Dear Grandma, how’s the weather down there in California? I hope it’s better than it is up here, because it’s really cold and rainy. I guess for you guys cold and rainy means sixty degrees and partly cloudy. But we actually have to wear coats now. Dad really hates the cold. He says he gets really cold because he has bad circulation. He says he has bad circulation because his pipes are clogged. I’m not sure he knows exactly what that means, but it sounds pretty unhealthy. He wants to come down and spend the winters with you guys but he says that’ll only happen when his ship comes in. He also says he thinks his ship sunk. But he still keeps his eyes peeled.
School’s good. I really like my teachers and my classes and my teachers and my classmates and my teachers. Right now I’m taking a history class and a Bible class, and a music class, and a sort of kinda of speech class, and a kind of like a Spanish class but a little different. My grades are fine…I think…well, I actually don’t really know. You know how back in elementary it was fun to joke about getting a Z or a Z minus. Well, my school actually does that here, but only down to M. At the end of the week the whole student body and faculty gets together and we pray and then sing and then everybody takes naps. Usually one or two people come up and tell I guess you’d call them bedtime stories so everybody can go to sleep easier. Once, I had slept through my early morning class that day so I wasn’t very tired and the story was kinda interesting so I stayed awake the whole time. Life’s pretty good though, I was able to buy a new pencil and some paper. Christmas is coming up though so that’ll help. By the time my birthday rolls around I’ll probably be broke again. Oh how quickly that day will be here, that oh so ominous
February 28th . Big day, mkay, gotta run to class. Love, Ben.
Showing posts with label Rhetoric. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rhetoric. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Trovato: Aquinas on Zombies
Whether there are such thing as zombies?
Objection 1: That’s weird and dumb.
Objection 2: You’re an idiot.
Objection 3: To assert that zombies are nomologically possible would be to assert that in some world that shares all of its laws with the actual world there is a being identical to some actual or genuinely possible human being who is utterly lacking in consciousness. Of course, the existence of a real zombie would entail that zombies are nomologically as well as logically possible, but the reverse entailments do not hold. The idea of qualia and related phenomenal notions of the mind are not coherent concepts, and the zombie scenario is therefore incoherent.
On the contrary: The Bible.
2 Kings 19:35: And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the LORD went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they [were] all dead corpses.
I answer that: Um…well, nomologically speaking the related phenomenal notions inherent in the generic state of consciousness in the human mind and to certain qualia related platitudes…um, the Bible?
Reply to objections 1 & 2: Don’t you feel stupid now?
Reply to objection 3: Psh. Science. They don’t even know.
Objection 1: That’s weird and dumb.
Objection 2: You’re an idiot.
Objection 3: To assert that zombies are nomologically possible would be to assert that in some world that shares all of its laws with the actual world there is a being identical to some actual or genuinely possible human being who is utterly lacking in consciousness. Of course, the existence of a real zombie would entail that zombies are nomologically as well as logically possible, but the reverse entailments do not hold. The idea of qualia and related phenomenal notions of the mind are not coherent concepts, and the zombie scenario is therefore incoherent.
On the contrary: The Bible.
2 Kings 19:35: And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the LORD went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they [were] all dead corpses.
I answer that: Um…well, nomologically speaking the related phenomenal notions inherent in the generic state of consciousness in the human mind and to certain qualia related platitudes…um, the Bible?
Reply to objections 1 & 2: Don’t you feel stupid now?
Reply to objection 3: Psh. Science. They don’t even know.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Declamation: Aquinas on Beards
The assignment was to write in a structure imitative of Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologiae, so here is mine; others are forthcoming.
Blessings.
J. Broussard
Declamation:
Aquinas Summa imitation (in form)
10/22/08
1. Whether it can be demonstrated that facial hair is good?
Objection 1. It seems that the benefit of facial hair cannot be demonstrated, as it would be a matter of preference—a benefit to some, but a detriment to others.
Objection 2. Further, facial hair is not available to all manner of men, so if it is beneficial, it is a benefit that slanders the justice of God: that He would give it to some and not to others.
On the contrary: It is written that God made all things that are, and that He declared everything that He had made to be “all very good.”
I answer that: Demonstration can be made in two ways: through the state of man at creation, and through the state of man following the resurrection. Hence the benefit of facial hair, which cannot be easily ascertained from our current fallen state, can be made plain through the eternal counsel of God.
Reply to Objection 1: The Gospel clearly states that the beard of Christ was plucked out, and that this was done to shame Him. How is it then merely a matter of preference for us to daily imitate the vile heathen that crucified our Lord by severing with dull razors the beard from the Imago Dei in us (be you a man with one blade or a coward with five)? This is indeed our shame.
Reply to Objection 2: It is true that all men cannot grow facial hair; indeed, it is also true that most women cannot either. But this does not appear to have always been the case, for it is written in Leviticus, the thirteenth chapter and the twenty ninth verse, that “if a man or woman have a plague upon the head or the beard…”
Now it may be easily assumed, that if women used to be able to grow beards, so too could all manner of men, and if we are asked why this is not the case today, we may easily respond, “why do men not live past their hundredth year today?” God has changed things for His own pleasure, and it is our delight that some men, and (indeed, our great delight) that most women cannot grow beards, and this does not impute partiality to God.
However, we may all look forward to the day when there shall be neither slave nor free, male nor female, Jew nor Greek, American nor Dutch, bearded nor side-burned.
Blessings.
J. Broussard
Declamation:
Aquinas Summa imitation (in form)
10/22/08
1. Whether it can be demonstrated that facial hair is good?
Objection 1. It seems that the benefit of facial hair cannot be demonstrated, as it would be a matter of preference—a benefit to some, but a detriment to others.
Objection 2. Further, facial hair is not available to all manner of men, so if it is beneficial, it is a benefit that slanders the justice of God: that He would give it to some and not to others.
On the contrary: It is written that God made all things that are, and that He declared everything that He had made to be “all very good.”
I answer that: Demonstration can be made in two ways: through the state of man at creation, and through the state of man following the resurrection. Hence the benefit of facial hair, which cannot be easily ascertained from our current fallen state, can be made plain through the eternal counsel of God.
Reply to Objection 1: The Gospel clearly states that the beard of Christ was plucked out, and that this was done to shame Him. How is it then merely a matter of preference for us to daily imitate the vile heathen that crucified our Lord by severing with dull razors the beard from the Imago Dei in us (be you a man with one blade or a coward with five)? This is indeed our shame.
Reply to Objection 2: It is true that all men cannot grow facial hair; indeed, it is also true that most women cannot either. But this does not appear to have always been the case, for it is written in Leviticus, the thirteenth chapter and the twenty ninth verse, that “if a man or woman have a plague upon the head or the beard…”
Now it may be easily assumed, that if women used to be able to grow beards, so too could all manner of men, and if we are asked why this is not the case today, we may easily respond, “why do men not live past their hundredth year today?” God has changed things for His own pleasure, and it is our delight that some men, and (indeed, our great delight) that most women cannot grow beards, and this does not impute partiality to God.
However, we may all look forward to the day when there shall be neither slave nor free, male nor female, Jew nor Greek, American nor Dutch, bearded nor side-burned.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Last and Greatest (or at least most awkward) Declamation
Oh Sweet Smell
The first week of NSA was awkward. There was a barrier within our class, and this barrier was the sexes. No one knew how to act or what to say.
The first time I met Sean, it smelled right. In my nose every nostril hair was swaying back and forth singing the Hallelujah Chorus. If Capon wrote a book on smells, Sean would be Capon’s onion, only it would take more than ten pages to unpeel all the mysteries of Sean’s smelliness. Sean smells so good, and I told him this. “Sean, you smell soooooo good.”
I do not think that this was necessarily the greatest thing to tell a guy, especially one that you just met, but I don’t regret it. Anyone so odiferous deserves a prize: a plastic cookie, a statue of a naked Greek god, coupons…anything.
Needles to say this made Sean extremely uncomfortable, which was only a small part of the joy it gave me. He stepped back, and in his eyes I could see a picture of the Antichrist. He shifted his little mouse eyes, and anxiously moved his little mouse hands in distress. Trying to help him understand, I said: “Sean, really, you are the best smelling person I know. You smell like home.” This just made things worse…
Now when I see Sean it is like the story of Abelard and Eloise. Anytime I came within a three-foot radius I say, “Abelard, I don’t want to use Herbal Essence anymore, I just want to smell like you.” And Abelard says back, “Eloise, Eloise, Eloise, live for God.”
The first week of NSA was awkward. There was a barrier within our class, and this barrier was the sexes. No one knew how to act or what to say.
The first time I met Sean, it smelled right. In my nose every nostril hair was swaying back and forth singing the Hallelujah Chorus. If Capon wrote a book on smells, Sean would be Capon’s onion, only it would take more than ten pages to unpeel all the mysteries of Sean’s smelliness. Sean smells so good, and I told him this. “Sean, you smell soooooo good.”
I do not think that this was necessarily the greatest thing to tell a guy, especially one that you just met, but I don’t regret it. Anyone so odiferous deserves a prize: a plastic cookie, a statue of a naked Greek god, coupons…anything.
Needles to say this made Sean extremely uncomfortable, which was only a small part of the joy it gave me. He stepped back, and in his eyes I could see a picture of the Antichrist. He shifted his little mouse eyes, and anxiously moved his little mouse hands in distress. Trying to help him understand, I said: “Sean, really, you are the best smelling person I know. You smell like home.” This just made things worse…
Now when I see Sean it is like the story of Abelard and Eloise. Anytime I came within a three-foot radius I say, “Abelard, I don’t want to use Herbal Essence anymore, I just want to smell like you.” And Abelard says back, “Eloise, Eloise, Eloise, live for God.”
Monday, May 5, 2008
Westminster Rhetoric Paper
In the Spirit of the Day
A Proposed Retranslation of Genesis 3:8
Jesse Broussard, Westminster Term Rhetoric, 2003 words.
Exordium: Spirit, wind and breath. In three different languages, each of these shares a single word. In Latin,anima, in Greek, pnuemos, and in Hebrew, ruah. Usually, this presents no problems; we are not often speaking Latin, Greek or Hebrew, and context will generally eliminate one or more options. But, when we come to Scripture, all of our authoritative texts are in Hebrew, Greek or Latin; the context is often less than helpful, and that is when having three possible meanings for the same word in every original copy of every authoritative text becomes a problem.
Narratio: Generally, those of us who are Orthodox Christians don’t like to mess around too much with Scripture, and that’s a good thing. There are always exceptions, such as wild exegesis—“St. John saw many strange monsters, but none so strange as one of his own commentators”—but even wild exegesis is exegetical (or isogetical, my point is that there is a longsuffering text to bleed beneath our benevolently bumbling scalpels). But what do we do when the text itself is under dispute? Should we preach off of that little section at the end of Mark? Should we try to go over it in our familial devotions? And what do we do when respected theologians are disputing different interpretations—how do we know which one to go with?
Meredith Kline’sImages of the Spirit proposes a retranslation of Genesis 3:8: “they heard the sound of Yahweh God traversing the garden as the Spirit of the day,” particularly retranslating “l’rwh hyywm” as “Spirit of the day” instead of the traditional “wind of the day,” which we changed (for the sake of clarity) to “cool of the day.” Kline states that judgment is inherent and essential to the narrative, and that the “day” (ywm) is the “day of the Lord,” the day of judgment.
Everett Fox translates this verse in his Shocken Bible in the more traditional mean: “Now they heard the sound of YHWH, God, (who was) walking about in the garden at the breezy-time of the day. And the human and his wife hid themselves from the face of YHWH, God, amid the trees of the garden.” In his footnote he clarifies: "breezy-time: Evening."
Partitio: These two translations are obviously different approaches to the text, and they offer different perspectives from which we would view the judgment of the fall of mankind. The traditional translation (Fox’s), however, does not seem to adequately capture the importance of the narrative—the comment that “it was evening” seems entirely superfluous, where reading the text in light of judgment seems to clothe the overall narrative with a far more suitable and consistent theme. Propositio: While we traditionally translate the Hebrew phrase "l'rwh hyywm” as "cool of the day," we should probably translate it as "spirit of the day."
Confirmatio: One of the reasons to translate this phrase as “spirit of the day” is that while evening is mentioned numerous times in the Old Testament, the particular phrase l’rwh hyywm is never used to indicate “evening”—in fact, through all of Scripture, that phrase is found onlyhere, in Genesis 3:8. It would seem that such an unusual phrase would bespeaka similarly unusual occurrence (such as the fall of mankind), not merely evening (which is most often denoted “le’et’ereb” ). As ruah means spirit, wind, or breath, these are our options for its translation. Since “wind of the day” leads to a very odd way of saying “evening,” and “breath of the day” makes no contextual sense whatsoever, we are left with the phrase “spirit of the day.” But what does that mean? The spirit of what day?
In his Images of the Spirit, Meredith Kline comments that the “spirit of the day” would almost undoubtedly be the spirit of the day of the Lord—the Day of Judgment. Defending this, Kline shows that the “day of the Lord” is always a day of judgment, and that judgment is the entire effect of God’s visit to man in this narrative.
To support this theory, he studied the common factors in all of the more explicit theophanies of Scripture, and narrowed them down to a foundational three: light or day, dark or obscuring, and “qol,” sound. Since all elements of the day of the Lord are present, Kline states that this Parousia “corresponds fully…to the awesome approach of the Glory met with elsewhere in Scripture, the approach with which a thunderous voice of Yahweh is regularly associated.” The qol is a great and thundering noise, and is what Adam and Eve hear traversing the garden toward them in l’rwh hyywm (spirit of the day), and it is this that causes them to hide (obscure) themselves. It is not the sound of “footsteps,” or of twigs cracking, but the sound of a great thunder, of a crushing waterfall, of earthquakes and armies and trumpets—it is the sound of approaching judgment. This day is a day of the Lord—He comes in power to judge his faithless people and those who have led them astray, and then to promise a future deliverance from these curses. He truly was coming in the Spirit of the Day—in judgment.
Because this is such a momentous event, one that bestows upon us the first Messianic prophecy, the protoevangelium, because this isthe reason for our sehnsucht, because this is the origin of all that is evil in the world, we expect the prose of the narrative to reflect that gravity and severity of judgment. But, should “ruah” mean wind, we do not find even a hint of it—the segue from Adam to God gracefully leaps from the high dive, only to encounter a dry pool floor in verse nine, where God is catching on to what has just happened, like a dad opening his daughter’s bedroom door and finding her boyfriend, “dressed” only in the loosest sense of the word. However, ifruah means “spirit,” then judgment pervades the narrative, covers it as the sky covers earth, or as skin covers muscle and bone. This seems to be the primary and crucial difference between the two viable interpretations of ruah: judgment is incidental to the “evening,” and central to the “spirit.” And which of these would we expect?
But the most definitive point, the point that converted me, is quite simple. According to the traditional translation, why is the phrase even there? What is the significance of mentioning that God was walking in the evening? It is definitely an evocative description, so if it were a peaceful scene in poetry, it would make perfect sense. But in this? In this horror and empty, desolate bereavement, this stark prose recitation of the pathetically futile, damning and abortive rebellion of mankind against severe sovereign holiness and beauty, this origin of all that is painful, evil and ugly? The sun was darkened, moon bloodied, earth undone; the stars were hurled from heaven, a seraph cursed; forgive me, butGod damned Himself: an idyllic stroll seems a touch out of place.
Refutatio:The only argument that I have yet heard that makes any sense of the jarring insertion of “evening” appeals to the poetry of the situation: a heaven on earth, where God walks in His garden with the human caretaker each eve, and then this utopia becomes literal utopia: not here, as it is laid waste by man’s sin.
But the problem with this exegesis is the same as before—why the obscure wording? Were the Author wanting us to read “evening,” why did He not simply write it? He does not hesitate to do so elsewhere. Why use a phrase so unusual that we find it nowhere else in Scripture? If it is to flag the one and only time that mankind’s innocence is utterly destroyed and the death of God Himself is, in that moment, necessitated, then I understand the use of such a singularly rare phrase. If it is to show the time of day, it’s absurd.
The single greatest argument against re-translating this passage is the weight of all of Church history. Who indeed are we to correct the mistakes of so many (and such great) men? And yes, this is a huge step—if we are retranslating a Scripture because it makes more sense to us, what is to prevent us from editing it to please ourselves? Already liberals are headed down this track with the TNIV, Episcopals can no longer play chess (is it a bishop or a queen?) and our names for God, “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” are being judged by many as inferior to “Rock, Redeemer and Friend” (which will hopefully stop before it becomes “Rock, paper and scissors”). We have resisted this abominable trend to retranslate the Words of God as we see fit, and rightly so.
But for us to struggle with the translation of a verse is not anything new—the Church has defined the bounds of Orthodoxy over less: “For there are three that bear witness in heaven…and these three are one (1 John 5:7).” According to Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses, these three are one in their will, one in their actions. According to Christians, Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses are heretics, because they deny the divinity of Christ, and their translation of this verse is one of the ways in which they do so. Here, the translation of the word “one” in a highly disputed passage of Scripture divides orthodox from heterodox, possibly heaven from hell.
Nor does stating something about Scripture place us above it in any way—we are testifying to something in it, not changing it at all. John the Baptist declared Jesus to be the Lamb of God, but his declaration did not make Jesus the Lamb of God any more than my statement “it’s a hamburger” changes anything about the nature of my hamburger. Indeed, the only problem comes in when I say, “It’s a hamburger,” and it is in fact, not a hamburger. To use an absurd analogy, if I claim that it’s a hamburger when it is actually an aardvark, this will cause awkwardness for those that believe me (as well as the aardvark). If we claim that this Scripture says something that it does not say, then we are guilty of leading people astray as well as corrupting the text, which is why we should take great caution when translating Scripture. If we translate “ruah” as wind, and then have to make it “cool,” all so that it can use the most obscure way possible of saying something that is an irrelevant side note to an otherwise continuous and tremendous narrative, all while there is a perfectly cogent, meaningful, and contextual translation that could be made with no violence to the text whatsoever, then we are guilty of handling the text with great frivolity, if not plain stupidity. The sooner we correct that, the better.
Peroratio: “L’rwh hyywm” should be rendered Spirit of the day, and we should keep this in mind as this new typology further links this day in Genesis 3:8 with all other days of the Lord, including—especially including—the judgment of Christ as the second Adam. For that is the day when God darkened the sun, crushed the head of the serpent, lifted the curse from the ground, and welcomed man into His new garden-cemetery (from which man in Christ will never be expelled) to walk with the dead man, who is the living God, in the new spirit of the new day, which shall never end.
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time…
And all shall be well, and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.
Bibliography:
Kline, Meredith, Images of the Spirit (Eugene, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1999), 106.
Fox, Everett:Vol. I of The Schocken Bible: The Five Books of Moses (New York: Schocken Books, 1995), 22.
Free Republic, Culture and Society, “Presbyterians Consider Renaming the Trinity (“Mother, Child, Womb,” “Rock, Redeemer, Friend”), http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1652271/posts, (Accessed April 18, 2008).
Peter Leithart, Leithart.com, New Testament, 1 John, http://www.leithart.com/2007/01/29/sermon-notes-fifth-sunday-after-epiphany/#more-2735, (Accessed May 1, 2008).
A Proposed Retranslation of Genesis 3:8
Jesse Broussard, Westminster Term Rhetoric, 2003 words.
Exordium: Spirit, wind and breath. In three different languages, each of these shares a single word. In Latin,anima, in Greek, pnuemos, and in Hebrew, ruah. Usually, this presents no problems; we are not often speaking Latin, Greek or Hebrew, and context will generally eliminate one or more options. But, when we come to Scripture, all of our authoritative texts are in Hebrew, Greek or Latin; the context is often less than helpful, and that is when having three possible meanings for the same word in every original copy of every authoritative text becomes a problem.
Narratio: Generally, those of us who are Orthodox Christians don’t like to mess around too much with Scripture, and that’s a good thing. There are always exceptions, such as wild exegesis—“St. John saw many strange monsters, but none so strange as one of his own commentators”—but even wild exegesis is exegetical (or isogetical, my point is that there is a longsuffering text to bleed beneath our benevolently bumbling scalpels). But what do we do when the text itself is under dispute? Should we preach off of that little section at the end of Mark? Should we try to go over it in our familial devotions? And what do we do when respected theologians are disputing different interpretations—how do we know which one to go with?
Meredith Kline’sImages of the Spirit proposes a retranslation of Genesis 3:8: “they heard the sound of Yahweh God traversing the garden as the Spirit of the day,” particularly retranslating “l’rwh hyywm” as “Spirit of the day” instead of the traditional “wind of the day,” which we changed (for the sake of clarity) to “cool of the day.” Kline states that judgment is inherent and essential to the narrative, and that the “day” (ywm) is the “day of the Lord,” the day of judgment.
Everett Fox translates this verse in his Shocken Bible in the more traditional mean: “Now they heard the sound of YHWH, God, (who was) walking about in the garden at the breezy-time of the day. And the human and his wife hid themselves from the face of YHWH, God, amid the trees of the garden.” In his footnote he clarifies: "breezy-time: Evening."
Partitio: These two translations are obviously different approaches to the text, and they offer different perspectives from which we would view the judgment of the fall of mankind. The traditional translation (Fox’s), however, does not seem to adequately capture the importance of the narrative—the comment that “it was evening” seems entirely superfluous, where reading the text in light of judgment seems to clothe the overall narrative with a far more suitable and consistent theme. Propositio: While we traditionally translate the Hebrew phrase "l'rwh hyywm” as "cool of the day," we should probably translate it as "spirit of the day."
Confirmatio: One of the reasons to translate this phrase as “spirit of the day” is that while evening is mentioned numerous times in the Old Testament, the particular phrase l’rwh hyywm is never used to indicate “evening”—in fact, through all of Scripture, that phrase is found onlyhere, in Genesis 3:8. It would seem that such an unusual phrase would bespeaka similarly unusual occurrence (such as the fall of mankind), not merely evening (which is most often denoted “le’et’ereb” ). As ruah means spirit, wind, or breath, these are our options for its translation. Since “wind of the day” leads to a very odd way of saying “evening,” and “breath of the day” makes no contextual sense whatsoever, we are left with the phrase “spirit of the day.” But what does that mean? The spirit of what day?
In his Images of the Spirit, Meredith Kline comments that the “spirit of the day” would almost undoubtedly be the spirit of the day of the Lord—the Day of Judgment. Defending this, Kline shows that the “day of the Lord” is always a day of judgment, and that judgment is the entire effect of God’s visit to man in this narrative.
To support this theory, he studied the common factors in all of the more explicit theophanies of Scripture, and narrowed them down to a foundational three: light or day, dark or obscuring, and “qol,” sound. Since all elements of the day of the Lord are present, Kline states that this Parousia “corresponds fully…to the awesome approach of the Glory met with elsewhere in Scripture, the approach with which a thunderous voice of Yahweh is regularly associated.” The qol is a great and thundering noise, and is what Adam and Eve hear traversing the garden toward them in l’rwh hyywm (spirit of the day), and it is this that causes them to hide (obscure) themselves. It is not the sound of “footsteps,” or of twigs cracking, but the sound of a great thunder, of a crushing waterfall, of earthquakes and armies and trumpets—it is the sound of approaching judgment. This day is a day of the Lord—He comes in power to judge his faithless people and those who have led them astray, and then to promise a future deliverance from these curses. He truly was coming in the Spirit of the Day—in judgment.
Because this is such a momentous event, one that bestows upon us the first Messianic prophecy, the protoevangelium, because this isthe reason for our sehnsucht, because this is the origin of all that is evil in the world, we expect the prose of the narrative to reflect that gravity and severity of judgment. But, should “ruah” mean wind, we do not find even a hint of it—the segue from Adam to God gracefully leaps from the high dive, only to encounter a dry pool floor in verse nine, where God is catching on to what has just happened, like a dad opening his daughter’s bedroom door and finding her boyfriend, “dressed” only in the loosest sense of the word. However, ifruah means “spirit,” then judgment pervades the narrative, covers it as the sky covers earth, or as skin covers muscle and bone. This seems to be the primary and crucial difference between the two viable interpretations of ruah: judgment is incidental to the “evening,” and central to the “spirit.” And which of these would we expect?
But the most definitive point, the point that converted me, is quite simple. According to the traditional translation, why is the phrase even there? What is the significance of mentioning that God was walking in the evening? It is definitely an evocative description, so if it were a peaceful scene in poetry, it would make perfect sense. But in this? In this horror and empty, desolate bereavement, this stark prose recitation of the pathetically futile, damning and abortive rebellion of mankind against severe sovereign holiness and beauty, this origin of all that is painful, evil and ugly? The sun was darkened, moon bloodied, earth undone; the stars were hurled from heaven, a seraph cursed; forgive me, butGod damned Himself: an idyllic stroll seems a touch out of place.
Refutatio:The only argument that I have yet heard that makes any sense of the jarring insertion of “evening” appeals to the poetry of the situation: a heaven on earth, where God walks in His garden with the human caretaker each eve, and then this utopia becomes literal utopia: not here, as it is laid waste by man’s sin.
But the problem with this exegesis is the same as before—why the obscure wording? Were the Author wanting us to read “evening,” why did He not simply write it? He does not hesitate to do so elsewhere. Why use a phrase so unusual that we find it nowhere else in Scripture? If it is to flag the one and only time that mankind’s innocence is utterly destroyed and the death of God Himself is, in that moment, necessitated, then I understand the use of such a singularly rare phrase. If it is to show the time of day, it’s absurd.
The single greatest argument against re-translating this passage is the weight of all of Church history. Who indeed are we to correct the mistakes of so many (and such great) men? And yes, this is a huge step—if we are retranslating a Scripture because it makes more sense to us, what is to prevent us from editing it to please ourselves? Already liberals are headed down this track with the TNIV, Episcopals can no longer play chess (is it a bishop or a queen?) and our names for God, “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” are being judged by many as inferior to “Rock, Redeemer and Friend” (which will hopefully stop before it becomes “Rock, paper and scissors”). We have resisted this abominable trend to retranslate the Words of God as we see fit, and rightly so.
But for us to struggle with the translation of a verse is not anything new—the Church has defined the bounds of Orthodoxy over less: “For there are three that bear witness in heaven…and these three are one (1 John 5:7).” According to Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses, these three are one in their will, one in their actions. According to Christians, Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses are heretics, because they deny the divinity of Christ, and their translation of this verse is one of the ways in which they do so. Here, the translation of the word “one” in a highly disputed passage of Scripture divides orthodox from heterodox, possibly heaven from hell.
Nor does stating something about Scripture place us above it in any way—we are testifying to something in it, not changing it at all. John the Baptist declared Jesus to be the Lamb of God, but his declaration did not make Jesus the Lamb of God any more than my statement “it’s a hamburger” changes anything about the nature of my hamburger. Indeed, the only problem comes in when I say, “It’s a hamburger,” and it is in fact, not a hamburger. To use an absurd analogy, if I claim that it’s a hamburger when it is actually an aardvark, this will cause awkwardness for those that believe me (as well as the aardvark). If we claim that this Scripture says something that it does not say, then we are guilty of leading people astray as well as corrupting the text, which is why we should take great caution when translating Scripture. If we translate “ruah” as wind, and then have to make it “cool,” all so that it can use the most obscure way possible of saying something that is an irrelevant side note to an otherwise continuous and tremendous narrative, all while there is a perfectly cogent, meaningful, and contextual translation that could be made with no violence to the text whatsoever, then we are guilty of handling the text with great frivolity, if not plain stupidity. The sooner we correct that, the better.
Peroratio: “L’rwh hyywm” should be rendered Spirit of the day, and we should keep this in mind as this new typology further links this day in Genesis 3:8 with all other days of the Lord, including—especially including—the judgment of Christ as the second Adam. For that is the day when God darkened the sun, crushed the head of the serpent, lifted the curse from the ground, and welcomed man into His new garden-cemetery (from which man in Christ will never be expelled) to walk with the dead man, who is the living God, in the new spirit of the new day, which shall never end.
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time…
And all shall be well, and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.
Bibliography:
Kline, Meredith, Images of the Spirit (Eugene, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1999), 106.
Fox, Everett:Vol. I of The Schocken Bible: The Five Books of Moses (New York: Schocken Books, 1995), 22.
Free Republic, Culture and Society, “Presbyterians Consider Renaming the Trinity (“Mother, Child, Womb,” “Rock, Redeemer, Friend”), http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1652271/posts, (Accessed April 18, 2008).
Peter Leithart, Leithart.com, New Testament, 1 John, http://www.leithart.com/2007/01/29/sermon-notes-fifth-sunday-after-epiphany/#more-2735, (Accessed May 1, 2008).
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Rhetoric: Westminster Final Written Exam
Well, this week felt like I volunteered as a crash test dummy for the new Geo-Metro. I found out at ten-thirty last night (don't ask me how I missed it before) that the Rhetoric written final was today. So, I went to bed about one, got up at five, went to the Atwood's prayer breakfast, came home and studied for nine hours.
Usually I like to study over at least a two day period, otherwise I have to wear earplugs to keep everything from dribbling out, but oh well. Somehow, I believe that I did very well, all glory to God and my roommate.
Usually I like to study over at least a two day period, otherwise I have to wear earplugs to keep everything from dribbling out, but oh well. Somehow, I believe that I did very well, all glory to God and my roommate.
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