Tag: Bible

A Byzantine exegesis of Paul in the “depth of the sea”

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The following interesting passage can be found in a work by the Venerable Bede 1:

The same apostle (Paul) said, “a night and a day I was in the depth of the sea’ (2 Cor. 11:25).  I have heard certain men assert that Theodore of blessed memory, a very learned man and once archbishop of the English people, expounded the saying thus: that there was in Cyzicus a certain very deep pit, dug for the punishment of criminals, which on account of its immense depth was called the depth of the sea.  It was the filth and darkness of this which Paul bore, amongst other things, for Christ.

Theodore was a Greek from Tarsus, who happened to be in Rome in 667 AD at the moment when a Saxon archbishop-elect of Canterbury had died while in Rome to get his pallium. Pope Vitalian was open to eastern influence, and promptly appointed this 67-year old man (d. 690) as archbishop.  His episcopate was a considerable success, he increased the status of the clergy, reorganised the diocese, and Bede says of him that he was the first archbishop whom the whole English church willingly obeyed.  This in turn helped to foster English political and cultural unity.  He brought knowledge of Latin and Greek to Dark Ages England, and interesting snippets like this from a part of the ancient world where the darkness had yet to fall.

1. Liber Quaestionum, Patrologia Latina 93, cols. 456D-457A.  The reference comes to me from Henry Mayr-Harting, The coming of Christianity to anglo-saxon England (1972), repr. 1977, p.207, n. 58 (on p.312).

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Genre markers in Genesis

Posted on by Roger Pearse

An old post in Hypotyposeis “Origen on Creation” reported post by a Chris Heard, “Absurdities” as genre markers (Nov. 28, 2008), in which he contends that Genesis ought to be read non-literally because the original audience would have heard it so:

I submit to you that “absurd” chronologies and geographies serve in biblical narratives as genre markers informing readers that the discrete textual unit in which these markers appear is not to be taken as “history,” but must be read in a “non-literal” mode. * * * But my point is that the person(s) who wrote Genesis 1, and expressed their creation faith in a schematic seven-day creation story, weren’t so foolish as to suppose that they were giving a precisely accurate timeline of the deity’s creative acts—and they told us so right there in the text.

“N. T. Wrong,” dismisses this as “modernist apologetics” in The Absurdity of Genesis 1 – Just-So Stories – Literal Meaning; Non-Literal Apologetic Interpretation (Nov. 28, 2008); ideas that none of the ancients would have had, on reading Genesis.  Carlson points out a passage from Origen, writing in his On First Principles 4.3.1 (trans. Henri DeLubec [Harper & Row, 1966], p. 288) as follows:

4.3.1 Now what man of intelligence will believe that the first and the second and the third day, and the evening and the morning existed without the sun and moon and stars? . . . I do not think anyone will doubt that these are figurative expressions which indicate certain mysteries through a semblance of history and not through actual events.

The post is useful, and rightly points up the genre markers that we should expect to find in ancient texts.  The issue of ancient attestation of genre markers in texts deserves wider scrutiny.

For Heard’s argument to work — which is Origen’s — we need to have some evidence that the original audience of Genesis would have understood this, rather than a Hellenistic audience.  I don’t think we have enough data on Genesis itself to answer that for or against; but such data might exist with respect to later Old Testament books, and be instructive. 

I suspect that Heard has a point, although the argument probably needs to be more nuanced and based on a little more than just Origen.  Such an argument looks odd to us, because we don’t use myth for teaching purposes in our day, and so we are ill-equipped to recognise that it *was* widely so used and what the rules of the game were.  We can tell from Plato’s “Laws” that it was so used; and Cicero’s letters discussing the dramatis personae of the Tusculan Disputations make it clear that there *were* rules. 

These examples off the top of my head, of course, and neither evidently applicable to Hebrew literature — about which I know nothing — but offered as a start.

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How not to translate the bible

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I found a blog pushing the TNIV, and added a comment to a post or two before I realised that the blog title “Better bibles” was really just Newspeak for “Use the TNIV.” 

The TNIV is the version of the New International Version which was revised in accordance with the principles of political correctness.  If the bible said “brothers”, it changed it to say “brothers and sisters.”  And so on, sometimes with farcical consequences.  Fortunately US Christians treated it with the contempt it deserved, and it sounds as if it is dead (praise God).   But the damage is severe; the NIV was well on the way to being the standard Christian English translation.  Now few will trust it, or its owners.

It is hard to imagine what was going through the minds of the people who did this deed — although judging from the commenters on that blog, indifference to the idea that this is the Word of God is pretty evident, as is a determination to use the bible to promote political correctness.

But just imagine if we did the same to other texts!  Das Kapital, revised to say what Ronald Reagan thinks it should have said.  Mein Kampf, as translated by an Israeli extremist (a version in which the word “Jew” is replaced by the word “Arab”, “in order to situate it better in modern society” or some form of words which would walk the streets for any vice).  Robert Mugabe translating Jefferson.  It’s almost funny, isn’t it?

I do a bit of translating from time to time, and I tend to favour reader comprehension over literal incomprehensibility.  But if I have to paraphrase, I’d put the original in a note.  If I felt the meaning was unclear, I wouldn’t paraphrase; I would stick the meaning in a note.  To fail to know where to draw the line between a translation and a note is the nadir of incapacity in a translator.

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Patristics and inerrancy

Posted on by Roger Pearse

For some time I have been wondering how the early Christians discuss issues like inerrancy.  The obvious thing to do is to collect statements from the first 3-4 centuries of Christian writing, and see what sort of attitude to scripture these have.  Indeed it is so obvious that surely someone has already done this?  Suggestions would be welcome!

From general reading I know that Tertullian in De praescriptione haereticorum 8 advises Christians not to argue with unbelievers using the bible.   But, living at the end of the second century as he did, he had a special reason.  At that period unbelievers routinely forged gospels and other texts, supposedly by apostles.  The canon existed, but only in a basic form.  Thus it was too easy for the malevolent to simply toss believers into a whirlpool of crooked arguments.  Tertullian recommends following something easier to argue with, the united testimony of the churches that can prove their apostolic origin.  His argument is pragmatic, and the Fathers tended to follow him.

Modern Christians have a specific issue in mind.  Do we treat the Bible as an infallible authority on matters of history and science, or consider that those elements are incidental?  (Some feel that the Old Testament and New can be treated differently on this issue). 

All Christians believe that it is an infallible authority on matters of Christian teaching.   Indeed it is mildly amusing to hear some people attack “inerrantists” for refusing to “accept that scripture is fallible on matters of science”, when we then find that they don’t actually believe that it is infallible in any other respect, and their argument is not with some small group but with every part of Christendom, from Jesus and the apostles down to myself!

But perhaps the real reason why we don’t find any specific comment in the early Christians is that this particular issue wasn’t one that they had to answer.  This happens in other areas also, and invariably means that they make comments which tend to one side or the other, without being definitive.  The question simply isn’t present to their minds, which makes them useless as a source of information on the specific question.

Maybe so.  I’d like to see the evidence before I decide on this. 

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Two snippets

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The $400 PDF-microfilm of the unpublished 13th century Arabic Christian historian al-Makin was rubbish and unreadable.  I complained and was ignored.  I complained again two days ago, and threatened to involve VISA.  Today I got a note asking me to return the CD for checking, which makes no mention of the first note.  Clearly persistence is necessary in dealing with the BNF.   I always feel rather helpless, confronted by a massive bureaucracy.  I’ll let you know how I get on.

On a different note, I wonder just how many unknown medieval manuscripts of the bible there are?  I came across a press release by Norfolk Record Office (NRO), about an exhibition of manuscripts belonging to a now deceased collector, one Denys Spittle:

The oldest book in the exhibition is a copy of the four Gospels, probably from Constantinople that dates from the 10th century.

 This sounds like a job for CSNTM!  So I wrote to the NRO, asking if the ms. has an Aland number, etc.  No-one seems to know, and NRO won’t give me the contact details of the owners.  The Denys Spittle Trust isn’t in the Charities Commission database, nor at Companies House.  Still, if they’re willing to lend the manuscript for an exhibition like this, they ought to be willing to allow the experts at CSNTM to catalogue it properly and record it.  I’ve forwarded the details I have to them.

But of course this naturally leads you to wonder just what else exists in private hands?

I’ve been feeling rather unwell for the last few days, after an unsuccessful dental root treatment, so don’t expect much substantive from me this week.

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More NT manuscripts from CSNTM

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A couple of blog posts on recent activity from Dan Wallace and his team.  This will be a busy year:

In January 2009, we sent a team to Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Australia; and Auckland, New Zealand. We are right now gearing up for the rest of 2009. On the docket are Athens, Andros, Kozani, and Meteora, Greece; Muenster and Munich, Germany; Bucharest, Romania; Milan, Italy; Patmos, Greece; and Tbilisi, Georgia. We are also hoping to go to Cairo and St. Catherine’s Monastery in Egypt.

We are extremely grateful to these monasteries and museums, universities and public libraries, for allowing us to shoot their manuscripts and preserve them digitally for generations to come. In 2008 alone, we discovered more than a dozen manuscripts—about equal to what the rest of the world has discovered in the last six years. Among the manuscripts photographed are two papyri, both from the third century, a purple codex from the sixth century, and scores of later manuscripts, some of which are far more significant than their medieval date would suggest.

Meanwhile the team are onsite in Athens:

On February 23rd, a team led by Dr. Wallace left Dallas for Athens, Greece. They are staying at the Greek Bible Institute in the suburb of Pikermi, approximately an hour’s travel time from the Benaki Museum where they are photographing MSS. Despite the distance, the Center was able to save financial resources by staying at the Institute. So far the Center has identified seven manuscripts that were previously unknown to scholars! That’s equal to what typically turn up in two years’ time worldwide, and it brings the number to nineteen that the Center has discovered in this season of expeditions. Remarkably, one out of five MSS that CSNTM photographs is a new discovery.

Times are hard for many of us, but perhaps we should find a way to donate to these supremely worthwhile activities.  Remember that today we learned of the destruction of manuscripts at Koln?  CSNTM are doing something to save vulnerable texts, and make them accessible to us all.

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Koln archive building falls into large hole in ground

Posted on by Roger Pearse

According to the report on the English pages of Der Spiegel, the 1971 building collapsed.  Work on the tube line running under the front wall may be responsible.  Loads of documents may be lost, some dating back to 922 AD.  It’s unclear whether any medieval manuscripts will have gone west.  More here (in German), which links to a PDF showing pages of a 9/10th century gospel manuscript on p.20 of the PDF.

I bet that they didn’t allow anyone to photograph them first.  In most disasters, the fire brigade are called in to saturate the building with water, just in case any documents escaped.  That usually finishes them off!

UPDATE:  The Cologne Archive is currently asking for volunteers in the area to help with the disaster recovery.  If you are interested in helping out, please see the archive website: http://www.koelner-stadtarchiv.de/index.html

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Three Israeli bible mss available for download

Posted on by Roger Pearse

At Paleojudaica I learned of this message from Elhanan Adler:

The National Library of Israel, David and Fela Shapell Family Digitization Project, is pleased to announce the digitization of three of the Library’s most important Bible manuscripts… The manuscripts are presented in the DjVu format which provides high quality, magnifiable images compressed into relatively small files for easy downloading. In order to view DjVu images it is necessary to download and install (once) a special free viewer program.

This is a red letter day.  A major library has made manuscripts available in a downloadable, easy-to-use format.  Well done, boys!  That is what we want to see.

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Biblia Patristica now online

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Want to know where a verse of scripture is referenced in the Fathers?  The answer has always been the Biblia Patristica volumes.  These are now embedded in BIBLIndex, and so accessible to us all.  Well done, chaps!  (Thanks to Ben Blackwell for publicizing this).

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