So, I'm currently reading an interesting little book by Craig Keener (who'll be coming to Asbury to teach this summer; very exciting), Paul, Women & Wives, 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 [exousia]
The weird thing about that is that, unless I am very much mistaken, εξουσια never 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 only 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."
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 all wrong. But. The way I read the Greek text, the "symbol of authority" translation is awfully difficult to defend.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Let's Keep X in Xmas!
(Warning: there will be Greek in this post.)
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.
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?
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 Christian origin. You see, "Christ" in Greek is Χρίστος (Christos). See that letter at the beginning that looks like an X? That's a chi, 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, schole). That means that the X in "Xmas" is actually meant to be a chi, the first letter of the Greek word for Christ. And so, consequently, using "Xmas" does not "take Christ out of Christmas." It just substitutes the first letter for the whole name.
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.
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 motivations 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 does Christmas is much more important than how a person writes 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.
Secondly, though, there are 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:
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 do want to take Christ out of Christmas is like fouling a baseball off your face.
Happy Holidays!
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.
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?
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 Christian origin. You see, "Christ" in Greek is Χρίστος (Christos). See that letter at the beginning that looks like an X? That's a chi, 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, schole). That means that the X in "Xmas" is actually meant to be a chi, the first letter of the Greek word for Christ. And so, consequently, using "Xmas" does not "take Christ out of Christmas." It just substitutes the first letter for the whole name.
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.
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 motivations 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 does Christmas is much more important than how a person writes 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.
Secondly, though, there are 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:
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 do want to take Christ out of Christmas is like fouling a baseball off your face.
Happy Holidays!
Monday, November 29, 2010
"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.
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 maybe 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.
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 don't 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.
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, God Didn't Say That. The post in question (direct link here) 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.
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 moicheuo (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.
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.
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 challenge. It wouldn't be as fun. And it wouldn't present nearly the same opportunity for growth.
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 maybe 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.
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 don't 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.
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, God Didn't Say That. The post in question (direct link here) 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.
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 moicheuo (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.
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.
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 challenge. It wouldn't be as fun. And it wouldn't present nearly the same opportunity for growth.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Quote 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."
-C.S. Lewis, "The Weight of Glory."
-C.S. Lewis, "The Weight of Glory."
Saturday, November 20, 2010
In which I indulge in a bit of whining
If 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 weird, man.
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.
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.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Quote 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."
-Craig S. Keener, Paul, Women, and Wives.
-Craig S. Keener, Paul, Women, and Wives.
On iPads and Productivity
So, 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.
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 The Way of Kings right now (well, not right 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 Dropbox (which I highly recommend, by the way) and an app called PDF Expert, 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 Scrivener 2's external folder sync feature and Notebooks for iPad, 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 Accordance to get it in gear and release their iOS app, I'll be set.
So, long story short, it turns out the iPad is actually more useful than I expected. Though if I were really 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.
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.
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.
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 The Way of Kings right now (well, not right 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 Dropbox (which I highly recommend, by the way) and an app called PDF Expert, 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 Scrivener 2's external folder sync feature and Notebooks for iPad, 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 Accordance to get it in gear and release their iOS app, I'll be set.
So, long story short, it turns out the iPad is actually more useful than I expected. Though if I were really 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.
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.
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.
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