Love and Conversion, Love and Conversion

GO TOGETHER LIKE A HORSE AND CART


When I was a college student, Krister Stendahl came to campus as part of a Jewish/Christian dialogue. Stendahl (1921-2008) was a brilliant New Testament scholar and a pioneer of what came to be called the “New Perspective on Paul.” His visit to my school came shortly after his book Paul Among Jews and Gentiles was published. I don’t remember who the Jewish participant in the conversation was. I do know that Stendahl was a regular and enthusiastic participant in inter-faith discussions.

It was later, when he served as (Lutheran) Bishop of Stockholm, that Krister Stendahl expressed his Three Rules for Religious Understanding:

1. When you are trying to understand another religion, you should ask the adherents of that religion and not its enemies.

2. Don’t compare your best to their worst.

3. Leave room for “holy envy.” (i.e. recognize the parts of the other’s faith that you might wish were your own.) 

It was a few days before the Dialogue that I heard one of my fellow students say, “We shouldn’t be talking to the Jews. We should be converting them.”

Oh. My.

There are so many things wrong with that statement that I hardly know where to begin. Maybe it’s enough to say that the statement betrays an underlying attitude that is fundamentally unloving. I believe that love is the trump card in all Christian ethics.

Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, "You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet"; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, "Love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. (Romans 13:8-10 NRSV) 

I know the counter-argument: converting others to our religion saves them from eternal condemnation. What could be more loving than to save someone from the agony of hell?

The problem is that this is not love. Love values a person as they are. To say “you must convert” means “I do not value you as you are. I will not value you until you become what I want.” Love does not set out to change a person. Loving and being loved may very well cause a person to change, but that is not its goal. Let’s not get that cart before the horse.

These thoughts were inspired, at least in part, by this post from Victoria on her Gaudete Theology blog. She included the video I’ve attached below. You can watch it here, or, better yet, go read Victoria’s post and watch the video on her blog.

I found the illustration of the horse and cart through a Google search that hit on this website geared toward real estate agents. 

Erasmus and Textus Receptus

PART 6 IN A SERIES ON TRANSLATION


When Martin Luther set out to reform the Church, Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466 or 7 - 1536), an influential Dutch priest and brilliant humanist scholar, was initially supportive of the Lutheran enterprise. Luther and Erasmus parted ways over the question of human free will. In a nutshell, Luther said that our human will is bound to sin. Erasmus had a much higher opinion of humankind. Justo Gonzalez, in The Story of Christianity, Volume 2 (pp. 42-43) suggests that the free will debate was a pretext on the part of Erasmus, an amicable way to part with the Lutherans.

Lovers of the New Testament, regardless of denomination, owe Erasmus a debt of gratitude. It was he who, in 1516, first published a Greek New Testament. His work went through many editions, which included numerous corrections. It was in the preface to the 1633 edition published by the Elzevirs of Leiden, that Erasmus’ work was called the “textus receptus” (Latin for “received text), a name that adheres to this day.

Erasmus’ Greek text was the basis for Martin Luther’s German New Testament, and for the 1611 King James Version.

Erasmus had only eight manuscripts to work with, and those were incomplete. For example, the manuscript that he used for Revelation was missing its last six verses. The resourceful scholar overcame this difficulty by back-translating the missing verses from the Latin of Jerome’s Vulgate (c.f. this post) into Greek. He did surprisingly well, all things considered, but at Revelation 22:19 he managed to turn a tree into a book. According to Bruce Metzger, this “reading occurs in no Greek manuscript.” Apparently the scribe who had made Erasmus’ copy of the Vulgate “accidently miscopied the correct [Latin] word ligno (‘tree’) as libro (‘book’).”**

So the King James Version reads:

And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book. (Rev. 22:19, bold emphasis added).

Most modern translations, based on modern, critical Greek texts read like the Common English Bible:

If anyone takes away from the words of this scroll of prophecy, God will take away that person’s share in the tree of life and the holy city, which are described in this scroll. (Rev. 22:19, bold emphasis added).

I found Holbein's painting of Erasums at Wiki, of course. Among modern translations only those, like the New King James Version, deliberately based on the texts underlying the KJV have “book of life” in Rev. 22:19. Next in this series, I will take up the matter of modern, critical Greek New Testaments.

Footnotes:

*Gonzalez, Justo, L., The Story of Christianity. Volume 2: The Reformation to the Present Day. HarperCollins, New York, 1985, pp. 42-43.


**Metzger, Bruce M., A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, Second Edition. A Companion Volume to the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament (Fourth Revised Edition), United Bible Societies, USA, 1994, p. 690.

Jesus And Self-Interest

A THEOLOGICAL PONDER

I don’t think that Jesus, as portrayed in the Gospels, ever acted from self-interest. I’m willing to be proved wrong, but I can’t think of an instance where Jesus did anything to enhance his social status, increase his personal power, or in anyway enrich himself. Arguably, even those moments when Jesus does something to preserve his own life, as when he walks away from the lynch mob in Luke 4:29-30, it is only so that he can go on to Jerusalem and the cross that awaits him there.

“However, it’s necessary for me to travel today, tomorrow, and the next day because it’s impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.” (Luke 13:33 CEB)

By the same token, I can’t think of an instance where Jesus told his followers to act in their own self-interest. Instead he taught the disciples that they must take up crosses, that only by losing one’s life does one gain life, that following him meant giving away all that one had. These are words to convict the heart of any Christian.

Much of what is preached as gospel, at least in a North American Protestant context, has to do with avoiding hell and achieving heaven. It’s a pain and pleasure principle writ large into eternity. Self-denial, when it is proclaimed at all, is for the sake of a greater bliss in the next life. Much of what is preached as gospel, at least in our individualistic Western culture, is about “me and Jesus.” It’s about self-interest.

And I’m willing to be proven wrong, but I don’t think Jesus ever acted from self-interest, or told his followers to do so.

Illustrating this post is Hieronymous Bosch's painting of Jesus carrying the cross.

Let God's People Say "Amen"

At the Northern Illinois Synod's annual Congregational Resourcing Event, Saturday, March 10, 2012, keynote speaker Pastor Jeff Marian from Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, Burnsville, MN, spoke of the shifts he believes the Church must make. First among them is a shift...

"from a gospel that is all about saving people from hell, to the Gospel which invites people into the present reality of the kingdom of God."

The Texts Underlying the Old Testament

PART 5 IN A SERIES ON TRANSLATION

The various books of the Bible were originally written in Hebrew (a few Old Testament passages in Aramaic) and Greek. Unless you read those languages, you will rely on a translation. I've mentioned before that my friend Matt claims there are more than 500 translations of the Bible into English. I'm not sure where he got that number. It doesn't seem too far-fetched, though.

The preface to the Lexham English Bible, a recent version based on an interlinear Bible, says that there are "approximately one hundred different English translations of the Bible already published." Even this more modest number represents an embarrassment of riches.

One of the things that sets the various versions of the Bible apart from one another is their textual basis: the different original language texts that underlie the translations.

The Jewish Bible is called the Tanakh. Tanakh is an acronym for the Hebrew words Torah (Law), Nevi'im (Prophets), and Kethuvim (Writings), the three major divisions of the Jewish Bible. The content of the Tanakh is identical to the Protestant Old Testament, though the books occur in a different order and are sometimes counted differently.

Hebrew is written from right to left. In ancient times (and to some extent today) Hebrew was written without vowels. Which gives rise to this bit of doggerel by Jessica Shaver:

Th lphbt s hrd t mstr;
Rdng bck t frnt's dsstr.
Nlss h's rd th clssfds,
whr trth, bbrvtd, hds,
th w1d-b rdr f th Bbl,
prsntd wth th txt, s lbl
t trn nd rn wth shrks nd hwls-
th hbrw Scrptrs hv n vwls!

If you made it through that poem, you know vowels are helpful, but not necessary. While the letters PRS might represent "purse," "parse," or "praise," context will usually make the meaning clear. Still, the Hebrew Scriptures printed without vowels present some interpretive difficulties. So in the 7th through the 11th centuries CE, groups of Jewish scholars called the Masoretes devised a system of "points," written above and below the consonantal text to indicate vowels and "cantillation" (chant tones). The resulting Masoretic Text (MT) is the fixed and authoritative form of the Tanakh. The Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS) is the standard scholarly edition of the MT.

In the 4th through 2nd centuries BCE, long before the Masoretes did their work, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures called the Septuagint was made to meet the needs of Diaspora Jews--Jews who lived away from the Judean homeland. Septuagint means "Seventy" and the title refers to a legend about the making of the translation.

King Ptolemy II of Egypt wanted a translation of the Torah for his great library at Alexandria. He sent to Israel for 72 scholars to prepare the translation. Each of them worked separately from the others, isolated in 72 rooms, for a period of 72 days. At the end of that time, when they compared their manuscripts, miraculously they had all produced identical translations.

The legend is nonsense, of course, but it reflects the esteem with which the Septuagint was regarded. Septuagint is often abbreviated "LXX" ("seventy" in Roman numerals).

When the Septuagint was being compiled, the canon of the Jewish Bible was not set. So the LXX came to include several books, and additions to books, that are not in the Tanakh. Some of these additions were originally written in Hebrew, others in Greek.

The Septuagint was the Bible of the early Church. When the New Testament quotes the Old Testament, the quotes are almost always from some form of the Septuagint text. When Christianity and Judaism went their separate ways, sometime around the 2nd century CE, Jews abandoned the use of the LXX in favor of the Hebrew Bible.

In the 4th century, Pope Damasus I commissioned a brilliant, troubled scholar named Jerome to produce a Latin translation the Bible. Jerome's Bible was called the Vulgate because Latin was the "vulgar"--that is--common language of Western Christendom. Greek was still the lingua franca of the Orthodox East. Jerome designated the books that were found in the LXX but not the Hebrew Bible as "deuterocanonical," that is, belonging to a "second canon." The Vulgate became the standard Bible of the Western church and remained so until the Reformation era. In the East, the LXX has always been the standard text for the Old Testament.

In the 16th century, when the Reformer Martin Luther made his vernacular German translation of the Bible, he put the deuterocanonical books in a separate section of the Bible and commented that they were "good to read" but did not have the same authority as the other Scriptures. The deuterocanonical books are also sometimes called "Apocrypha" which means "doubtful." Following Luther's lead, most modern Protestant Bibles omit the Apocrypha altogether.

Today the content of the Protestant Old Testament conforms to the Hebrew Masoretic Text and is usually translated from the BHS, with emendations from the LXX and other ancient witnesses. Catholic and Anglican editions of the Bible include the deuterocanonical books, giving preference to the MT for the "protocanonical books" and translating the deuterocanonical books from the LXX. Orthodox editions of the Bible include an Old Testament translated from the Septuagint.

The difference in the content between the MT and the LXX accounts for the fact that Protestant Bibles are 66 books long, while Catholic and Anglican Bibles have 73 books. Some Orthodox churches have even longer lists of canonical Scriptures.





This post has been necessarily very brief. I trust that the facts presented are accurate, though they can hardly be considered the "whole story." In my next post in this series, I plan to take up the question of the texts underlying the New Testament. I found Domenico Ghirlandio's painting of St. Jerome in His Study at wiki.

If You Give A Martian A Bible

WHAT WOULD THEY THINK?

Dr. Mary Joan Winn Leith wrote the Biblical Views column for the March/April 2012 issue of Biblical Archeology Review. In her essay, titled “The Bible Divide”, she notes that “Many people are unaware that Religious Studies and Theology are not synonymous.” As she defines the difference, “...a Theologian studies her own religion as a believer—as a Jew or a Christian, for example—allied with faith and authority.” Religious Studies, on the other hand, takes a view from the outside. “I tell my students.” Leith writes, “to imagine scholars of Religion as Martians, newly landed on earth with no preconceived notions about religion.”

This led me to ponder: If a Martian—one who is human in temperament, emotional makeup and intelligence, but unfamiliar with Christian culture—were to read the Bible, what conclusions might they draw? For our purposes, the Bible should be a text edition and not a study Bible. It may have text critical footnotes, but no explanatory or interpretive notes, and no introductory essays.

Would such a Martian, on first reading, take chapter one of Genesis as a literal account of the origins of the cosmos? I would think so. Without context to indicate that the story of a 6-day creation is meant to be anything else, it appears to be a factual account. It is unlikely, however, that our Martian would accept this account as accurate. There is too much in it that is contradicted by physical evidence.

On reading the second chapter of Genesis, the Martian would find a second account of creation quite unlike the first. Now, here's a puzzle. How to account for the differences? Should the two stories be reconciled in some way? Is either of them meant to be taken literally? Or do they belong to a literary genre other than factual reportage?

I am confident that, whatever conclusions our imaginary Martian might make, by the time they reached the book of Revelation, they would not think the Bible was inerrant, or that it contained no internal contradictions. I am likewise confident that our extra-terrestrial buddy would not derive a doctrine of premillenial dispensationalism or even (and as a Nicene Christian it chagrins me to say this) a doctrine of the Trinity. Inerrancy is an assumption. The Trinity is an interpretation. Premillenial dispensationalism is a framework imposed on the Scriptures.

Would a Martian, reading the Bible through, be moved to adopt the Christian faith? It's possible, though I don't think it likely. The books that we Christians read as Scripture were written by and for believers. They are intended to shore up faith, not to cause conversions. For our Martian to come to faith, they would probably need someone to interpret the Bible for them, as Philip interpreted Isaiah for the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:26 ff.). Faith lives in community, not in a book.

Generation upon generation of believers have found the Word of God in the Bible. Christians don't read their Scriptures as a Martian would. But taking an objective look at the Bible is a valuable exercise. It might keep us from making silly assumptions or drawing untenable conclusions. Reading the Bible like a Martian may not lead an unbeliever to faith, but it can certainly inform the faith of one who believes.








Another article well worth reading in the March/April BAR is Dr. Amy-Jill Levine's piece What Jews (and Christians too) Should Know About the New Testament.

Harold Camping Apologizes

ANCIENT MAYAN APOLOGY EXPECTED NEXT JANUARY

Harold Camping, the doomsday preacher whose prediction that May 21, 2011 would be “Judgment Day,” provided plenty of fodder for this blog. He has now issued a statement admitting that his prediction was “sinful and incorrect.” Would I be churlish if I suggested that this confession is both obvious and belated?

We realize that many people are hoping they will know the date of Christ's return. In fact for a time Family Radio fell into that kind of thinking. But we now realize that those people who were calling our attention to the Bible's statement that "of that day and hour knoweth no man" (Matthew 24:36 & Mark 13:32), were right in their understanding of those verses and Family Radio was wrong. Whether God will ever give us any indication of the date of His return is hidden in God's divine plan. 

Camping got that much right.

The lesson that we should learn from all this is that doomsday theologians do not deserve our attention or our money. They have always been wrong. They will always be wrong. No one knows the hour or the day...

And that includes the ancient Mayans.





If anyone knows the original source for the quote illustrating this post, let me know. I saw it all over FaceBook, but have no idea where it first came from.

More Critiques of Robertson and Piper

AND THEIR EMPTY THEOLOGY ABOUT TORNADOES

Concerning the interpretation of the recent tornadoes in the American Midwest given by John Piper and Pat Robertson, I just posted a substantial reply to my friend StoryGuy in the comments to this post.  I call your attention to it because I think it adds to and clarifies my earlier statements.

Let me also direct your attention to this post on Dr. James McGrath's blog. Dr. McGrath has assembled an interesting collection of critiques, from a variety of commentators, of Piper's and Robertson's statements. There are also a couple of cute meme cartoons. Like this one:

Finally, if you are able and have not yet done so, please make a contribution to a reputable relief agency. A friend of mine who works in the field points out that cash contributions are the most effective way to help those affected by natural disasters. If you don't have a favorite relief agency in mind, you can give to mine: Lutheran Disaster Relief.

Let's Give A Bible Away!

SHALL WE?

No hoops to jump through. No games to play. First reply to this post wins it.

Give me your name and mailing information (I promise I won't publish your personal info!) so that I can forward it to the publisher. They will then send you a brand spanking new paperback edition of the Common English Bible containing all 66 books of the Protestant canon and a great set of maps.

This is a good translation of the Bible and I'm pleased to be able to give it away as a participant in the CEB's blog tour.

Who Is To Blame?

THE VICTIMS? GOD?

Last week, after a deadly tornado struck Harrisburg, Illinois, I wrote this post in which I noted that Pat Robertson and John Piper were, to that point, silent about  the hows and whys of this natural disaster. Robertson had previously said that a 2010 earthquake struck Haiti because the Haitians had made “a pact with the devil.” Piper had said that a 2009 tornado in Minneapolis was sent by God as a “warning” to the ELCA about the ordination of partnered gay clergy.  I speculated that the two were silent about the Harrisburg tornado because the people of Harrisburg are too much like their constituencies.

It is easy to demonize those with whom we disagree. It is easy to say “Aha! God sent this disaster to you as a sign of his judgment.” But It is a different matter when disasters strike those who are just like us.

Since my blogpost, more tornadoes have devastated the American Midwest, and today both Piper and Robertson weighed in on the subject. Their responses are almost diametrically opposed and quite revealing.

This time around, Pat Robertson says that God doesn’t send disasters against wrongdoers. Tornadoes are naturally occurring events. Still, Robertson tends to blame the victims. “Why do you build houses,” he asks, “in a place where tornadoes are apt to happen.” He also says “Don’t blame God for doing something foolish.” He also suggests that more prayer might have provoked God to intervene, stilling the cyclonic storms.

Piper takes a very different approach. He raises the question, “Why Henryville, and not Hollywood?” Why were small Midwestern towns destroyed and the urban centers of libertine sinfulness spared? Piper’s answer is a resounding shrug. God sent the tornadoes, but God’s will is inscrutable.

Piper’s reply evidences what I call the Monotheist’s Dilemma. If  there is only one God, then that God is responsible for both weal and woe. Piper’s respect for God’s sovereignty is in perfect keeping with his neo-Calvinist theology. Wrestling with the question of why the righteous sometimes suffer and the evildoers sometimes prosper, Piper’s answer is that we really cannot know. I might wish he had been as circumspect in his remarks about the Minneapolis tornado in 2009.

So, Pat Robertson blames the victims and John Piper blames God. In the end, I think it is safe to say that both Robertson and Piper have taken softer positions than they did previously. Neither of them is quite so ready to pinpoint the reason for these tornados as God’s judgment against specific people for a specific cause.

It’s easy to see God’s wrath in a disaster that strikes those whom we think are not like ourselves. When the victims of a disaster look just like us, it is a different matter.

I'm not ready to blame either God or the victims. This week’s tornadoes provide us once again with an opportunity to care for our neighbors in their need. Please give to a reputable relief agency. If you don’t have another relief agency in mind, I can recommend Lutheran Disaster Response.

The illustration for this blogpost is William Blake’s depiction of God speaking to Job out of the whirlwind. Trying to think of the right descriptor for John Piper’s theology, I noodled around terms like “neo-Calvinist” and “hyper-Calvinist” and “super-Calvinist” until I came up with “Super-neo-Calvinistic-expalidocious.” Now I can’t get it out of my head.

Hum-diddle-iddle-iddle-hum-diddle-eye!

The Devil's in the Details

AND SATAN’S IN MY STATS

Looking over my blog statistics, I found that the most popular post this week was a piece from last August titled Get Behind Me, Satan.

If you worship in a church that follows the Revised Common Lectionary, you may already have guessed why. This morning’s assigned Gospel reading was Mark 8:31-38, in which Jesus tells Simon Peter, “Get behind me, Satan.” This week preachers looking for sermon fodder were googling that phrase and apparently some of them found my blog.

There were quite a few hits last night alone. I want to tell you that I’ve never written a “Saturday Night Special” sermon. It would be a lie, but still, I want to tell you that.

The insight I had in my August blogpost came from the Gospel of Matthew, but it applied equally well to Mark. Who knows? Maybe my saintly and cynical blog was of use to a pastor this week. It’s nice to think so.

Right now I’m resisting the temptation to title this post “Zeal for your house will consume me” just to drum up the traffic this week.

Next Sunday’s Gospel reading is John 2:13-22, an account of Jesus chasing the merchants and money-changers out of the temple. It quotes Psalm 69:9. “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

Style

PART 4 IN A SERIES ON TRANSLATION

There is an Italian proverb that says “Tradutorre, traditore.” That is, “Translator, traitor.” There is no such thing as a perfect translation. Something always gets lost. Sometimes, for instance, the demand for clarity forces a translator to become an interpreter. Translators cannot help but betray the original text.

“Style” is hard to define and even harder to translate. Reading an English version of the Bible, you might not even realize that each of the writers of Scripture has their own unique style.

Luke and Acts, for example, are written in a fussy, florid and deliberately old-fashioned style of Greek. The Lukan author had literary aspirations.

Revelation, on the other hand, was written by a GSL (Greek as Second Language) student. John of Patmos’ grammar is often awkward.

The Gospel of John is written in simple grammar and with a limited vocabulary, yet it frequently achieves poetic effect. I have often said that John wrote Greek the way that Hemingway wrote English.

The writer of Ephesians, on the other hand, wrote Greek the way Faulkner wrote English. Sentences in Ephesians are long, convoluted, and rife with subordinate clauses. In Greek, Ephesians 1:3-6 is a single sentence, 66 words in length. The Greeks of old apparently liked this sort of thing. Most English translations break these verses into several sentences just to make them comprehensible. In the New Century Version, which is rendered into very simple English, I counted 6 sentences.

Translators usually have to subordinate the style of their source text to other concerns. 

So we have a New Century Version style, and a New International Version style, and a New Revised Standard Version style, and a New American Standard Bible style, and a Common English Bible style, and so on and on. It is easier to discern the differences among Bible versions than to discern the differences in the styles of the biblical writers within a version.

Robert Frost said “Poetry is what gets lost in translation.” A writer’s style is often lost in translation, too.

I found Hieronymus Bosch's painting of St. John on Patmos on Wiki.

No Worse Sinners

LESSONS FROM HARRISBURG

Some who were present on that occasion told Jesus about the Galileans whom Pilate had killed while they were offering sacrifices. He replied, “Do you think the suffering of these Galileans proves that they were more sinful than all the other Galileans? No, I tell you, but unless you change your hearts and lives, you will die just as they did.” Luke 13:1-3

When a devastating earthquake struck Haiti on January 12, 2010, Pat Robertson was quick to proclaim that it was a sign of God’s wrath because the Haitians had made a “pact with the devil.” This was really no surprise, as Robertson regularly attributes natural disasters to God’s anger over what Robertson perceives as sins. In 2005, he stated that Hurricane Katrina was God’s judgment on “legalized abortion.”

On August 19, 2009, a freak tornado struck Minneapolis during the ELCA’s Churchwide Assembly. Celebrity pastor John Piper was quick to say that the storm was a “gentle but firm warning” to the ELCA which voted in that assembly to approve the ordination of pastors in committed same-sex relationships.

Yesterday (February 29, 2012) a powerful tornado ripped through the town of Harrisburg in my home state of Illinois. Six people were killed, hundreds injured. Pat Robertson and John Piper have been oddly silent. Why is that?

It is easy to define those who disagree with us as other. “They are not like us.” From there, it is a short step to demonizing the other. “They are wrong. They are sinners. They are bad people.” Then, when disaster hits, it’s easy to blame the victims. “They deserved it. It is God’s judgment.”

Jesus wouldn’t go there.

“What about those twelve people who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them? Do you think that they were more guilty of wrongdoing than everyone else who lives in Jerusalem? No, I tell you, but unless you change your hearts and lives, you will die just as they did.” Luke 13:4-5

It’s hard for Piper and Robertson to characterize the 9000 or so people of Harrisburg, Illinois as “other.” They look too much like Robertson’s TV audience. They look too much like Piper’s congregation. “They” are “us.”

I strongly suspect that the population of Harrisburg includes close to the average percentage of homosexuals. And adulterers. And murderers. And drug abusers. And...you get the idea. It is convenient to call a disaster “God’s wrath” when it strikes someone we think is a sinner. It is inconvenient to call it judgment when it hits someone who is just like us.

The fact is, the people of Harrisburg are no worse sinners than you or I. But then, neither were the people of Haiti. The fact is that God does not send earthquakes and tornados to punish sin or warn of judgment. The fact is, natural disasters strike sinners and saints alike.

This does not mean that there are no lessons to be learned from hurricanes, earthquakes and tornados.

I believe that the message of Jesus can be summarized as: Trust God and take care of one another. (The message about Jesus is something else). Jesus used Pilate’s murder of some Galilean pilgrims and the collapse of a tower at Siloam as a call for all people to repent--to “change your hearts and lives.” Natural disasters (and some unnatural ones) are powerful reminders that life is short, precious and fragile. They force us to face our mortality and sinfulness. They call us to repentance and to trust in God.

They also remind us that we need to take care of one another. Pray for the people of Harrisburg, and, if you can spare a few dollars, make a contribution to a reputable relief agency.

I found the photograph of devastation in Harrisburg at this website.  Lutheran Disaster Response is one reputable relief agency that could use your support. Bible quotes are from the Common English Bible.

A Saint and Cynic Talks to God Again

Lord, sometimes I think that I would like to be an atheist. Really.

I wouldn't want to be one of those obnoxious, in-your-face atheists who tars all religious belief with the same broad brush and makes snide comments about “your invisible friend” almost as a knee-jerk reaction to any mention of God. The kind who mistake cheap shots for bon mots. Who insist that they aren't fundamentalists, but who are really just as bad, just as dogmatic, as the pushiest religious believers.

No, I'd want to be a friendly atheist, like most of the atheists I've encountered. The kind who will gladly discuss their lack of belief with a person but won't insist that they share it. The kind who are intelligent and reasonable and moral. The kind who just see no need for you.

Sometimes I think that it might be nice to believe in nothing that cannot be proved by observation, logical proof, or mathematics. It might be nice to rely on reason alone. It might be nice to have no higher authority than myself.

But of course you know, Lord, that I can't do that. Even though I can't prove your existence...

Is existence even the right word? Didn't Tillich say that existence is the wrong category to apply to you. That you, the Ground of Being, are essence beyond existence? Dear Tillich, you've got to love him. Right, Lord?

Anyway, there is too much of the mystic in me to insist that you exist. The mystic saints have taught us that you are known also as the Deus Absconditus. (That's Latin for “Hidden God” but I'm sure you knew that).

So let's just say that even though I cannot prove your existence, I can't deny your reality. I've tried. But there you are, anyway, tantalizing, mysterious and just out of reach, drawing me to yourself. So, I work my way toward you as best I can, praying, and studying Scripture, and clinging to the cross of Jesus, because that is the only way I've found.

And still, I sometimes think that I would like to be an atheist. To live without the demands of your holiness. To live without the demands of your grace.

It's hard to live by grace, Lord. It's hard to reach the end of my resources and have to trust in you. I'd much rather do things for myself.

You can be so demanding. You call me into account. You tell me to love my neighbors. I mean seriously, Lord, have you met my neighbors? And even while I'm busy failing at that, you tell me to love my enemies, too. That's why I sometimes think that I'd be happier if I didn't believe in you.

But I can't deny you, Lord. I'm stuck again. Stuck with you, with your unprovable reality and your demanding holiness and grace. And I guess you're stuck with me, too. Recalcitrant, unholy, unloving me.

Help me to walk in your grace. Inspire me to be a better person, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Leap Day

CEB GIVEAWAY

For Leap Day, a verse about leaping from the Common English Bible:

Jumping up, he began to walk around. He entered the temple with them, walking, leaping, and praising God.

 The first person to correctly identify the source of the quote by book, chapter, and verse wins a free copy of the Common English Bible. Make your answer in a comment to this post. Give me your name and mailing address so I can forward the information to the publisher. I promise that I will NOT publish your personal information.

Insult the Heretics Like Martin Luther

This has been picked up by a number of bloggers whom I read. I think I first saw it on Joel's site.

Click here for the Martin Luther Insult Generator.

Luther had a sharp wit and a sharp tongue. He often had intemperate things to say about his theological opponents. Some of the things he said are regrettable. Some are, well, just funny.

A Saint and Cynic Talks to God

Sometimes, Lord, I think I’d like to be a Fundamentalist. You know, a biblicist, an inerrantist.

I don’t want to be one of those jerky Fundamentalists that you meet sometimes, the obnoxious ones who tell you what you have to believe what they believe and that you’re going to burn in hell forever if you don’t. As if what a person believes saves them from God’s eternal fiery, wrath. Doesn’t good doctrine teach us that not even good doctrine saves us? Doesn’t good doctrine teach us that we are saved by your grace alone?

No, I would want to be a Fundamentalist like my neighbors up the street. They’re nice people, Lord, bless them. They live their faith quietly and earnestly. They love you passionately and talk about you freely. I can respect that.

Sometimes I think that it would be nice to have their sense of certainty, to have an authority outside of myself that is absolutely infallible, a court of final appeal that trumps all other authorities. I think it would be nice to have the Bible as a kind of divine reference book, God’s Big Book O’ Answers, the font of all knowledge and truth. Got a question? Take the leather bound book down off the shelf, read the right verse, proclaim “The Bible says,” and that settles it. No more wrestling with moral issues. It’s all there in black and white and maybe a few red letters.

But of course I can’t be a Fundamentalist, Lord. That’s not how I’m made. You put this meat computer in my head and I can’t help using it. To be a biblicist would require me to deny too much evidence, too much reality. I can’t help but see that when an inerrantist says “The Bible says” it really means “My interpretation of the Bible says.” I can’t help but see that the Bible is not a single document. It doesn’t speak with a single voice. It raises more questions than it answers.

I can’t help but see that Fundamentalism is a defensive posture, closed and guarded against new information, threatened by contradictory evidence. Frightened. I can’t live my life that way. There is too much wonder, too much delight, too much surprise to guard against it all. Besides, what does it mean to be saved except to be safe? If I am saved by your grace, Lord, why would I need to be on the defensive? I can’t be a Fundamentalist.

I love the Bible, Lord. I read it. I study it. I wrestle with it. I find you revealed in it. But you are not contained in it. It’s not a God-in-the-Box. The Bible is a wonderful, maddening, conflicted, enlightening collection of rich spiritual documents. I’m thankful for it. In it I find the testimony of people like myself: saints and sinners and cynics and believers and doubters and clay-footed pilgrims...and I find that you love them all.

But I can’t surrender my brain to the Bible...or to someone’s interpretation of it. I can’t be a Fundamentalist. The cognitive dissonance would undo me.

So, I guess I’m stuck, Lord. Stuck with ambiguity. Stuck with a Bible that is not just black and white, but also full of grays. Yes, and red letters. Yes, and also orange, and yellow, and green, and blue, and purple.

I guess I’m stuck trusting in your grace, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

A Winner!

CONGRATULATIONS...

...to Victoria, whose comment on this thread amused me somewhat more than the Anonymous Armenian's comment. My amusement, after all, is what matters.

Victoria, if you would be so kind as to give me your address in a reply to this thread (I promise that I will NOT publish your personal information) I will forward it to the publisher, and soon you will receive a fresh, new paperback copy of the Common English Bible. (Sadly, you may find a few books missing, as it is a Protestant edition. The CEB does publish an edition with the Apocrypha, it just doesn't happen to be the one they are giving away).

Anonymous Armenian, I have a consolation prize for you. Come to text study Tuesday morning to collect it! And don't despair of getting a Bible. I'll be giving them away at the rate of one a week for the next 11 weeks.

God bless and thanks for playing!

Belated Ash Wednesday

I don't usually do this. I don't usually post my sermons on my blog. I believe that preaching is an oral event; sermons are preached not written. But, I am trying to post more frequently during Lent, and a certain assistant to the Bishop "strongly encouraged" me to do this. So, for those who may be interested, here is my Ash Wednesday sermon....

 

Return to the LORD, your God,

for he is gracious and merciful,

slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,

and relents from punishing.

     Joel 2:13b NRSV

Somehow, through the centuries, our culture got hold of Christmas and began adding all sorts of things to the Church’s celebration of the birth of Christ. Now we have trees and presents and Santa and Rudolph and Frosty the Snowman.

Somehow our culture took the Church’s 12 day season that begins on December 25, and stretched it out to nearly two months and pushed it back to the day after Halloween, and filled it with an expectation that we will all be merry and jolly.

And, I’m not complaining. I actually like a lot of that Christmas stuff. But I am observing that a lot of our celebration of Christmas has more to do with our culture than our Church.

Easter, too, though maybe to a lesser extent, has been taken over by our culture. Now we have egg hunts and bunnies and bonnets and parades and jelly beans and marshmallow chicks....And a lot of those things are good things. I mean, I like marshmallow chicks, but what do they have to do with Jesus’ resurrection from the dead? They’ve got more to do with our culture than our Church.

Don’t even start me on Valentine’s Day or St. Patrick’s Day. They barely even belong to the Church anymore.

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. And this is one Church holy day that the culture just doesn’t want.

Fat Tuesday? Yes. Whether you call it Mardi Gras or Carnival or Farewell to the Flesh, with its parties and parades and general debauchery, it’s the kind of celebration that our culture loves. But, as Nadia Bolz-Weber has pointed out, you’ll never see a Peanuts TV special called “It’s Ash Wednesday, Charlie Brown!”

This day belongs to the Church and to the Church alone. The culture doesn’t want it. In fact, Ash Wednesday is profoundly counter-cultural with its confession of sin and its frank recognition of mortality. These are things our culture prefers to deny.

So why do we do this? Why do we gather in church tonight to confess our sin and remember that we must die?

Let me say that it is not just to feel bad about ourselves. There is no sense in that. It is, rather, to be honest with ourselves.

We confess that we are sinners, because, when we look at ourselves honestly, we know that we do things that are wrong--whether we want to or not. We incur guilt and we want, we need, to be forgiven.

But more than that, we are sinners because we live in a state of sin--a state of separation from God and from one another. We go about our daily lives mostly ignoring, and by our actions even denying, the reality of God in our lives.

And this is why we not only confess our sins, but also remember the fact of our mortality. Tonight we remember that we are dust and will return to dust. We remember that we are frail flesh and, though our culture would prefer to deny it, we will all one day die.

We remember, in short, that we are not God. We need God. Our help, our only help, is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth.

Now some people practice self-denial during Lent. They give up chocolate or caffeine or alcohol. Or they try to lose weight or something. Some of us treat lent as a kind of self-improvement program or a New Year’s resolution that only lasts forty days.

And of course there is nothing wrong with self-improvement. We could all use a little self-improvement. I know I could. But just becoming a better person is not the point of Lenten discipline. Whether we give something up or take something on for Lent, the point is to grow in right relationship to God.

The point of self-denial is to remove from our lives those things that come between ourselves and God. The point of taking on a discipline like prayer, or Bible study or some form of service is to attend faithfully to the God whom we sinners tend more naturally to ignore.

In fact, I believe that Lent is all about growth in relationship to God. That’s why we begin with confession and a remembrance of our mortality--because this is how we grow. Jesus reminded us that a seed has to be planted before it can sprout.

Lent is not about the self. That’s why I say it’s not about feeling bad about yourself and its not about self-improvement. Lent is about our relationship to God. So on Ash Wednesday, we look at honestly at our sinful, mortal nature, and we also look at God’s nature.

We remember that God is gracious, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.

So we begin Lent remembering that we are sinners AND remembering that God loves sinners.

We begin Lent remembering our mortality AND remembering that the immortal God embraced our mortality in the cross of Christ.

We begin Lent trusting that our hope is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth--The Lord who is gracious, merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

God bless you in this Lenten season and grant you growth in your relationship with God.

Amen.





Preaching is not only an oral event but, I believe it is also a team activity. A sermon lives in the interaction of the preacher, the congregation and the Holy Spirit. In my case, the Holy Spirit gets considerable assistance from several quarters. Let me acknowledge my Tuesday morning pastor's text study. My colleagues there challenge my thinking, sharpen my faith and improve my preaching in countless ways. For this sermon I must also acknowledge Nadia Bolz-Weber whose blog provided me not only with the sermon's best line ("It's Ash Wednesday, Charlie Brown") but also some key thoughts about how culture has absconded with some of our Church holy days. Also,workingpreacher.org where innumerable good preaching ideas are born. The photo illlustration came from wiki.

Translation Time

PART 3 IN A SERIES ON TRANSLATION

I studied Spanish in high school. I remember just enough of it to order lunch from the tolerant wait staff at a local Mexican restaurant. Should I ever find myself lost in Guadalajara, I could  ask a helpful native for directions to the library. I would not, however, be able to understand the answer.

Back in those high school classes, we used to recite little practice dialogues, like this one related to time.

¿Qué hora es?

Son las ocho menos cuarto.

A very literal translation of that dialogue would be:

What hour is [it]?

They are the eight minus [a] quarter.

While the Spanish is perfectly acceptable, the English is not so great. This is because Spanish has different idioms for time-telling than English. Put on your translator’s hat and think for a moment about how you would render that dialogue into good English.

While I think that the question “¿Qué hora es?” would almost universally be translated as “What time is it?” several options present themselves for the reply “Son las ocho menos cuarto.”

It is seven forty-five.

It’s a quarter of eight.

It’s quarter to eight.

Or, where I grew up:

Quarter ‘til.

In each case, the basic meaning of the reply is unchanged. How is a translator to choose among these possibilities?  Context might be a guide. Formal writing has different requirements than informal speech. If the dialogue is spoken, who is the speaker? Would a BBC broadcaster reply in the same way as a Jersey Shore cast member?

One reason that we have so many English versions of the Bible is that there are so many ways a given word or phrase can be translated. Here, for comparison, is 2 Corinthians 5:16 in four translations. Each has something to commend it:

New King James Version

Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer.

New International Version

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.

New Revised Standard Version

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way.

Common English Bible

So then, from this point on we won’t recognize people by human standards. Even though we used to know Christ by human standards, that isn’t how we know him now.

Does one of these translations speak to you more clearly than the others? Is there another translation that you like better? If so, why?

I am going to try to blog more regularly during Lent. We’ll see how that goes. I’m still trying to give away a copy of the Common English Bible through this post. Doesn’t anyone want to play?

The illustration is Salvador Dali's 1954 painting Soft Watch at the Moment of First Explosion. I chose it because Dali is Spanish and it's about time and...well...I just think it's cool, that's all.

An Idiot Looks At Idioms (With Footnotes)

PART 2 IN A SERIES ON TRANSLATION

An idiom is a figure of speech which is readily understood by the native speakers of a language, but which, if taken literally, may not make sense to a non-native. Every language has them. They pose particular difficulties for translators.

The following is a true story.

I was out for a bicycle ride with friends on a fine late-summer day. We were riding our mountain bikes on country back roads through northern Illinois farmland. As we rounded a particular corner, we saw a 5 gallon plastic pail in the middle of the road about fifty yards ahead of us. It was lying on its side, rolling back and forth in the breeze, creating a small hazard. I could see that the bucket was empty, so I sprinted ahead of my companions, and as I came alongside the pail, I booted it off into the ditch.

When the others caught up to me, my friend Tim said, “Now I can tell everyone that I saw you kick the bucket.”

To “kick the bucket” is, of course, an English idiom meaning “to die.” If there is any humor in that anecdote it resides in the disjuncture between the literal and figurative meanings of the expression.

Think for a moment about how you might translate that story meaningfully into another language, one that doesn’t have the same idiom.

One possibility might be to find an equivalent idiom in the target language and change the situation to fit it. According to the cartoon above, “kick the calendar” is a Polish idiom for dying. As a translator, you could change the bucket in my story into a calendar. That would preserve the idiom, but it is probably, in this instance, the least satisfactory solution. It's hard to picture a calendar in the road causing a hazard for bicyclists.

A second possibility would be to translate the meaning of the idiom and footnote* its literal sense. Like this:

When the others caught up to me, my friend Tim said, “Now I can tell everyone that I saw you die.” (1)

(1) lit. “kick the bucket.”

A third possibility would be to translate the idiom literally and footnote its figurative meaning. Thus:

When the others caught up to me, my friend Tim said, “Now I can tell everyone that I saw you kick the bucket.” (2)

(2) “Kick the bucket” is an English idiom meaning “to die.”

In the case of this particular story, the third possibility commends itself, but in other instances, one of the other strategies might serve better.

A curious idiom in New Testament Greek is the use of the word σπλάγχνον (splanchnon) which literally means “bowels” but figuratively means “loving concern or sympathy, commonly rendered heart”**

The venerable King James Version of the Bible tended to render the meaning of σπλάγχνον literally, with sometimes amusing results. For instance, Philippians 1:8:

For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ.

For comparison, here is the same verse from the more idiomatic Common English Bible***:

God is my witness that I feel affection for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus.

Sometimes translating an idiom literally makes the meaning incomprehensible. Here's 2  Corinthians 6:12 from the KJV.

Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own bowels.

And again from the CEB:

There are no limits to the affection that we feel for you. You are the ones who placed boundaries on your affection for us.

One thing that sets English versions of the Bible apart from one another is the way that they deal with idioms.**** I'll have more to say on the subject of translations in future posts. The cartoon at the top of this blogpost came from this website.


FOOTNOTES

*I like footnotes.

**Danker, Frederick William, The Concise Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, University of Chicago Press, 2009, p. 326.

***To win a free copy of the Common English Bible, see this post.

****Did I mention that I like footnotes?

Babelfish and Bible Translation

PART ONE OF A SERIES (PLUS A BIBLE GIVEAWAY!)

If you’ve never played with the internet translation engine called babelfish, it is kind of fun and occasionally useful. You plug in a block of text in the source language, choose the language filter you desire, and it gives you a crude translation in your chosen target language. For an example, here’s Psalm 23:4 from the Common English Bible:

Even when I walk

through the darkest valley,

I fear no danger

because you are with me.

Your rod and your staff—

they protect me.

And here is how babelfish translated that verse into French:

Même lorsque je marche par la vallée la plus foncée, je ne crains aucun danger parce que vous êtes avec moi. Votre tige et votre — de personnel ils me protègent.

I don’t happen to speak French. Nor do I think I’ll ever try. (I was traumatized by a Parisian waiter once). Still, I think I see a little problem in babelfish’s result. Let’s translate it back into English and see what happens:

Even when I walk by the most sunk valley, I do not fear any danger because you are with me. Your stem and your — of personnel they protect me.

Translation is as much an art as a science. If translation were a science, babelfish would work better. Maybe one day, with advances in Artificial Intelligence, a translation engine will give better results.

One difficulty in translation, whether done by a computer or a human being, is that words have a range of meaning. The English noun staff can mean a shepherd’s crook or it can mean personnel. In this case, babelfish chose the wrong meaning.

Consider the verb “to spike.” (Never mind the noun)! You can spike a fever. You can spike a volleyball. You can spike the punchbowl at Senior Prom. Arguably these three meanings are related, but they are far from the same thing. Now, imagine the difficulties of translating the wordplay in the following English sentence into another language--any other language.

After she drank the spiked punch, she began to spike a fever and could not spike the volleyball.

Let’s see how babelfish does. In French:

Après que elle a bu du punch enrichi, elle a commencé à une fièvre et ne pouvait pas spike le volley-ball

And back into English:

After she drank the enriched punch, she began a fever and could not spike volleyball.

Not bad. The meaning is mostly preserved, but the repeated use of “spike” is lost.

There are perhaps as many as 500 translations of the Bible into English. This is the first of a series of blogposts dealing with translation, and what distinguishes all those Bible versions one from another.

The Common English Bible is sponsoring a second Blog Tour beginning this Wednesday, February 22. As a participant, I’ll be able to give away a free paperback copy of the CEB each week for the duration of the tour. If you would like to win this week’s free copy, cut and paste your favorite Bible verse (any English version) into the babelfish engine. Translate it into the language of your choice and then back into English. Post the results in the comments to this thread, and the one that amuses me most gets the Bible. This contest ends at 11:59 p.m. Central Time, Saturday February 25. You'll need to check back next week to see if you've won. Decision of the judge (me) is final and completely arbitrary, but play along. It’ll be fun!


Babelfish takes its name from a creature described in Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The illustration of the babel fish was taken from this website. A good description of the fish, and how it proves, or disproves the existence of God can be found here.

 

I Don't Believe In Evolution...

BUT...



Two participants in a comments thread over at Living Lutheran were disagreeing about a point of biblical interpretation when one of them asked the other “Do you believe in evolution?”

A quick Google search shows that this question, in these terms, is not uncommon.

The question was not addressed to me but it arrested my attention, mostly because it was a non sequitur. It made me think, though, that my own answer to this question would have to be “No.”

I do not believe in evolution. I do, however, think that the theory of evolution accurately describes the processes of speciation and the origins of humankind. In other words, I find the evidence for evolution compelling and the arguments against it, well, not so much.

Still, I don’t believe in evolution.

In his recent book Speaking Christian (see chapter 10), Marcus Borg states that until the 17th century, the verb “believe” always had a person as its object, as when parents tell their children, “We believe in you.” Borg also notes that, at its roots, the word believe is closely related to the word belove. Believing, in this sense, connotes a relationship of fidelity and trust. This is the kind of belief that we confess when we recite the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds.

It is only since the Enlightenment that the word believe has taken on the meaning of “intellectual assent to a proposition.” The difference here is between believing in someone and believing that something is true. One believes in God. One believes that God exists. It’s a subtle distinction, but an important one.

The question “Do you believe in evolution?” confuses the issue. It puts belief in evolution on a par with, and usually in opposition to, belief in God. It reduces belief in God to an intellectual assent to the proposition of God’s existence. I won’t go there.

I believe in God. I believe that the theory of evolution is true.

Last weekend was the Clergy Letter Project’s seventh annual Evolution Weekend. Though my signature is attached to the Clergy Letter, we did not observe Evolution Sunday in my Church. We never have. I don’t foresee that we ever will. Here’s why: even though I am convinced that the theory of evolution is the best available explanation for the phenomenon of speciation, and even though I do not think that the theory of evolution contradicts either the reality of God or a good understanding of the biblical texts, I’m not called to proclaim the theory of evolution. I’m called to preach the Gospel.

Or to break that down a little, I believe that evolution is true, but I believe in God.

 Good news! There will be a second Common English Bible Blog Tour beginning Ash Wednesday, February 22. I'll be giving away more free paperback copies of the CEB. Stay tuned!

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Junia? Pt. 6

SYLLOGISMS AND CONCLUSIONS

In the early days of Christianity, when the Church was more a movement than an institution, there was an outstanding female apostle named Junia. The Apostle Paul sent her greetings in Romans 16:7. Since the time of Martin Luther, Bible translators have tried to translate her out of existence. In earlier posts in this series, I’ve looked at three strategies they have used. The reasoning behind those strategies can be expressed as syllogisms.

A syllogism is a form of logical proof made up of three statements. The first two statements are called premises. The third statement, the conclusion is derived from the premises. If the premises are true, and the syllogism is constructed correctly, the conclusion will also be true. But, as I’ve said before, the most rigorous logic will yield false conclusions if it proceeds from faulty assumptions.

An example of a syllogism might be:

A. All Cretans are liars.
B. Bruce is a Cretan. Therefore,
C. Bruce is a liar.

If the premises, A and B, are true then the conclusion, C, is also true.

The first attempt to translate the female apostle away expressed as a syllogism would be:

A. A woman cannot be an apostle.
B. Junia is an apostle. Therefore,
C. Junia cannot be a woman.

On the basis of reasoning like this, the feminine name “Junia” was translated as a masculine name, “Junias.” The problem with this solution is that the name “Junia” is well-attested in ancient times, and the name “Junias” is did not exist. So the first solution to the Junia problem has largely been abandoned in favor of a second solution which can be expressed as follows:

A. A woman cannot be an apostle.
B. Junia is a woman. Therefore,
C. Junia cannot be an apostle.

At least three recent English versions of the Bible have adopted this solution, claiming that Junia was not “prominent among the apostles” but only “well-known to the apostles.” This translation, however, requires an unnatural reading of the Greek, one that was never, to my knowledge, used until the twentieth century. So, the second solution is unconvincing and brings us to the third.

A. A woman cannot be an apostle.
B. Junia, a woman, is called an “apostle.” Therefore,
C. “Apostle” cannot mean “apostle.”

So a footnote in the Holman Christian Standard Bible suggests that Junia was not an apostle but a mere “messenger.” The Greek word ἀπόστολος (apostolos) is translated as "messenger" in two other verses (2 Cor 8:23, Php 2:25). Context argues against this understanding of ἀπόστολος in Romans 16:7. If Junia is only a messenger, whose messenger is she?

I have stated these three solutions to the Junia problem as syllogisms to show that they all rest upon the same assumption, namely that a woman cannot be an apostle. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) Junia herself puts the lie to that assumption. The premise is false and any conclusion based on it will likewise be false. Junia just can’t be translated out of existence, and I think that honesty requires Christians of every ilk to recognize that.

Churches that would deny women leadership roles can still do so, of course. They can argue that Junia may well have been an apostle but the age of apostles is past. They can argue that it has been the tradition of the Church for many centuries to reserve positions of authority for men. They can argue on the basis of other Scriptures--Scriptures that were written when the Church was on its way to becoming an institution--that women should be silent and submissive. (Of course this last argument will be difficult for those Christians who teach that the Bible speaks with a single voice.)

What they cannot do, at least not convincingly, is deny that when Christianity was young there was a woman named Junia whom the apostle Paul said was “prominent among the apostles.”









I am proud to be a part of the stream of Christianity that recognizes that both women and men can be gifted for ministry.  “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:28

The illustration for this post is a detail from a mosaic at the Basilica of St. Appolonaire in Classe near Ravenna, Italy. I found the picture at this website.