Biblical languages and educating pastors

I spent a couple of years taking a bible Hebrew class with my last Rabbi. I got to thinking...what's to keep me from writing ANOTHER ancient text???

 

From your observations, Jimmy, has he ever actually been right about anything, as nearly as you could tell? I mean, when he starts all that fancy dancy Hebrew and Greek stuff on the markerboard, is he just blowin' smoke or what? I mean, one of his things is to point out (and allegedly prove) that all kinds of things in the Bible are just wrong... and he "corrects" them. Imagine that. So, what's up with that, anyway... from what you can tell?

 

Hi DesElms,

I only have six hours of Hebrew and six hours of Greek under my belt so I am not that proficient.

From what I can remember he seemed to circumvent sound linguistic scholarship and incorporate his own translation of the Biblical languages into his teachings.

 

One seminarian's encounter with Hebrew.

 

Interesting, indeed.

Thanks, Brad! Worth the read.

 

I didn't know Gene Scott was still around. I used to watch him in the 80s with the curiosity of one slowing down when they see the flashing lights and the obvious signs of wreckage. Does his "theology" still run along the lines of "Break all 10 Commandments before breakfast each day with impunity, eat drink and be merry"? I remember him saying that the only reason God allowed the book of James to be included in the canon of scriptures was to demonstrate that "you can be a jerk and still be a Christian." I guess the stuff about a faith that's unaccompanied by works making for a pretty paltry faith set him off.

 

Now that's what I'm talkin' about! Did that post kick some ass, or what? I didn't understand a single word of it, of course, but, dammit, it sure kicked some ass, didn't it? (Just kidding... I got it.)

Having swung back toward (but still not having gotten all the way there, yet) the position that biblical languages are probably more important than maybe I first thought when I started this thread, I appreciate your hypothetical more than you might think, Bill. And I can't tell you how much I appreciate that you took time away from other stuff I know you're doing these days to grace us with your (sometimes frighteningly) knowledgeable input here. Thank you.

In all my forty-something years of originally-LCA and now ELCA experiences, I've never run into a rabble rousing parishoner like that. But, then again, old Swedish Lutherans have a way of making his likes feel a little too intimidated to rouse such rabble anywhere near them or in the churches they built with their own hands; and who tend to go out of their way to live to be well over a hundred just so they can continue to serve on property committee and alter guild.

If I were the pastor -- even if I had taken biblical languages -- I think I'd just shoot him and make it easy on myself... but that's just me. (Kidding, again... as should be obvious.)

But seriously, two brief thoughts spring to mind...

Agreed. But would a rouser of rabble such as he even bother... or, if he did, could he be convinced? I doubt it.

So why even have them, then? (A rhetorical question.) And what does such a belief say to the scores of thoughtful, learned, scholarly, no-doubt-inspired translators who struggled and fretted over single phrases and even single words for days or weeks tying to get it just right for English-speaking Christians whom they knew would live and die by these words becasuse they would never learn or study the original texts? (And another.)

Wow, Bill. Again, I say, thanks for the example.

 

I should have added to my words, above, that that still wouldn't relieve the pastor of needing the knowledge and ability to argue the points at the biblical languages level. If the rabble rouser made good on his threat, said pastor could find himself having to make his case in one of the church's meeting rooms filled with questioning parishoners on some Wednesday evening.

I thought it, at the time, but got too distracted to remember to actually write it as the second part of the above-quoted thought. Sorry.

 

Okay... uh... Bill... I got four words for ya': "Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing."

An excellent point, as always. But harkening back to my earlier-stated position and concomitant questions, it's 2004, for goodness sake. Biblical study is older than prostitu... er... okay, well, maybe it's not older than that... but it's really old, okay. Isn't it likely that in two thousand years whatever challenge the pastor read had been covered, likely ad nauseum, by significant others -- potentially others far more scholarly than he -- and whose works he could more easily and quickly find than he could take the time to circle back to the original texts and call upon his six to 12 or so hours of Hebrew or Greek (which, to his chagrin, he doesn't really use either nearly as often per week or per month as he'd like, or as much as he uses... oh... let's say... English, for example) to interpret from more or less scratch?

I'm trying to envision myself in that position (hey... stop laughing, dammit!). Disregarding the question I'd be asking myself about why in godsname I'd ever presume myself to be better at translating than some dude who's made it his life's work; when I finally finished with the original text, I cannot envision myself not seeking-out the writings of others on the subject just to ensure that I'm even seeing things rightly. If so, then why not just skip the "from scratch" part, seek-out several writings of others, and better spend that precious time attending Thursday night's property committee meeting and moving the six guys thereon to once and for all do something about that leaky roof?

Hmm. Sounds like a Republican. (Okay, stop! He left himself wide open for that one. I just couldn't help myself. C'mon... it's an election year. Leave me alone!)

And his being able to quote on the matter the words of others whose opinions he's bothered to research and subscribe to; whose opinions and scholarship he knows and trusts; and whose words on the subject he has at the ready (either in his head or on a nearby bookshelf), wouldn't come close enough?

Whoa! No one ever suggested a thing like that! And, anyway, I'm having a little trouble understanding the question. We translate because the original texts are in languages -- and especially versions of which -- that are spoken/written by relatively tiny fractions of the world's population; so if we've a prayer of getting the Word (pun intended) out to the masses, then we've got to bring the mountain to them instead of the other way around. (Were that that were originally my idea... sorry to so blatantly wax manifest.) I don't know from other languages, but English is one capable of immense precision in the hands of a real master (or a guy like Norm Crosby... you know... whichever you prefer... just kidding). It's difficult to imagine that a translator who is a learned and expert native speaker/writer of English, with a broad and advanced vocabulary therein; and who is also terribly expert -- let's say nearly equally so -- in either written biblical Hebrew or Greek, could not achieve the sublety of the original text's meaning (even if it meant using far more words in English than a strict literal translation would normally permit) in a thoughtful, painstaking and, most importantly, serviceable English translation. It's the whole re-inventing the wheel part of it, in light of how little time there is to get done everything else that begs our attention in this short life; and our... our... well... our arrogance, I guess... in sumarily rejecting all the biblical scholarship that has gone before us, that most troubles me.

Huh? Considerably? Don't get me wrong, I see the differences and agree they're non-trivial within the context of this discussion. But for the sinner to whom the pastor is pastoring; the sinner who figures that said pastor should consider himself lucky that said sinner doesn't sleep in on Sundays and comes to church at all, is this kind of hair-splitting really where said pastor wants to take said sinners? We live in a sound-bite sensitized world that thinks the USA Today version is thorough... onerous, even; that considers the New York Times version downright anally retentive; and that considers the New Yorker version simply over-the-top ridiculous. Remember that we're talking about the everyday pastor, here, not an instructor at a local seminary.

And this is accomplished more quickly and efficiently by this down-home, everyday pastor by his doing painstaking original work in the original texts rather than his simply consulting the books in his library which well-cover the subject with interpretation and opinion culled from two millennia of theological scholarship, which are written by theologians whose interpretations he trusts, which he spent years finding and settling-upon as his go-to interpretive documents, and upon which he is willing to stake his very ministry if it came right down to it? We're back, it seems to me, to the question of why a pastor can't build on the prior works of others (and himself, to some degree) so that he can actually be all that he can be in his pastoral career by having time to attend to more seemingly mundane but nevertheless important practical pastoral tasks for which his parishoners will be eternally graterful in any case, and which will give him a warm and fuzzy feeling, too.

Hmm. Interesting. Serious question: Is this because, do you think, said translators, in the spirit I alluded to, above, tend to impose upon themselves strict rules about not using any more English words than are absolutely necessary so that the translation, in and of itself, will not become exegesis?

If all available translations are limited by the self-imposed rule of linguistic efficiency such as I describe in my words immediately above, then I guess I can see why. But what I am having a bit more trouble seeing is why that interpretation can't be an amalgum of the pastor's own combined with and tempered by several others whose interpretations he trusts in the ways and for the reasons I have cited above.

Ohgod, here we go. So you read my "bible thumper" comments in that other thread, eh? Geez! Eat one baby and you're marked for life around here.

 

Uff da! Now this is fun to watch.

 

HOW SHOULD THE PASTOR BE EDUCATED?


[Bill comments on one function of the pastor:]

IMO, that pastor in order to meet Paul's requirements for ministers needs to be able to defend his positions well:

"Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock..even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth...(Acts 20)...encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it (Titus 1)...watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned(Romans 16--all NIV).



[And specifically opines about reliance on translations:]


But when a pastor subscribes to the authority of the Autographa, as do many, and not to a translation, then when his faith is attacked using the Biblical languages, it hardly will do to argue with counter based only on the English! A pastor should well- understand and be able to vigorously defend his own theology!



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[Gregg asks about translations:]

[/b]So why even have them, then? (A rhetorical question.) And what does such a belief say to the scores of thoughtful, learned, scholarly, no-doubt-inspired translators who struggled and fretted over single phrases and even single words for days or weeks tying to get it just right for English-speaking Christians whom they knew would live and die by these words becasuse they would never learn or study the original texts? (And another.)

===


[Bill replies:]




Translations much differ as these few on John 1:18 indicate:

* "only begotten Son" KJV
* "only Son" RSV
* "only One" Today's English
* "God the only {Son}" NIV
* "God's only Son" NEB
* "the only begotten God" NAS

The pastor needs to understand, and to be able to explain on particulars, why the translations his parishoners use vary so considerably. IMO the pastor who teaches on John 1:18 is best served in doing sermon prep who can do the necessary textual and lexical steps of exegetics in order to be confident about his sermonizing or teaching.

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[Bigmouth , and boring Bill now blathers on about pastoral training:]

Gregg:

I realize that I speak as a theologian. But I speak too as a parishoner who wearies of the insipid , superficial sermonizing which now passes for teaching from the pulpit.

I know that it is likely that practically all parishoners in a Christian congregation would not even care about who the Christ is Whom is often referenced from the pulpit. Neither would some pastors. IMO , based on my limited experience, pastors are somewhat at fault for that apathy. Perhaps, then, at times, so is their education.

Clearly a principal function of the pastor according to the NT is to teach. But this purpose has been blunted both by the many pastoral hats ministers now wear and also by the lack of preparation some ministers employ to teach.

A wonderful occasion for teaching , and for illustrating the necessities which I suggest for those ministers who adhere to the NT standard, is provided in the variance of the translations of John 1:18. The differences in these translations exemplify the ancient and modern monarchianism (ie, wherein the Father is the Source of the Trinity) taught by such as Tertullian 1800 years ago and Dahms , and many, many others, today versus the view that in God there only are equals.

This issue is addressed in the scholarly journals (eg, The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society) as well as in popular expositions of doctrine meant for laymen both on the web and in print. The issue is expressed in creeds both ancient and Reformational . It is is related to other issues as the full humanity of Jesus's incarnational nature, the question of the pre existent Son's immutability when incarnating, creation, decree, salvation, and even the very nature of God Himself. One cannot see too much in 1:18. One only can see too little!

It is a shame that the import of the variances of the translations in 1:18 is not grasped by preachers and Christian laypersons because it is the Christ they preach and hear about Who is the Subject of these concerns. It is His nature , in the human understanding, that is being defined by the meaning of this text in relation to cognate ones.

At issue is whether , speaking now with apologies only in the context of Christian Trinitarianiasm, whether the Father is the Source of the personhood or essence of the Son or whether the Son has aseity just as does the Father. It would seem to me that along with announcements about Sister Susie's bladder surgery and the Jr Hi carwash the pastor might squeeze in some comment on Sunday about who Christ is!

The issue in this text pivots on several points:

1) Lexically: does the adjective in 1:18 rendered "only begotten" by the KJV really refer to a generation or does it refer instead to uniqueness?

This question can be answered by reference to usage in the Septuagint , Luke, and Hebrews.


2) Again lexically, were the correct reading "Son," then does "Son" imply a generation or a likeness?

This question is answered by a study of the usage of that noun.


2) Textually: is the correct object of that adjective "Son" or God"? Which did John write?

This question is answered by textual or lower criticism.


3) Contextually: how do such texts as John 5:26 relate to 1:18? Does the former connect to the human or the divine Son?

This question is answered by a study of 5:26.


4) Theologically: Were the Son God, can God derive life from Another, or must God have aseity?


5) Theologically, Were the Son eternally begotten, would that provide the ontological cause of a subordination of the Son either essentially or attributionally or functionally?


These questions are the domain of Systematic Theology wherein the veracity of one tenet is measured by it cohesiveness with other beliefs.


The writer of the Fourth Gospel composed a manuscript now lost. He wrote in concepts which are distanced from us by time and culture. He wrote in the dead dialect of a language foreign to English readers. Yet, his purpose was that his writing be understood!

So, the function of the pastor IMO is to accurately carry John's message when teaching 1:18 to the pastor's auditors. I don't see how this can be done with no recourse to exegetics and systematics ( showing the interlocking nature of doctrines).

Therefore, IMO, the original languages do have their place in pastoral education. Of course, disuse will cause much to be forgotten. But should disuse even occur?

Of course it may be be countered : what minister with all the duties of his/her office has the time to acquire the ability to perform such studies?

But that is exactly my point: such ability should be acquired in the training of the pastor.


Thanks,