iPad cases (first generation iPad only) for $5. So I bought three (and with a coupon code from DealsPlus, got them for $3.75 each). The first to arrive was the OtterBox Defender.<br /><br />I've had OtterBox cases on two different iPhones now, but but they've both been the mid-level Commuter line. I love the Commuters, but The Defender series is much thicker and more robust, and has always seemed a bit much for a phone, I thought.<br /><br />The first thing I noticed when I unboxed the iPad case was the weight. The thing is <i>heavy</i>. Since the first gen iPad is a bit weighty, too, this makes a pretty significant difference. Conversely, it's also extremely sturdy. The install was easy, though it took several steps. Now that it's on, though, I feel a lot better about how safe my iPad is than I did when all I had on it was the Apple-manufactured folio case.<br /><br /><b>Pros</b>: I'm pretty sure my iPad is bullet proof now.<br /><br /><b>Cons</b>: I'm also pretty sure you could tie it to somebody's leg and throw them in the river, and they'd drown. Also, it only props up at one angle, which is great for watching a video, but not for typing.<br /><br /><br />- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad<br />Shaylinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10284885669467260512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32459893.post-22176164416813162112011-04-07T12:46:00.001-04:002011-04-07T12:46:03.511-04:00Quote of the Day"Inability to understand a phenomenon or a concept is not necessarily a criterion of its truthfulness."<br />-Richard Carlson & Tremper Longman, <i>Science, Creation, and the Bible: Reconciling Rival Theories of Creation</i>.<br /><br /><br />- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone<br />Shaylinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10284885669467260512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32459893.post-2504290335814671612011-03-17T10:25:00.001-04:002011-03-17T10:25:41.124-04:00A Sign of AuthoritySo, I'm currently reading an interesting little book by Craig Keener (who'll be coming to Asbury to teach this summer; very exciting), <i>Paul, Women & Wives</i>, in which he discusses various passages relating to gender roles within the church. In chapter 1 he works through 1 Corinthians 11:2-16, which discusses women wearing head coverings in the church. Several times in the discussion he makes reference to verse 10 demonstrating that a woman has authority over what she wears on her head. This is a fairly striking claim if you read, well, pretty much any translation of this passage ever, because they all say something along the lines of "therefore a woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head" (NASB). So, being a good little Bible student, I flipped open my Greek New Testament. It turns out that there is nothing in the Greek text corresponding to "sign" or "symbol." The translations all get "symbol/sign of authority" from the word εξουσια [<i>exousia</i>]<br /><br />The weird thing about that is that, unless I am very much mistaken, εξουσια <i>never</i> means "symbol of authority." Rather it just means "authority." So far as I am aware, if it means "symbol of authority" here, this is the <i>only</i> place in all of Greek literature where it has that meaning. So, as Keener points out, the most natural reading of the Greek in this verse is "a woman ought to have authority over her own head."<br /><br />Now, I'm not the type to just assume that I'm right and those responsible for every English translation (and one French!) I was able to lay hands on are <i>all</i> wrong. But. The way I read the Greek text, the "symbol of authority" translation is awfully difficult to defend. <br /><br /><br />- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad<br />Shaylinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10284885669467260512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32459893.post-51028209778746896672010-12-07T13:34:00.000-05:002010-12-07T13:34:50.582-05:00Let's Keep X in Xmas!(Warning: there will be Greek in this post.)<br />
<br />
Every year at Christmas it is common to see or hear, among all the hustle and bustle and various trappings of the season, assertions that we ought to "Keep Christ in Christmas." Now, insofar as this means we ought to recognize that Christmas is a primarily Christian holiday meant to celebrate the birth of Jesus, that's all well and good. I certainly affirm the right of non-religious people to keep Christmas in their own way if they choose, but I do find the excessive secularization (and commercialization, Charlie Brown) of the holiday a bit bothersome.<br />
<br />
All too often, though, the phrase "Keep Christ in Christmas" is said in reference to the abbreviation "Xmas." Now, there are all sorts of reasons to use this abbreviation: "Christmas" isn't a particularly long word, but when one is, say, sending a text message or writing a shopping list or the like, it can be useful to shorten it. But shortening it to "Xmas," so the thinking goes, removes "Christ" from the holiday, and is cause for varying levels of frustration and anger among believers who understand "the reason for the season." In fact, all too often such anger and frustration is expressed in a manner that is, shall we say, less than consistent either with the Christmas spirit or with Christian charity. But what are we to do? Should we just accept this (apparent) attack on our faith during one of the two most important holidays of the Christian year? How should we handle this?<br />
<br />
Well, maybe we don't need to do anything about it. In fact, upon further examination, all the hoopla over the use of "Xmas" instead of "Christmas" is what the apostle Paul called "zeal without knowledge" (Romans 10:2). In fact, a little digging shows that the use of this abbreviation is not a exctly modern practice. In fact, it is at least 250 years old, and is actually of <i>Christian</i> origin. You see, "Christ" in Greek is Χρίστος (<i>Christos</i>). See that letter at the beginning that looks like an X? That's a <i>chi</i>, which is usually transliterated ch. In fact, a great many English words wherein a "ch" makes a "k" sound are of Greek origin, "school" for example (from σχολη, <i>schole</i>). That means that the X in "Xmas" is actually meant to be a <i>chi</i>, the first letter of the Greek word for Christ. And so, consequently, using "Xmas" does <i>not</i> "take Christ out of Christmas." It just substitutes the first letter for the whole name.<br />
<br />
People who live in or near cities with long names actually use much the same practice all the time. I grew up near Elizabethtown, Kentucky. Very rarely does anyone in that area actually say (much less write) "Elizabethtown." It's nearly always "E-town." Functionally, using "Xmas" for "Christmas" is the same thing, except the replacement letter is Greek instead of English.<br />
<br />
Now, some will no doubt point out that most people who use "Xmas" don't know anything about how Christ's name was written in Greek, and so they're still "taking Christ out of Christmas." And that's completely true, after a fashion. But to that I say two things: first, the majority of people who use this abbreviation have no malicious, anti-Christian intent in doing so. They're not trying to dodge the Christian origins of the holiday, or any such thing. They're just people who, for whatever reason, find it convenient to knock a few letters off of a 9-letter word. The point is, it's a person's <i>motivations</i> that matter. It's wrong - preposterous, really - to assume that someone is somehow denigrating Christ and Christmas just because they abbreviate the word. Before you judge them, have a look at their Christmas decorations. Or their holiday traditions. Or just have a conversation with them. How a person <i>does</i> Christmas is much more important than how a person <i>writes</i> it. Completely apart from all that fanciness with the Greek, we as Christians really ought to know better than to lambast people for how they write a word if we know nothing else about them or how they celebrate the holiday.<br />
<br />
Secondly, though, there <i>are</i> people who use "Xmas" because they are specifically trying to de-Christianize the holiday. There are even people who write "Xian" and "Xianity" for the same reason. How, you may ask, should we deal with that? Quite apart from whether it's our place to deal with it at all, my response is to be amused, for two reasons. First, I'm amused because it's an attempt at cleverness that really winds up just being rather childish and petty. Second, it's amusing because it's ironic. Precisely because of the origins of the abbreviation, using it to take Christ out of Christmas is a non-starter. They're trying to use a Christian abbreviation to de-Christianize an inescapably Christian holiday. Either way, it's basically the rhetorical equivalent of this guy:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://failblog.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/baseballfail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://failblog.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/baseballfail.jpg" width="298" /></a></div><br />
So, the moral of the story is this: just because a person uses "Xmas" for "Christmas" doesn't necessarily mean they're taking Christ out of Christmas, because the abbreviation itself is of Christian origin. And even if it wasn't, there are a whole lot of ways to "keep Christ in Christmas" that have nothing to do with how we write the word. Also, using Xmas because you <i>do</i> want to take Christ out of Christmas is like fouling a baseball off your face.<br />
<br />
Happy Holidays!Shaylinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10284885669467260512noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32459893.post-57143200860035031212010-11-29T11:35:00.000-05:002010-11-29T11:35:17.481-05:00"So what does the Greek say here?"I'm guessing most seminary students/graduates get this question a lot in a church setting. I for one get it with some regularity in our Sunday school class. When we get to a tricky passage or verse in the text, people's heads swing my direction, and someone will ask, "So Shaylin, what does the Greek say here?" Now, don't misunderstand: I'm certainly not complaining. I'm perfectly happy to share any insight I can, and sometimes a look at the underlying text can be helpful. Unfortunately, however, there are a lot of times when my answer is fairly anticlimactic, because most modern translations of the Bible are made by people who know Greek a heckuva lot better than I do, and are therefore quite good, even where they differ from one another. That doesn't mean I don't reserve the right to disagree - I've even been known to cross out translations I don't like in my English Bible and write something better in the margin. But most of the time when I get asked that question, the passage in question turns out to be fairly straightforward, and the translation a good one.<br />
<br />
The problem is, there's a tendency to view the Greek text as a sort of interpretive panacea: whatever problems or questions we have can be solved by looking at the Greek (or, of course, Hebrew; in fact, any time you read "Greek" in this post, assume I've also said "or Hebrew"). This idea usually doesn't last past the end of one's first (or <i>maybe</i> second) semester of Greek study, but among those who lack the special kind of mental instability that makes some of us want to spend our time reading dead languages, the idea persists.<br />
<br />
The reality, though, is that learning Greek does not, of course, answer all our questions. All it really does is show us which questions are the important ones. The places where the Greek text is trickiest often <i>don't</i> get asked about, precisely because the translators have done their jobs well: they've rendered a difficult verse or passage in such a way as to make its meaning clear.<br />
<br />
Where it gets really interesting, though, is passages where the text seems straightforward, and may even have been translated in a certain way for a very long time, but a deeper look shows it to be trickier than originally thought. I stumbled upon an example of that this morning in a post over at Joel Hoffman's excellent blog, <a href="http://goddidntsaythat.com/">God Didn't Say That</a>. The post in question (direct link <a href="http://goddidntsaythat.com/2010/11/28/adultery-in-matthew-5-32/">here</a>) deals with the translation of Matthew 5:32. I won't rehash the whole post, but here are the highlights: The forthcoming 2011 edition of the NIV - a project I'm watching with great interest - translates this verse differently than previous translations, including the 1984 edition of the NIV, and the TNIV.<br />
<br />
Most translations of the verse read something like this: "but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the cause of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery" (NASB). The NIV2011, however, has "makes her the victim of adultery" rather than "makes her commit adultery." The difficulty, as Dr. Hoffman points out, is that of the two instances of the verb <i>moicheuo </i>(μοιχευω) in the verse, the first is in the passive voice, the second in the active, which means that what the woman does is in some sense different than what the man does in this verse. He concludes that neither the simple active translation of the NASB, NRSV, NIV, etc., nor the "victim" translation of the NIV2011 is acceptable, and I tend to agree.<br />
<br />
Apart from the translation issue at hand - which I find intensely fascinating - Dr. Hoffman's post drives home the point I tried to make earlier. Sometimes looking at the underlying text of a difficult passage does provide us the answers we seek. But sometimes, as here, digging deeper into the text of a verse the meaning of which is widely agreed upon ends up raising questions we hadn't even thought to ask.<br />
<br />
I suppose some, perhaps especially those just embarking on their seminary careers, might find that discouraging. Personally, I find it exciting. If we could get all the answers just by learning Greek (or, of course, Hebrew), then understanding the Bible wouldn't be as much of a <i>challenge</i>. It wouldn't be as fun. And it wouldn't present nearly the same opportunity for growth.Shaylinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10284885669467260512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32459893.post-12337066176568051662010-11-23T23:16:00.001-05:002010-11-23T23:16:52.876-05:00Quote of the Day"I read in a periodical the other day that the fundamental thing is how we think of God. By God Himself, it is not! How God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important. Indeed, how we think of Him is of no importance except insofar as it is related to how He thinks of us."<br>-C.S. Lewis, "The Weight of Glory."Shaylinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10284885669467260512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32459893.post-78406647537308262942010-11-20T23:10:00.000-05:002010-11-20T23:10:48.975-05:00In which I indulge in a bit of whiningIf you pay any attention at all to my Twitter feed (conveniently viewable on the right hand side of your screen), you likely know that I've been taking Krav Maga since early summer, and you may know that in last Thursday's class I bruised the bejeebers out of my left shin (long story short, I blocked a roundhouse kick with my shin bone instead of my calf muscle). Thanks to that little bout of stupidity, I now know the difference between a regular bruise and a bone bruise. The chief differences being that a bone bruise is a)on the bone, and 2)a helluva lot more painful. As in, it hurts to walk. Still. Over a week later. And as if that wasn't bad enough, when I was at the doctor's office on Tuesday I asked him to look at it, which apparently meant "push really freaking hard on the very painful bruise," and I think he must've messed something up, because now my entire left leg from knee to foot is stiff and sore, and my ankle is rather grotesquely swollen. Also, some blood from the bruise appears to have run down my leg (under the skin, mind), and pooled around my ankle, which, apart from looking gross, is just freaking <i>weird</i>, man.<br />
<br />
So yeah, that's really all I've got for tonight. For your sake I hope you didn't read this far hoping for I would close with some sort of deep thought or insight about life or anything. 'Cause I really just felt like a bit of whining 'cause my leg hurts. That's it. If you were hoping for something more profound than "never block a roundhouse kick with your shin bone" and are disappointed, I'll be happy to refund the price of your admission.Shaylinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10284885669467260512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32459893.post-62491967418151400922010-11-18T14:07:00.000-05:002010-11-18T14:07:32.724-05:00Quote of the Day"To apply what Paul said to his churches to our own circumstances today requires more than simply reading words on a translated page of the Bible; it requires understanding the principles those words were meant to evoke for the first readers. This is the only proper way to respect the author's inspired message, as opposed to constructing an entirely new meaning based on a naïve modern reading of an ancient text."<br />
-Craig S. Keener, <i>Paul, Women, and Wives</i>.Shaylinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10284885669467260512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32459893.post-71615823641834500592010-11-18T12:54:00.001-05:002010-11-18T13:10:00.865-05:00On iPads and ProductivitySo, as both of my readers likely know already, I recently acquired an iPad. I'd been planning to hold out for the the second generation, likely due out in April, but I just couldn't wait anymore. It actually turned out to be a win for everybody, though, because I raised the funds for the iPad by selling a bunch of junk that was just sitting around my house, unused and collecting dust. I cleared out a bunch of old books and CDs and all three of my old video games systems (a Nintendo, Super Nintendo, and N64). I also sold my NOOK e-reader, intending to read on the iPad (this I did with some trepidation, as I was worried about eye strain from reading on a backlit screen instead of the very lovely e-ink display of my NOOK, but so far, so good). So I effectively traded a bunch of crap that was taking up space for something I would use often and would take up considerably less space. Win all around.<br />
<br />
The interesting thing is that I really thought I was just buying myself a toy. I figured I'd surf the web, maybe watch some videos, play some games, and read books on it. And in fact I do all those things, even more than I expected to. What I didn't expect - apart from the Spanish Inquisition - is how much of a productivity tool it would become. I do read for pleasure on it, in fact I'm working steadily through Brandon Sanderson's excellent <i>The Way of Kings</i> right now (well, not <i>right</i> now; you know what I mean). Additionally, though, I find myself doing a good bit more school-related reading than I expected. When researching for a paper a couple weeks ago, I collected several journal articles in PDF form. With the help of <a href="http://www.dropbox.com/">Dropbox</a> (which I highly recommend, by the way) and an app called <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pdf-expert-professional-pdf/id323133888?mt=8">PDF Expert</a>, I was able to get these PDFs onto my iPad and annotate them. Of course, you can read PDFs in Dropbox or iBooks, but PDF Expert makes it easier to mark them up, which is usually a necessity for me when I'm reading something for school - I have to have either some way to make separate notes or to mark up what I'm reading. Once I started writing said paper I was able, thanks to <a href="http://www.literatureandlatte.com/">Scrivener 2</a>'s external folder sync feature and <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/notebooks-for-ipad/id372370048?mt=8">Notebooks for iPad</a>, to work on it even when I not actually at my computer (not extensively, though, as Notebooks only edits plain text files - which means no italics or footnotes - and until iOS 4.2, there's no Greek keyboard on the iPad). Now, if I could only get the good people at <a href="http://www.accordancebible.com/">Accordance</a> to get it in gear and release their iOS app, I'll be set.<br />
<br />
So, long story short, it turns out the iPad is actually more useful than I expected. Though if I were <i>really</i> interested in just being productive with it I would not have downloaded Plants vs. Zombies. Or Angry Birds. Or Fruit Ninja. Or Cut the Rope. Or Solitaire. Yeah.<br />
<br />
<br />
P.S. If anybody's curious about my take on the various e-reader iPad apps, here it is: iBooks has the best user interface by far. The Kindle app is a distant second, only just marginally ahead of the NOOK app. Both Amazon and Barnes and Noble, though, have a vastly larger selection of books than the iBookstore (and I'm finding Amazon's selection to be better than B&N's in some respects, most notably books related to my field of study). Most of my reading is done in the NOOK app, since I built up a not-insignificant library over the course of nearly a year owning a NOOK reader.<br />
<br />
P.P.S. Pretty much everything Apple tells you about how spectacularly awesome the iPad is is true. What they don't tell you, however, is how much harder it is to keep an iPad's screen clean than an iPhone's. Especially if a certain grubby-fingered four-year-old likes to play with it.Shaylinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10284885669467260512noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32459893.post-6687194335906280922010-11-09T21:23:00.001-05:002010-11-09T21:23:13.086-05:00Test, part troisTrying the email route one more time, to see if the tags work now, as it still seems potentially more convenient, especially if i think i might have to stop working on a post and come back. So...<p><b>Bold?</b><p>--<br>Sent from my iPad.Shaylinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10284885669467260512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32459893.post-85507099346009327362010-11-09T21:19:00.000-05:002010-11-09T21:19:16.601-05:00Test, part deux.Oh, well, then. Don't I feel stupid. Looks like i can, after all, post from the Web instead of email, as long as I have it in "Edit HTML" mode. Isn't that nifty. So let's try some stuff again...<br />
<br />
<b>Bold</b><br />
<i>Italic</i><br />
<strike>Strikethrough</strike><br />
<br />
<a href="http://twitter.com/stclark81">Link to my Twitter feed</a><br />
<br />
There, now. That should work.Shaylinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10284885669467260512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32459893.post-23192205628688442112010-11-09T21:11:00.000-05:002010-11-09T21:10:57.985-05:00TestThis is mainly a test to see how well emailed posts come through. For whatever reason, Blogger won't let me write or edit posts from the web on my iPad. But if I can use HTML tags in emailed posts, I might start blogging this way. Assuming I can find the time to do so, which, let's be honest, is hardly guaranteed.<p>So anyway, commence the testing:<p><I>Italics.</I> <br><b>Bold</b><br><u>Underline</b><p>Hrm. I'd include a link, but i can't remember the exact HTML tag off the top of my head. Well just see if this works before we try anything fancy...<p>--<br>Sent from my iPad.Shaylinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10284885669467260512noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32459893.post-6936108954539484372010-11-08T13:29:00.003-05:002010-11-09T13:36:53.064-05:00Excuse me, *tap tap* is this thing on?He blogs! I don't know if April 28-November 8 (which is... *counts on fingers*... 6 months) is a record for silence on this blog, but it's got to be close. What's worth, I've probably lost both of my regular readers in that time. Anyway, what brings me back to the blogosphere is the a post by <a href="http://www.dennyburk.com/the-niv-on-1-timothy-212/">Denny Burk on the NIV 2011's translation of 1 Timothy 2:12</a>. <div><br /></div><div>For those unfamiliar with the issues, a few years ago the Today's New International Version (TNIV) translation of the Bible was released. On the whole it is an excellent translation and should have replaced the older NIV, as it was intended to do. It was severely hampered, however, by a)a lack of adequate marketing by Zondervan, and b)a significant amount of controversy over some of its translation choices. It was marketed as "gender accurate," which basically means that it replaced "man" (ἄνθρωπος) with "human," "humanity," or "human kind," and "brothers" (ἀδελφοί) with "brothers and sisters" when a mixed-gender group was in view. It also regularly employs "they" as a gender-neutral third person singular pronoun, which is a common feature of modern American English. These and other choices made the TNIV a major point of contention in the complementarian-egalitarian debate (again, for those unfamiliar, this is basically the debate over whether women ought to be allowed leadership roles in the church; complementarians say nay, egalitarians say yea; that's an oversimplification, but it works to be going on with).</div><div><br /></div><div>One of the most significant controversies dealt with the TNIV's translation of 1 Timothy 2:12. This verse is extremely significant in the comp-egal debate, as (depending on how it's translated) it provides a significant bit of evidence for the complementarian side. In the NIV it reads "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent." Complementarians take this verse as a universal declaration that women are never to be allowed positions or authority over men within the church. Egalitarians (of which I am one, it should be noted) counter that what Paul has in view here is women - who are, perhaps, accustomed to having a place of importance in the local cults in Ephesus - who are taking assuming positions of authority without having the proper training to fulfill the role, and that as such the prohibition on women teaching is limited to the situation in Ephesus at the time the letter was written.</div><div><br /></div><div>The TNIV seems to support the egalitarian view: in it this verse reads, "I do not permit a woman to teach or assume authority over a man; she must be quiet." The switch from the NIV's "have authority" to "assume authority" is taken as evidence of an egalitarian bias in the TNIV.</div><div><br /></div><div>So, now we get to the above blog post. As it turns out, the new NIV 2011 (another revision of the (T)NIV) follows the TNIV in its handling of this verse. In the post, Professor Burk argues that this is a distinctly egalitarian reading, and that it consequently casts doubt on the NIV 2011 as a whole. In the course of his argument (as you'll see if you read the post) he quotes Wayne Grudem's statement that the TNIV's "assume authority" is a "highly suspect and novel translation."</div><div><br /></div><div>In point of fact, the Greek word underlying the translation - αὐθεντέω - is quite problematic. It may mean simply "to have authority," but most likely it has other, less pleasant connotations. More significantly, however, the TNIV and NIV2011's handling of this verse is far from "novel." The King James Version, published in 1611, has "usurp authority" here. Many very early English translations handle the verb similarly. Which means that what Dr. Grudem derides as "novel" is in fact supported by some of the very earliest English translations (and several Latin, French, and German ones as well, including the Vulgate) ever produced.</div><div><br /></div><div>The fact that Grudem, Burk, et al ignore this fact is frustrating. Even more frustrating, however, is this: I personally have posted two comments on Dr. Burk's blog, pointing out the error in Grudem's statement. Neither of these comments - both quite reasonable and respectful in tone, if I may say so myself - have made it past moderation. Now, anyone with a blog is within his or her rights to enable comment moderation, and to refrain from allowing whatever comments he or she wishes. What's disappointing to me is that Dr. Burk, a New Testament professor at Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville and dean of Boyce College (which is part of Southern), has chosen to eliminate not only my comments, but every comment that offers objection to this post (except by Douglas Moo, a notable scholar and one of the translators of the NIV 2011; Moo also falls on the complementarian side of the debate). Again, that is his prerogative - bloggers are not <i>required</i> to allow the free exchange of ideas in their comment sections. Yet I would have expected better, especially in a professor and dean who would, I'm sure, have sharp words for a student who similarly disregarded contrary evidence.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>UPDATE:</b> After a third (somewhat strongly worded) comment addressed directly to Dr. Burk, he sent me an email assuring me that his intent was not to suppress objection, but to keep the flow of the conversation focused tightly on his and Dr. Moo's interaction. Interestingly, though, apart from comments by Drs. Burk and Moo, the only comments that have made it through are those supporting Dr. Burk's position.</div>Shaylinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10284885669467260512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32459893.post-73505718566743155192010-04-28T10:47:00.004-04:002010-04-28T10:53:50.612-04:00Raiders of the Lost ArkNo, not that ark. The other one. Noah's. Apparently a group of Turkish and Chinese Christians claims to have found it.<div><br /></div><div>See <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/7644052/The-search-for-Noahs-Ark-a-history.html">this article</a> for more details.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm intrigued by this. Not because I think it might actually be Noah's ark (I suppose it's not impossible, but I'll need some convincing), but because of the sheer number of times Noah's ark has supposedly been found. It's rather like all those Crusaders who returned to Europe with various relics - bones of saints, and the like. I mean, if all the supposed pieces of the True Cross that were brought back from the Crusades were put together, you'd probably have enough wood for Jesus' cross, the crosses of the bandits crucified with him, and a couple of spares. Sometimes it seems that we modern Christians, who so often revile our Medieval brethren for their backwardness, are not so far removed from them as we might like to believe.</div>Shaylinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10284885669467260512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32459893.post-84460474021462577402010-03-09T10:42:00.005-05:002010-03-09T11:23:01.564-05:00On ProductivitySo, I'm really making a liar out of myself by even writing this right now, because I really should be attacking the mountain of reading I've got to do this week (my workload this semester is pretty much all reading; only a couple papers to write, and a little Greek translation, but mostly reading). But I've spent yesterday and this morning getting about half sick, so reading about ancient Babylon, Egypt, and the Hittites isn't really grabbing my attention today, and this has been knocking around in my head for a couple days, so I'll write for a bit, then get back to reading, I guess.<div><br /></div><div>This is the third year of my Ph.D. program and I am taking right now, God willing, the last three courses I will ever be <i>required</i> to take. Ever. I know, right? It's crazy. Now, there's still miles to go before I sleep - exams, dissertation, defense, and so on, all of which I expect to take two more years, but still, it's pretty awesome. But I digress. Anyway, the first two years of my Ph.D. work were a real struggle, both in terms of self-confidence (in a there's-no-way-I'm-actually-smart-enough-to-be-doing-this sort of way), and in terms of actually doing the work. Jenny works full-time (more than full-time, really), which left the primary care of our son (and now our foster daughter) to me. So for the first two years of my Ph.D. work, I was <i>both</i> a full-time student <i>and</i> a stay-at-home-dad. This meant taking G<b>*</b> to a sitter while I was in class, and working around his sleep schedule when I was at home. I worked all through naptime, and for several hours after bedtime. This, as you might imagine, became wearing. It got a little better when he started half-day preschool last year. This year, though, things got much more complicated when we were given a newborn foster daughter. Suddenly (literally, in the span of about four hours) we went from having one child to having two.</div><div><br /></div><div>I realized very quickly that this wouldn't work: I couldn't manage being the stay-at-home-dad to two kids <i>and</i> being a full-time student. I was, in fact, at the point of starting the necessary proceedings to take a year off from school, when we hit upon the notion of putting G in school all day and M in care for the day. This allows me to effectively treat my schoolwork as a a 9-5 job (usually more like 9-3 or 9-4, depending on circumstances), with the result that I am much more productive, and much happier with the situation overall. I even have my evenings and weekends relatively free - meaning I don't usually have to bring work home, and can spend my evenings doing other things. This usually means cooking and keeping the house in general running order, but it also means that I have some time for more entertaining activities that usually had to just go on hiatus during the semester - video games, reading fiction, and so on.</div><div><br /></div><div>To be honest, I'm not really sure what the point of all this is, except to say that an academic career is best treated like an actual <i>career</i> (i.e., a job), at least at the level where I currently am. Trying too hard to juggle what amounts to two full-time - and more than full-time - jobs (stay-at-home-parenting<b>**</b> and Ph.D. work, in my case) ultimately doesn't work well. So my advice: if you're a Ph.D. student (or thinking about becoming one), try to get yourself into a situation where you can focus on school with the attention it deserves: namely, as though it were an actual paying job, because it's at least that much work. Also, if you're the friend or loved one of a full-time student, don't hate. We work our butts off. The fact that we're still "in school" and may not earn any actual income for what we do doesn't change that - and can even make it more frustrating.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">*</span></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Being as this blog (and my Twitter feed) are completely open to the whole wide internet, I refer to my kids by their initial, rather than their actual names. It may seem silly and paranoid, but I'm okay with that. So if you see G and M, that means my son and foster daughter, respectively. (Also, it saves me a few characters when I talk about them on Twitter.)</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><div><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">**</span></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Most people have probably heard me say this before, but it bears repeating. I've never been one to disrespect the stay-at-home parent. I remember all too well what royal pains in the butt my brother and I could be at times to take the all-too-common attitude that it amounts to just sitting around the house doing nothing all day. But after a couple of years of doing it myself, somebody who tried to tell me "I wish I could just stay home all day and do nothing," would probably not be able to finish the sentence until after they'd spit out a couple of teeth.</span></span></div>Shaylinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10284885669467260512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32459893.post-69343954759229762212010-02-23T23:05:00.002-05:002010-02-23T23:09:50.771-05:00CommentsI had to add word verification to comments. Because apparently spammers are too stupid to realize that month-old posts on a blog read by about ten people are not a good place to try and drum up buyers for their snake oil. (Have I mentioned I hate spammers? 'Cause I do. Mostly because I find their sales pitches insulting.) So anyway, no big deal, so long as you're a human and not a spam-bot. You'll just have to do the word verification thing before you can comment. That is, before you comment on the posts that I rarely make. Anyway, that's all for now. Have a lovely evening.Shaylinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10284885669467260512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32459893.post-49831438541496261162010-02-01T10:17:00.003-05:002010-02-01T10:22:07.719-05:00On BloggingI was looking through some old posts on my old Xanga blog the other day, and I was struck by how much of my previous habit of blogging has been replaced by Twitter/Facebook updates. I was also reminded, though, that I quite like blogging, and really feel I should do it more often. So that's what I'm going to try to do. I've got the seeds for several posts bouncing around in my head, on a wide variety of topics, ranging from academic/theological stuff to a review of the shiny new Nook e-reader I got for Christmas (because my wife rocks).<div><br /></div><div>So anyway, I guess this is the occasionally obligatory "I don't post very much but I'm going to try and start posting more often" post. Of course, my final semester of coursework starts next week, so how much time I'll actually have for blogging is anybody's guess. But I'm going to try.</div>Shaylinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10284885669467260512noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32459893.post-65369436341778318922010-02-01T10:00:00.002-05:002010-02-01T10:16:08.148-05:00Quote of the Day"A social instinct is implanted in all men by nature, and yet he who first founded the state was the greatest of benefactors. For man, when perfected, is the best of animals but, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all."<div>-Aristotle, <i>Politics</i> Book I</div><div><br /></div><div>This jumped out at me when I read it this morning because it fits nicely into my views of human nature and my cynicism toward politics and politicians, which stems from my views of human nature, and which I was thinking about earlier this morning.</div>Shaylinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10284885669467260512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32459893.post-81422079102091582822009-11-30T00:12:00.002-05:002010-02-03T13:52:27.959-05:00From the Mouths of ChildrenSometimes explaining theology to a child yields interesting results. <br />For example while we were on the way home this evening, my three-year-<br />old asked "Where's God." Which led me to... Wait. Before I start, let <br />me preface this by saying that he is obsessed lately with racing. We <br />are always racing everywhere: to the car, to his room at bedtime, and <br />so on. So anyway, I tried to explain to him that God is everywhere all <br />at once. Ultimately, this led to the fact that God was in the truck <br />with us, and at home with Mommy. He said: "Is God already at home?" I <br />said yes, and he said "He beat us! God was racing!"<p>I don't know if the whole idea of God being everywhere all at once <br />sunk in (you never know: he may repeat it all back to me in a week, or <br />he may forget it all). I can say with some confidence, though, that he <br />did not understand why I was laughing so hard.</p>Shaylinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10284885669467260512noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32459893.post-33345413623301193012009-11-28T21:59:00.003-05:002009-11-28T23:04:33.089-05:00Quote of the DayFrom Ken Schenk's <a href="http://kenschenck.blogspot.com/2009/11/oh-me-oh-translations.html">Quadrilateral Thoughts</a> blog:<br /><br />"We have to accept the fact that the original context of the Bible was sexist in its orientation. We can't be as Christians in our context, not and be faithful to the core message of Christ. But when we are studying the original meaning of the Bible, we simply have to deal with the fact that we are reading male-oriented texts, as all the texts of the day were. This is one area, interestingly, where Western society as a whole--even the fallen world at large--has thankfully moved closer to the kingdom than the New Testament itself, since its books were truth incarnated within the thought patterns of its day.<br /><br />God took where they were, met them there, and pointed them in the direction of the kingdom. Pity those like the Grudems and Pipers of the evangelical world who mistake the wineskins for the wine. "<br /><br />Probably one of the lessons about Biblical interpretation that I most value from my education thus far is this idea of trajectories in Scripture. That is, the idea that when set within the cultural context from which it came, the Bible can set us on the path toward certain theological conclusions that are not explicitly stated in the text itself. It's an idea that was well understood (and then taken much too far) by the pre-Reformation church, but which certain forms of modern Protestantism have largely lost. This sort of reasoning gave us, among many other things, the doctrine of the Trinity: though no such doctrine is ever specifically articulated in the New Testament, there are many passages that point in that direction and, when followed to their logical conclusion, result in the Trinity. The abolitionist movement of the 18th and 19th centuries is another example: it's not often remembered nowadays that the abolitionists' position rested largely on their conviction that slavery was fundamentally counter to the message of Christ. Though the New Testament never explicitly says "slavery is evil," it points strongly in that direction - especially in places like Galatians 3:28 and Paul's letter to Philemon. If in Christ "there is neither slave nor free," and a Christian master is urged to receive back his runaway Christian slave as "no longer a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother." It's only a short hop from there to the conclusion that slavery is inherently anti-Christian.<br /><br />Some of these ideas, however, meet with resistance. Indeed, from would-be debunkers of Christianity, many of them do: it is makes their argument easier. If they can argue that the Bible promotes slavery and the oppression of women and that the Trinity (especially the divinity of Jesus) is a later Christian invention (*cough* <span style="font-style: italic;">The DaVinci Code</span> *cough*), then it's easier to argue that Bible is irrelevant.<br /><br />There is also controversy over some of these issues within the church, particularly the issue of the roles of women. That is what Dr. Schenck is discussing: there are many (myself among them) who see in the New Testament a trajectory leading toward the equality of men and women within the leadership structures of the church (and the marriage). Others, like John Piper and Wayne Grudem, disagree, and argue that gender-based hierarchy remains in force in the church.<br /><br />I do have to disagree with Dr. Schenck on one point, though: I think the ESV, though overall an excellent translation, does suffer as a result of the politics of its origin. It's translation of certain passages most favored by egalitarians is plainly constructed so as to minimize the impact of such passages for egalitarian arguments. An example being <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%2016:7&version=TNIV;ESV">Romans 16:7</a>, the ESV's translation of which is deeply problematic, and is designed to undercut a specific egalitarian argument (namely, that a woman in the New Testament-era church bore the title "apostle").<br /><br />Ultimately, though, I think Schenck is right. The Bible does put us on a particular path on this issue, and I expect that ultimately, this view will win the day, and in a century or so will be largely taken for granted among Christians, in much the same way that the abolitionist arguments of our predecessors have done.<br /><br />(Which is not, of course, to say that there is no racial prejudice within the church, certainly there is. But there's also nobody arguing for the re-institution of slavery, either.)Shaylinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10284885669467260512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32459893.post-10976920137030657402009-11-12T13:04:00.002-05:002009-11-12T13:11:47.449-05:00Quote of the Day"But let no one suppose that joy descends from heaven to earth pure and free from any mixture of grief. No, it is a mixture of both, though the better element is the stronger, just as light too in heaven is pure from any mixture of darkness but in regions below the moon is clearly mixed with dusky air." -Philo of Alexandria, <span style="font-style: italic;">On Abraham</span> 205.Shaylinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10284885669467260512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32459893.post-68792926794442973172009-10-06T10:53:00.002-04:002009-10-06T12:00:18.180-04:00Please Let This Be a Joke...So I've read about the <a href="http://conservapedia.com/Conservative_Bible_Project">Conservative Bible Project</a> from a couple different sources. My first reaction was to hope it was a joke. My second reaction was to pray fervently that someone, somewhere would jump out and yell "Gotcha!" But alas, it was not so. It appears to be entirely serious.<br /><br />If you don't have the time or inclination to read the website, I'll sum up: basically, the creators of Conservapedia (which, until now, I've never been entirely sure was not itself some sort of very subtle satire) have decided that all modern Bible translations are too liberal, and that the best way to remedy the situation is basically to paraphrase the King James Bible in such a way as to better reflect their own socio-political views.<br /><br />The interesting thing is that at first blush the description I just gave might seem harsh, but after having read the description, I'm not sure that they would disagree. They actually seem fairly open about their political agenda.<br /><br />But here's the thing: first of all, the Bible is between 2 and 3 millenia old, and as such naturally defies simple classification according to 21st century American (or, more broadly, Western) socio-political categories. In other words, the Bible is not - and should not be seen as - entirely "conservative" or "liberal" by our standards, because the Bible was not written according to our standards.<br /><br />Second, it is perfectly true that certain socio-political or theological biases will creep into a translation of the text. It's only natural: translation is an inexact art, requiring the translator to make choices based on his or her best evaluation of the underlying text. Such choices cannot be completely divorced from the person making them. As such, a person's translation of a passage - particularly a difficult or controversial passage - will reflect that person's own views to a degree. Though steps can (and should) be taken to moderate this effect, it is not realistic to expect to eliminate it entirely. This is why translations done by committee (as nearly all modern translations are) are superior to those done by individuals or small groups - various biases ideally tend to cancel out, allowing a better view of the text itself. The problem, though, is that these folks are not, as nearly as I can tell, just attempting to eliminate a supposed "liberal bias" in modern translations (which, as far as I can tell, is not there anyway, broadly speaking). They are trying to <span style="font-style: italic;">replace</span> a perceived liberal bias with a conservative one. Attempting to eliminate bias is one thing, intentionally inserting it is just mucking with the text, and is completely unconscionable.<br /><br />Also, there is no apparent concern with <span style="font-style: italic;">faithfulness to the text</span>, but rather with ensuring that the text support a socio-politically conservative viewpoint. For another, the words "Greek," and "Hebrew" are not to be found until near the bottom of the page (where recourse to the original languages is treated basically as plan B). What we have instead is the statement that much of the problem, as they see it, can be corrected "simply by retranslating the KJV into modern English."<br /><br />So basically, this is a modified form of <a tooltip="linkalert-tip" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_James_Only">King James Only-ism</a>, overlaid with a hyper-conservative socio-political perspective. What these folks, well-intentioned though they may be, are doing is not <span style="font-style: italic;">correcting</span> anything. They're modifying the Bible to make it more palatable to them as conservatives, and I don't know any words strong enough to express how wrong and absurd that is.Shaylinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10284885669467260512noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32459893.post-76216707426194774762009-08-03T21:14:00.002-04:002009-08-03T22:18:34.183-04:00Things that make you go... *facepalm*I went back and forth for several minutes as to whether or not this was even worth my time, but finally decided that I couldn't let it go. Sometimes you just have to point out the stupidity of something stupid, just so you don't explode. Well, I do, anyway.<br /><br />This video has apparently been circulating the internet. I ran across it just this evening:<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/bcYph45aDEU&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/bcYph45aDEU&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />If you're not inclined to sit through the five minute video, I'll give you the basics. Starting with Luke 10:18 - "I saw Satan falling like lightning from the sky" (my translation) - he argues that although the text as we have it is written in Greek, Jesus originally spoke these words in Aramaic (true enough). Thus, he argues, Jesus would have used the word <span style="font-style: italic;">baraq</span> for "lightning" and <span style="font-style: italic;">bamah</span> for "sky" (the Greek <span style="font-style: italic;">ouranos</span> here is often translated "heaven," or "heavens"). This collocation of <span style="font-style: italic;">baraq</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">bamah</span> in the words of Jesus naturally means that Barack Obama is the Antichrist.<br /><br />This is why I have a love-hate relationship with the Strong's Concordance. It's a great tool when used for what it's meant for, but when it gets misused... hoo boy. So, a couple brief points of refutation, then I'm done:<br /><br />1)Obama's first name comes from the verbal root <span style="font-style: italic;">BRK</span> ("to bless") and is a variation on the Hebrew name Baruch ("blessed"). The noun <span style="font-style: italic;">baraq</span> ("lightning") is completely unrelated, however much they may sound alike. Similarly, the English words "bare" and "bear" are completely unrelated, despite sounding alike.<br /><br />2)The Hebrew word <span style="font-style: italic;">bamah</span> never, so far as I'm aware, refers to the sky, but rather to hilltop or mountaintop shrines - high places <span style="font-style: italic;">on earth</span>. The Greek word <span style="font-style: italic;">ouranos</span> means "sky," as distinct from land and sea. No Hebrew speaker who knew an ounce of Greek would have translated <span style="font-style: italic;">bamah</span> with <span style="font-style: italic;">ouranos</span>, or vice versa. If Jesus' words are being translated from Aramaic to Greek, the Aramaic word underlying <span style="font-style: italic;">ouranos</span> would certainly be <span style="font-style: italic;">shamayin</span>, which means "sky, heavens."<br /><br />3)The Isaiah 14 passage is <span style="font-style: italic;">not about Satan</span>. It's about Nebuchadnezzar. Read the context. The word <span style="font-style: italic;">lucifer</span> there is a Latin rendering of the Hebrew for "star of morning" (i.e., Venus). By a trick of medieval exegesis, the common noun <span style="font-style: italic;">lucifer</span> came to be taken as a proper name, Lucifer, and applied to Satan. But that never ought to have happened, because the passage isn't about Satan. Isaiah's prophecy is predicting the fall of Nebucachadnezzar.<br /><br />4)Let's grant, for one brief, brain-melting instant, that this whole argument is right, and that Jesus is really referring to Barack Obama. What is he saying? "I saw Satan fall like Barack Obama"? Seriously? In what way did Barack Obama fall, and in what sense is Satan's fall like it?<br /><br />5)The context of the Luke 10 passage is not eschatology or the Antichrist. Sidebar: "Antichrist" is an ill-defined concept in the NT anyway. Most of what we associate with the concept of a single eschatological Antichrist figure comes from medieval and, later, dispensationalist theology. The word "antichrist" only shows up once or twice in the NT, in the letters of John. It's nowhere in the gospels, and nowhere in Revelation. End Sidebar. Even if we accept that Jesus is saying "like Barack Obama," that doesn't mean that Obama is the antichrist (whatever that means anyway). It would just mean that there is some point of comparison between Obama's "fall" and Satan's.<br /><br />But hey, as long as we're accepting this gentleman's conclusions for the sake of argument, let's look at Matthew 24:27 - "For just as lightning comes from the east and shines into the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be." So if lightning = <span style="font-style: italic;">baraq</span> = Barack, then what Jesus is <span style="font-style: italic;">really</span> saying is that "Just as Barack comes from the east and shines in the west," and that's compared to the coming of the Son of Man. Which means that, far from being the Antichrist, Barack Obama is actually the Messiah, returned to Earth to lead the true people of God! Somewhere, right now, John McCain is saying, "Aw, damn."<br /><br />Nonsense. <span style="font-style: italic;">Baraq</span> is completely unrelated to "Barack," and <span style="font-style: italic;">bamah</span> was certainly nowhere in Jesus' discourse here. Even if it was, the idea that Jesus would drop the name of a person who won't be born for 2000 years into the middle of a conversation about something completely different is silly. What Jesus is doing here is comparing the sudden and spectacular fall of Satan with the sudden and spectacular descent of lightning from a stormy sky. His disciples have just come to him talking about their power over demons, and he responds with this.<br /><br />Okay, so I've spent way more time on this than I wanted to, or than it deserved, but now I've written it, so I'll go ahead and post it. Suffice it to say, this is what happens when somebody learns just enough about the original languages to be dangerous.Shaylinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10284885669467260512noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32459893.post-13675579214292903312009-07-30T15:28:00.002-04:002009-07-30T16:13:47.912-04:00No Joy in BeantownI'm reading all sorts of news stories all over the internet now about how David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez are both on this infamous list of 104 baseball players to tested positive for PEDs in 2003. Now of course, Manny has already tested positive this year, and served his suspension, so this isn't really huge news. Ortiz is a much bigger story, and a much bigger disappointment, but unfortunately, I can't say I'm really all that surprised (though, to be fair to Papi, there are only a handful players in the game who would really, genuinely surprise me at this point - Jason Varitek and Derek Jeter spring immediately to mind, but there are others).<br /><br />As to the whole PED issue is a quagmire with no quick or easy answers, so far as I can see. Focusing on which players have used in the past and how to handle things like stats, records, championships, and the like is just going to prolong a problem that is best handled only by a solid drug policy moving forward, and the steady application of time.<br /><br />But what really hacks me off is this list. The players who agreed to be tested in 2003 were guaranteed two things: that there would be no penalties for positive tests, and that the results would be destroyed immediately after the league was finished with the study it was conducting, so that they would never become public. Obviously that didn't happen. What did happen is that the Feds seized the list, which shortly thereafter became a court-sealed document. But the list is still becoming public. Not all at once, mind. No, the names are leaking out in ones and twos every few months, so that just as the media frenzy over one is dying down, out pops another. A-Rod's results not a big story anymore? Alright, let's release Sammy Sosa's name. Sosa turns out not to be a huge story? The media frenzy died down too quickly? Darn, well, let's toss out a couple names from the Red Sox, that'll make news! Because that's what this is. This is some lousy [expletive deleted] who has been entrusted with confidential information getting his jollies by stirring things up. Nobody benefits from that. The list ought to have been destroyed, because that's what the players were promised. But if the results were going to be released, then they should've been released all at once. The only people who benefit from this trickle of information are the jackass doing the trickling, and the media, who now have something new to blather about for awhile.<br /><br />This whole mess is just rotten from one end to the other. The fact that there are and have been players using drugs is awful and wrong, but the way this list from 2003 is being handled is infuriating and, in my opinion, just as wrong.Shaylinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10284885669467260512noreply@blogger.com0