Definition of Holy

Holy: Understanding It Better Through the Classic Argument

2011-12-30T21:58:00.001-06:00

I think I finally understand the classic argument for holy meaning whole.

[Over the next few weeks I will transfer this argument to this post.] In the meantime, please feel free to check out my other posts. Thank you.

In Christ,

Pastor Jon

Holy: Understanding it Better Through One Word Versus Many

2011-11-30T14:43:00.001-06:00

I don't like confusion and I would guess you don't either. Recently, I ran across an explanation that I never heard before for why there are so many words that translate the one word in Hebrew and the corresponding one word in Greek that are usually translated as holy. Desiderius Erasmus, of Reformation fame, understood copiousness to be a distinct advantage in rhetoric or persuasive communication. What he meant by copiousness is saying one thing in many different ways. This is probably the best explanation for why translators translate one word in Hebrew and its corresponding one word in Greek by so many words.

The one root or word in Hebrew can be translated in English by saint, sacred, sanctified, sanctuary, consecrated, hallowed, hallow, Holy One or holy. Someone could easily see a Latin influence here, but the bigger question is why those words were kept alongside the more Anglo-Saxon words. In some recent translations, the list gets even longer with set apart or separate. In some older translations there was also halig and wholly. Then you can add to this the theological vocabulary of sanctification or holiness. Then to make matters more confusing saint can be replaced by santa in more popular usage. At Christmas time it is interesting to realize this last connection.

For clarity's sake, I would argue that it would have been far more effective to have used one word like holy each time for the one word in Hebrew and its corresponding one word in Greek. Clarity is there in the original that simply is lacking in many translations because one word is replaced by many words.

The way to create clarity is to have just one word for one word, where clearly the basic context is the same. The way to create confusion is to have more than one option, when the context does not demand a different basic meaning. This is more likely to cause connections to be missed by the average reader.

My own favorite example of this is my missing the connection between holy and "hallowed be Your Name" in the Lord's Prayer. "Holy be your name" would be much clearer for showing the connection between that statement and "Yahweh [His name] your God is holy."

I used to think the variety in words for one word came from William Shakespeare and poetic influence. Maybe some of it did, but Desiderius Erasmus now seems to me a better explantion for an influence on translators. So while I greatly admire Erasmus for most of what he contributed to scholarship, I think his idea of copiousness for persuasive speech or writing may have been applied inappropriately and it may have created unnecessary confusion in the ordinary English reader's mind.

So I hope, if nothing else, by understanding this tendency in translation, you will be able to realize that in the majority of cases, the many words for "holy" are really one word. The most common one word in English translation is holy. I'd love to see a translation that used only this one word in its different forms, like the original did and like the Greek translation of the Hebrew did in the New Testament. I think this would eliminate some, but not all, of the confusion out there over what "holy" means, because the connections between different parts of Scripture would be clear. This would be a small step forward.

In Christ,

Pastor Jon

Holy: Understanding it Better Through Expertise

2011-10-31T20:25:00.002-05:00

It is very important to understand my expertise in writing on the definition or meaning of holy, because it helps you to know whether you can trust what I say is true or not. It is also important to understand both what I can contribute to the discussion, and also what I cannot contribute.

I have to remain humble. There are many experts in the scholarly world that I cannot compete with on their terms, because their type of expertise is better than mine in their specialty area. Yet, I think, I still have something to contribute that is significant to the discussion.

The way to visualize what I contribute is to imagine that most scholars on the meaning of holy contribute along a vertical axis of depth at the same time I contribute along a horizontal axis of breadth. Our strengths can be complementary in that I can rely upon them for depth, while I am more of a generalist, who can spot parallels between the different specialists.  These parallels are where I get most of my insights on the topic of holy.

Let me explain all of this further. In Matthew 7:15-20 in the NIV, we read: 15 “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

Here the non-prophet can recognize or know a "false prophet" from a true one through "bad fruit." These instructions are not just for specialists in the field of prophesy during Jesus' day. Everyone in his day needed to know how to recognize the true from the false. Likewise I think the analogy of the tree can be used by everyone to discern false experts from true ones.

Let's look at ourselves through Jesus' analogy. We are not all tree experts or good tree growers, yet we can know a good tree from a bad one by the fruit we eat from the tree. So we are not all technical experts, but we are all friendly users of apples for food. We all can recognize user-friendly "APPLE" technology, even if we cannot create a high tech "APPLE" gadget to speak of computer technology in the same way.

My educational experience allows me to be somewhat of a technical expert, but I do not claim to be a technical expert on the level of some of the experts that I rely upon for their expertise in Hebrew, as one example. I have abilities in the area of preaching, translating, teaching and transferring; but I do not have the depth that those who only preach or only teach, etc. have. What I am able to do is to discern across these specialities certain parallels that help me discern what translators or teachers, etc. I can trust. One of the primary areas to rely upon is that of preaching, because the primary measure here is its effect or fruit.

I am a preacher (though not on the level of Warren, Keller and Swindoll, etc.) and so from the beginning of my work on the meaning of holy, I have been concerned about the fruit in ministry from the popular meaning of holy in the last 100 years versus the fruit from the popular meaning of holy in the prior 600 years (and the combined prior 1900 years that I am more recently investigating more thoroughly). From the prior 600 years up to about 1900, the massive effect of the preaching of Luther, Calvin, Cranmer, Wesley and Spurgeon is something to weigh against the effect or preaching by Warren, Keller, Swindoll, etc. I first became aware of this as a young child under the preaching of Lowell Anderson. I witnessed the fruit of his preaching as compared to other pastors. As a college student, I was introduced to the major Protestant reformers by John S. Piper (now a preacher himself) and James E. Johnson, who helped me broaden Piper's perspective. Warren W. Wiersbe's book Walking with the Giants took me a step further. It was primarily through them that I was introduced to the fruit of preaching in the past. The fruit, or what we now call effect, matters.  The effect can be something as simple as being friendly in the case of user-friendly technology. I take exception to those who make the exception the rule in biblical history, when people do not respond to a preacher (like in the case of Jeremiah). I am well aware of the danger of not seeing the exception, like some ear tickling preachers do not.  Luther's broad definition of holy as tied to whole or Spurgeon's were not from ear tickling types of preachers. Nor is the prior 1300 years before the reformers from preachers of that kind. (I will be developing this material more in the future after the enlightening teaching of Steven A. Peay).  So some of my blog entries do raise the question of whether less effective results from the now popular understanding of holy should not be part of the test for whether we have the meaning of holy correct. These entries usually pull in the views of people like Luther, Calvin, etc. in their headings, because of the effect of their preaching with a different understanding of holy. The effect or fruit is after all, how you tell a good tree from a bad tree.

I am a translator in a limited sense, and by no means to be compared to the great translators or translation team members on earth. I have not published a translation like J.B Phillips nor am I associated with a team of translators like those that worked on the NIV. Instead, I value their expertise. Most of my acquaintance with translation is through the materials of Wycliffe Bible Translators, but I have not served overseas on a translation team. In the English tradition of translation, I value the views of John Wycliffe, William Tyndale, James Strong and many translation experts including those who worked on the King James Version as well as those who come much later right up to the present. What distinguishes my views on translation comes from Nehemiah 8:8, where there are the twin qualities of clarity and meaning. From these twin quality principles, I discern my choice of translation. That means I am not only a meaning for meaning or a dynamic equivalence translator, because I place clarity as a principle that is equal to meaning. That means I balance these two qualities in discerning what is a good translation. I also think that the quality of clarity is being compromised by the multiplicity of translations as opposed to one translation.  In addition, I think the use of the word "holy" in its day was a wise choice by the older translators for its clarity and meaning. Yet from the beginning of its use in English, if there was a problem with this choice, it was a problem of clarity. In the English language, the one word in Hebrew and its one word Greek replacement was replaced by multiple words in English translation like holy, sanctify, hallow, consecrate and saints, etc.   This copiousness ("many ways to say the same thing"), pushed perhaps by the influence of Erasmus or maybe still later Shakespeare, made things complex rather than simple. The word also was understood to have a dual meaning that was broadly defined as whole and narrowly defined as set apart. Clarity is best achieved through one word as was done by the Greek for the Hebrew, when the sense of the original word is not changed. The more options that are available, then the less is the clarity. To illustrate, if everyone in a room of 99 people shouts yes together, then you can hear clearly what they say, if equally among them some also say no and others say maybe, then the message is less clear. So you will see that some of my entries deal with translation principles, as they relate to holy.   I try mainly to clarify things from the complex of confusion that has developed due to differing translation conclusions. I didn't create the lack of clarity, I only try to point it out, and I try to argue that we need to replace it with the clarity of one central meaning. Clarity and meaning are the qualities of a good translation like an expert on trees can assign the primary qualities of a good tree.

I am a teacher in some measure. Usually people say I have this gift along with others. Yet I am not a teacher, like some of those who I have had as teachers in seminary or who I had in my undergraduate years. They are true specialists in teaching. I think of Walter C. Kaiser, Allen P. Ross, Gary V. Smith, Daniel P. Fuller, etc. here. They are expert teachers, who know what things are being referred to by a word in a foreign language or know how to precisely pronounce it. They know their original languages on a higher level than I do. Yet I do not stop with their insights, as valuable as they are and as much as I value their direct teaching of me in the classroom. I also have sought out other experts like them, who are members of top ten research universities. I am thinking here of Ronald S. Hendel, University of California, Berkeley; (Margaret) Mary (Tew) Douglas [now deceased], Oxford University; Saul M. Olyan, Brown University; Ralph W. Klein, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago [that I think is connected with the University of Chicago]; and Gordon J. Wenham, Trinity College, Bristol [formerly a student at Cambridge] and others. All of these people mentioned in this list have either past or current associations with a top ten research school I think research is very important and the very best of research is important.   So that is why in some of my entries, I bring up the expert teachers out there, who work at some of the best research facilities. I am considering the possibility of finishing up my post-graduate studies at one of the top ten schools myself, if necessary and helpful. If I avoid their work, then I think I am shrinking from the challenges of the best teachers. Likewise I would never ask a fruit taster for their mastery of tree science or tree farming. I remember my dad going to the eperimental [research] farms to get his soil tested. He knew that a tree or a garden plant needed their special nutrients in the soil depending on the type of plant.

I am a missonary of sorts, but certainly not on the level of a foreign missionary with overseas experience. Some might say I am a home missionary. I am able to transfer things from one place and time to another.  My directional orientation is going out and is not coming in. I enjoy moving from one culture to another. Yet what I am doing is examining the move from Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek culture into English culture. In many ways, my steps on the meaning of holy are re-tracing the work of the earliest missionaries to the English-speaking world and asking questions about how the transfer from one culture to the next went. Has it gone well or has it gone not so well in connecting Hebrew culture to the nations that speak English? I was deeply influenced in this specialty by specialists like William A. Smalley, R. Daniel Shaw, Paul G. Hiebert, Tom Correll, James Hurd, Donald N. Larson, Betty Sue Brewster, Kenneth L. Pike, etc. Through their direct influence, I read also in the areas of anthropology and worldview study. This includes again Mary Douglas among others. I also studied under David A. Rausch, E.William Bean, Larry R. Brandt, Avi Snyder (occasionally) and Daniel Lancaster (D. Thomas Lancaster) to better understand Jewish roots.  This latter list drew from rabbinical literature. All of the people in my earlier list have direct experience as missionaries in foreign contexts.   They all taught me about the relationship of transferring from one place and time to another place and time. How does one connect in a new place and time?   That was their pursuit and they taught it to others like me as they moved from practitioners to mentors. In Nehemiah 8, this transfer referred to the transfer of regulations or culture from one place and time to another. This is the ability to connect with others across the cultural barriers of place and time.   When it comes to Hebrew, are we allowing that place and time to speak for itself or are we bringing in outside influence, when it is the root and we are the branches grafted into the tree? Sometimes supposed Hebrew scholarship lets a later time speak for an earlier time as in the case of some later Hebrew rabbinical writings. Sometimes supposed scholarship also allows another culture like Arabic culture to speak for it. I am more concerned to let Hebrew culture from the most ancient time of then and there, when it was penned, to speak for itself and then let it speak to us in the here and now. Then it is going from then and there to all the nations including those speaking English. So that is why some of my entries deal with cultural connections, as I am concerned that the going is coming from the that place and time to our place and time. That is why the etmology arguments also get my attention, since some of these arguments that are only probable are treated as definite and sometimes the significance of the letters in the original word for holy are undervalued. We have to know the truth of whether our understanding of holy is connected to the past and place assigned found in Scipture, not elsewhere. The test here, as it is for trees, is to know the truth or falseness of claims. Is there a connection or not between the fruit and the tree or between the text and the claims?

So now you know more about my general expertise as compared to the special deeper expertise of others that I rely upon. Somehow through the course that God has set for my life and sometimes despite me, I have become the kind of broad expert that I am. The deeper experts above are not responsible for all my views, since sometimes I use one speciality to correct another through a parallel point of view whether it be from preachers, translators, teachers or missionaries.  Those parallel insights I have to take responsibility for, but the experts I learned from do get a major portion of credit that I can never take. You cannot trust me, if I am not humble in this way. You also can only trust my insights on holy as far as it fits with the idea that "a good tree is known by its fruit". A good tree can be known by a fruit eater.

What I am eventually hoping for from this blog or maybe from an eventual book, Lord willing, is an impact from the definition or meaning of holy that makes a real difference. The impact word for Luther was righteousness and likewise holy is another quality word that may be the word that is needed to really turn things around for the church. The same was true in the case of Calvin where his measure was that of humility as a sub-set of the quality of being true. He focused like Luther on another quality term. That is one of the reasons for why I think "holy" is so important.   The same goes for the other major Reformers in the last 600 years all the way to Spurgeon. We need a new announcement like was made in their respective times. Could the meaning of holy be that quality that makes the difference the church needs?

In Christ,

Pastor Jon

Holy: Understanding its Definition better Through Using a Process

2011-09-30T23:15:00.001-05:00

This entry in my blog steps back from directly defining holy to talk more broadly about my views on methods to define holy. In my view the weakness of some of the writing on holiness is a lack of awareness on how important their method is to determining the outcome of their definition of holy.

My point is to say that the process we use to determine the meaning of holy is very important.   Our methods have implications and can cause us to draw either correct or incorrect conclusions. My other point is that biases can get in the way of accepting relevant methods for defining it.

The process is important to the effect or outcome, whether it is the process for determining a meaning for a word or whether it is a process for shooting a basketball. The "how" is relevant alongside the "why". If making a basket is my motive, my reason why, then the method, my how I shoot, is relevant. It is the same in determining the meaning of holy.

Now using the basketball analogy, there is room for differences in the method, but not differences that are dramatic. It is one thing for the best shooters to have subtle stylistic differences, but it is far different to violate the four basic fundamental parts of shooting. Whether you take Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan or LeBron James; they all share the same fundamental strengths in the art of shooting. However, all of them do not shoot exactly the same.

Next, it is important to understand some of the attitudes we carry to the table, when it comes to method. I remember this from my days as a coach and I see the same thing in the arena of being a pastor. There are certain biases against method that are even greater in the church than they are on the basketball court.

The first bias, I will call the Holy Spirit objection. It is very simple, we don't need a method, because we have the Holy Spirit. To me, this response lacks balance. I like what St. Augustine said once about prayer and about balance: "Pray as though everything depended on God, work as though everything depended on you." I think the same applies here. I believe wholeheartedly that everything depends on God's Holy Spirit when it comes to interpretation, yet I don't believe this excludes method. The reason I don't think it excludes method is because in the book that records things that people like David said by the Spirit, there methods are described. We are told actions to take.

I cannot live by the Spirit and not do what the Spirit has spoken. I believe in Nehemiah 8, the Spirit has given us a process: teach, translate, total, train and transfer. I believe balance is needed which means having regard for this process that was outlined by the Holy Spirit. By the way, the five words that begin with "T" are my simple way of remembering the HolySpirit's process. The Spirit uses other specific words for these ideas. See my earlier blog that deals with this process for greater detail.

The second bias, I will call the historical objection.  It is very simple, we don't need a method, because we have freedom. To me, this method also lacks balance. Many people are trapped in the formerly relevant rules or freedom of a previous period of history. Sometimes the emphasis of some of our ancestors was right on for their time, but not right on for our time. I think our time needs balance in its process as compared to an overemphasis to correct an imbalance to only one side.

This means I find the biases toward a process for defining a word irrelevant at times.  I have found a lack of balance between rule and freedom. St. Augustine once wrote three books to define his process for understanding the biblical text. He saw the need for rules. I think we need to think through our process as well and yet allow freedom for improvements in our process. In other words, we need to keep things in balance. I don't think using Nehemiah 8 as a basis for a process is either too restrictive or too free. It can keep a balance.

One of my teachers once said he was overemphasizing his point to correct something. While that may have been a good teaching method at one time, I don't think it is helpful at our present time. Now I think we have to keep a balance to make our point, because otherwise things veer off to one extreme or the other, because of our present times and context. We now have twin dangers to avoid that maybe were not present earlier like they are now.

So I really think we must keep a balance in our process to define words based on the need for relevance. I think the rules of 1) teach, 2) translate, 3) total, 4) train and 5) transfer are very helpful. These rules have a relevance to move things in a helpful direction from the prior processes, like those of Augustine, to determine meaning that are often too limited by rules or too free to be useful.

I wish I had time to develop the full argument here, but I thought I should at least let people know that my method in defining holy is intended to be a balance Spirit & method and rule & freedom. It takes relevance very seriously. It recognizes the dangers on both both sides of its method, because of what is happening in our contemporary times rather than what has happened in the past.

In my next entry, I want to again step back a little bit and talk about my expertise. This will also be relevant to explaining the different kinds of entries you will find on this blog. It will help you understand both what you can hope to find here and what you will not find here. The point is that I want to contribute what expertise I have to defining holy, but also I do not want to mislead people either as to what my expertise is. Thank you for taking a few minutes to read this entry.

In Christ,

Pastor Jon

Holy: Understanding it Better Through Overcoming Barriers to Understanding

2011-08-31T21:33:00.001-05:00

For my post-graduate studies I am writing on the definition of holy, but as part of that I have to present my method for discovering the meaning of holy in the Bible. This turns out to be more critical than might be imagined. Like a car's suspension that effects the outcome in terms of a car's ride, so the method for defining a word can effect the outcome in terms of the definition arrived at by myself or anyone else. So what is my method?

In discussing methods to use for my thesis, I found that the discussion got very complicated. It was too complicated for anyone who does not have my educational background.   But it also got too complicated for those who have my level of education.  There simply was not a lot of common ground between different methods and I felt that any choice would limit who would read what I had to say, because of the divisions over the method to use. So I needed something better.

I think I have found a better method. I want to first state it, then where I found it and then I will demonstrate some of its usefulness with regard to defining holy in a beginning way.   The method consists of five steps (not necessarily locked into this order): 1) total, 2) translate, 3) teach, 4) train and 5) transfer.

I found this method in Nehemiah 8. In Nehemiah 8:1-7, I find the idea of 1) total - "all" the people and "the book" of the law of Moses." The total of the people who could understand and the total of the book of the Law. Neither part of the process was less than the total of it. In Nehemiah 8:8, I find the keys to 2) translating - clarity and meaning.   Something is clear when it is one rather than many. Many causes confusion. Imagine many voices saying a differen word in the same room. Now imagine everyone in unison saying one word. A one to one correspondence in translating is clearest, if it is possible. Moving from a dead language, like Hebrew was in Nehemiah, to a livinglanguage like Aramaic gave meaning in translation. In Nehemiah 8:7, 8:9-12, I find 3) teaching in the idea of "instruct" which I have understood as teaching to keep a pattern of T's going for memory's sake. I also think it is important to understand teachers as skilled in recognizing a time of joy and a time of sorrow. They are wise to time and place. In Nehemiah 8:13-17, I see 4) training because the people's inability to understand is replaced by their ability to understand. Understanding is an action, so it requires training. We see many actions performed by the people in this section that reflect their ability to undrestand.   Finally, in Nehemiah 8:18, I see 5) transfer because they did things in accordance with regulation. It is important with regulations to transfer the same things rather than different things. Witness as an example the difficult case of circumcision in the New Testament in relationship to Gentiles.

So to communicate across barriers effectively, like in this example in Nehemiah, a method needs to involve not just a few or parts of a book, but the total of both.  A method also needs to give clarity through keeping things simple or singular and through using a live language that has meaning.  A method needs through instruction to make a bad situation better like a move from weeping to joy as appropriate for the time.  A method also needs to replace inability to understand with ability through training. Finally, it must transfer the things in accordance with regulations, not extraneous things nor with things left out.

Let's look at this method's usefulness when dealing with defining holy.  The implications for defining holy are many, but here I would like to scratch the surface.

First, I think it is unfortunate that many of the people involved in defining holy are left out of the discussion. Most writers on the topic do not think it is important to address what the total of God's people think on this word. They especially don't address the thoughts of many in church history, even though they are people who had the ability to understand. They do not take seriously those who would disagree with them. They also limit the contexts from which they define the word. Actually parallel passages where the word is used and close synonyms are found in separate parts of the Law are significant. So to limit oneself to just Deuteronomy or just the immediate context can be misleading.

Second, I think it is unfortunate that in the argument among translators and translations over form and meaning, few stopped to take seriously the balanced counsel of Nehemiah 8:8. We need to consider not just meaningfulness, but also clarity. Often meaning is greatly enhanced through a meaning to meaning translation, but at the expense of clarity. I think it is possible to keep a balance. In the case of holy, clarity has been compromised in the past by the use of many words for what is one word in Hebrew and one word to translate it from Hebrew into Greek. It is expressed not just through holy or holiness, but also through sancification, sanctify, saint, holy one, hallow, wholly, consecrate and set apart. It is hardly clear to the average reader that these all express the same basic word in both Hebrew or Greek. Also holy, if it does mean set apart should be replaced, since it does not carry meaningfulness like set apart. If on the other hand it means whole, it coud be retained because the close relationship is visible through their respective similar spellings.

Third, I think it is important to understand that teaching is important in terms of a change of place and time. Holy was not hard to understand in its own day. It is a change in time and place that partly explains the possibility of misunderstanding it in our day. These issues need to be addressed like Nehemiah and the others did, so that the opposite understanding does not occur on this word. Should we maybe be more joyful than sorrowful when we hear this word?

Fourth, I think it is important to train people in the method of understanding. We must replace the inability to understand with the ability. The test of our training is the ease with which someone can perform a task before or after training. Training does not mean that everything is equally easy. It does mean that after training, a task should be easier rather than harder. Nehemiah 8 should be heavily mined for its insights on understanding. This is only a beginning in what I am writing now.

Fifth, I think we need to be sure we are transferring the right things. Each word refers to a referent and while our translation of words is significant, so is the issue of whether the things transferred are the same as the things in the Word of God. Holy may be the translation, but does it refer to the transfer of wholeness into our lives or does it refer to the separateness of our lives from those who are sinners? Which fits in accord with God's regulations? Have we transferred the right things. One of my professors referred to this as transculturation, something different from just translation.

These are the tips of the iceberg in terms of implications. Over time, I will develop each of these separately more in-depth along with showing other angles on the vital topic of what holy means. I am convinced it must mean one of two things. Either holy means whole or it means separate. This method from Nehemiah 8 will help me and you sort this out. We face barriers to understanding holy, but so did they face barriers to understanding in their time. These barriers can be overcome through 1) total, 2) translate, 3) teach, 4) train and 5) transfer.

In Christ,

Pastor Jon

Holy: Understanding it Better in Terms of Wholistic Communication

2011-06-30T22:34:00.049-05:00

I want to challenge a tendency of method in defining holy. It is that we assume that our method in defining the word holy is entirely sound, healthy or wholesome. Each of these descriptions, by the way, are translations for the same word in the book of Titus.  I think that before we claim to have a sound method, we need to insure that is it comprehensive or that it is wholesome.

Wholesome or wholistic (to sometimes be distinguished from holistic) communication means looking at holy from four major angles of method: 1) logical, 2) rhetorical, 3) grammatical and 4) scientific. One of the problems is that these issues are often not addressed, because of the atomistic tendency of some of the educational world and some of communication theory. What I mean by atomistic is that they keep delving into smaller and smaller details of parts rather than rising to the level of looking at things in terms of the larger whole. This is like looking at the parts of bikes without also examining a fully assembled bike and the method of using it or its usefulness and benefit as a whole.

In other words, holy is often examined through just one of these four angles or some small part of a angle, rather than addressing it through all four angles.  Each of these has to do with the method used to determine the meaning or definition of holy. It is not just a matter of the word holy itself, but also the method we use to determine its meaning.

This particular piece of writing will look at the things we learn in the classrom by studying more than by the things we learn in daily life through the real world. This is because we are looking at things called words that suit a classroom setting pretty well.  I will look at some of the starting points for our methods of defining words. I will not in this blog attempt to give evidence or proof so much as lay out problems and potential solutions. What I hope to accomplish is to lay out at a higher level where the problems and potential solutions for method are located.  .

Logically, there is a mathematical inconsistency between rhetoric and grammar that is not resolved.   You could say that between the basic classical foundations of learning; grammar, logic and rhetoric, there remains an inconsistency. Rhetoric, in dealing with the larger components of language, recognizes five major parts (or four major parts with one of its aspects functioning as the whole). Grammar on the other hand, in dealing with the smaller components of language, recognizes eight major parts plus the whole of speech with its total of nine (including speech as a whole). Logically, five does not equal nine. This mathematical inconsistency should be resolved. Why five and nine or four and eight? Why are not the larger and smaller parts of communication mathematically parallel with each other? The solution to this inconistency could be through the universal or basic classes of meaning recognized in the literature dealing with semantics. If we can resolve this inconsistency, it would give us a better idea of what class of meaning best fits with the usage of holy in the Bible.

Rhetorically, persuasion is concerned with connecting with others. The problem is that the higher critical views of history have pushed aside taking seriously rhetoric for a number of years.  Rhetoric got buried under scepticism about the honesty of persuasion. It as though Plato's sceptical view of rhetoric prevailed once again in history. Notice how the word rhetoric is usually used in our language today in negative sense. So a whole new branch of learning called speech communication was developed with little connection to rhetoric. This caused the insights of rhetoric to be ignored far too often in approaching the Biblical text. What I am finding is that understanding the methods of honest persuasion using rhetoric helps in better understanding the contexts surrounding holy, because now ideas like parallelism in speech seen as legitimate ways to try to communicate in order to persuade. This actually is very critical to understanding the false and true arguments from context for the meaning of holy. Too often context is examined too broadly without any sense of whether there is a connection to the word holy through a method of parallelism or otherwise or whether a word just happens to appear next to holy in a context. There has been too much guessing. This can be solved through better understanding classical and Hebrew rhetoric in its own right.

Grammatically, the problem is that too much of the material written on holiness depends solely on traditional or on structural grammar, for those who still care about rhetoric. Then add to this the problem that people have lost interest in the topic, because of the way it is taught. To many people it bears no relation to how they learned language before they arrive at school.   So people fail to see any relevance for it.  The traditional (not necessarily the classic) approach largely points to etymology and the structural approach largely points to usage or context. While these are both valuable, they do not measure up to the explanatory power of transformational grammar with its recognition of rules that capture an unending activity of communicating. The technology of transformational grammar must be fully used, even as the technology of the computer should be harnessed for good rather than evil. So the inconsistency of not using the insights of transformational grammar and yet using other technologies like the computer for its advantages needs to be corrected.   Grammar also needs to be made relevant so more people care. That may be the greater problem.

Scientifically, the problem is that what I have found to be the greatest insight of linguistics (the study of language) is not being used, when it comes to understanding meaning and how definitions should be written.  Whether it be the insights of archaeology and what we have learned about 6th century B.C. grammar in India, or it be the insights on universals because we have such a larger base of languages to examine today as opposed to the classical past or it be the insights into the human brain and how it works in psychology, we need to use natural knowledge to its full explanatory capability alongside of supernatural revelation. Both kinds of revelation should matter.  My graduate studies in the area of the philosophy of science taught me a great deal about the importance of natural revelation alongside of supernatural revelation in the Bible. You ignore either one of these sources of revelation or knowledge or what was previously hidden at your peril. The most important insight for me from linguistics has been the core classes of meaning which also have a lot to do with the ability of search engines to work so effectively. Understanding language at a very fundamental level can really set the stage for what the various alternative meanings of holy really mean in terms of actual significance. So the inconsistency of not using the latest insights from linguistics or from the philosophy of science needs to be corrected for the linguistics we are using to be considered soundly scientific.

These four areas make up the wholesome or wholistic approach I would like to see pursued in defining holy. It would help in making sound its definition beyond its current shaky status, regardless of which definition is arrived at through effort. Again, all of this sketch is broad and not in detail. This is all very preliminary to the work that still must be done and is being done.  There is a lot more that must be fleshed out for these insights to be seen as truly effective. I hope though that at least I have gotten you thinking in the some new sound directions.

In Christ,

Pastor Jon

Holy: Understanding it Better Through 2 Chronicles 5:11

2011-06-16T19:34:00.000-05:00

In 2 Chronicles 5:11, it reads in very literal translation: "And it happened as the priests were going from the sanctuary - for all the priests who were present had sanctified themselves without observing divisions." This translation demonstrates the possibility of a contrast between "sanctified" and "observing divisions." In that case, holy's or sanctified's basic meaning would be that of whole.

You could understand it this way " ... for all the priest who were present were themselves the whole without observing any divisions [among themselves]." This is at least plausible and the contrast with "without observing divisions" would make its meaning also contrast with being set apart or separate.

So this verse at least demonstrates what is at stake in terms of understanding a great number of passages throughout the Bible. By itself, the evidence is not earthshattering, but a number of passages with this same plausibility would be. Please think about it.

In Christ,

Pastor Jon

Holy: Understanding it Better Through the Minority and Majority Views

2011-06-01T08:32:00.000-05:00

Since biblical times, the meaning of holy has been understood in different ways. An argument over its meaning may even be hinted at during the time of Jesus and in the biblical record itself. At any time there are usually minority and majority views on a topic. At the present time, the majority view is that holy means separate or to be set apart. Also at the present time, the minority view is that holy means whole. There are also other meanings out there as well, yet I consider these two meanings to be the most hopeful correct meanings. The problem is that people treat the majority view as a consensus view. The solution is to understand the actual status of a majority view and to understand the requirements for a minority view.

One of the purposes of this blog is to ensure that the minority view is not overlooked because of the majority view. My reason for this is that the might of supporters is not always right. If that were true, then historically holy means whole might be right. Before the 20th century, holy means whole was the primary definition for holy in Protestant circles at least. Set apart was another meaning for holy, but oversimplifying some, it was the secondary definition.

Yet a minority view must always understand its status and realize that it must earn the right to be the majority view. It has to be humble. It has to be meek. It has to work harder in order to change its status. It also must accept its status, if it fails to provide evidence for its position. Being the underdog doesn't make a position right.

So the majority cannot impose a tyranny with its status and exclude the minority view from consideration as though it enjoys a consensus status. Likewise the minority cannot impose anarchy with its status and by force rather than ballots impose its view on others. Each must remain diligent in proving its case to legitimately hold a majority status.

I hope you will consider both points of view in your quest for the meaning of holy. As I present more and more evidence, I hope you will be swayed by the evidence more than by the number of supporters. Yet in the end, the number of supporters does matter. Let's just hope the current majority is based on evidence and not on peer pressure. That is my serious quest.

In Christ,

Jon

Holy: Understanding it Better Through the Options

2011-05-06T17:35:00.004-05:00

If you want the simple answer for the meaning of holy, then it would consist in a one word answer.  One is the essence of simple. In that case, I might say it means whole. But that may not be a satisfactory answer for you, when you consult other sources that say it means set apart. You are likely to want an explanation in that case.  Why isn't the meaning of holy simple like some other words?

Have you ever made adequate plans that allowed you to avoid the loss of an item? In contrast, have you ever lost an item and tried to recover it? I mean, for example, that you didn't leave your cell phone charger at a motel room, because you double-checked your room and took it with you before you left. Contrast that with the time you did leave it behind, because you had to rush to catch your shuttle service and so you left the charger behind.   Double-checking for the charger and taking it with is a lot less complex than trying to recover a cell phone charger you left behind. It also can take a lot of time to recover it when you call the motel, they search for it. they get back to you, you pay postage, they send it to you, you wait for it to arrive or you decide to go purchase a new one and it is not in stock, etc. You get the idea.

Unfortunately for holy, we are dealing with a recovery process. Let me illustrate the complexity of its recovery through the example of a multiple choice test.

If I was to give a multiple choice test on the meaning of holy, there would be a lot of options.   Over the long period of trying to find its meaning, many have claimed to find it and found different meanings or different clues to its meaning. If I list the possible multiple choices in historical order, then there would also be a further lesson to learn. The choices are not only more than one or two. They have also grown to many options over time.

My ultimate desire is to arrive at the one meaning intended in Ancient Hebrew, Ancient Aramaic and then later in Greek.   My purpose right now is to show that the recovery of the lost meaning of holy means that the problem is complex and that fixing the problem also takes more time because the simple meaning of holy was lost.   You could say that the many possible multiple choices proves it was once lost. This could not have been case in the ancient text. There is no indication of such an expansive list of meaning nor of the need for so many clues outside the text.

The multiple choice question and its options might look like the following:

What is the ancient meaning of holy in other English words? (Please choose only the best possilble answer for the present time.)

a. whole/sum of all his attributes/complete/fully prepared

b. set apart/separate/set apart from/set apart to

c. pure/clean

d. both a and b (a is primary, b is secondary)

e. together a, b and c

f. either a or b, based on possible roots (but not both)

g. either a, b or c based on possible roots and biblical context (but not more than one of them)

h. b modified by a (ex. wholly other, wholly set apart)

i. treasured/unique/not common (sometimes tied to b)

j. fully prepared (sometimes tied to a)

k. deity (a synonym for god)

l. b and f together (possibly b only, yet boldly eliminate the other possibility)

m. a and f together (possibly a only, yet boldly eliminate the other possiblity)

n. a and f, yet possibly b (based on favored probability, yet without eliminating the other possibility)

o. b and f, yet possibly a (based on favored probability, yet without eliminating the other possibility)

p. any one of the other possible meanings not listed, but none of the above (etc.)

q. righteousness, truth, love and goodness combined as four quadrants of the whole of character

Among these options, I have chosen different answers at different times. But perhaps the best answer at this moment (not for all time) for me is: n. whole, but still possibly b. set apart. The ultimate goal would then be to arrive at a. whole.

It is the best to me, because I think the combined evidence leans the evidence in the direction of a. whole, but it also recognizes two advances in trying to recover the meaning of holy. First, it recognizes that there was strength in the past in the answer whole and set apart, but also sees an advance in knowledge from the late 19th ct. that says it must be one of these two meanings and not both. So "yet" must take the place of "and" until there is a further advance in our recovery process.

The recovery of possible meanings before the 19th century and then joining them together in similar fashion is no longer possible. Also q. might be true, yet it remains largely unproven until texts like Psalm 33 are more thoroughly examined. I plan on doing this in the future.

So when you are next searching for the definition of holy, please remember that the recovery of its possible meaning makes the multiple choice options much longer than what you will find in a standard dictionary or lexicon (a technical foreign language dictionary). Holy's simple meaning got lost and now we have to recover it.

I guess it all boils down to two general points: (1) recovery is complex and prevention is simple and (2) recovery is longer and prevention is shorter. We should not be shocked by the amount of complexity that has been created nor by the large expenditure of time on the meaning of holy by scholars and translators.

Yet also recall that not all the answers are equal ("best") and sooner or later, one answer will emerge that will convince a great number of people that it is the one and only best answer. I believe eventually we will arrive back at a simple answer like that of a. whole or b. set apart. I look forward to that day and I keep looking for the lost item and clues to the simple (one) meaning until that day arrives.

In Christ,

Jon

Holy: Understanding it Better Through a Healthy Process

2011-05-06T17:35:00.000-05:00

Health is taked about a lot lately. My observation as an athletic director (a part time occupation) is that most of the time the process given to attain health is not complete. So by default the promoted process cannot attain the health it claims. For example, a diet may be promoted, but there is no mention of exercise or dealing with past illnesses, etc. Likewise the discussion in this blog must be complete or it will not examine the meaning of holy in a healthy or complete way.

The major prongs of the fork aimed at looking for the meaning of holy in this blog are:

Priority -- this is concerned with the theological perspective that holy is chief among the moral virtues. Unfortunately, other moral virtues like love, etc. were allowed to supplant it in the 20th century. I have a separate blog for this subject. It is among my links on the side bar of this blog.

Recovery – this is concerned with the historical perspective that holy’s meaning must be recovered once lost. Prevention of the loss of meaning is not an option right now, but only in the future. This was my focus in the early going, though not as intentionally as I wish I could claim. It is the focus on this piece of writing.

Certainty – this is concerned with the rhetorical perspective that saying holy means something is stronger than saying that holy seems to mean something. This perspective avoids skepticism where there is ample evidence. It also tries to avoid presumption where there is controversy rather than certainty. It recognizes the current controversy and hopes to overcome it.

Discovery – this is concerned with the biblical perspective that is very high among my concerns. This summer, I am taking a graduate course that I hope will greatly improve my efforts on this prong. Research following a process I have layed out previously for decipherment is critical to this part of the complete process.

This particular entry in this blog is mainly concerned to highlight that it is no small thing to say that we are in a place of recovery rather than of prevention, when it comes to the meaning of holy. If prevention were always the rule, then continuity with tradition would make the enterprise of this blog obsolete. But as is so often the case, people rather than doing their due diligence in preparation and prevention are guilty of having to rely instead on cure and recovery. That means sometimes change (transformation) and the renewing of the mind of Romans 12 are essential.

Such is the case with holy. Even during the last 500+ years, the meaning of holy has not been without controversy. The common practice was to preserve at least 2 meanings together. You could say one meaning, wholeness, was central or primary and the other meaning, separate, was marginal or secondary. But in the last 100+ years, the controversy has now a higher risk attached to it.

The risks now are much higher than they used to be, because one meaning is used exclusively without the other, even though based only on a marginal (slightly higher than 50%) probability. The reason is because of a great level of boldness or recklessness on the part of late 19th century scholars, depending on your perspective.

The way that the meaning of holy as whole came to be no longer taught in the last 100+ years in most circles is due to a recognition that it could not be both meanings. In other words, a choice had to be made based on the root words for each meaning, because neither of the two possible roots supported both meanings. This was an advance in scholarly knowledge.

What may not have been an advance was eliminating the appearance of probability and substituting a sense of dogmatism, where it does not exist. This is referred to as presumption. We read the following in the preface to the 1611 KJV:

For as it is a fault of incredulitie, to doubt of those things that are evident: so to determine of such things as the Spirit of God hath left (even in the judgment of the judicious) questionable, can be no lesse than presumption. Therfore as S. Augustine saith, that varietie of Translations is profitable for the finding out of the sense of the Scriptures: so diversitie of signification and sense in the margine, where the text is not so cleare, must needes doe good, yea is necessary, as we are perswaded.

http://www.kjvbibles.com/kjpreface.htm (I did make one minor obvious correction to quote)

So I think a big part of what I am doing in this blog is recoverying a meaning that goes against what a judicious translator should do. I believe strongly in the no longer understood virtue of prudence that shows caution, when uncertainty exists. Not the kind that is excessive, but the kind that avoids simplicity and naivete. I wish I could say that the loss of the meaning of holy and the need to recover it does not exist, but the history of the definition of holy says otherwise. That is why many of my older posts dealt with historical biblical scholars and leaders and their understanding of holy. I hope I have in some ways helped recover what might prove valuable at the end of a healthy understanding of holy's meaning.

Please watch especially this coming summer for a great development of the biblical data and for concrete evidence of what holy means. I am excited what the Lord may do through a class I hope to take this summer with a highly regarded Hebrew scholar.

In Christ,

Jon

Holy: Understanding it Better Through ALL the Evidence

2011-03-31T09:51:00.006-05:00

When it comes to evidence, I am committed to it. What stands in its way are: the suppression of evidence, inconclusive evidence and hearsay evidence. The way to break through any of these is to: ask, seek and knock. It is like when you want to travel from one place to another. You ASK directions from your current location to your destination, you SEEK or travel according to the directions you are given and you KNOCK upon your arrival at your destination.

Hearsay evidence happens when we ask directions from someone, who does not know the way to our destination. They give us bad directions. Inconclusive evidence is when we are seeking or traveling, yet we are not yet in a position to knock on the door. There is the danger of getting ahead of ourselves in our claims. Suppression of evidence happens when we have arrived at our destination, yet we fail to disclose what we found, when the door is open. In my experience, I have asked a lot of questions and received some great directions. Yet I feel that too many scholars are guilty of reaching a final conclusion from inconclusive evidence, when they ought to see themselves as still seeking and not yet having knocked at the door. They fail to seek all the way to the final destination.

Here are some examples of where seeking means that we have to watch out for inconclusive evidence. Both of these scholars, Rudolph Otto and Norman Snaith, admit as much in their primary books on holy yet too often this is forgotten, because the majority the pages in their books imply a final destination on the meaning of holy.

I want to present the evidence that suggests seeking rather than knocking as my and our current position on the defintion of holy. These are pieces of evidence that could be called inconclusive, indirect or inferred. This does not mean they are faulty. In fact they are refreshingly honest. It only means that seeking is distinguished from knocking.

They are:

Translation evidence - it is important to understand that in many European traditions there is a history of understanding the ancient Hebrew as related to the idea of wholeness through the choice of words like the English word holy. This word was not chosen because of its relation to set apart. This evidence by itself is not final, yet it is indirectly helpful.

Decipherment evidence - the process of decipherment for languages that are unknown at the time of discovery is now an organized process. This evidence is still inconclusive, yet only because it has never been fully applied to the ancient Hebrew word for holy. I am only beginning to work out this process. This is process that promises an arrival at a door.

Language evidence - the multitude of languages around the world have words that indicate parts and wholes as well as words for set apart. What would be worthy of detailed study would be to look at the prominence of each of these concepts. One linguist's study suggests that words having to do with part-whole are the most prominent in the languages of the world. It would be indirect evidence, but still get us further along the way.

Part-Whole evidence - this is a topic that is very hot in some circles as a philosophical or worldview starting point. It is always important to understand a worldview in terms of its strengths and weaknesses and potential pitfalls. This is very indirect, yet still helpful.

Concrete evidence - this is really a sub-set of decipherment evidence and yet it deserves separate mention, because of the importance of both learning and studying. It is important to study words and learn concrete objects in real life. This could yield very direct evidence, if a link between a picture of a concrete object and a worded text can be shown on some ancient object or in some ancient manuscript. This approach is also seen in the work of the now deceased Mary Douglas, the great anthropologist. This is not suprising since anthropologists are more aware of the concrete than many language experts or biblical scholars. Her primary insight is on the idea of whole stones for an altar and the holy altar text of Deuteronomy. Some scholars began working on this, yet haven't finished the work that needs to be done here.

Etymological (letters) evidence - this evidence has a lot of its weight relying on the connections between letters and knowing the history of letters (or alphabets). This evidence becomes more reliable as you dig deeply into it. Yet it's reputation has been damaged by quick conclusions rather than deep digging. Seek before you knock should be written on all this work! So far, this evidence is by scholarly admission inconclusive, but still valuable.

Contextual (cognates) evidence - this is perhaps the most popular among pastors and second-rate scholarship. The quick conclusion is that because something is in a context, then it indicates the meaning of something else in the context. Again, not so quick! Is it parallel? Is it significantly limiting? Are there any other possibilities? This evidence increases plausibility, yet again it is only conclusive when we know its status as a parallel or otherwise and when we know all the possibilities and can see that a word in the context makes a significant limit on what the word we are trying to define means. This option is very important evidence, yet not for amateur linguists!

Dictionary evidence - this is very indirect, but it gives laypeople access to what past translators were thinking, when they chose to use a translation like the English word holy for a word in the Hebrew text. The path to holy is traced and it comes through words clearly connected to whole. Now when you turn to the Latin language and start digging there, then things get more complicated. That needs more digging or seeking.

Lexicon evidence - this one falls into the idea that we know a lot already or we know it all category. When people see 7 lexicons that agree, they assume that the knock on the door of arrival has occured. Again, not so fast! In the field of evidence, it is not how many say the same thing, but how many are eyewitnesses. You don't want to follow the many just repeating the words of just one. In the late 1800s a corner was turned on the meaning of holy in Hebrew and in Greek. For Hebrew, Gesenius seems to be the popular lexicon compiler that others follow. They rely on his witness. For Greek, Cremer seems to be the popular lexicon compiler that others follow. They rely on these two witnesses. From one witness for either the Hebrew or the Greek, spring many witnesses. Few after them seek further. They do not seem to seek out earlier lexicons for further questioning of witnesses. Neither is the search into other texts very significant. I found an unsearched set of "texts" yesterday. I think this is a very worthwhile project in which I have sought a little bit. It is time consuming however.

Impact evidence - the evidence of world history and life change is important. At the time of past transformations of the church by the renewing of minds, there has been a large world impact. In my church's broad background, there is the impact following the transformation of Martin Luther when his mind was renewed through his renewing understanding of righteousness. This is repeated many times all the way through the time of Charles Haddon Spurgeon and his renewing understanding of goodness. So far, the meaning of set apart despite having 100 plus years on the central stage has resulted in no such impact. This is indirect evidence, but it is evidence from outcomes and benefits. Whole also seems to have not had the same impact as there other words in the last 500 + years, but it has never been freed from a dual meaning depending on the context of holy in Scripture. So it remains untested as a singular idea.

Ancient culture evidence - every day there is new evidence from ancient cultures around the globe being unearthed. I saw another example last night. While these cultures are not linked to ancient Hebrew culture directly, they are part of the ancient world. I think we can get clues as to possible meanings for holy and the closer the culture is to that of Hebrew culture, the more significant a finding it may be. Yet all these ancient cultures should be studied for the range of possibilitites, so we are not blinded by our singular worldview from the present. I have seen very indirect evidence from as far away as North America that could be significant when combined with other evidence, since it would never be better than indirect.

Communication evidence - there is a heavy bias in our education system towards communication theory built on classical grammar rather than on classical rhetoric. Let me only say this much. It is very eye opening, when one starts from the underlying concepts behind rhetoric rather than grammar. These classical views are not entirely out of sync with each other, but I believe one is superior to the other and gives indirect evidence on the meaning of holy that is significant. Eugene Nida, despite other weaknesses in the field of translating, carried forward the insights of rhetoric very effectively. That is his real genius, not his dynamic equivalence theory.

Psychological evidence - very indirect is all the work on the workings of the brain and the work on what it takes for transformation to happen. Nevertheless people who are stuck emotionally on the inside, can learn a lot about the renewing of the mind through this literature. Very indirect, but still helpful.

Original Language Speakers evidence - sometimes it is assumed that because a Jewish speaker of antiquity compared to ourselves gives a defintion for holy, it must be correct. That is a dangerous assumption, because they are not contemporary with the texts, even if they are Jewish. So sometimes the definition of holy is determined by this kind of indirect evidence way too quickly. Seek rather than knock are the watchwords.

Finally, I want to say this is not all the evidence that can be given, but I leave it up to you to add some if you like. Yet I hope it does summarize some important ways to "Ask, seek and knock." Together we can avoid the pitfalls of hearsay evidence, inconclusive evidence and suppressed evidence by following this entire process to reach our final destination of one central meaning for holy. Happy asking, seeking and knocking!

In Christ,

Jon

Holy: Understanding it Better Through Continuous Learning

2011-03-22T14:32:00.004-05:00

John Wooden was not just a great basketball coach, but also a great teacher. He once said: "When you're through learning, you're through." When I hear some scholar's comments about the meaning of holy, I can tell "they're through." They have stopped learning.

The problem is that the job is not done. The very best scholars admit there is more work to be done. These scholars go beyond just copying the work of previous lexicons. But it is far easier to feel the comfort of being "through learning."

For pastors and for lay people this is also a temptation. The work can seem daunting, but it is not. The course has already been mapped out by others, who have solved far more difficult problems. The problems of deciphering Linear B, the Mayan glyphs or the Egyptian hieroglyphs were far more daunting. But certain individuals working on each of these languages didn't believe they were through learning. It was their failed colleagues who imagined that.

Just remember this: "When you're through learning, you're through." Maybe we need to go beyond the business world's "continuous improvement" to also promote "continuous learning" among scholars and Christians.

In Christ,

Jon

Understanding Holy Better: Concrete Things and Abstract Words

2011-02-23T09:59:00.009-06:00

I firmly stand on the principle of Scripture alone in the sense of what is in Scripture has a unique quality of truth compared to the writings outside of it. I think this is terrifically relevant to the discussion on the meaning of holy. The danger though is that we limit not just truth to being found only there, but also we limit ourselves to only one biblical principle.

A valuable principle in addition to Scripture alone and the broader principle of truth is the principle of concrete things and the broader principle of good. Recently, in watching a DVD about the Aztecs and one of their monuments, the narrator said that at one time the majority of their evidence for the chief monument buried under Mexico City was documentary evidence, but now that had changed through archaeological evidence in finding the ancient monument itself.

I don't think that the shift from documentary evidence to the actual thing itself as evidence is harmful. In fact, it is a concrete good. When I defend the principle of truth in Scripture, I hope I do not turn a blind eye to the principle of good in the evidence of real things.

This is why finding a picture of holiness in some text next to the word for holiness would go a long way toward solving our problems with its definition. Likewise, better yet would be to find the concrete objects themselves as described in both a text and the picture. This would nail the definition of holy to the wall for good.

On the flipside, in the last few days I was searching commentaries on Romans for the authors' definitions for holy. It was a sad state of affairs. They all took a slightly different angle on the word. Their meanings were not the same, though in some cases they did overlap or agree.

We can find the concrete evidence we need and still uphold the principle of Scripture alone. Abstract documentary evidence is not passe. It is not a thing of the past. It still contributes truth. What is also a present concern is the matter of a targeted quest toward concrete evidence that should be available somewhere. I pray God will help us all find it. He's already helped me find a concrete biblical picture in a verbal description of righteousness and justice. The same can happen again for all of us on the meaning of holy.

In Christ,

Jon

Holy: Understanding it Better Through Concrete Objects

2011-01-29T12:51:00.012-06:00

You may not be aware previously that the meaning of holy is uncertain. There are many words in the Bible whose meanings are not difficult to determine. Holy does not fall into that category. So in light of this uncertainty, I have decided to work on the issue from a position that is certain.

Holy in the bible means either whole or separate. I would rank the meaning of whole at 70% and the meaning of separate at 30%. Many would reverse those two percentages, yet I have the advantage of a great deal of unpublished material these other people have never seen. I am doing my best to get all of this unpublished material on the internet, but my time is limited at this point in the course of my ministry.

Only in the face of uncertainty, do I think it is wise to hold onto two definitions of holy. I believe we live in one of those times. So it is wise, to "not throw the baby out with the bathwater", but to be sure you've separated the two of them first. This same sage advice is foolish, when no reasonable uncertainty exists.

I am also aware that these promising definitions for holy are polar opposites. So my goal is to remove any reasonable uncertainty about the meaning of holy and to then introduce a definition with a reasonable amount of certainty to support it.

There are four keys to solving any issue of decipherment for an unknown language or for an uncertain word in a language according to the experts in deciphering unknown languages:

· There should be a large enough database and texts of the language (Amount)
· There should be a connected cultural context of the language (Relationship)
· There should be understood parallel or bilingual inscriptions of the language (Action)
· There should be pictorial or concrete references with the text of the language (Thing)

This is where the proof must be gathered to prove the meaning of holy. Fortunately, we are able to find evidence for all four of these keys. For our limited purposes in this blog, I would like to look at the last key of finding a pictorial or concrete reference for the word of holy.

In a concrete sense, for something to be "cut" (the root idea behind separate) or "uncut" (an analogy for whole) is very pictorial. It is easy to separate the two of them visually. Just take out your steak knife and cut a carrot. You have a very good visual of cut. Now magine another carrot that remains uncut. They are picture perfect polar opposites.

When we look at the concrete objects closely associated with holy, we find these as a beginning list: days, stones, ground, moutain, sacrifice and body. I will later talk about the more abstract concepts of self, name and morality as extensions of these concrete or literal meanings of cut or uncut.

If holy means "to set apart" or "to separate", then its literal or concrete idea is as follows for each concrete object:

a day cut off from six other days (Geneis 2:1-3)
altar stones cut off from other stones (Deuteronomy 27:6)
ground/area cut off from other ground/area (Exodus 3:5)
a mountain cut off from other mountains or land (Exodus 19:3, Deuteronomy 4:11)
a sacrifice cut off from other sacrifices (Leviticus 1:3, Romans 12:1-2)
a body cut off from other bodies (Leviticus 21:15-20, 1 Corinthians 6:19)

If holy means "to make or to keep whole", then its literal or concrete idea is as follows for each concrete object:

an uncut day of evening to evening (Genesis 2:1-3)
an uncut/whole altar stone (Deuteronomy 27:6 )
an uncut ground/area (Exodus 3:5)
an uncut mountain of the entire thing (Exodus 19:3; Deuteronomy 4:11 )
an uncut/unblemished sacrifice (Leviticus 1:3; Romans 12:1-2 )
an uncut/unmaimed body (Leviticus 21:15-20; 1 Corinthians 6:19)

If we extend the literal or concrete meanings of "cut" into more figurative or abstract meaning, then the idea by implication in various contexts (even where it is not used directly):

a self cut off from other selves (Luke 10:26-28)
a name cut off from other names (Matthew 6:9; Luke 11:2)
a morality cut off from immorality (Romans 7:12 and all contexts dealing with holy, righteous, true, loving and good)

Every single one of these concepts is biblical, the question is whether they are biblical through the use of the word holy. If they are not, then by adding the instances of holy to the list of even a correct biblical idea, increases the magnitude of importance beyond the importance the bible assigns to them. In other words, we distort the message of the Bible. On the flip-side, we also diminish the importance of being whole in relationship to each of these things. That may be the great crime.

If we extend the literal or concrete meanings of "uncut" into more figurative or abstract meaning, then the idea is by implication in various contexts (even where it is not used directly):

an uncut self - heart, soul, strength and mind are all essentials (Luke 10:26-28)
an uncut/corporate/comprehensive name - no word is more comprehensive of personality (Matthew 6:9; Luke 11:2)
an uncut morality - righteous, true, loving and good are all included (Romans 7:12 and all contexts dealing with holy, righteous, true, loving and good)

Every single one of these concepts is also biblical. The problem is the same as we see with the other meaning of separate, if it is not biblically accurate in its understanding of holy. We distort and diminish the other concept in a way that is not biblical.

In either case, the implications are large because holy is such a large concept in the bible. That is why we cannot afford to get it wrong. If it were a minor concept, then there would be no serious implication from error.

I hope these concrete objects in the context of holy help you make sense of the two ideas of "set apart" and "whole." They are diametrically opposed to each other in concrete meaning and the weighty importance of the meaning of the word holy potentially distorts things in a large way. This is not a small thing because decipherment is only the beginning. The implications are far greater because they effect our view of the world.

In future pieces of writing, I will further develop the other important pillars for deciphering the definite meaning of holy. It is the combination of them that I believe will give us reasonable certainty about what the word means. But for now I hope you are able to make sense of things in terms of meaning, because that is an important first step.

It is paramount that every real Christian take this very seriously. It has grave or momentous consequences, because biblical words have big implications far beyond any other words on this planet.

In Christ,

Jon

Holy Means Whole (or Set Apart): According to Solomon's Wisdom

2010-12-31T17:38:00.005-06:00

There is an under-appreciated piece of Solomon's wisdom that I recently recovered in Ecclesiastes 9:4. It says that there is hope for the living "because a live dog is better than a dead lion." Its application to the debate over the meaning of holy in the Biblical text is important.

It suggests a wiser approach than I have taken previously to defining this word. It seems appropriate at the very end of 2010 to do a little reflection. As I reflect back to creating my two blogs on the meaning of holy, I realize that I lacked some of Solmon's wisdom. I think I could have made a wiser decision by seeing that "a combined certainty of both possible definitions is better than a singular uncertainty of one definition."

Here is what I mean. Recently, I have run across a lot of admissions by great scholars and great minds that the idea that holy means "set apart" is "probably" or "possibly" the correct understanding. The problem for them, quoting some famous translators, is that: "they are wise [that] rather have their judgments at liberty in differences of readings, than to be captivated by one, when it may be the other."

That would make these scholars potential fools for choosing just one definition "when it may be the other." I too have been a fool at times, thinking I must be decisive and choose one even in the face of real uncertainty.

Martin Luther explained Solomon's advice this way: "Better a sparrow in hand than a crane in doubt." What is not doubtful is that holy means either "whole" or "set apart." Both together with differing probabilities may not look like a majestic crane, yet it is a sparrow without doubt.

My problem is that I cannot say today that I can remove some important doubt about holy means whole. Internally, I have more certainty, but the important thing is the evidence I have been able to present to others. I can say that I am at 70% sure that holy means whole, but that leaves a significant 30% chance I might be wrong on a very important word to define correctly. Better to be aware it might be another meaning than to kid myself.

I am choosing to go with Solomon's dog and Luther's sparrow. I want to be wise. I want to avoid a situation of uncertainty that risks "throwing out the baby with the bathwater." Past scholarship has thrown out some bathwater. Let's proceed with caution and make sure the next toss is bathwater too.

From this position of wisdom, learning and studying can then create a stronger and stronger argument for one or the other definition. Then and only then may one definition take a singular place without the other. The nice thing is that I can relax and commit myself to understanding rather than to making sure I don't look like a fool.

So when you see that my title says "Holy Means Whole (or Set Apart), know that I am wiser than I was before. I am wiser and I am hopeful, because "a [sure] dog is better than a [doubtful] lion." Be wise and have a Happy New Year!

In Christ,

Jon

Holy Means Whole: According to the Possibility that Holy Means Set Apart

2010-11-30T21:34:00.003-06:00

I have never noticed before, like I have recently, how many times writers qualify their definition of holy with words like: “probably,” “possibly,” “ plausible,” “seems,” “ assume” and “controversial.” Keep in mind that this kind of language is not material you will find in any lexicon or a dictionary entry for holy. In those places, you find a summary of already drawn conclusions. But in those books that look at the evidence and then draw a conclusion, there is the ability to say that whether you define holy as whole or as set apart, it is controversial or plausible.

It is difficult to say with full confidence what the meaning of holy is in Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek according to the greatest experts of the 20th century. Whether you read Rudolph Otto, Norman Snaith, Rabbi Dr. Klein or lesser lights in the 21st century on the internet, you find hesitancy among them to say that the definition proposed is definite. That is because trying to determine its root meaning is difficult for them. There are two different directions they can go, because of two possible roots for its meaning.

This problem would not matter, except that holy is the primary word for expressing God’s character whether you read Isaiah’s “holy, holy, holy” or Revelation’s (John’s) “holy, holy, holy.” Its importance is what causes some people to simply slam their Bible shut and say its meaning cannot be controversial. It is too important. But things are what they are regardless of our response. You can’t avoid difficulty by closing the book. There is a way though to conquer it.

I suggest that we open the book and see the reasons for hope that the controversy can be resolved. Ezekiel 45, for example, is a passage which could yield great results with skills of effective interpretation. In a longer space, I think I can prove that “holy” and “all” parallel each other significantly. Yet this is not the place or space for that extensive argument. Like a lexicon or dictionary with limited space, only so much ground can be covered here.

What argument does fit this space is the significance of great scholars using words like “probably”, “possibly,” “plausible,” “seems,” “assume” and “controversial” rather than words like “is” or “is not.” Their significance is that they all point toward a position of hedging one’s position between saying what something is and what something is not.

The lexicons and dictionaries pretty much create the impression rather than the reality that the definition of holy is a strongly held position. Yet the top scholars like Otto and Snaith say something a little less strong than that, as does the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, a highly regarded tool in evangelical circles. They also don’t say their definition is a weak one, only pointing out what holy does not mean. They clearly are confident beyond that point.

On a scale from strong to weak, people typically make themselves clear as to how strong they hold a position by either saying something is so, saying something seems to be so, or saying something is not so. The first position is the strongest and the most positive. It takes the greatest amount of strength to say. The second is the one that says something between strong and weak. The last is the weakest one, saying only what something is not. Saying I am incompetent in one thing is not as strong as saying I am competent to do another thing.

The key in action for producing strength is skill in wisdom. Daniel and his three fellow Jews possessed skill in all wisdom, as one reason that they rose to a place of prominence in their day according to Daniel 1:3-4. What great scholars are telling us is that their skills did not take them to a point of making a strong statement of what holy means. They felt they could only make a semi-strong statement.

That is being confident to the level of actual strength. I value their actual strength, rather than the strength that seems to be there when you read just lexicons and dictionaries. Again, that is part of the limit of tools like lexicons and dictionaries. That is not the same as an intentional exaggeration of strength. We must realize too that these tools also cover a whole language, not one word like holy in-depth. Their strength does lie in that ability, to survey an entire language in a handy volume.

The reason I am hopeful for the future is that I think the skill of these past scholars can be eclipsed by the skills already developed by those who have both learned and studied language, as my two professors in college had done. I wish I had the time to use the skills that they gave me to their full strength in this small space right now. It is only a matter of me having enough time in my schedule to do more than I am currently able to do. I have the skills, yet not the time.

I am convinced that their skills and the skills of other scholars I have been fortunate to study under mean that someday I and others with me can say confidently that either holy means whole or holy means set apart. We won’t have to hedge. I look forward to the day that our greatest scholars and our greatest ordinary learners can say confidently what it means.

In the meantime, I can say “probably” means strength is needed and in turn skill in wisdom is needed. The key is skill. Skill gives strength. It gives leverage. It gives us the advantage others didn’t have. I learned this in the classroom, the sports field and in the office. It lets you say realistically something strong rather than something semi-strong or weak. So I can end this day with a great amount of hope in my heart that the strength that skills give will one day get fully used. God willing, it is only a matter of time.

In Christ,

Jon

Holy Means Whole: According to Its Hebrew Etymology (Sort of)

2010-10-30T09:58:00.007-05:00

I have read that Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888) believed that holy means whole from a secondary source. Recently, I found another secondary source that takes me closer to what his view was on the meaning of holy and in another later blog, I will add to these comments from Hirsch's own primary sources, when I have more time for research. His definition in this secondary source is interpreted to be "to prepare." This is seen as in contrast to "sanctified" or "separate."

His principles tell me that his material is worthy of more research. I'll deal with two of his principles in this blog. In the Etymological Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew: Based on the Commentaries of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, the compiler, Rabbi Matityahu Clark, mentions in his introduction that "by using his etymological system, Hirsch provides unusual insights on common Biblical words and phrases" (p. xi). To quote him further, using holy as one example of unusual insights, he says:

The word [qadosh] is usually translated as `sanctified' or `separated.' But Hirsch explains (in his commentary to Num. 11:18) that the root [qadosh] means `to prepare'
or `to be at the very height of being absolutely ready for all that is good' (p. xii).

This is very close to my understanding of holy as whole, because this is a major implication from it. To further this argument, it fits well with the ideas of the 1800s scholar, Richard Trench, when he develops a group of Greek words that are related both to preparedness and to being whole. I can't develop this fully now, but after reading Hirsch's commentary and going back over Trench's insights, I hope to develop this further in a later blog.

At this point, what I find most fanscinating is the description of Hirsch's principles for understanding the meaning of Hebrew words. Clark says that Hirsch repeatedly said that one should not look to foreign languages to find the meanings of words in Torah (the Law in Hebrew). It is also said that he does not deny borrowing from other languages, but he insists that Hebrew is a "self-contained entity" (p. xii). He also believed Torah (the Law in Hebrew) contained clear and not obscure language.

When I studied LAMP (Language Acquistion Made Practical), one of the most important aspects of the course was the emphasis on connecting with others. Some succeeded at this while others failed, as primarily illustrated on the mission field and as outlined by Dr. Donald Larson, one of the key thinkers behind the LAMP method developed by the Brewsters.

Larson recognized five core principles toward success or failure in connecting: 1) connection and disconnection, 2) someone else and you, 3) insiders and outsiders, 4) ease and difficulty and 5) learning and studying. Each of the these five areas has two options and principles that were reflected by both those who succeeded and by those who failed.

Those who emphasized the former principle in each case, as in connection rather than disconnection, succeeded in connecting with others. Those who emphasized the latter principle in each case, as in disconnection rather than connection, failed in connecting with others. Now relevant to our purpose are two of these success principles. The principles of insiders and outsiders and the principles of ease and difficulty.

Rabbi Hirsch recognizes an insider or internal integrity in Hebrew. He recognizes the need to connect with the language from an insider's perspective on their language rather than relying too much on an outsider's perspective on their language. I think the advantages are perhaps best illustrated by the dangers of an outsider's interpretation.

For example, Moses Ibn Ezra is a significant interpreter of the Hebrew language especially preceding the Middle Ages and the state of Hebrew scholarship in his day. He clearly asserts at that time that the greatest breakthroughs in scholarship of Biblical Hebrew are attributable to Arabic influence. His method relies heavily on Arabic and Aramaic cognates. Some of this was likely due to Arabic being a living language at that time, while Hebrew was not a living language. That means Arabic had the advantage of being a language you can learn and not just study. This advantage according to Larson's principles may have resulted though in a distortion in violation of other principles of connecting. That may be why some say Moses Ibn Ezra overstated a shared Hebrew-Arabic cultural heritage. Hirsch is able to avoid this overstatement by taking more seriously an insider's perspective.

Rabbi Hirsch also reflects a commitment to the idea of ease in his idea that Scripture is clear rather than obscure in its language. This means that one understands that for the native speaker things are not as obscure as they seem to the foreigner. But the foreigner must maintain a firm belief that another person's language is an easy as their own, given the same circumstances. Otherwise motivation drops and a connection with another culture is compromised. That person who is failing in connecting then relies more and more on the ease of their own language while stressing also the difficulty of another's language. Hirsch is able to avoid this problem as well.

Through these twin commitments, Hirsch's work reflects more of an insider's view of Hebrew and an ease of working with the language itself rather than a commitment to other languages being easier or less obscure. I think that is why his etymological system and his commitment to the meaning of individual letters needs to be taken seriously. It has an ease about it in using the language. Hebrew's etymology may not be like our own, but instead easier to use for those who grew up with it.

In any case, his study of etymology opens a new door to understanding Hebrew that may move us from an obliviousness about what holy means, beyond controversy over what it means and finally to an obvious position on what it means. If the ease at which he arrives at some definitions is any indication, then an easy insider meaning of holy may be just around a near corner.

In Christ,

Jon

Holy Means Whole: According to the Best (Not the Good)

2010-09-14T08:41:00.005-05:00

One of my professors had a saying he was fond of repeating: "The good is the enemy of the best." Just yesterday I witnessed another episode of the truth of this saying. I think the same holds true for the discussion of the meaning of holy. Many good people hold the position that holy means to set apart or to be separate. Yet the problem is that being good is not good enough.

The best reformers of the past 500 plus years in my tradition were: Martin Luther, John Calvin, Richard Hooker, John Wesley and Charles Haddon Spurgeon. These were the best in the respective denominations of: Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican, Methodist and Baptist. Many good men and women preceded them and followed them. Yet when it comes time for renewal to happen again, the good can become the enemy of the best.

One of my favorite biblical examples of this comes from the biblical story of Israel's kings. Following David, it is not uncommon to notice that he has set the bar for all future kings including his son Solomon. Following David and Solomon (both who are recognized more than the others because they are also biblical authors), there is this succession of leaders: Jeroboam (arose first but didn't become a king till the time of Rehoboam), Rehoboam, Asa and Jehosophat.

Each of these kings at least started good or were good except in the case of certain issues. But none was on the level of the best in King David. Following these kings, there were a series of bad kings before once again good kings arose. They were: Joash, Amaziah, Uzziah and Jotham. Finally following these kings we hear of two of the best kings, who are compared to David favorably: King Hezekiah and King Josiah. During their time we read about festival events that exceeded those times of the good kings.

Generations struggle that follow even the best generations. There is always the dangers for generations that wise Solomon outlines:

There is a generation:
1) curses it's father
and does not bless it's mother (Proverbs 30:11 )
2) pure in its own eyes
yet is not washed from its filthiness (Proverbs 30:12)
3) oh, how lofty are their eyes!
and their eyelids are lifted up (Proverbs 30:13)
4) whose teeth are like swords
and whose fangs are like knives
to devour the poor from off the earth
and [to devour[ the needy from among men. (Proverbs 30:14)

These may seem like they only apply to the evil ones on earth, but they can also apply to the good people and movements as things degenerate after them or to the remnant of evil that is pointed out during their lifetime. For one example, Jehosophat is given warning by Elijah during his lifetime of this ties to King Ahab. He is not like his "father" King David in this regard.

Another book of wisdom, the book of James, points out the importance of the meekness of wisdom (James 3:13). This is in contrast to the bitter envy and self-seeking of the generations found in Proverbs 30 (James 3:14).

What I have noticed more and more as a Christian is that bitter envy and self-seeking are on the rise rather than the meekness of wisdom. In Jesus' day, his sect, either during his lifetime or following, became known as the Nazarene sect. He tried to convince four other sects to show the meekness of wisdom: the Sadducees, the Essenes (the Qumran community), the Pharisees and the Zealots. Yet they were very reluctant and only after his crucifixion to we read in Acts that many Pharisees believed and joined the Nazarene sect.

This is how sects that perhaps even had a good beginning can become the enemy of the best. In our day, the sects of liberals, conservatives, evangelicals and higher life movements (includes charismatics and holiness movments) are satisfied with holy means set apart or separate.

I would ask them to show the meekness of wisdom. I would also ask these generations to consider that while they may be good in many regards, their goodness may be the enemy of the best in hindering an objective hearing of the evidence on the definition of holy. James 3:14 warns against boasting and lying against the truth. This is sometimes more subtle than blatant for the good rather than the evil. King Asa and King Jeroboam were good kings, yet they should not be smug just because they are not like King Ahab. The good often does not like to acknowledge the best, because that requires a lack of envy and a supply of meekness. It is easier instead to boast that we are better than someone else. That requires no lack of envy and there is no need for meekness to show up.

I myself would rather meekly see the wisdom of the best of God's servants and then find a new reformation coming to us once again, than defend some sort of goodness and hinder another day like that of a King Hezekiah or a King Josiah. We had our warnings in the 20th century from people like Keith Green and Leonard Ravenhill. We also had warnings from people like Francis Schaeffer, Ray Stedman and R. A Finlayson, where we witnessed a desire for something better than these present day sects had to offer. What has happened to that longing?

Have we fallen into apathy? Has the good become the enemy of the best? Have we only eyes to see the faults of the best (I understand David had one)? Why can't we hear the evidence about the meaning of holy objectively? Why has no one from these sects called for an objective hearing of reformation views on holy to test the controversial position these four sects hold and to see if it can hold up under a challenge? Why are the originally good sects so quick to hold to a definition that has had over 100 years to prove itself effective and yet has little fruit to show for it?

I have no axe to grind. I have no desire for the latest new thing. I have submitted to a type of discipline unknowingly that helps me avoid envy. I have investigated the best of the Reformers and found that and found it crushes envy. How can a person who is putting on armor boast before people who have taken it off?

So I now wonder out loud: "How much is envy driving these contemporary sects right now?" Only actual actions that show the "meekness of wisdom" carries the answer. I am calling for an open objective hearing of all the evidence as I create my posts on the internet. That is all I ask for from our present Christian leaders. Will the good once again be the enemy of the best? Or will we see again the meekness of wisdom in action and see reformation? Time will tell the truth.

In Christ,

Jon

Holy Means Whole: According to Proof, Proof, Proof

2010-08-31T21:27:00.007-05:00

If you read through my blog you will notice in the titles "according to." The reason is because the purpose of this blog is to offer evidence for the meaning of holy. It offers all different kinds of proof. It essentially offers four separate kinds that combined form a very strong proof for why I think holy means being morally whole. They are: scriptural, traditional, experiential and reasonable.

Scriptural means that I have a high regard for the rule or measure of Scripture. I regard that measure as the standard in all things. It is a standard that stands alone.

Traditional means that I have a high regard for connections with other Christians over time. In other words, I would consider it very strange if I could not find Christians since the time of Christ/Messiah, who held the same viewpoint I am expressing. I would find it especially troublesome, if I could not find my views being held by fellow believers in Christ/Messiah during times of renewal as opposed to periods of degeneration.

Experiential means that character produces outcomes. It says in Scripture: "If my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray, then I will heal their land, etc." The condition of certain actions produces certain outcomes. I am troubled by our lack of good outcomes at present and it causes me to ask the question whether our understanding of God's character, and therefore what we imitate, is correct. Could it be that our definition of holy that is instrumental to character could be flawed?

Reasonable means that reason has a role. We are not to throw out our minds, but use them. We are to be as diligent for proof as the myriad of popular shows like CSI Miami. We are to desire proof from the evidence of our senses. We are to avoid nonsense. At present we are in trouble because the standards of proof are being lowered, not raised. I want to keep the standard up and look for proof that is valid to our minds. That is why I use tools related to language and not tools that fail to take language into account.

The troubling issue right now is that proof has fallen into disrepair when you look at the evidence for the ideas that holy means set apart or holy means separation (to). First, it does not have a myriad of evidence from many witnesses, but primarily from one witness. Second, it is not persuasive in the sense of conclusive, but instead is in a state of controversial when it comes to the evidence.

On the first point, I would like to quote Richard Hooker, the great Anglican writer, who once said: "Though ten persons be brought to give testimony in any cause, yet if the knowledge they have of the thing where they come as witnesses, appear to have grown from some one among them, and, to have spread itself from hand to hand, they are all in force but the one testimony" (Richard Chapman, Law and Revelation: Richard Hooker and His Writings, Norwich, UK: Canterbury Press, p. 28).

The great number of lexicons, who give witness to separation or set apart, fall under this problem. They are but one witness in most cases, because they have fed off of one source. The other witnesses that have tried primary investigation, also admit that their position is "controversial." This includes people like Rudolph Otto (author of The Idea of the Holy) and Norman Snaith (author of The Distinctive Ideas of the Old Testament). It is also admitted by the writer on qadosh (holy) in the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. (The latter does attempt a further proof, the other two did not).

On the second issue, I would like to quote Richard Hooker again: "... inasmuch as if it [that God's spirit did reveal] did come of God and should for that cause prevail with others, the same God which revealed it to them would also give them power of confirming it to others, either with miraculous operation, or with strong and invincible remonstrance of sound Reason, such as whereby it might appear that God would indeed have all men's judgments give place to it; whereas now the error and unsufficiency of their arguments do make it on the contrary side against them a strong presumption, that God has not moved their hearts to think such things as he has not enabled them to prove" (Chapman, p. 102-3). The last part is the most powerful in this quote: "to think such things as he has not enabled them to prove."

This really spoke to me when I read it, because it challenged me to consider what God has enabled me to prove. It also challenged me to think through what all writers on the subject of holy have been able to prove. It is a real challenge for parties on both sides. The right response is to meet this challenge rather than shrink from it. It does not solve the problem to avoid the problem. That is my issue with too much of what is written in the last 100 years. With little more than a controversial proof, big assumptions have been carried forward.

I think the better posture is to hit our knees, humble ourselves before God and ask him for the proof of what holy means. I myself desire greater proof for the point of view I have argued for. I realize I need further revelation from God that might convince a greater number of people that the proof is there in Scripture and that it is consistent with the other kinds of proof. Pray to God with me that he would bring the consequences of "proof, proof and proof" to our land.

In Christ,

Jon

Holy Means Whole: According to Dr. John Piper

2010-07-31T14:49:00.007-05:00

For a seminary class I am taking as part of my post-graduate degree program, I ran across the following quote from one of my professors in college, who is now pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, MN. He, in The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright, says:

The reasoning goes like this: The ultimate value in the universe is God - the whole panorama of all of his perfections. Another name for this is God's holiness (viewed as the intrinsic and infinite worth of his perfect beauty) or God's glory (viewed as the out-streaming manifestation of that beauty). Therefore, "right" must be ultimately defined in relation to this ultimate value, the holiness or the glory of God - this is the highest standard for "right" in the universe. Therefore, what is right is what upholds in proper proportion the value of what is infinitely valuable, namely, God (p. 64).

He says this in the context of defining what righteousness means. In the end, I think his definition of righteousness falls a little short, because he leaves out the idea of holiness and only speaks of God's glory, but in this portion of his paragraph I agree wholeheartedly with his meaning for holiness.

On careful reading, his definition is: "the whole panorama of all his perfections" as the other "name for this is God's holiness." This sounds like it could have come right out of Jonathan Edwards, who I know Dr. Piper is fond of reading, and likely also from the influence of Edwards' writing, The Religious Affections.

Notice also that he says that "this ultimate value" is "the holiness or glory of God," if you read carefully. So I could not agree more with him as one of my early teachers in college on his understanding of holiness. Yet the unfortunate thing in the end is that he does not develop his meaning for holiness further in his final definition of righteousness, but drops it in favor of the word "glory."

This is likely due to his commitment to the words from the Westminster confession that: "The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever." This apparently causes him to veer slightly from good exegesis and powerful biblical theology. Yet he comes so close.

That in turn would seem to cause him to miss out on all the implications that are possible from his definition of holy in understanding the whole of Scripture and in the actual understanding of ourselves and our lives. This is why our commitment must be to God's word as our final authority, even while understanding the value of a connection with other believers accross the ages. Notice that I value both. Both can assist each other as long as we understand that our first commitment is to God, but also that it would be silly to think of ourselves as only ones with that commitment.

In Christ,

Jon

Holy Means Morally Whole: According to the Elementary Level

2010-06-30T21:54:00.011-05:00

In the end, I suppose everything is in one sense elementary. If I was asked to give one of the most important arguments for the idea that holy means whole, I would have to include the argument from the elementary level of language. Holy is not on that level, but whole is certainly near to the elementary level.

There are generally four levels ranging from the elementary up to the advanced level for communication or language development. The level that the majority of us clearly complete is that of the elementary level.

Mortimer J. Adler lists four levels when it comes to reading as a part of communication or language development. He lists:

1) elementary reading
2) inspectional reading
3) analytical reading
4) comparative reading

When it comes to the mastery of vocabulary, whole most likely falls into the inspectional reading level and holy into the comparative reading level. But I think what is interesting is what word would be below both of them at the elementary level.

If you agree with the idea of levels like Adler, then you might see the levels of vocabulary in the Bible as follows:

1) elementary - body (ex. human being) and members (head, arms, legs, trunk, etc.)
2) inspectional - whole (ex. uncarved stone) and parts (lost no pieces by not shaping)
3) analytical - self and heart, soul, strength, mind
4) comparative - holy and righteous, true, loving, good

If you agree with the stance that it means to be set apart or separate, you would follow one of two patterns:

1) elementary - this and not that
2) inspectional - God and not man
3) analytical - sinless and sinful
4) comparative - set apart from the ordinary things (ex. that, man, sinful, etc.) (like taboo items)

1) elementary - and and but
2) inspectional - connection
3) analytical - relationships
4) comparative - set apart toward (and - connection ) or set apart from (but - disconnection)

My greatest problem at the elementary level is that these later two patterns don't fit with the importance attached to holy as God's greatest character trait. Let me show you why.

Holy, if it is parallel to whole at the inspecitional level of language, matches up with the greatest aspect in that pattern:

Whole, made up of -
Part 1 Amounts
Part 2 Relationships
Part 3 Actions
Part 4 Things

Holy as set apart though either ends up contrasting things like the elementary level of specifying this and not that or it specifies on an elementary level "and" as in a connection like "mommy and daddy" or "but" as in a disconnection like between "mommy, but not daddy." Neither idea tells us about his whole person, like a personal name at an elementary level.

I think on an elementary level the set of: body and members makes a great case for being the greatest, because the body exceeds the value of any one member. How can it be, in the case of set apart that is only a member, that it could exceed the value of the body?

It makes no biblical sense according to Jesus, who says we ought to sacrifice a limb to save the body. It also makes no elementary sense. To quote Holmes: "It is elementary my dear Watson."

In Christ,

Jon

Holy Means Whole_According to John Howe (1670)

2010-06-22T08:42:00.003-05:00

"This may be said to be a transcendental attribute, that, as it were, runs through the rest, and casts luster upon them. It is an attribute of attributes."

Howe partly argues for his from the statement "the beauty of holiness" (Psalm 110:3). He was apparently well known in Reformed or Presbyterian circles.

In Christ,

Jon

Holy Means Whole: According to Golden and Greatest

2010-05-28T14:20:00.008-05:00

UPSETTING THE EQUILIBRIUM (OOPS)

Sometimes Christians are guilty of saying things are OK, when they are not. I remember one such instance, when I was around 10 years old. Our Sunday School teacher asked us this question: “What does love mean?” One thing still stands out to me. I wasn’t as sure I knew what love meant leaving the class as I was when I had come into it. I’m afraid that sometimes children's and adult's experiences with knowing the meaning of holy can be equally unsettling. That is not OK.

There is a number of possible reasons for why I felt uneasy and I am sure my teacher may have felt like saying: "Oops, I left my students a bit overwhelmed." She might have seen it in our faces.

ANALYZING THE DISCREPANCY (UGH)

Maybe I misunderstood the teacher, though it is doubtful based on me offering what she considered the best attempt at defining it. I think the rest of the class was overwhelmed too. Then again, maybe I was daydreaming and missed her great answer right at the end. I suppose I’ve done that once in a while. Maybe the teacher used a bad technique in teaching. I suppose this is possible because I have had wonderful experiences in the Sunday School on other days. Maybe one of my classmates was a bad distraction that day. Actually, I think we were pretty well behaved that day. Or maybe the ultimate culprit is my feeling of comfort before we tried to define holy. Maybe my understanding just wasn’t that good (“caring” was my definition), so I needed to be challenged. This could produce a hot debate.

Trying to figure out the culprit that day is not easy. It is made even more difficult by the fact that this is a 40 year old cold case. I’m not sure even Agatha Christie could make this story come alive. I think if I ask the question of what went wrong that day I would hear as many reasons for why as I would definitions of love on that Sunday morning 40 years ago. So things can get worse through this line of investigation rather than better. Likewise, if we can’t agree on the meaning of love or what went wrong in trying to define it, what hope do we have that we can define holy?

DISCLOSING THE CLUE TO RESOLUTION (AHA)

There might be a clue in the Bible itself that might allow us to solve this 40 year old cold case, even if the facts are not all that clear compared to years ago. Maybe we can find a clue not investigated 40 years ago.

Many people are likely familiar with 2 lines in the Bible. They are: 1) The Golden Rule and 2) The 2nd Greatest Commandment. The Golden Rule (a clear English translation) reads: “Do for others what you want them to do for you.” The 2nd Greatest Commandment reads: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

At first glance these two statements may seem equally easy, but I would argue that it is more likely someone would reach for a dictionary more often on the 2nd Greatest Commandment than on the Golden Rule. For some pastors, the dictionary is the first tool in their tool box. What if they didn’t need to reach for a dictionary as often or you didn’t have to either? What if the definitions for the words of the 2nd Greatest Commandment were in the Bible itself, only hidden from our view by our culture’s educational practices and brought to our view by the Bible’s own educational practices?

In the letter to the Hebrews, part of the the Biblical pattern of education is disclosed. The teacher is to move from milk to solid food, not from solid to food to milk. Likewise, the central point of the statement is that a person should not be satisfied with milk. Another implication is that a person is not a teacher unless they can handle solid food.

One specific example of solid food is “the word of righteousness.” It is pretty well known that this is not initially an easy word to understand. I would argue that the word of love has the same status even though we consider it to be simpler to understand. Here is my reason why. It is that they are both, at a minimum, complex ideas. They require more than just one word to define them. That is why care is not quite adequate to define love, even if it is a step in the right direction. This has big implications for our 40 year old cold case.

This would mean that the teacher was not asking us 10 year olds (maybe only 8 or 9) a milk question, but a solid food question. This would further mean that because we were at most only 10 years old, we were probably not yet equipped to handle the question. That’s probably the real reason I felt unsettled, not because my answer was unsatisfactory and as a 10 year old I needed to be challenged more. My classmates and I had been introduced to a topic over our heads. I would say further that the word of holy is in the same class as righteousness and love in terms of complexity. It can likewise overwhelm us at stages in life.

So what can be done? In our Christian education growing up, we were most likely introduced to the Golden Rule and the 2nd Greatest Commandment around the same time. In fact, I hear fairly often the 2nd Greatest Commandment declared basic even now. Yet, if one is milk and the other solid food, they should not be introduced at the same time in one’s development. Also, what if Golden is a clue to the value of this rule as a youthful statement of meaning? What if we are to tach the Golden Rule first and the 2nd Greatest Commandment second, so it follows the first and is seen as not basic but at the pinnacle of Biblical education? What too are the implications for understanding holy, if it too is on the solid food level?

Let’s experiment with the method of placing the Golden rule in the place of milk and the 2nd Greatest Comandment in the place of solid food. Let’s see if the milk of the Golden Rule helps us later digest solid food of the 2nd Greatest Commandment.

The way I am going to display this method is to write out the 2nd Greatest Commandment/solid food and then write in parentheses behind each word of the commandment words from the Golden Rule/milk. In a 2nd stage I will add block parentheses for words to give a fuller meaning to the commandment.

The 2nd Greatest Commandment reads:
Love (do for) your (you) neighbor (others) as (what you want them to do for) yourself (you).

Notice the simple definitions you can equip people with for understanding more complex ideas. And these definitions are right out of the Bible itself. Please don’t throw any of your dictionaries quite yet.

The 2nd Greatest Commandment reads again (now with added block parentheses):
Love ([all kinds] do for) your ([of] you) neighbor ([nearest] others) as (what you want them [others] to [all kinds] do for) yourself ([self {all of hearts, soul, strength, mind}] of you).

Notice this even better demonstration of the complexity of the 2nd Greatest Commandment over the Golden Rule. While the Golden Rule is very good at explaining the basics it is not equal in greatness to the 2nd Greatest Commandment. It is like comparing milk and solid food.

Yet moving toward a solution to our earlier problem in Sunday school requires moving in the opposite direction and seeing the hidden value of something golden or something that is called milk. Love is far easier to grasp, if you begin by defining it with “do for.” Your and yourself are much easier, if you begin from “you.” As is far easier to grasp, if you think of “what you want them to do for you.” It expresses equality and justice at a pretty basic level. So likewise I would argue that we need to know the milk word behind the solid meat word to really understand what holy means. Holy is solid food. What would be its parallel milk word?

Let me share with you some baby steps or should I say milk steps in the area of what might be the gold before the greatest when it comes to holy. I believe the place to begin to understand holy is with the simpler concepts of the body and its members. That is what I believe is the milk of the Word that needs to precede the solid food of the Word. These need to precede holy and its parts.

My strongest argument for this idea right now is the frequency of the words involving these topics – body, members, feet, foot, eye, hand, finger, etc. and that frequency in writing can point to its level of importance in language. I also believe that this is a popular analogy with Paul and Jesus. Likewise we know holy is very important and very frequently used involving – holy, holiness, sanctification, sanctify, hallow, etc. We also know its importance from: “holy, holy, holy.” So they could have a connection like the Golden Rule and the 2nd Greatest Commandment, because of their equivalent importance on their respective levels.

To use actual Biblical texts as a starting point, I think the Bible moves from milk to solid food or from Golden to Greatest in the following:
“… the body is one and has many members and all the members, though many, are one body….” (1 Cor. 12:12 – in part).
“Because it is written, `Be holy for I am holy.’” (1 Peter 1:16 – in part)

Let me demonstrate how this works out through a process similar to what I did before:
Be holy (one and has many members) for I am holy (all the members, though many, are one).

In plain language, this is all I have ever been saying in anything I have written previously in trying to define holy. It is that basic on the level of milk.

These texts above may not be the most important texts in the Bible for what I am saying, but I do think that they are at least baby or milk steps in the right direction. When I get more time, I will come up with the best two texts to use.

EXPERIENCING & ANTICIPATING CONSEQUENCES (YEAH)

A major part of my confidence is in the idea that both milk and solid food have this is in common, that they are both healthy. Holy should produce healthy consequences like the importance of the body and not just singular members. They should have things in common like that of the Golden Rule and that of the 2nd Greatest Commandment.

So in summary, I believe we need to do the following:

· Proceed from milk to solid food, from golden (least) to greatest
· Use milk words as the Bible’s own internal dictionary for solid food words
· Don’t overload or overwhelm children with solid food nor let adults be satisfied with milk
· Use this method of milk to solid food to clarify solid food words like holy, righteous or love
· Lastly, discover the culprit who has reversed the order to solid food to milk.

I don't think my teacher was the primary culprit since she probably was not the first nor the last. Besides this I am convinced she loved us in the truest sense, so I doubt she reversed things intentionally.

Please be aware that my confidence in writing about holy does not come so much from my grasp of greatest things as in my grasp of least things. My understanding of “this little piggy went to market,” apparently from Mother Goose origin and definitely from my mother, has a lot to do with my confidence. I got what my mother was trying to teach me about my body and its members. So I understand very well the healthy teaching of the concept of the body and its members. It is my best explanation for the meaning of holy I have argued for up to this moment. This is what I mean when I say holy means whole.

I am suggesting that holy is a healthy continuation from body like love is from do for. Like moving from milk to solid food there is a healthy continuation from the stage of childhood to adulthood. The food needs change. Milk alone is a very poor diet and unhealthy. But the solid food choices in this world are inexhaustible, so not as easy as an early diet. I think likewise love, righteousness and holiness are inexhaustible ideas that have a complexity to them that simple ideas alone do not grasp. You can use a number of these simple ideas to define them, but one alone does not suffice.

Please join with me in proceeding from the least to the greatest, but don’t lose the gold of the least or lose yourself in the idea that only the greatest words deserve your attention. Then it will be alright for Christians to say things are OK, when it comes to education in the church. It will also assist the church in seeing that holy means whole. Then things will truly be OK.

Sincerely,

Jon

Holy Means Whole: According to Thomas Cranmer

2010-04-30T11:34:00.008-05:00

Thomas Cranmer and Richard Hooker are to Anglicans or Episcopalians what Martin Luther and Philip Melanchton are to Lutherans. The parallels are not at all exact, but the importance of each pair of leaders is very close. There are two reasons why I think Thomas Cranmer and Richard Hooker both recognized holy as meaning whole.

First is that historically both were very close to our earlier translators like Wycliffe and Tyndale, the latter who clearly used holy to replace an earlier English word that clearly meant whole to every single etymologist I have ever read. I have developed this argument elsewhere in talking about earlier dictionaries and I won’t develop that argument more here. Second is that the word that is often translated “healthy” or “sound” in our translations today was translated by “wholesome” by Tyndale at the time of Cranmer.

What I want to do is introduce you to this word “wholesome,” because it is popular in early Anglican writers like Cranmer and Hooker and because it also has an effect much like the word whole. So let me quote Cranmer in some key instances, Tyndale’s translation of Titus a few times and Hooker once at least.

So here is Cranmer in his own words (wholesome in italics and bolded):

Will you faithfully exercise yourself in the same holy Scriptures, and call upon God by prayer, for the true understanding of the same; so as ye may be able by them to teach and exhort with wholesome doctrine, and to withstand and convince the gainsayers?

It is from what is called as late as 1928: “Form and Manner of Ordering Priests." I have not located a great source on the internet yet. I will do more research and add an internet source later.

XI. Of the Justification of Man. We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith, and not for our own works or deservings. Wherefore, that we are justified by Faith only, is a most wholesome Doctrine, and very full of comfort, as more largely is expressed in the Homily of Justification.
XXV. Of the Sacraments. Sacraments ordained of Christ be not only badges or tokens of Christian men's profession, but rather they be certain sure witnesses, and effectual signs of grace, and God's good will towards us, by the which he doth work invisibly in us, and doth not only quicken, but also strengthen and confirm our Faith in him.
There are two Sacraments ordained of Christ our Lord in the Gospel, that is to say, Baptism, and the Supper of the Lord.
Those five commonly called Sacraments, that is to say, Confirmation, Penance, Orders, Matrimony, and Extreme Unction, are not to be counted for Sacraments of the Gospel, being such as have grown partly of the corrupt following of the Apostles, partly are states of life allowed in the Scriptures, but yet have not like nature of Sacraments with Baptism, and the Lord's Supper, for that they have not any visible sign or ceremony ordained of God.
The Sacraments were not ordained of Christ to be gazed upon, or to be carried about, but that we should duly use them. And in such only as worthily receive the same, they have a wholesome effect or operation: but they that receive them unworthily, purchase to themselves damnation, as Saint Paul saith.
XXXV. Of the Homilies.
The Second Book of Homilies, the several titles whereof we have joined under this Article, doth contain a godly and wholesome Doctrine, and necessary for these times, as doth the former Book of Homilies, which were set forth in the time of Edward the Sixth; and therefore we judge them to be read in Churches by the Ministers, diligently and distinctly, that they may he understanded of the people.

Selections from: The Thirty-Nine Articles of 1801 (still showing Cranmer’s influence) found at:
http://anglicansonline.org/basics/thirty-nine_articles.html.

Therefore now to come to the second and latter part of my purpose. There is nothing so good in this world, but it may be abused, and turned from unhurtful and wholesome, to hurtful and noisome.

Selection from: Thomas Cranmer’s Preface to the Great Bible found at: http://www.bible-researcher.com/cranmer.html.

From William Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament we read:

Titus 1:9
and such as cleaveth unto the true word of doctrine, that he may be able to exhort with wholesome learning, and to improve them that say against it.

Titus 2:1
But speak thou that which becometh wholesome learning:

Titus 2:8
and {with} the wholesome word which cannot be rebuked, that he which withstandeth may be ashamed, having no thing in you that he may dispraise.

Selections from: THE NEW TESTAMENT (Tyndale, Rogers, Coverdale, Cranmer): Titus found at: http://faithofgod.net/TyNT/tt.htm#content.

Then from a sermon by Richard Hooker in two places:

The reason whereof being not perceived, but by greater intention of brain than our nice minds for the most part can well away with, fain we would bring the world, if we might, to think it but a needless curiosity to rip up any thing further than extemporal readiness of wit doth serve to reach unto. Which course if here we did list to follow, we might tell you, that in the first branch of this sentence God doth condemn the Babylonian’s pride; and in the second, teach what happiness of c state shall grow to the righteous by the constancy of their faith, notwithstanding the troubles which now they suffer; and, after certain notes of wholesome instruction hereupon collected, pass over without detaining your minds in any further removed speculation. But, as I take it, there is a difference between the talk that beseemeth nurses d amongst children, and that which men of capacity and judgment do or should receive instruction by.

But as unruly children, with whom wholesome admonition prevaileth little, are notwithstanding brought to fear that ever after which they have once well smarted for; so the mind which falleth not with instruction, yet under the rod of divine chastisement ceaseth to swell. If, therefore, the prophet David, instructed by good experience, have acknowledged, Lord I was even at the point of clean forgetting myself, and of n 1 straying from my right mind, but thy rod hath been my reformer; it hath been good for me, even as much as my soul is worth, that I have been with sorrow troubled: if the blessed Apostle did need the corrosive of sharp and bitter strokes, lest his heart should swell with too great abundance of heavenly revelations 2 : surely, upon us whatsoever God in this world doth or shall inflict, it cannot seem more than our pride doth exact, not only by way of revenge, but of remedy.

Selections from A LEARNED SEROMON ON THE NATURE OF PRIDE 1. Found at: http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=923&chapter=85514&layout=html&Itemid=27.

It seems to me as I read Cranmer, Tyndale’s translation of Titus or Hooker that “wholesome” easily fell from their lips, as if it was a major theme for them. I know I did not hear it, when I was growing up in an evangelical and Baptist tradition. This pursuit of being "wholesome" like the pursuit of being healthy or sound from our modern translations, seems to have lead to a similar outcome to what you would see with holy meaning whole. You could say the parallel is that healthy means “wholesome” for them. I should note also that the letters used for spelling "wholesome" in the Greek original are very similar to those used for "holy" in the Greek original. This is worthy of some serious study, if not already consideration.

I think this lends some support to the historic idea of historica Anglican comprehensiveness being an expression of being "wholesome" or being healthy or sound. I wonder too if this word “wholesome” isn’t the root from which the Anglican and Episcopalian idea of comprehensiveness first grew.
If so, then I would have to back off from my earlier idea that possibly its main root was holy. While that proposal was made by an Anglican, my further research has not shown much fruit or much support among those with the experience and credentials to know.

I wonder too if "wholesome" is not also a strong idea alongside of holy supporting the concept of the importance of being whole. The nature of Hooker’s writing itself has a style that strives for completeness or wholeness of thought.

As I make these observations, it strengthens my idea that this is one of the key areas where Anglicanism and the Episcopal Church have gone astray. It seems that they have lost track of their biblical moorings dating back to Cranmer, Tyndale and Hooker.

It also convinces me that I need to study this more with Anglicans and Episcopalians by my side to see if in fact these things are true. That is why I have enrolled in studying this tradition on a post-graduate level. With the Lord’s provision, which I am still waiting on, I hope to being studying these things more this summer. Please pray that He may guide my steps, even as I get my feet wet in trying to follow His will and in studying His Word.

In Christ,

Jon

Holy Means Whole: According to the Plain View of Things

2010-03-31T17:07:00.011-05:00

Words are absolutely awesome aren’t they? I mean right now I am able to communicate with an incredible number of people through the means of words. I don’t have to send the stuff I am communicating about across the worldwide web, just my words. But sometimes things get hidden in plain view. In other words, there is a downside to using words rather than things to communicate. The meaning of words can become hidden to listeners or readers, when the meaning was in plain view of the speakers or writers. Things on the other hand, can clarify what our words mean. I remember probably the first time I ever spoke from the pulpit in church. I used a simple object lesson to make my meaning plain. I think we need to understand the importance of making the meaning of holy plain, not only through words, but also through its own object lessons of things.

If we look at the history of trying to define holy, much of the method focuses on words to the neglect of things that could make things plain. Quite often, scholars look for a definition for holy among the writings of previous times. Occasionally, if one is fortunate, one finds just such a thing. But ironically, the Bible does not have a straight-forward definition for holy in the dictionary or lexicon sense. Instead, one has to make plain what was meant by the word, using other means.

In the past, you can see a few different approaches to this task. One of them is to quote definitions from older Jewish sages like Rashi or Rambam, used often by Jewish rabbis. Another is to research the languages that may have had ties to Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek for language parallels or for languages that may have preceded or followed it closely, used often by contemporary scholarship. Another method, used by Johann Bengel, a German scholar of a few centuries ago, is to look for parallels within the Biblical text. He derives his meaning for holy from this method of connecting parallel passages regarding name and holy. A further elaboration of this method was to again see the connection between the concept of a name and holy and recognize that this was a Hebrew or Jewish cultural understanding of a name that was operating rather than an English concept of name that was operating. This seems to be where C.H. Spurgeon got his definition of holy. Yet in the end, all of these methods rely on words to make plain other words rather than using words tied to things.

I have also written elsewhere about another approach that appears to have begun due to some critical work by William F. Albright, where pictures of things are connected to words or rather the letters that now make up Hebrew words. This does go beyond relying just on words to elaborate other words, because of the introduction of the pictures of things. But I have said more on this before. It also may get a boost from what I am going to say about words and things below.

Recently, I was introduced through a phone call to someone, who is a Mayan scholar or anthropologist. They are working on the idea that stones that are shaped like mushrooms in Mayan culture were intended to stand for mushrooms. But there is a problem. This seems plain enough and yet it is not, because, as his father states, scholars are so prone to routine, they have blinders on. So the point this scholar makes “is hidden in plain view.”

I sense that the same thing has happened to the meaning of the word holy. I imagine that to the ancient Hebrew people, the meaning of holy was pretty much in plain view, it is just hidden to us. And I think there is a reason for this. We have done a good job of separating words and things, which goes contrary to our everyday existence. Also we have been using a method for studying language that tilts the balance towards words over things. Whether you are talking a Jewish rabbi, a liberal scholar, a fundamentalist pastor, an evangelical professor with a Ph.D., a Johann Bengel or a Charles Spurgeon, they all are relying on a method that is focused on words making plain other words.

One thing that has helped us move beyond this some in our own time, is the fields of archaeology and anthropology, where things help to make plain the meaning of words. This may be why Mary Douglas, an anthropologist, is one of the pioneers in our time in relying less on words and more on the objects spoken of in a text, to make plain the meaning of holy. Likewise my professors of linguistics in college would probably better be called anthropological linguists, because of their grounding their ideas not only in a multi-dimensional approach to language, but also in an approach that took seriously not just words and studying, but also things and learning.

Saul M. Olyan, of Brown University, took Mary Douglas’ insights that “holiness was given an external, physical expression” and applied it to stones as referred to in Exodus 20:25 and Deuteronomy 27:5-6. He states:

My focus was the stones of the altar in Exod. 20:25 and Deut. 27:5-6, as well as the stones of the temple in 1 Kgs. 6:7. Exod. 20:25 forbids an altar made of ashlar (cut stone), warning that working altar stones with a tool profanes them: “If you wield your tool upon it, you profane it (wattehaleleha). This statement indicates that accorind to Exod. 20:25, altar stones, like most sacrifices and like priests, are sanctified. If this were not the cse, the stones would not be subject to profanation. (Profanation transforms that which is holy into that which is common). Deut. 27:5-6, elaborating Exod. 20:25, also forbids the use of a took (explicitly iron) on the stones; it refers to the uncut stones from which the altar is to be built as “whole stones” (abanim selemot). Thus the unworked “whole stones” of Deut. 27:6 parallel the uncut holy stones of Exod. 20;25. This suggests a connection between the wholeness of the uncut altar stones and their holiness, which is lost according to Exod. 20:25, if they are worked with a tool. If I am correct about this connection, then we can compare Deut. 15:21. Just as the male first-born sacrificial animals with a “defect” are not sanctified according to Deut. 15:21, so altar stones that lose their wholeness lose their holiness. In both instances, that which is whole is understood to be holy, and that which lacks wholeness is treated as common. (p. 5-6, See my link for Mary Douglas to see his full article).

There isn’t much here that I cannot whole-heartedly agree with. I especially would like to re-iterate his statement: “that which is whole is understood to be holy, and that which lacks wholeness is treated as common. “ But what is most revealing to me is the thing called “stones.” They are something we can plainly get our minds around, even if the word “holy” seems elusive.
A whole stone versus a cut stone, that is no longer whole, shows us through things what holy means. The word holy that was plain to the Ancient Hebrew can also be plain to us, if we will see that the meaning of holy is simply hidden from us in plain view.

What I mean by that, is that the physical manifestation of holy is plain and obvious. What is not plain is our method of understanding communication when we are in school. Our focus in school is on a system of communication that focuses not on things, but on words. So the obvious is in effect hidden from us. We search not among the objects like an archaeologist, but only among the text like a linguist or more rather a literary critic. It is as though we only have texts and no objects. We simply don’t ask the right questions.

If you want to learn more on this go to my link on communication and see my March entry. In there I will explain what is hiding things from us and how we can bring things out into plain view by teaching communication basics differently.

So I want you to look at two pictures of stones. One is a whole stone on the left. The other on the right is a stone that is no longer whole, but broken in two parts. You tell me from the picture on the left, isn’t the meaning of holy quite plain? I hope it is plain to you like it is plain to me, because it is as plain to me as a stone.

In Christ,

Jon

Holy Means Whole According to a Multi-Faceted Process

2010-02-27T11:32:00.008-06:00

This piece of writing is inspired by one of the comments left on my blog. It made me realize that perhaps I need to outline the process that I use in determining the meaning of holy. Sometimes we work with a process that is not out in the open or is no process at all. So let me make mine very out in the open.

The most significant thing to say is that it is good to have a systematic process rather than no process or one that fails to do anything. To put it bluntly, it is a battle between process and no process. My process is multi-faceted. It is important that a person not lock in on one part of the process I use and think that is the system that I use in proving the meaning of holy. I think this might have been the thing that misled the reader who make the comment I referred to earlier.

The first part of my process deals with the status of the Bible. The Bible (66 books) is for me the greatest measure in all that I do. I consider it to have the status of full growth. All other writings are smaller in status than that one collection of writings. I consider some of them to have healthy, even if a lower status of growth. Yet they have a measure of weight. It is like big and little. A mother cat is bigger than its kitten and yet the kitten still has status. But the kitten must be ranked as less and not equal to the mother cat in size. So translators and translations do matter, they just matter less. The English language studies matter, yet they matter less. Theologians and theologies matter, they just matter less. They can be helpful, but not on the status of the Bible itself. They also need to be corrected by the Bible. Yet it is dangerous to ignore English language studies or the opinions of other translators or the history of English translation. It is dangerous to kill the kitty to only have a vacuum in its place. I wish I had time to describe what I think has filled the vacuum, but that is a longer discussion. So in the end I am want to be careful to establish where I try to forge continuity due to full growth and where I think change will take place due to the need for growth.

The second part of my process deals with the status of the original text as opposed to later texts. I see the original as that text to which I have the greatest bond. I think the Dead Sea Scrolls demonstrate that what I have in hand is pretty reliable and connected in regard to the original. I think it is also important to understand that both prior texts and later texts are connected to the original, but not with the bond and connection of the original itself. So languages and texts prior to and following Ancient Hebrew or Aramaic or Koine Greek have a connection, but not the connection that the text has internally with itself. Likewise tracing root word meanings or etymologies need to be seen as primarily trying to determine what was connected with the original over what came before or what came after. It is the bond or connection in the original that we are looking for and we are trying to avoid instances where in the process something is introduced that was not connected, but instead was at liberty from the original text or meaning. Later meanings in other languages can be misleading and I think have misled some scholars of Hebrew.

The third part of my process deals with the status of the rules for meaning. I follow the rule of looking for possible meanings and their context as opposed to assuming a meaning through its plausibility. I use context to determine whether a possible meaning is also convincing, credible or defensible much like my Grandmother did when a professional translator requested her insights on Swedish. I look at the rule in language that words can ordinarily have more than one possible meaning and that that the convincing meaning is ordinarily determined by the context. So it is important to demonstrate first the possibility of a meaning, that a word is free to mean that and that it is equally important to follow the rule that context will demonstrate (if the writing is effective) the convincing meaning that is being used in that context. Much of what I have written is simply arguing that whole is a possible meaning for holy. Sometimes writers assume it is not even a possible meaning. But I also try to show from the context that whole is also convincing over the plausible meaning of set apart. Yet plausible is never good enough for me. The context has to be convincing for me. So linguistic or language study rules are very important to me. They determine what is convincing.

The fourth part of my process deals with the status of what makes sense versus what is nonsense. We have to determine what something is rather than what it is not. Here is where I use a method that helps determine what something is by determining which class of things it fits with much like the game on Sesame Street. This is where scholarly argument is very important. Yet I don’t allow myself to be swayed simply by scholarly consensus in lexicons, but rather by what something really is when it is examined in the light of like things. I use a method with the acronym WARAT. It is primarily developed from the method called TEAR re-developed by Eugene Nida and the American Bible Society. It is also used by Wycliffe Bible translators. Without going into any detail, it is a method of classifying words and outlines the universal categories of meaning. Also relevant here is biblical theology and systematic theology, because they have tried to define what things are. It is helpful to examine not only lexicons for meaning, but also theology in light of WARAT. So what is ultimately important is what makes sense rather than nonsense rather than whether an idea came from a lexicon as opposed to a theology text.

So that is my out in the open process. I am trying to use the various parts of this process and as I go I hope to make it more systematic, because it may actually make it also do more. My latest system of Process and Non-Process consists of four parts: 1) Continuity and Change, 2) Bond and Liberty (Barrier), 3) Rule and Freedom and 4) Sense and Nonsense. The basic point is for me to do something rather than for me to do nothing. It is also hoped that I can teach others to do the same. Thank you for your patience with me and with the the attempt to clarify the process.

In Christ,

Jon

Holy Means Whole: According to Some Contemporary Scholarship

2010-02-26T17:28:00.005-06:00

Sometimes contemporary scholarship is assumed to entirely favor the view that holy means separate or set apart. This isn’t quite true. It is easy to overlook some of its views on the meaning of holy. Mary Douglas, a rather well known anthropologist, apparently is responsible for a number of scholars considering that holy means whole. I mention her and others, because I do not want people to think I am alone in my view from a scholarly perspective.

Other mentionable scholars beyond Mary Douglas include:

Saul Mitchell Olyan @ Brown University
Ronald S. Hendel @ the University of California, Berkeley
Jacob Milgrom, Emeritus @ the University of California, Berkeley
Ralph W. Klein @ Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago
Gordon Wenham @ Trinity College Bristol
Philip J. Budd @ ??
?? @ Macalaster College, St. Paul, MN
Ronald E. Clements (a possible supporter)

Each of these scholars comes with numerous credentials, when it comes to recognition for their scholarship. Philip J. Budd for example has written the Numbers volume in the Word Biblical Commentary series. Gordon Wenham is well recognized in Evangelical circles as well for his writing.

With Ronald Hendel, I found an extensive Curriculum Vitae (if you know what that is) through the internet. Ralph W. Klein has an extensive web site dedicated to his work. Jacob Milgrom is known for a tremendous Jewish commentary on Numbers. While I cannot endorse everything that these writers each believe, I think there scholarly credentials still have merit on the subject of the meaning of holy.

So I just want those, who think that through surveying a few lexicons that the issue is settled, to realize that humility is required. Those lexicons are not settling the issue so easily for some very credible scholars. I think that is significant. In the future, I will try to address the issue of the evidence from the Hebrew language more directly, but this will have to suffice for now. What I am currently working on is simply taking more time, because I have less time than I wish to work on it. Stay tuned. Thank you.

In Christ,

Jon

Holy Means Whole According to Stephen Charnock

2010-01-28T11:13:00.004-06:00

Stephen Charnock (1628 - 1680), Puritan divine, was an Engllish Puritan and Presbyterian clergyman. He is most renowned for a book that was likely published after his death. It is titled: The Existence and Attributes of God. Apparently it was originally a series of sermons.

In this book that I mentioned, he has a very profound pair of quotes that I think are rather significant. They read:

“Power is God’s hand or arm, omniscience His eye mercy His bowels, eternity His duration, but holiness is His beauty.”

“His name, which signifies all His attributes in conjunction is `holy.’”

The most significant of the two is the second, because it may be an important part of the foundation for later thinkers, like Charles Spurgeon, who loved the Puritans, for being convinced that holiness is wholeness. God's name and God's holiness were seen by Spurgeon as being parallel to each other in particular biblical texts and that is one of his reasons for believing that holiness was holiness. It was because it was "all of his attributes in conjunction." That was understood to be the basic idea of a name in Hebrew thought.

Having understood this idea of a conjunction of attributes the following quote about Stephen Charnock himself may prove interesting. To understand his character as a whole, the following quote may best summarize it.

It reads:

But that which gave the finish to Charnock's intellectual character, was not the predominance of any one quality so much as the harmonious and nicely balanced union of all. Acute perception, sound judgment, masculine sense, brilliant imagination, habits of reflection, and a complete mastery over the succession of his thoughts, were all combined in that comely order and that due proportion which go to constitute a well-regulated mind. There was, in his case, none of that disproportionate development of any one particular faculty, which, in some cases, serves, like an overpowering glare, to dim, if not almost to quench the splendour of the rest. The various faculties of his soul, to make use of a figure, rather shone forth like so many glittering stars, from the calm and clear firmament of his mind, each supplying its allotted tribute of light, and contributing to the serene and solemn lustre of the whole. As has been said of another, so may it be said of him—"If it be rare to meet with an individual whose mental faculties are thus admirably balanced, in whom no tyrant faculty usurps dominion over the rest, or erects a despotism on the ruins of the intellectual republic; still more rare is it to meet with such a mind in union with the far higher qualities of religious and moral excellence."

Charnock's concept of a person's name and the idea of holiness being connected with both beauty and a combination of all of God's attributes seem to have played out in his life. They also seem to have been, from my reading elsewhere, part of the foundation for holiness means wholeness, because of the idea of a combination of attributes. This idea is more than a mere folk theory. Even among some scholars today, it is recognized as having this significance in the world of Hebraic thought. When we approach another culture, we must remember that their thoughts may not be our thoughts. So understanding Hebrew culture regarding names is important.

In Christ,

Jon

Holy Means Whole: According to Webster's Word Histories

2009-12-31T21:05:00.008-06:00

I thought about writing a summary of my writings for the year, but I did that pretty much in a recent entry. One thing that has always stood out to me is the absurdity of growing up in the 20th century without any sense of holiness meaning wholeness, when this was a very traditional understanding in the English-speaking world of translation. One of the best proofs of this is the many dictionaries that show the etymology of holy having a connection to the meaning of whole. I want to present one of those dictionary etymologies as given in a newer book titled Webster’s Word Histories.

The actual entry is that of Holy Ghost, Holy Spirit, but for our purposes I am going to leave out the Ghost and Spirit histories. It is easy to separate it out without doing any injustice to the evidence for the history of the meaning of holy. One other change is that I am going to write out a full meaning for any abbreviations. The actual entry is found on page 223 of Webster’s Word Histories, if you want to read it without any changes.

The entry then reads:

[Holy from Middle English holi, from Old English halig, translation of Late Latin sanctus, translation of Greek Hagion, translation of Hebrew ha-godesh; holy, from Middle English hooli, translation of Late Latin sanctus]

You can check out any standard dictionary for the meaning of the Old English halig. It clearly was tied to the concept of whole or healthy. Our earliest English translators clearly saw a meaning of whole in the word holy as a later replacement for halig. That is the stance of any serious etymology.

I think this should cause all of us to pause at the end of this year and to consider carefully the steps we are following in moving away from a meaning handed down to us by pretty reliable men. John Wycliffe and William Tyndale along with many others gave us a rich tradition of the Bible in our own words. These translators also helped give birth to renewal.

I know that in our day many are big believers in progress. So seeing Wycliffe and Tyndale as reliable seems a bit quaint or odd. Certainly, we say, translation has progressed too. But perhaps we can see them as quite reliable without giving up on progress over time. Could it be that they were right on a fundamental level, yet not entirely right, when it comes to a fuller understanding of what this really means? Did they really make the meaning of whole crystal clear in translation? The possibility that they did not, leaves open the room for plenty of progress, yet not the kind that undercuts the fundamentals. Could it be that our understanding of progress is driving some of us, more than actual evidence regarding the meaning of holy?

We, as Christians, are not today in the midst of any renewal like that of the Reformation. So we need to do at least two things. We need to acknowledge to the world, or at least to the Christian world, that we are questioning the reliability of these Christian men on a very critical fundamental point. It could be a cause for our lack of renewal. Also, if that had been done in the 20th century, I might have sooner known at least that holy might mean whole. As I said earlier, we also need to slow down and consider. We need to ask: “Could we be mistaken?” Perhaps then 2010 might be the year for us to amend our ways.

In Christ,

Jon

Holy Means Whole: According to Micah 3:5

2009-12-09T09:49:00.004-06:00

Holy Means Whole: According to Micah 3:5

The Gettysburg Address lasted all of 5 minutes, I believe. The speaker before Lincoln spoke for 1 ½ hours, if I recall correctly. That speaker, who no one remembers, wrote to Lincoln and told him he said more than him during his 5 minutes. I am going to keep this short and still try to say more than a longer discussion. I want to show you an example of how holy means whole has implications for wonderful meaning.

I’ll let you look at the larger context yourself, yet in Micah 3:5d, we read in a literal translation: “they even sanctify a war against him.” Today the meaning would be: “they even set apart a war against him.” To get more meaning you might say that this means “they even make a special war effort against him. “ Yet that might be a stretch for the meaning of setting apart a war. On a common sense level, I am not sure I get the point.

In Micah 3:5d, we could instead see the meaning as “they even put together all the parts of a war against him.” To get even more meaning you might say that this means “they made a very significant effort war effort against him.” Rather than just a partial war against him, they were going to make a whole ware effort against him. They were not going to leave anything out in the overall arsenal of war.

To me, this translation or meaning is far more meaningful than the first. To literally put together all the parts of a war effort against an enemy means you are giving your all which fits with the context of using the word “even.” Even means something goes against expectation. In this context, you might expect their anger resulting in some insignificant efforts, yet you would not expect an all out war effort.

So they are not giving just a half-baked effort, they are giving their all by leaving no part of a war effort out. So holy means whole has very big significance even in small places. I think this is “a wonderful new meaning” to quote Luther on his new understanding of righteousness.

In Christ,

Jon

Holy Means Whole: According to a Persuasive Essay Outline

2009-11-30T21:31:00.004-06:00

In How to Write Fast (While Writing Well), the author argues that the outline is the key to writing fast while writing well. To meet my goal of writing every month without failure, I am going to use his insight to write fast, while writing well. The way I am going to do it is to use a persuasive essay outline that I discovered to outline one way to persuade others that holy means whole. So a bared bones outline is what I will present this time.

I. Introduction

A. Get the reader’s attention by using a “hook.” Many in history, who have been accused of being ignorant, actually were those who knew. Many historical examples could be mentioned: Galileo, Luther, Wilberforce, Lincoln, Einstein, etc.
B. Give some background information, if necessary. I would refer you to my earliest postings on my blog for some background. So I will not bore you with more of it here.
C. Thesis or focus statement. My thesis is that if you follow the sound guidelines for learning the meaning of any word you will arrive at holy meaning whole.

II. First argument or reason to support your position. It is that traditionally many have believed that holy means whole. It is only during the 20th century that things were turned upside down.

A. Topic sentence explaining your point. Martin Luther, John Calvin, Richard Hooker, John Wesley (rather Johann Bengel his favorite commentator) and Charles Spurgeon all agree that the primary definition of holiness is wholeness.
B. Elaboration to back your point. These all believed that holiness means wholeness based on the scholarship of their day. It is also true that during these times and under their leadership and with this understanding they led renewal movements. I think it is important to contrast the effects of their understanding with our own when we are in a declining movement rather than renewal movement.

III. Second argument or reason to support your position.

A. Topic sentence explaining your point. The idea that holy means whole is backed up by scholarship grounded in a very simple object called a rock that everyone can understand.
B. Elaboration to back your point. Mary Douglas, a famous anthropologist, uses parallel passages to suggest that holy means whole, because a physical object known as a rock is whole. This should be very easy to understand once we agree on the parallel.

IV. Third argument or reason to support your position.

A. Topic sentence explaining your point. Ancient Hebrew script could ultimately be the best argument for holy means whole.
B. Elaboration to back your point. Jeff Benner has demonstrated a connection between Ancient Hebrew Script and the idea of pictographs that express ideas. What is left is more detailed analysis of the root letters for holy.

V. Opposing viewpoint to show that I have considered another point of view and have a rebuttal to it. I have considered the opposing view and found it originally hard to change my point of view from what I grew up with.

A. Opposing point to my argument. The opposing point to my argument is the idea that the root idea of holy is separate or to be set apart.
B. My rebuttal to the opposing point. My rebuttal is that scholars who hold this point admit that this point of view is controversial. The problem is that this is often not pointed out in many of the lexicons that pastors rely upon, so that the argument appears, but is not really, a slam dunk.
C. Elaboration to back your rebuttal. No original research can seriously deny this point. This is admitted by people like Rudolph Otto who then make their choice for separate based on philosophical reasons not linguistic reasons.

VI. Conclusion

A. Summary of main points or reasons. To summarize, there are at least 3 major reasons supporting the idea that holy means whole. There is historical precedent during times of reformation, renewal or revival. There is scientific evidence grounded in a simple object like a rock. There is the potential for Ancient Hebrew letters to give us further insight.
B. Restate your thesis statement. My thesis is that if you follow the sound guidelines for learning the meaning of any word you will arrive at holy meaning whole.
C. Personal comment or a call to action. I have always tried to be a team player as an athlete. I think we need the same in the case learning the meaning of holy. I want to work with a team of people including scholars and other kinds of support help that can prove once and for all the meaning of holy. In the end, this word is too important for us to be uncertain about, when it comes to its meaning. Let’s do something rather than leave things as they are. PLEASE JOIN WITH ME IN ANY WAY YOU CAN.

Thank you.

In Christ,

Jon

Holy Means Whole: According to Remembering

2009-10-30T18:11:00.003-05:00

This morning I was searching for a note card I had for this piece of writing, but I could not find it due to insufficient memory. Fortunately, I did eventually find it. Memory is a very important thing at times.

The author of the quote I was searching for was making an argument for why you and I need to read classics. Here is his main argument: “What if you believe that knowledge that was once held in our possession has been lost due to intellectual error or insufficient memory?” Let’s face it, memory failure does happen. We humans, even saints, are forgetful at times.

Many writers on the topic of holiness try to base their arguments for the truth of a position based on antiquity. The reason this argument has weight is because sometimes our memory is insufficient. Even computer memory reflects the fact that memory is important. Sometimes there is an error on a drive, so we cannot bring back data that was once saved for future recall. The memory becomes inaccessible. Sometimes also there is insufficient space to save data and we call it insufficient memory. Memory can be crowded out by other things.

When I was growing up, no one around me in church remembered that holy means whole. I sat through a pile of sermons, a heap of Sunday school classes, and even went on to the big time of colleges, universities and seminaries and yet no one remembered that holy means whole. That was until one day, when memory in Strong’s Concordance awoke me to a new wonderful definition for holy. That was in 2004. It should have been there in 1974.

In my church body, memory was especially bad, because Evangelicals today primarily flow from the Methodist stream of Protestantism. Wesley out of all the major Protestant reformers seems to have had the worst memory of holy means whole. This is despite the fact that Johann Bengel was his favorite commentator and one of the most prolific authors on holy means whole. But amazingly, Bengel’s most important writing on this subject was never published and another part of his writing on this subject was never translated into English for Wesley to be able to read. I didn’t realize these influences on my experience, when I was growing up. You’ve heard of the subconscious part of a person. I call this part of my experience, my sub-experience, because while it influenced my experience, I had no awareness of it.

To complicate matters further, Wesley’s Anglican roots lost its memory of a connection between holy and comprehensive seemingly in a hurry. I’m not certain as to why this happened. Yet in talking to Anglicans or Episcopalians today, they are not aware of a connection between the biblical concept of holy and their English idea of comprehensiveness. They seem to assume it just emerged as a good philosophical concept, rather than as a good biblical concept. You could call this an evangelical’s deep sub-experience. It helped form our experience growing up, even though we had no awareness of it directly.

So what should we do now, if we suspect we have lost something due to memory failure or memory being insufficient? On a computer we try to recover a corrupted or lost file by using a recovery program or we search for a new disk where there is sufficient memory.

In the case of our human memories we try to find a record that is contemporary or older than our own memory. In the case of holiness, many rely on older records of what holiness means to prove what it means. Yet just being older does not guarantee accuracy, since they too could have forgotten.

We also have to be careful when what we are saying now is not the same as what is said in the past, because one of the keys to building memory is repeating the same thing over and over again. If it changes, our memory is likely to come up insufficient. To remember is to “again member” over and over again. The more times it can be repeated without change, the more solid it is. There has been change enough to question the memory of things in the 20th century.

The Bible itself does not give us a contemporary statement of what holy means. Rather it was assumed that its meaning was well known and not likely to be forgotten. We never read holy means … or holy is …, in the classic definition sense. Yet this is not a problem, if we have the right tools to find its definition. So what do we do in the case of human memory?

The best solution is to find the memory of what holy means is in the Bible itself. I think the best hope for this is in the ancient pictographs for Hebrew or in the context of the oldest passages in Scripture. The memory is there. Since it would be contemporary, it would be a memory we can definitely trust. It would be like recovering a lost or corrupted file.

I wish I could dedicate all my time to this task. I think God has blessed me with the tools to find the answer. My only problem is that I cannot dedicate the time I would like to the task, because of the limits on my income. It is that simple for me.

How much longer can we afford to go without an assurance of what holy means? I am not sure. But a false assurance that our memory is sound, is no substitute for a rock solid memory that is not subject to failure or to a lack of space.

I wish I could say that the church’s memory of holy is that sound. I have seen tremendous reasons to doubt it, as I have searched the memory of the church, the ancients and Scripture. If only I had the money to use my tools that God has gifted to me through His word and His servants. Then I would apply them to insuring that we don't have intellectual error or insuffient memory.

In Christ,

Jon

Holy Means Whole: According to What If ....

2009-09-30T09:36:00.009-05:00

There is a great possibility that the definition of holy could be become clear, rather than controversial once and for all. There are a few keys to this. One is discovering the meaning of the word through its symbols or letters.

I was in Northern Wisconsin earlier this summer and I heard a very interesting presentation on Chinese characters and their ancient meanings. This got me thinking about Hebrew characters and their ancient meanings. So let me present a possibility that is incredible, if it is true.

In short summary, the presenter this last summer tried to argue that ancient Chinese character combinations pointed back to the story of creation. In other words, their combinations were based on a story that tied their individual concrete meanings together. I will not go into detail here, but let me say that the implication I saw was that possibly Hebrew characters did something similar.

Jeff A. Benner has written a book titled, "The Ancient Hebrew Lexicon of the Bible." He argues in it that the ancient forms of Hebrew letters were pictographs. So he starts to formulate meanings based on ancient pictographs, rather than on later understandings of a word's meaning. One of my greatest linguistics professors, Dr. William A. Smalley, once said about both major lines of writing that, "writing developed originally out of representation of messages in pictures." The problem though according to Smalley was that "picture language has severe limitations." That is why written language developed further. So knowing this and after examining the early portions of Benner's lexicon, I think Benner's idea holds great promise.

Unfortunately, when Benner comes to holy, he relies on later scholarly opinion, rather than on his own method of using ancient pictographs. He violates his own insights. I have written to him on this and I have not yet heard back. Yet I want to share with you now a possibility based on his method. So the idea of possibility is why I titled this piece, "Holy Means Whole: According to What If ...."

What I want to attempt to do is use Jeff's insights with some insights from Dr. Smalley. Dr. Smalley once said:

Imagine, for example, a picture (or sequence of pictures) showing a person lying on a bier, with symbols of royal status, and some people wailing. This could well convey a message expressed in a various ways in English, including the following:

"The king is dead and the people are mourning."
"People are mourning, because the king has died."
"The king has died and is lying in state; people are coming to mourn."
"We mourn, because our king has passed away."

This shows some of the difficulty in using pictographs, yet it also shows how pictographs might function in communicating a message or messages. So I want to show what the pictographs Jeff proposes could mean.

There are four pictographs that make up the word holy in ancient Hebrew. Reading right to left in Hebrew:

1) a picture of the sun at the horizon
2) a picture of a tent peg
3) a picture of a tent door
4) a picture of two front teeth.

It is difficult to understand at first glance, why these objects would be related to each other. Yet it may be possible to imagine a way they are related. Imagine them with their opposites:

1) A sun at the horizon (sunset) versus a sun at high noon (midday)
2) A tent peg versus no peg
3) A tent door versus a tent wall
4) Two front teeth versus being toothless (upfront).

Their meanings then could be:

1) all of a thing versus some of a thing
2) it could be connected versus unconnected
3) it could be moving versus immoveable
4) discerning versus undiscerning.

What is hardest to imagine is the way these things are part of the same picture. How do these pictures form a whole or communicate a message together?

Here is a possibility:

1) all = Amount
2) connected = Relationship
3) moving = Action
4) discerning = Thing

Dr. Smalley and others like Dr. Dan Shaw taught me a Wycliffe method of recognizing basic meanings in language or in words. There were four parts of meaning that made up the whole of meaning. Each of these pictographs could be communicating a concept of language that are connected at a fundamental level to include all the meanings or parts of communication. This is what would be incredible.

Holy, as an ancient pictograph, could then communicate to us that:

in amount, we are expected to give our all as pictured in a sunset at the end of a full day,
in relationship, we are expected to be connected as pictured in a a tent peg that connects a tent
to the ground,
in action, we are expected to be moving as pictured in a tent door that moves when we push it,
in thing, we are expected to be discerning as pictured in teeth that separate one thing from
another.

Holy would then mean the whole, because each of its parts of the whole would be represented in each of the pictures. They would be an ancient object lesson or picture lesson for the people.

These ancient meanings could also explain why the root meanings that have been proposed for holy are diverse. One meaning for holy that has been proposed that has been proposed for boosting the definition of being whole is that of shining. Obviously this connects with the first pictograph. The other meaning for holy that has been proposed is connected with being separate. Obviously this connects with the fourth pictograph. This could bring clarity to the situation as to where historical definitions got their ideas.

All I can say is that would it not be something, if what I propose as possible is also true? It could give us not only a settlement of controversy, but a picture of what holiness is supposed to look like. A concrete picture might be the greatest blessing of all!

In Christ,

Pastor Jon

Holy Means Whole: According to Richard Hooker

2009-09-01T10:13:00.002-05:00

Generally speaking the core value that is most promoted in the Episcopal debates over their identity is that of comprehensiveness or inclusiveness. The question that is open for debate is what the origin for this value is.

Some argue that it comes from the mediating position of the Anglican Church between that of Catholicism and that of Protestantism. This is what makes it comprehensive or inclusive. This idea of following a middle course then is the determining factor in what comprehensiveness means. Add to this the fact that comprehensiveness is the idea behind the great debates currently happening in the Episcopal and Anglican Churches over homosexuality and then you realize this is no small matter.

The difficulty is that finding the true historical roots for comprehensiveness is not easy nor is it without controversy. Back in 2004 or 2005 I ran across a person who argued that the root meaning for comprehensiveness came from the meaning of holiness or wholeness. Unfortunately for me, this person’s writings on the internet on no longer available at the link I had discovered. He also argued that Richard Hooker was the key author behind this idea.

I think you could argue that it would go back further than Hooker and it would have to originate at least in Cranmer, if this argument is true. This is because Cranmer included in parts of the prayer book or the 39 articles the concept of wholesome. You might even have to go back to a translator named John Wycliffe and argue that his understanding of holiness and wholeness as synonymous is significant.

Yet Richard Hooker is one of the key people in the debate as to the meaning of being an Anglican or an Episcopalian. Both sides of the current debates claim an historical legacy to support their cause.

I think it is not controversial to say that one of the core values of being an Anglican or Episcopalian has to be their comprehensiveness in the sense of wholeness. To pick just one prominent example, their stance is that of recognizing 5 solas in the place of Luther’s 3 solas. On a core value level they instinctually identify when others have left some things out.

Richard Hooker once preached a sermon titled: “A Learned and Comfortable Sermon of Certainty and Perpetuity.” In that sermon he had this among many other things to say: “The truth of some things is so evident, that no man which hears them can doubt them: As when we hear, that a part of anything is less than the whole, the mind is constrained to say this is true.”

I think this is a core value of Anglicanism, when you see the architectural magnificence of Hooker’s writings and when you see 5 solas rather than just 3. They are not satisfied with just some of the parts of anything. They strive also for the whole. They see the whole as greater.

Whether or not holiness or wholeness is the origin for the idea of comprehensiveness or not, though I suspect it is, the value of wholeness is at least one of the core values of Anglicans and Episcopalians.

I wish they would come back to this core value. It would be helpful to both sides of their titanic debate. It might even solve their greatest problems and weaknesses in the debate.

Holy Means Whole: According to the Forgotten Ways

2009-07-30T16:47:00.002-05:00

When I first discovered the idea that holy means whole, I was a bit startled by its seeming novelty. I had never heard the idea before November 2004. That was until I researched the way the word for holy was translated in the King James Version, using Strong’s Concordance. There showed up the translation of the original for holy as wholly. This was what originally initiated my search. Since then, I have discovered that the idea was not novel, but forgotten.

Somehow the far right, the far left and the mushy middle forgot to pass it on to those of us who were born in the twentieth century. I’ve been asked how this could have happened or did happen. I think I can now venture a good idea as to how this happened. But before I say how it happened, I think it is important to point out that it happened for both unintended and intended reasons.

Sometimes crisis events prevail over accurate definitions. In the late 1800s, there are two crisis events that in turn changed the definition of holy. The first was a quest for clarity and a scientific basis for the meaning of biblical words. The second was a response to the quest to be clear and scientific.

I have to simplify the story, so I will make it about just two historical characters. The first is Julius Wellhausen. The second is Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Both are villains and heroes, depending on who you talk to and who knows who they are. Wellhausen is sometimes credited with first establishing credibility for the critical study of the Bible. Spurgeon is sometimes credited with first establishing a beachhead in response to critical study. Let’s live with these oversimplifications for our purposes.

Wellhausen had a pretty significant event in his life, when he had a falling out with his theological mentor, Ewald. From the climate of that time in Germany, there was a strong emphasis on being scientific. One had to have clear ideas in order for something to possess intelligence, to paraphrase Wellhausen. He did not find that in Ewald’s approach to the Bible.

Further, Wellhausen’s efforts had to be objective in order to be scientific. Part of this, was the conviction that a person must study, not just Hebrew religion and Christian religion, but also the other religions of the Ancient Near Eastern world. In this way, by demonstrating objectivity in at least initially treating all religions in that time and place as equals, one could establish credibility in the scientific realm.

Yet the implications were greater than that, because with this objectivity, there also was a belief that there might be themes that all religions held in common. One of those themes was believed to be a distinction between the taboo items of life and the ordinary items of life. Taboo things were things restricted to the sacred and the ordinary things were the common items of everyday life. The idea of holy in Judaism and Christianity supposedly were restricted by taboo and therefore sacred. They were set apart. The profane were the things not under restriction and therefore secular.

Being scientific about the meaning of holy in the original writings is a little more complicated than it is with many words. Some have what is called a clear etymology or a clear line from one word to another that helps us determine its meaning. For holy this is controversial rather than clear. This is the admission of every serious scholar. So into this vacuum stepped the insight of what was discovered in other religions, that there are items which are taboo or set apart and that there are items which are profane or common. So much for one part of our story. This is the root story for the far left side of the tracks.

Spurgeon’s efforts had to have credibility as well. He was not opposed to being objective, but he questioned some of the objectivity of Wellhausen and others, who felt comfortable with some critical views on Scripture that Spurgeon could not agree was objective. This came to a head, while he was part of what was called the Baptist Union.

Spurgeon ended up leaving the Baptist Union, following his accusation that some of its members were on a downgrade path in regard to Scripture. So the controversy became known as the Downgrade Controversy. Spurgeon’s favorite call to others of like mind was to “come out and be separate.”
This battle cry from the midst of a crisis, appears to have replaced Spurgeon’s earlier definition of holiness as wholeness. As he says in one of his sermons about holiness means wholeness, “as I have said many times.” Instead, following the controversy and even more his death not many years after, the definition for holiness took on the idea of “be separate.” So much for another part of this story. This is a root story for the far right side of the tracks.

The evangelicals at this time, were regarded by people like Spurgeon as weaker comrades in the battle against any kind of downgrade. The movement on the issue of holiness seems to have tried to steer a middle course in this controversy. It seems to have contributed very little, except perhaps wedding the idea of set apart to that of be separate. That was their so-called weaker course of peace. They later appeared more comfortable with the pursuit of being scientific in the twentieth century. So much for the final part of this story. This is a root story for the evangelical middle of the tracks.

What was lost in all of these movements and events was that the meaning of holy shifted. It shifted from primarily meaning whole according to Luther, Calvin (see later Jonathan Edwards), (Richard) Hooker, Wesley?? (see his favorite commentator, John Bengel), and Spurgeon. They did also recognize a secondary meaning of separate.

It did not matter whether losing the idea of whole as the primary definition was intentional or not. It got lost and forgotten. I want to recover our forgotten ways.

A forgotten idea may seem novel, until it is realized it was forgotten. It is no longer totally new when it is in fact old. If you want to see the tip of the iceberg of what was lost, please see my earlier posts, especially the oldest. We badly need renewal. A movement with ties to the past (re=again), with ties to the present (new) and ties to the future (al=for all of time). We need to continue improvements, yet we need the past too.

In Christ,

Pastor Jon

Holy Means Whole: According to Andrew Murray, Part II

2009-06-19T14:42:00.004-05:00

Here is the other part from Murray that I could not wait to get out on the internet. It reads in part:

Note C (p. 208)
The Holiness of God

There is not a word so exclusively scriptural, so distinctly divine, as the word holy in its revelation and its meaning. As a consequence of this divine origin, it is a word of inexhaustible significance. There is not one of the attributes of God which theologians have found so hard to define, or concerning which they differ so much. A short survey of the various views that have been taken may teach us how little the idea of the divine Holiness can be comprehended or exhausted by human definition, and how it is only in the life of fellowship and adoration that the holiness which passes all understanding can, as a truth and a reality, be apprehended.
1. The most external view, in which the ethical was very much lost sight of, is that in which holiness is identified with God’s separateness from creation, and elevation above it. Holiness was defined as the incomparable glory of God, his exclusive adorableness, his infinite majesty. Sufficient attention was not paid to the fact that though all these thoughts are closely connected with God’s Holiness, they are but a formal definition of the results and surroundings of the Holiness, but do not lead jus to the apprehension of that wherein its real essence consists.

2. Another view [from #1], which also commences from the external, and makes that the basis of its interpretation, regards holiness as simply an expression of a relation. Because what was set apart for God’s service was called holy, the idea of separation, of consecration, of ownership, is taken as the starting-point. And so, because we are said to be holy, as belonging to God, God is holy as claiming us and belonging to us too. Instead of regarding holiness as a positive reality in the divine nature, from which our holiness is to be derived, our holiness is made the starting-point for expounding the Holiness of God. `God is holy as being, within the covenant, not only the Proprietor, but the Property of his people, their highest good and their only rule’ (Diestel). Of this view mention has already been made in the note to Sixth Day on Holiness as Proprietorship.

3. Passing over [from #2] to the views of those who regard holiness as being a moral attribute, the most common one is that of purity, freedom from sin. `Holiness is a general term for the moral excellence of God. There is none holy as the Lord: no other being absolutely pure and free from all limitations in his moral perfection. Holiness, on the one hand, implies entire freedom from moral evil, upon the other, absolute moral perfection’ (Hodge, Systematic Theology). The idea of holiness as the infinite purity which is free from all sin, which hates and punishes hit, is what in conception is the most prominent idea. The negative stands more in the foreground than the positive. The view has its truth and its value from the fact that in our sinful state the first impression the Holiness of God must make is that of fear and dread in the consciousness of our sinfulness and unholiness. But it does not tell us wherein his moral excellence or perfection of God really consists.

4. It is an advance on this view [#3] when the attempt is made to define what this perfection of God is. A thing is perfect when it is in everything as it ought to be. It is easy thus to define perfection, but not so easy to define what the perfection f any special object is: this needs the knowledge of what is nature is. And we have to rest content with very general terms defining God’s Holiness as the essential and absolute good. `Holiness is the free, deliberate, calm, and immutable affirmation of himself, who is goodness, or of goodness, which is himself’ (Godet on John 17:11). `Holiness is that attribute in virtue of which Jehovah makes himself the absolute standard of himself, of his being and revelation.’ [likely Godet again]

5. Closely allied to this [“#4] is the view that holiness is not so much an attribute, but the `whole complex of that which we are wont to look at and represent singly in the individual attributes of God.’ So [Johann] Bengel looked upon holiness as the divine nature, in which all the attributes are contained. In the same spirit Howe says of holiness as the divine beauty, the result of the perfect harmony of all the attributes., `Holiness is intellectual beauty. Divine holiness is the most perfect beauty, and the measure of all other. The divine Holiness is the most perfect pulchritude [def. physical beauty], the ineffable and immortal pulchritude, that cannot be declared by words, or seen by eyes. This may therefore be called a transcendental attribute that, as it were, runs through the rest, and casts a glory upon every one. It is an attribute of attributes. These are fit predications, holy power, holy love. And so it is the very luster and glory of his other perfections. He is glorious in holiness’ (Howe in Whyte’s Shorter Catechism). This was the aspect of divine Holiness on which Jonathan Edwards delighted to dwell. `The mutual love of the Father and the Son make the third, the personal Holy Spirit, or the Holiness of God, which is his infinite beauty.’ `By the communication of God’s Holiness the creature partakes of God’s moral excellence, which is perfection, the beauty of the divine nature.’ `Holiness comprehends all the true moral excellence of intelligent beings. So the Holiness of God is the same with the moral excellency of the divine nature, comprehending all his perfections, his righteousness, faithfulness and goodness. There are two kinds of attributes of God, according to our way of conceiving him: his moral attributes, which are summed up in his Holiness, and his natural, as strength, knowledge, etc., which constitute his greatness. Holy persons, in the exercise of holy affection, love God in the first place for the beauty of his Holiness.’ The holiness of n intelligent creature is that which gives beauty to all his natural perfections. And so it is in God: holiness is in a peculiar manner the beauty of holiness (Psalm 29:2; 96:9; 110:3). This renders all the other attributes glorious and lovely.’ `Therefore, if the true loveliness of God’s perfections arise from the loveliness of his Holiness, the true love of his perfections will arise from the love of his Holiness. And as the beauty of the divine nature primarily consists in God’s Holiness, so does the beauty of all divine things.’ [This is implied elsewhere to be Andrew Murray’s view also.]

6. In speaking of God’s Holiness as denoting the essential good, the absolute excellence of His nature, some press very strongly the ethical aspect. The good in God must not be from mere natural impulse only, flowing from the necessity of his nature, without being freely willed by himself. `What is naturally good is not the true realization of the good. The actual and living, will, to be the good he is m must also have its place in God, otherwise God would only be naturally ethical. Only in the will which consciously determines itself, is there the possibility given of the ethical. The ethical has such a power in God that his is the holy Power, who cannot and will not renounce himself, which must be, and would be thought to be, the holy necessity f the goodness which is himself – to be the Holy. The love of God is essentially holy; it desires and preserves the ethically necessary or holy, which God is’ (Dorner, System, Vol. I).

7. It was felt that in such views [#3-6] that there was not a sufficient acknowledgment of the truth that it is especially as the Holy One that God is called Redeemer., that that he does the work of love to make holy. This lead to the view that holiness and love are, if not identical, at least correlated expressions. `God is holy, exalted above all the praise of the creature in his incomparable praiseworthiness, on account of his free and loving condescension to the creature, to manifest in it the glory of his love.’ `God is holy, inasmuch as love in him has restrained and conquered the righteous wrath (as Hosea says, 11:9) and the judgment is exercised only after every way of mercy has been tried. This holiness is disclosed in the New Testament name, as exalted as it is condescending, of Father’ (Stier on John 17).

8. The large measure of truth in this view {#7] is met by an expression in which the true aspect os the Holiness of God are combined. It is defined as being the harmony of self-preservation and self-communication. As the Holy One, God hates sin, and seeks to destroy it. As the Holy One, he makes the sinner holy, and then takes him up into his love. In maintaining his love he never for a moment loses his divine purity and perfection in maintaining his righteousness. He still communicates himself to the fallen creature. Holiness is the divine glory, of which love and righteousness are the two sides, and which in their work on earth they reveal.
`Holiness is the self-preservation of God, whereby he keeps himself free from the world without him, and remains consistent with himself and faithful to his Being, and whereby he, with this view, creates a divine world that lives for himself alone in the organization of his Church’ (Lange).
`The Holiness of God is God’s self-preservation, or keeping to himself, in virtue of which he remains the same in all relationships which exist within his Deity, or into which he enters, never sacrifices what is divine, or admits what is not divine. But this is only one aspect. God’s Holiness would not be holiness, but exclusiveness, if it did not provide for God’s entering into manifold relations, and so revealing and communicating himself. Holiness is therefore the union and interpretation of God’s keeping to himself and communicating himself; of his nearness and his distance; of his exclusiveness and his self-revelation; of separateness and fellowship. ‘
`The divine Holiness is mainly seclusion from the impurity and sinfulness of the creature, or expressed positively, the cleanness and purity of the divine nature, which excludes all connection with the wicked. In harmony with this, the divine Holiness, as an attribute of revelation, is not merely an abstract power, but is the divine self-representation and self-testimony for the purpose of giving to the world the participation in the divine life’ (Oehler, Theology of the Old Testament 1:160).
`Opposition to sin is the first impression which man receives of God’s Holiness. Exclusion, election, cleansing, redemption – these are the four forms in which God’s Holiness appears in the sphere of humanity; and we may say that God’s Holiness signifies his opposition to sin manifesting itself in atonement and redemption, or in judgment. Or as holiness, so far as it is embodied in law, must be the highest moral perfection, we may say, “holiness is the purity of God manifesting itself in atonement and redemption, and correspondingly in judgment.” By this view all the above elements are done justice to; holiness asserts itself in judging righteousness, an in electing, purifying, and redeeming love, and thus it appears as the impelling and formative principle of the revelation of redemption, without a knowledge of which an understanding of the revelation is impossible, and by the perception of which it is seen in its full, clear light. God is light: this is a full and exhaustive New Testament phrase for God’s Holiness (1 John 1:5) (Cremer).
This view is brought out with special distinctness in the writings of J T Beck. `It is God’s Holiness which, taking the good which was given in creation in strict faithfulness to that good and perfect will of God, as the eternal life-purpose of love, in righteousness and mercy carried out to its completion in God himself to a life of perfection. God does this as the Alone Holy. In the world of sin divine love can only bring deliverance by a mediation in which it is reconciled to the divine wrath within their common centre, the Holiness of God, in such a way that while wrath manifests its destroying reality, love shall prove its restoring power in the life it gives’ (Beck, Lehrwissenschaft, 168, 547

…. [ a lot is left out here that will be added later, p,214a – p. 217a]

Careful reflection will show us that in each of the above views [#1-8] there is a measure of truth. It will convince us how the very difficulty of formulating to human thought the conception of divine Holiness proves that it is the highest expression for that ineffable and inconceivable glory of the divine Being which constitutes him the Infinite and Glorious God.

…. [217b continued]

This section is packed full of wheat and chaff. I will comment on it more later. But suffice to say, Murray did his homework.

In Christ,

Pastor Jon

Holy Means Whole: According to Andrew Murray, Part I

2009-06-19T14:36:00.002-05:00

I learned some of the most important things I know about holiness from Andrew Murray in his book titled Holy in Christ. To find anything about holy that is quoted from it on the internet seems to be mostly fruitless. To find even the same title for the same book makes it even worse. So I will quote a great deal from it here, so that you can read for yourself what he had to say.

In addition, I am going to edit this posting considerably over time. I just couldn't wait to get these two parts out there on the internet. Here it is in part:

Note B (p. 207)
On the Word for Holiness

The proper meaning of the Hebrew word for holy, kadosh, is a matter of uncertainty. It may come from a root signifying to shine. (So Gesenius, Oehler, Furst, and formerly Delitzsch, on Hebrews 2:11). Or from another denoting new and bright (Diestel), or an Arabic form meaning to cut, to separate (So Delitzsch now, on Psalm 22:4). Whatever the root be, the chief idea appears not to be only separate or set apart, for which the Hebrew has entirely different words, but that by which a thing is separated from others for its worth is distinguished above them. It indicates not only separation as an act or fact, but the superiority or excellence in virtue of which, either as already possessed or sought after, the separation takes place.

In his Lexicon of New Testament Greek, Cremer has an exhaustive article on the Greek hagios, pointing out how holiness is an entirely Biblical idea, and `how the scriptural conceptions of God’s Holiness, notwithstanding the original affinity, is diametrically opposite all Greek notions; and how, whereas these very views of the gods exclude from the gods all possibility of love the scriptural conception of holiness unfolds itself only in the closest connection with divine love.’ It is a most suggestive thought that we owe both the word and the thought distinctly to revelation. Every other attribute of God has some notion to correspond with it in the human mind: the thought of holiness is distinctly divine. Is it not this reason that, though God has so distinctly in the New Testament called his people holy ones, the word holy has so little entered into our daily language and life of the Christian church?

I hope you can see that he views holiness as clearly more than separation.

In Christ,

Pastor Jon

Holy Means Whole: According to Biblical, Renewal, Spiritual and Natural

2009-06-05T11:30:00.005-05:00

It is important that people understand the values that underly what I am trying to do. For me the values that are important when discussing the word holy are the following. They are: biblical, renewal, spiritual and natural. I intend when I write to not violate any one of these four values.

The biblical value means in sum the 66 books of the Book that I grew up with are what I regard as God's Word and nothing more or nothing less than all 66 of them. Each of the 66 make up a portion of God's Word that stands out from other writings. All of them together are normnative and get special attention that none of the others gets.

The renewal value means that collectively all periods of time and people are connected together. Our values are not just made up of the past and being traditional. But neither is it just the future and being futuristic. Renewal means what it says. There is a past, because it happens again, there is a present because it is happening now and there is a future because it includes all. Renewal means that I am connected collectively with my Greatgrandmother, my Grandfather, my mother and others before them. But I also expect to see new believers now and in the future. Our faith should stretch to all periods of time. Not just the past or the present or the future is normnative.

The spiritual value means that the activity of life is produced not by the flesh but by the Spirit. We are otherwise spiritually dead, even though we walk around apparently alive. That is until we are truly born again of the Spirit. So while I think an unbeliever can read correctly a passage of Scripture and explain its meaning, it still does not mean that they are alive and that they have the Spirit. The significance of bringing life is not yet recognized by them.

The natural value that I oppose objects or things contrary to nature. We sing that this is my Father's world and we say that it is God's creation. I take both very seriously. I thoroughly believe that His handwriting is on His handiwork. He reveals Himself in nature. So to go contrary to what is natural is dangerous. A vase of clay is an object made of the material of clay. We need to learn from the materials that God has used and the objects He has made from those materials. We need this value as well as the others.

I went through a very difficult time as a Christian when I tried to live by just the principal of Scripture (Bible) Alone. It isolated me from others and so undervalued renewal the most. Commentaries from the past and present couldn't be used to uphold biblical purity. Yet Luther never avoided the collective connection with other believers. The values of spiritual and natural were diminished. The whole experience propelled me much later to the values above, yet without diminishing the value I placed on the Bible. I still am happily a "chapter and verse" child of my parents.

I just wanted to lay out these values for those who wondered what they are. Much of what I use for communication is based on what I have learned from nature when it comes to communication. It is based on the solid study of language. We live in a day when the changes in transportation have brought distant places close. We also live in a day when changes in the means of communication have brought distant times close. Space and time technologies have altered our understanding of communication for the better. I hope you can see that I value nature in this regard and also renewal.

I think we should use our advanced understandings and also the understandings of the past that we now have in our possession that we did not in the past. We now understand language much like they did in 5th/6th century B.C. This is something that would have been likely inaccessible to Luther. Will we use our renewed understanding to our advantage? That is my challenge to all of us.

In Christ,

Pastor Jon

Holy Means Whole: According to the Ten Views of Sanctification

2009-05-29T12:15:00.003-05:00

How could your title be true you might ask? If there are ten views, how could you propose one view? It is because the ten views show the failure of the meaning of separation to unite Christians around one common view. I think that a viewpoint’s failure may point to the other’s success, though not by itself. It at least adds credibility to the idea of holy means whole.

Also I might mention that it might be more accurate to say somewhere between five and ten views, but I wanted a simple title. There are two key books showing the diversity of opinion.

One is Donald L. Alexander’s Christian Spirituality: Five Views of Sanctification. The other is Five Views on Sanctification. This is where I get the idea of ten views, but there is overlap.
In Christian Spirituality, there are the Reformed, Lutheran, Wesleyan, Pentecostal and Contemplative views that are represented. The authors for each in order are Sinclair Ferguson, Gerhard Forde, Laurence Wood, Russell Spittler and E. Glen Hinson. In Five Views on Sanctification, there are in somewhat parallel order, the Reformed, Augustinian-Dispensational, Wesleyan, Pentecostal and Keswick views that are represented. The authors for each in order are Anthony Hoekema, John Walvoort, Melvin Dieter, Stanley Horton and J. Robert McQuilkin. So you could say seven views and ten authors to be the most accurate.

Before I go further I want to clarify a very important point. My gift mix does not make me the scholar that these gentlemen are. I respect all ten of them as scholars and some of them have educated me in the things that I know. Yet my gift mix does include that of teacher.

Let me explain the difference. Jesus was a teacher, but while He may have also been an expert in the law, He never refers to Himself that way. On the other hand in Luke 10, we find him discussing things with an expert in the law. In that passage in Luke 10:25-37, Jesus defines the expert in the law as one who knows what is written in the law and he defines the teacher as one who knows how to read it. He asks: “What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?” I think the first question is what experts ought to know, even if they are not great teachers. I think the second question is what teachers ought to know, even if they are not great experts. I think Jesus worded his two questions the way he did, because of the expert’s role and because of his role in this story.

My role is not that of expert. I am not the most knowledgeable in “what” questions. In college, I turned down a pretty good job offer thinking it involved too much detail for me. What I did not understand is that it would not require me so much to be an expert, as to teach how I read what is written. That I could have been good at, but unfortunately I missed that opportunity.

Now I know that I am a person equipped with the gift of teaching, but not necessarily that of knowledge or expertise. These ten men can beat me in that area. But when I read their material, I think I see something others may miss in reading. I see the same basic idea for the definition of holy as being that of separation. I do not read the same thing there that I read in Luther, Calvin, Hooker, Wesley(?) and Spurgeon. A new definition is being proposed by all ten men, when you read them.

Their failures to solve so many problems between themselves means maybe there is something wrong from the beginning. Maybe holy or sanctification are being defined wrongly. I know this may add only probability to the idea that holy means whole. But it adds more than that. It adds a great reason to read the previous experts of previous generations and see “what is written” in their pages that is not written now.

Happy reading to all of you. If you want to save some time, then feel free to read my other entries of quotes in my previous blog entries. I have many more quotes I wish I had time to already make available, but it will already give you a generous start. God’s riches blessings to you for reading.

In Christ,

Pastor Jon

Holy Means Whole: According to Common Sense

2009-04-29T10:52:00.011-05:00

Common sense is not as common as people wish. I don't mean this as a criticism of people in general. I also don't mean to sound as though it is an unreachable ideal. I rather mean that it is not as common, as most of us would like. If it were more common, I think the idea that holy means whole would also be more common.

I recently was on flights to Atlanta and Orlando. In the airports, I heard a lot of common sense and a lot of people complaining about the lack of it, when it came to airports and airlines. I witnessed its lack again the other day, when discussing rules for a track meet. Even the officials admitted the lack of common sense in rule making. What is happening?

It is intimidating, if people feel that "It is all Greek to me!" It is exhilarating, if people feel, "It is just common sense!" So how does a person find a way out of intimidation, when dealing with the Bible originally being written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek? Does it mean we all are left feeling intimidated by scholars? Or is there a way out?

I know from the Bible that there is a way out. I also learned a very valuable way out, while I was in the auto industry. One of my coaches taught me the way out by distinguishing between features and benefits. This greatly diminished the feeling of being intimidated and the danger of intimidating others.

When we were in training, very often our training focused on features like power windows, ABS brakes, rack'n’ pinion steering, etc. But when we were talking to our customers, we were supposed to focus on the benefits of those features, not on the features themselves. So we were to talk about convenience, the ability to brake and steer at the same time and quick handling on corners, etc. There were exceptions, like when a customer started asking technical questions. Sometimes, my job then switched to finding someone more technically educated, than I was. Yet our rule remained, start with benefits.

A more common sense example would be your first moving vehicle, usually propelled by another family member. It was your little red wagon. Admit it, you rode in one of these long before you owned a red Dodge Power Wagon. You became very aware of a smooth ride, when it was happening. It was definitely a benefit, when a rough ride got too rough. We may even have advanced to understanding that rough sidewalks or a damaged wheel meant a rough ride. Those features usually could be grasped by even a pretty young rider. I'm sure you were brilliant for someone your age.

Going back to our cars, most of us know that when we have a properly inflated tire, which is a feature, that it shows itself by a smoother ride, which is the benefit. As a person working in the auto industry I was living in a world beyond common sense and a world of common sense at the same time. You could say I was a middle man between the uncommon sense world of technical features and the common sense world of real benefits.

So what is the difference between a feature and a benefit? In a few words, it is the common sense difference between parts and the whole. You have the part called a round wheel and then you have the whole of the smooth ride. The experts on language say it in almost the same words; they call it the difference between feature and activity. Watch how this plays out in the common sense world of real benefits and see if the experts are right. In the end, you can then feel a lot less intimidated. Just use your common sense to advantage.

In Luke 10:25-37, life and love are connected to each other. Life is the big thing in the question asked and life is the big thing in the answer given, using common sense. On the city street or at the grassroots of the farm, life and death are everyday things. Most people’s common sense tells them that a person or an animal is dead when activity or life ceases. They get life and death. It is a little harder to get their hands around love, yet love is not absent from life.

Jesus makes it clear that without love, life will not be inherited. Both love and life are actions; the only question is what their roles are. From a common sense point of view, life is the more common sense thing, so it is likely the greater of the two. So life would be the benefit while love would be the feature.

To understand love you actually do have to get a little technical. Sorry. Love is a general word. Love relates to helping change another's tire, like furniture relates to chairs.

Yet love is very important, because it is the umbrella for the features needed for the activity of life. That makes common sense, since life is the main issue in the question and that indicates what is most central. Also without love for one's neighbor, Jesus makes pretty clear that there will be no inheritance of eternal life. So what does this mean for the meaning of holy? How can we use our common sense there? I think we can use it, like we used it for seeing the roles of life and love. The question is which role, whole or part is the role for holy?

We read in our Bibles many times that Yahweh is holy. We also see a difference between love and holy. We don’t read love, love, love; yet we do read “holy, holy, holy” is “Yahweh God Almighty.” Holy is not a feature like love, it is something greater as indicated by its repetition.

Its greatness is indicated by how many times we read that Yahweh is holy, but also by its connection to the name Yahweh. When I was growing up, I knew that nothing in church was more important than the name Jesus. It was common sense. I have known this and it matches with what I know from my grassroots and my street life. Names are important on the street and at the grassroots.

Experts tell it to us this way. They say that there is the integrating object or person and there are the components of that object or person. They are talking here about the whole and its parts.

Using common sense, either Jesus or Yahweh are the name for the integrating person. If you are not familiar with the name Yahweh, Jesus’ name means “Yahweh saves.” There is nothing greater in the Old Testament to integrate everything than the name Yahweh. I grew up knowing that there was nothing greater in the New Testament than that name Jesus.

So what then is the meaning of holy? I think holy is that word that indicates the components that make up the person of Yahweh and Jesus. It tells us the most important thing about the components. It tells us that the person’s components are whole. They lack no component in their personality.

On the city street or at the farm’s grassroots, you have to know that the people you are dealing with are whole. On the street, your survival depends on others being integrated people who are whole and healthy. You don’t want to hang out too long with people who are imbalanced and whose personalities are disintegrated, unless you are skilled to handle their issues. At the grassroots, your survival depends on others being integrated who are whole and healthy. You don’t go hunting with a partner who lacks an important part of his personality, like the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz, who needs a brain. You need whole persons.

I know in the business world, there were imbalanced personalities, who thought that just working hard is all you need to succeed. These imbalanced people were dangerous to one’s health. That is to say nothing about the fact that they were spewing nonsense.

It is common sense too that Jesus was not a person who saw his primary component as a person, as being separate. Isn’t this just common sense from his story? He didn’t become an Essene or join the community in Qumran. He walked the streets and the country grassroots restoring the wholeness of the broken-hearted.

In the end, I think common sense tells us that separation doesn’t make sense as a meaning for holy. An integrated person is the central object of the Bible. And His person is made up of not just one component, but many. His Name is Yahweh. He is one, He is Father, etc., He is living and He is God. He is also these things in general. He is holy, He is righteous, He is true, He is love and He is good.

So I think this makes it easier for us not to feel so intimidated about the technical parts. If we can first grasp the common sense whole, then we can accomplish a great deal. We do not need to feel so intimidated by the scholar, yet we don’t want to be too scornful either. The parts have their place, like love to life and like round wheels to a smooth ride. Yet common sense seems more comfortable with the whole. Common sense needs to come first, so that it rules rather than nonsense and intimidation. There is a way out.

In Jesus,

Pastor Jon

Holy Means Whole: According to Its Reference

2009-03-31T14:27:00.004-05:00

Martin Luther is a pretty highly regarded theologian. At least, he should be, and I know I highly respect his contribution to my own faith in Christ. Yet even he made mistakes in understanding. I think it is important though not to exaggerate his mistakes and say an error in understanding is “dead wrong.” I believe the same thing about the error of believing that holy means separate. It is wrong, but it is not “dead wrong.”

Let me explain, using the example of one of Luther’s primary errors in understanding, that is yet also full of valuable insight. He spoke a tremendous amount about law and gospel, yet I think he misunderstood something very basic about the use of these words in Scripture.

I am not going to rehearse all the arguments for my position. There is not nearly the space, and I wrote an entire paper on it in seminary that covered well over 10 pages and maybe even covered 20 pages. So I can’t do the subject justice here. Let it instead suffice for me to give a summary of my conclusions and use it as an example, and not as a place to prove my position.

I concluded that Luther misunderstood the meaning of law and gospel, based on the biblical text and that numerous scholars who understood the Jewish context were correct in questioning Luther’s interpretation of the relationship between law and gospel in Scripture. Likewise, some of my own professors reached very similar conclusions, based on their knowledge of the Greek text. Luther saw law and gospel as related in the way of contrast rather than continuum. Law thundered God’s requirements while gospel softly spoke of God’s gift to us according to his understanding.

I think scholars are right to question his understanding that these two words are related by contrast. Yet I think they need to concede that they are equally wrong to miss the value of his reference point in speaking of contrast. I have written earlier about reference and non-reference. Each word should signify a point of reference. I do think Luther was incorrect in designating the reference for law and the reference for gospel as being in contrast to each other. Rather the gospel seems to be a continuation and fulfillment of the law itself. But what cannot be lost, is that Luther was making reference to a biblical contrast that does exist in reality.

It is the contrast between what God requires of us and what He freely gives us through his Son. This reference is to a very real thing. Luther’s incorrect reference point for gospel is to a correct and real reference point to things like God’s kindness, mercy, grace, compassion and longsuffering (slowness to anger). Likewise law is among those things like charges, judgments, laws, commandments and statutes that show us what is required of us.

So let’s look at people’s understanding of holy in this same light. I am convinced that seeing holy as referring to separate, whether according to English historical roots or according to Biblical Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek is an error, but it is not a “dead wrong” kind of error. Second, it is impossible for it to mean both whole and separate as reference points, since in each case the two meanings belong to two entirely separate reference points that are not linked by etymology. And it does not solve the problem to alter which is primary and which is secondary. It may make things worse to keep the two together, since the etymological roots are clearly separate from each other and they could lead to greater errors than they would apart from each other.

Yet, having said separate is a wrong reference point for holy in Scripture, I am not prepared to say that separate is a “dead wrong” meaning. Rather I think the concept of separate points to a very real thing in Scripture. And I agree with Andrew Murray that clearly other Hebrew words have this as their point of reference.

So in the end, let us be clear on something. Holy means whole, does not mean that separate has no valid point of reference within Scripture. Rather it is only wrong to say that this is the point of reference for holy. Separation remains a very valid point of reference in the Biblical worldview through a number of other words in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. I don’t consider being separate a thing we want to throw out with the bathwater. Rather we ought to save it and restore it after a good washing.

In Christ,

Pastor Jon

Holy Means Whole: Order over Chaos (Luke 1:1-4)

2009-02-27T18:06:00.002-06:00

Recently I read the introduction of a book that I enjoyed tremendously back in the early 1990s. It is titled: The Roots of American Order and it is written by Russell Kirk. To paraphrase Kirk, he argues in the introduction that order is the first human need before things like justice, which would be a merely a part of order. I am convinced that being whole parallels the concept of order.

I want to summarize some implications from some of what I have said elsewhere. It is that holiness precedes righteousness, truth, love and good; because it is composed of all of these combined. It is what the whole is to each of the parts.

It is also important to point out that each of these concepts including holy is rather abstract as opposed to concrete. This is not a problem, but it is important to realize that each of these is likely learned from concrete objects that precede learning their meanings. I think every linguist would agree that the concrete things come first in childhood learning.

This is also true I think of kindness, mercy, grace, compassion and longsuffering (or being slow to anger). They are generalizations for many specific instances of forgiveness as demonstrated by God.

This brings me back to the point of agreeing with Russell Kirk that order is a primary need. In Luke’s introduction to his entire book (Luke 1:1-4), he uses two words that point toward he and others putting things in order. I want to argue that holiness and wholeness have done much the same for me and have resulted in at least one of the benefits that Luke points out. It is the benefit of certainty.

I want people to be aware that by bringing things together into order it contributes to the area of producing certainty over uncertainty and a better understanding of what role certainty plays in one’s life. It is not that all uncertainty suddenly disappears, but I think at the fundamental level it pretty much does.

So if for no other reason, I ask that you examine my arguments for holy meaning whole because of the benefit of certainty in some areas that before where chaotic and uncertain. If that alone were its only benefit, then I think it still might be worth examining. I find certainty to be far less taxing on my health than uncertainty was.

In Christ,

Pastor Jon

Holy Means Whole:Yahweh is Holy

2009-01-30T15:46:00.010-06:00

Psalm 99 has been called the holiness chapter and Leviticus has been called the holiness book. In Psalm 99:9, we read: “Exalt Yahweh our God, And worship at His holy hill: For Yahweh our God is holy.” In Leviticus 20:26, we read in part: “I Yahweh am holy.” If I asked you what is more important, God’s personal name of Yahweh or God’s character of being holy, how would you answer?

Recently, I was taken to task for not keeping the main thing the main thing in a sermon I preached. This criticism was done graciously and I was able to accept it graciously, I am happy to report. Similarly, in seminary we were supposed to write a topic paper for our master’s degree that identified the main unifying theme of Scripture. At that time, I chose the word holy, but I was left dissatisfied with my definition of holy and my placing holy as a character trait next to God Himself. I wanted the main thing to be the main thing then, even as that was my intention when I preached more recently.

In the last 2 months, I learned a great deal about priorities when it comes to categories of parts and wholes. I want to chart this out, using bold letters to indicate what is the main thing or what is more important and more urgent. And I've grouped tightly together and have italicized those parts and wholes that are less important than the first kind of parts and wholes. That same grouping is also those parts and wholes that are to be seen as equal to each other. The chart then looks like this:

Component(s) – Integrated Person (ex. funny, chubby, member of 3 Stooges - Curly)

Portion(s) – Mass (ex. slice - pie)
Member(s) – Collection (ex. players - team)
Feature(s) – Activity (ex. round wheel - smooth ride)
Material(s) – Object (ex. china - vase)

Having seen this chart, I think all will agree that God’s name of Yahweh or God’s name of Yahshua (Jesus) is more important than the components that make up God. Yet Yahweh is by his name an integrated person. And it is no small thing to say that “Yahweh our God is holy.”

Names mean more than just one thing. A name for God says more than that God is god and not man. It says something about even ourselves in a comprehensive way. So I now acknowledge that not only did my sermon not keep the main things the main things, but I did not do it either, when I was in seminary and wrote about holy. In my weak defense, neither did many systematic theologies or sermons that I studied.

Now I realize I must write about holy as a description of the wholeness of Yahweh God’s components as a person, but I must write even more about His name and the name of His son who died on the cross for my sins. The personal things must remain the main things even as they were for me as a young Christian. So I will eventually have to create another blog titled: http://yahwehisholy.blogspot.com/.

An integrated name is more significant than the whole of components. Being whole in components is more significant than each of the components, but a name is what best expresses that integration. If you must choose between a person who is integrated and having the whole of the parts, choose the integrated person who is identified by their personal name.

We use names all the time, so we sometimes take them for granted. But people who study names say that they are positively descriptive. They make sense in terms of the person or nonsense in terms of the person. A name is positively joined to some features and negatively separated from some other features.

For example, to say that Yahweh is God does not tell you everything about Yahweh, but certainly one of the central components of who Yahweh is. Yet the trait of being God and not man does not match the integration of all who Yahweh is as a person. For one He is not just God, He is the One God. God tells us what Yahweh is, but does not fully tell us who God is.

We can be steered off course by placing God’s character of holiness ahead of His personal name. The main thing must remain the main thing.

Yahweh as a name is mentioned nearly 7000 times in the Old Testament (Covenant Writings) alone. Then we need to add to that the number of times that Jesus appears in the New Testament (Covenant Writings), because Jesus’ name in Hebrew is Yahshua (or shortened, Yeshua), which means “Yahweh saves.” Then we need to add to that the number of times that LORD appears in an English translation of the Greek New Testament as a substitute for Yahweh, and we will find His name is very important. I will need to add up the full numbers some day. But frequency often says a lot about importance.

So let’s all keep the main thing the main thing even as we learn about holiness and wholeness. And let’s then also keep holiness ahead of things like justice, truth, love and goodness. Yet like Jesus, Yahshua, once said, “Do the former without neglecting the latter.” So God's name of Yahweh comes before all else, including the trait of holiness, yet it is not His name without His holiness.

In Yahshua (Jesus),

Pastor Jon

Holy Means Whole: According to John Wesley (Sort of)

2008-12-31T18:40:00.004-06:00

Hi,

Here is an extensive quote of John Wesley from his comments on Revelation 4:8. The portions that I have italicized are the portions where Wesley brings out the meaning of holy as having to do with being the whole. The quote reads:

4:8 Each of them hath six wings - As had each of the seraphim in Isaiah's vision. Two covered his face, in token of humility and reverence: two his feet, perhaps in token of readiness and diligence for executing divine commissions. Round about and within they are full of eyes. Round about - To see everything which is farther off from the throne than they are themselves. And within - On the inner part of the circle which they make with one another. First, they look from the centre to the circumference, then from the circumference to the centre. And they rest not - O happy unrest! Day and night - As we speak on earth. But there is no night in heaven. And say, Holy, holy, holy - Is the Three - One God. There are two words in the original, very different from each other; both which we translate holy. The one means properly merciful; but the other, which occurs here, implies much more. This holiness is the sum of all praise, which is given to the almighty Creator, for all that he does and reveals concerning himself, till the new song brings with it new matter of glory. This word properly signifies separated, both in Hebrew and other languages. And when God is termed holy, it denotes that excellence which is altogether peculiar to himself; and the glory flowing from all his attributes conjoined, shining forth from all his works, and darkening all things besides itself, whereby he is, and eternally remains, in an incomprehensible manner separate and at a distance, not only from all that is impure, but likewise from all that is created. God is separate from all things. He is, and works from himself, out of himself, in himself, through himself, for himself. Therefore, he is the first and the last, the only one and the Eternal, living and happy, endless and unchangeable, almighty, omniscient, wise and true, just and faithful, gracious and merciful. Hence it is, that holy and holiness mean the same as God and Godhead: and as we say of a king, His Majesty; so the scripture says of God, His Holiness, Heb 12:10. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God. When God is spoken of, he is often named the Holy One: and as God swears by his name, so he does also by his holiness; that is, by himself. This holiness is often styled glory: often his holiness and glory are celebrated together, Lev 10:3; Isa 6:3. For holiness is covered glory, and glory is uncovered holiness. The scripture speaks abundantly of the holiness and glory of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And hereby is the mystery of the Holy Trinity eminently confirmed. That is also termed holy which is consecrated to him, and for that end separated from other things: and so is that wherein we may be like God, or united to him. In the hymn resembling this, recorded by Isaiah, Isa 6:3, is added, The whole earth is full of his glory. But this is deferred in the Revelation, till the glory of the Lord (his enemies being destroyed) fills the earth.

You should note too that Wesley has reversed Bengel's understanding that holy means properly whole and only secondly separate. Wesley has reversed the order of primary and secondary. He has however, kept the meaning of "all his attributes conjoined." That is what I mean by whole.

So here again is proof of another major Reformer of the church who recognizes that holy means whole, in some shape or form. This was something I was not taught growing up and probably you were not taught as well.

In Christ,

Pastor Jon

Holy Means Whole: According to the Same Reference

2008-11-25T11:35:00.005-06:00

The greatest genius I ever met educationally was a gentle giant intellectually. He once told me that Kenneth Pike would have been better known than Noam Chomsky in the linguistic field, if it were not for Pike's humility. I could say the same for him.

I sat under some educational giants or people who are better known by others than he was. The list includes people like Dr. John Piper, Pastor Tom Stellar and Dr. Dan Fuller. Then there is Dr. Paul Hiebert, Dr. Betty Sue Brewster and Dr. Eddie Gibbs. I also was at Bethel when they had Dr. Wayne Grudem, Dr. Scott Hafeman and Dr. Bob Stein in addition to Piper and Stellar. These are some educational giants, who I benefitted from in many ways.

Yet none of them taught me how to read the Biblical text in the way my least known mentor did. Piper got me motivated in reading classic theologians and in his method of arcing the relations in the text. Yet this man gave me the bigger picture on communication. His name is Dr. William Smalley. He outlined how communication worked in way that stirred my larger imagination and sent me in the direction of learning a great deal from Wycliffe Bible Translators and later, Dr. Dan Shaw.

What I learned that most benefitted me is a basic understanding of words and their meaning. Yet I also learned more built upon that same foundation. I learned the larger picture of what creates meaning.

He structured his class outlines somewhat around what I am about to offer. I have added to his material, yet without his work, I could not have created the outline below for how communication and meaning work.

His outline (with my additions or changes from his material) for what words signify is:

Sense and Non-sense
Continuity and Change
Bond and Barrier
Rule and Freedom
Reference and Non-reference

For Dr. Smalley, though I have changed his outline slightly, words were seen to signify these kinds of meanings to people. I think his outline offers a broad insight into the way language works and the kinds of meanings it communicates to us.

What I am concerned with today is the last in this series or outline. This is because I think it is being overlooked that the so-called conservatives are claiming to preserve the same reference for the meaning of holy as that of the Protestant reformers of the past and this is simply not accurate.

For a reference to be the same, it must be a reference to the same thing. And for the reformers like Luther, Calvin, Cranmer, Wesley and Spurgeon; the reference is to some version of the whole as the primary meaning of holy. It is not primarily a reference to some version of separation.

Luther refers to the "entire work of the Holy Spirit" as the "broad" and for him, primary meaning of holy. Calvin uses it in the context of addressing "whole man." Cranmer uses it in the sense of "wholesome" or "comprehensive." I read at one time that Richard Hooker's focus on being comprehensive was derived from his understanding of holy. Wesley used the phrase "entire sanctification" in reference to Thessalonians. Yet this does not tell us how he defined the word holy itself. I think everyone acquainted with Wesley knows how much he relied on Johann Bengel and Bengel summarizes the meaning of holy as the "summary of all God's attributes." Spurgeon in one of his sermons says that he told his congregation "many times that holiness is wholeness."

So how does the current reference to separation fit with the past reference of wholeness? I don't think it does, except in the sense of the secondary reference for holy in the Protestant Reformer's thinking. They did see separation as a secondary meaning at the most and it was entirely dependent upon the context. As Luther described it, the context determined when we are looking at the "narrow" meaning of holy.

Yet now reference to the whole or summary of God's attributes is gone, not only from the liberal side of the fence, but also from the conservative side of the fence. To change the wholeness reference into only an adjective for separation is not to have the same reference as the Reformers.

When I say I have put together the whole bike, that is a far cry from saying that my bike is separate from your bike. Those are two different references or things. I am sure Dr. Smalley would agree with me on this!

In Christ,

Pastor Jon

Holy Means Whole: According to Hitting the Target

2008-10-30T10:38:00.004-05:00

In sports, as in hunting for food, it is important to hit the target. Nearly everyone of us has heard "ready, aim, fire!" in a movie or in real life. One thing that is very important to add is "at the target." We need to know what the target is.

When God speaks to us from His word, the target is not so much the words as the reality behind those words. I like to simplify it this way. It is not me, but God that is the target in my vision of reality. I want to know that He says it, not that I say it. In reverse, He and His word hopefully are the source, in contrast to me being the source, for the views I am sharing concerning holy.

My concern is not the word holy by itself. My concern goes beyond that. It goes to what is the target of this word, that God has spoken to us. What is the thing God is trying to express to us about Himself?

When God spoke skillfully to us using words, what is it that He is aiming at? And specifically, when God used the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek words for holy, what is His target or reality? This is my paramount question. I want to know the reality, or my use of the word may point to something quite irrelevant to what God intended.

One position out there is that holy means separate. There is no question in my mind that Scripture clearly points out the ways in which God is separate from us. My question is whether the use of the word holy was meant to communicate that reality to us. I lean toward Andrew Murray's explanation that there are other words that clearly make that distinction. God's separateness is part of my vision of His reality.

The danger in the case of making a mistake about the meaning of holy is that we are talking about a thing that is a very high priority. "Holy, holy, holy" clearly points in that direction. While separation may be clearly taught in Scripture, it may not be taught as our highest priority for character. This has big implications that I cannot go into here.

My focus instead is on defining this word, so that the reality that God targetted is now the reality that we target. If I understand the vision of many churches, I do not see a focus on being whole, except in the loose sense of being healthy. This is no small matter, if God sees holy as meaning whole.

So I want to suggest focused attention in determining our target. Otherwise, we may be guilty of a lot of "ready, aim, fire!" instructions without hitting the right target. This could have disasterous conquences that are hard to fathom, because irrelevance is no small mistake when we are talking the highest priority for our character and God's attributes. May God bless your day!

In Christ,

Pastor Jon

Holy Means Whole: According to Being More Biblical

2008-09-30T14:58:00.003-05:00

I grew up with a saying in my family that is great in principle and yet very hard to live by. It is: "chapter and verse." What this meant in my family is that if you have an opinion on something debateable, then you had better be able to back it up with chapter and verse from the Bible. Since that time this principle has grown for me into the principle of being biblical.

I have striven to be that very thing for a lot of years and yet I find that there are still areas where I discover I am less than biblical. This could be a reason for despair. Yet the vision I have for a new church plant is: "To strive to be more biblical, while owning our errors and removing harmful compromises."

The reason I stay optimistic is that being biblical is a matter of degree and not a 100% degree. Let me illustrate. I think the degree or measure is this. What is big and what is little? When it comes to communication from God, what is big to you? Is it an oral communication you heard last Sunday? Is it a written communication in the latest popular Christian book? Or is it the written communication from a book commonly referred to as the Bible? Is that in fact what is big for you? Is it bigger than everything else?

When I say I am a biblical Christian, I don't think I am so in a 100% way, but in a way that the Bible represents the written or oral communication that is bigger than all else. For me the Bible is not exclusive in communicating helpful things to me as opposed to harmful, but it is the greatest by far in communicating those helpful things which I need.

I think this is the right measure the Bible deserves. It is not that there are not lesser lights in books written by Christian authors or others. It is that it is the greatest and not to be surpassed as an authority. Nothing is its equal. This is what is right and just.

My argument for holiness is wholeness is my attempt to be more biblical and not hold even Christian or other authors above the Bible. This is a hard saying for many people who look at being Biblical as though the biblical person can never be wrong about something as big as holiness.

I think it is rather possible to be wrong and still be right in the bigger sense. I also think that unless you hold that view, you are liable to defend what should not be defended. A pastor friend of mine recently told the story of his son getting in trouble at school. After his son told the story to his dad, he asked his dad if his dad's response meant he could never sin. His dad responded that "Mistakes happen, compromises continue."

I think it is important to correct the wrongs of the past and not fall into continuing compromise. It appears to me that some of the church fathers and reformers made an error with regard to the meaning of holy. They could not solve whether it meant whole or separate, so they settled for an intermediate position of both meanings with the context determining which one was valid. When the 19th century came to a close new data on other Ancient Near Eastern languages indicated that this was no longer valid. One possible root of meaning pointed toward separate. The other pointed toward whole. It was now clear that the previous position was now a compromise and no longer just an error that happens to all of us.

The question became whether or not the error would end or whether a compromise would continue. The problem is that there are harmful and harmless compromises. Half a loaf of bread is a harmless compromise, if the alternative is no bread. Half a baby on the other hand is a harmful compromise, if the alternative is a living baby (even in the wrong hands) as Solomon and the child's actual mother realized.

Unfortunately, the effort to end a compromise on the meaning of holiness may have resulted in having no bread at all or in cutting a baby in half in such a way that we were left with a corpse. By some deciding to end any compromise and rather settle for none, they lost wholeness. This seems to be the more conservative side. On the other hand, by some deciding to cut the baby in half and settle for something dead, they also lost wholeness. This seems to be the more liberal side. Both sides of argument over error seemed to have been a little overzealous and destroyed something that was helpful in trying to remove compromise and error.

With holiness meaning wholeness, there is still plently of support for separation. But without holiness meaning wholeness, there is very little support for wholeness. We lost something in trying to remove error. Half a loaf was better than no loaf and a living baby was better than half of a dead corpse.

I want above else to be biblical. Genesis 2:1-3 supports the idea of wholeness. Exodus 31:13-17 supports the idea of wholeness. So does even Luke 10:27 in principle, "`You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, ....'" Aren't these parts that make up the whole of the self? What word in Scripture brings together the parts of the whole better than holiness?

I want to finish by saying I strive to be a biblical Christian with the Bible bigger than any other book in my influences. I get support for the wholeness idea mostly from within this book itself. Unfortunately, I cannot supply all this support in one big gulp. But is it not acceptable to admit our errors so that in the end we might be right, but even more God right about what our world needs? Our time needs wholeness, health and soundness. May God get the glory!

In Christ,

Pastor Jon

Holy Means Whole: According to Sound Scholarship

2008-08-29T15:55:00.003-05:00

C. H. Spurgeon once said that “holiness is wholeness” and so did a host of other great theologians, yet that is not enough to convince many people in our day, because of the weight of scholarship saying otherwise. There is no way I can ignore scholarship, when it comes to saying that holy means whole. I must have scholarship on my side. I do, though I cannot demonstrate much of it in this one piece, but I can draw a clear distinction between unsound scholarship and sound scholarship.

I see the difference between unsound and sound in the analogy between a bike that lacks some of its basic parts and a bike that has all of its basic parts. The bike without some of the basic parts is not entirely useless, if we use it for parts, but it also is not entirely adequate by itself.

The word sound is also translated healthy in our Bible. I have said elsewhere I think that whole means healthy in the sense of its most important implications, and I also said elsewhere that wholeness is the key to being healthy above all else. So let’s examine scholarship in terms of whether it is whole or not to determine whether it is then healthy and sound or not.

But before we examine scholarship, we must also understand another major factor in why some define holy as separation. The argument that holy means separate is based on two major factors. The first is scholarship that began largely in the early 1800s to challenge the idea that holy had any dual meaning with whole being primary and separate being secondary. The second is that when Charles Spurgeon separated from the Baptist Union in the late 1800s, separateness became a major focus. If we zoom forward to our time, scholarship is why liberalism maintains the idea of holy meaning separation and the idea that there are secular and religious realms that are distinctly separate from each other. Actual separation historically is why conservatism maintains the idea of holy meaning separation, because of its importance in justifying the actions of Spurgeon and other separatists after him. While Spurgeon clearly taught that holiness is wholeness, he also clearly taught by his actions that its secondary meaning of separation was perhaps even more important. I hope you can see the irony in this, because it has aligned liberals and conservatives together on this one issue of scholarship.

The greatest irony in all of this has been the attempt by Christians to create a distinction in scholarship. It is odd to see the descendants of fundamentalists aligned with names like Gesenius, Brown, Driver, Briggs, James Strong, J. Henry Thayer, Vine, Liddell, Scott, Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich, Kittel and many others. You can read of Christians who to this day refuse to use these authors in their study of Scripture, because they are seen as corrupt. Yet on the word holy, they see no problem.

I think that the idea that holy means separation is what creates the entire uneasiness with using scholarship that does not originate from the Christian community. In addition, when anyone crosses that line in studying Scripture, they work hard to prove how they can avoid corruption or they try to prove that corruption is not there in some places. If separation is the most critical character trait we must possess, then corruption or impurity is a real problem when you use scholarship outside the Christian community. Mixing with others becomes a real possibility for losing one’s purity. Yet there is another option that upholds separation, yet not separation as what is most important about Christianity or religion or even the secular realm.

If being whole or wholeness is primary, there might be room for benefitting from scholarship that is not of the faith, while still maintaining the distinction of Christian and non-Christian in its proper sphere. What could benefit the Christian community and the non-Christian community is an exchange in areas they agree, without saying that they agree on the whole.

Samuel Lee, D.D. authored a Hebrew Lexicon in the late 1800s. He recognized some of the problems faced by Christians in using lexicons developed by those outside the faith. Yet he cautioned against accommodation in the face of realities, just to advance what Christians consider orthodox. He points out that: “This would be dishonest on the one hand, as the practice proscribed above is faulty, partial and unjust, on the other.” I could not agree more as Dr. Lee is beginning to define what it is to be sound or healthy or whole. He recognized an entire set of principles that must be upheld. He also concludes that valid interpretations in his view are “the most easy, natural, judicious and acceptable. “ Again, he is laying out principles in his preface of his scholarly lexicon that make up a set of things and are not singular. I think this provides our way out of the problem of struggling to discern what is sound scholarship.

If being sound is being healthy and if being healthy is primarily being whole, then Dr. Samuel Lee has provided an avenue to both benefit from other scholarship, whether it is Christian or not, and he has also provided us with a different place for separation to avoid corruption or impurity. Let me take his principles one step further.

As a Christian, my primary principle is my first moral trait to be whole. What primarily makes up that whole are the moral traits of justice, truth, love and good. These are then the foundation for how I discern sound scholarship from unsound scholarship. By analogy, it is how I separate the whole bike from the partial bike.

Notice I said separate, yet without that being the primary principle. If I function as a stereotypical fundamentalist or conservative, then I have a real problem when I use lexicons not written by Christians or better yet anything not written by God. There is that possibility of corruption and impurity lurking everywhere, but in God's inspired Bible. I live in constant fear.

On the other hand, if I need to separate things that are sound from things that are unsound and if I come out from among fellowships that are unsound, then I have less fear and more hope in this world that I might benefit from even others who are unsound. This is because part of what they do, may make up part of what is sound. That is, they may love justice and define that well, even while they are not sound or healthy and they are even opposed to what is true. I can benefit from what agrees in principle as a part, even though I cannot benefit as a whole. So I have to separate myself at that point, rather than from all the parts that come from an unsound or unhealthy source.

Remember my analogy earlier. The bike without some of the basic parts is not entirely useless, if we use it for parts, but it also is not entirely adequate by itself. I clearly can separate a complete bike from an incomplete bike, but that does not make the parts useless. Likewise, I can use parts of scholarship to make whole or sound scholarship.

I am also able to use the scholarship of the past, based on whether I think it is sound or not, not based alone on whether it is from a Christian or not. Stereotypical forms of conservatism make this mistake. I am also able to use past Christian scholarship, because I do not think soundness is defined correctly, when it requires me to give up parts of what makes me sound to be sound. I also am not biased against the past, because I think this violates the healthy principle of truth. Stereotypical forms of liberalism make this mistake when it favors the latest in scholarship.

The truth is that scholarship without wholeness will continue to struggle. I think what scholarship has amounted to is as important, as what scholarship has to say about holy’s definition. It needs to both have something worthwhile to say and it accurately must say what holy is. These are both parts of being whole.

Every day I see the productiveness of the idea of wholeness and the ineffectiveness of separation. I also see that sound scholarship, which is more than just having a degree or being part of the right contingent, favors wholeness over separation. That is because so much of scholarship today is simply repeating the unsound scholarship of stereotypical liberalism or the lack of scholarship of stereotypical fundamentalism, rather than reading the word holy in context.

Let me touch the tip of the iceberg of practicing actual sound scholarship. Holy is right there in the context of things like justice, truth, love and good. The commandment is holy, just and good according to Paul in Romans 12. Does it seem so impossible that the commandment is whole and that part of that is not just being good, but also being just? Doesn’t that also fit the context well?

Let’s examine every use of holy in terms of being healthy and sound in our scholarship. I think the definition of separation is given an unfair advantage. I think it is not truthful to not mention that separation as the meaning of holy is controversial, based on arguing from etymology. I think it is not appropriate to do no further research in this particular area of scholarship, when love requires action. And I think it is inexcusable to not test past conclusions for accuracy to determine whether they are good. Right now separation is the presumptive good guy. This is a unsound approach.

So big name scholars do not scare me, unless I can draw out some parts from their work to make scholarship that is sound. I am convinced we can do this and maintain healthy separation from unsound scholarship. And big name members of the separatists do not scare me, unless they can take seriously the need for sound scholarship in order to be biblically accurate. I am convinced that scholarship can be taken seriously and produce fantastically accurate results from the Bible. The last I heard, it is my job to be healthy in my scholarship and not just separate from the scholarship of others, in order to demonstrate my worth in challenging scholarship. I want to please God above all else. I hope you desire the same.

In Christ,

Pastor Jon

Holy Means Whole: According to C. H. Spurgeon

2008-08-11T12:53:00.004-05:00

Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the greatest Baptist who ever lived, was one of my college favorites. He had this and other things to say about the meaning of holy:

"In a word, we must labor for holiness of character. What is holiness? Is it not wholeness of character? A balanced condition in which there is neither lack nor redundance. It is not morality, that is a cold, lifeless statue; holiness is life. You must have holiness; ...." He said this in a sermon titled "Forward!" You can access this at: http://www.spurgeon.org/misc/aarm02.htm. You can also access other things he has said through the links I provide on the right margin of my blog.

He also had other things to say about holiness. He connects holiness with a sense of separation or being separate in other sermons. I would never deny this. This should not surprise us, since he felt such an affinity with the Puritans and their sometimes separatist cause. I don't want to misrepresent Spurgeon.

It is likely that Spurgeon followed the Protestant scholarship that preceded him that saw holiness as first wholeness and as second separation. Yet it also remains to be studied as to whether he may have forged a path connecting holiness and wholeness more strongly and more clearly than Protestants before him. He was as a Baptist very committed to knowledge and to discernment, after all is said and done. That is a core value of being a Baptist.

The thing that is very relevant for our time is how much minds forged in the twentieth century missed out on hearing Spurgeon's connection between holiness and wholeness. For all the talk of fundamentalists saying that they preserved faithfully the faith of our fathers, they clearly failed on the subject of holiness. Instead, they either in their eagerness to separate from critical scholarship fled to the meaning of separation exclusive of wholeness on their own or they bought into liberal scholarship's conclusion that holy means to be separate. I imagine more the former than the latter, though the latter later backed them up ironically.

Yet in the minds of many people, wholeness makes no sense as being connected with holiness. It instead carries with it an uneasy sense of resistance. I think it is important to understand how the brain works to understand this mental resistance.

According to some experts, the mind works in in four realms. It consists of the memory of things, the language of action, the thought of ideas and the emotions of clarity. All of this together weighs against the introduction of even reality.

First, many have no memory of hearing that holiness is wholenes, if they grew up in the twentieth century. Second, a person may never have used holiness that way in their use of language. Third, ideas of holiness would all connect with separation, but not with being whole. Finally, a person's emotions are tied up in all of this, because it seemed so clear that holy means to be separate.

Yet, if you go back to the memory in the minds of the Protestant tradition and likely other traditions too, then you must also consider that you are not dealing with just with your memory, but also with the other aspects of your mind. You don't just need to reconsider what you were taught and what you remember. You need to deal with more than that to change your mind about something.

To persuade your mind that it is right to say that holiness is wholeness, you will also have to deal with your emotions which thought previously of only the one definition of separation. Now, by nature of having two possibilities for the definition of holy rather than just one, things will not be so clear and your emotions not quite so settled.

I am warning you that if or when you consider that holiness is wholeness, then you may experience a roller coaster ride of sorts for some time period. Clarity is built on one option versus many options and emotions are built on top of those in our nervous system. The sequence proceeds from one (versus many) then to clarity and then to emotions. So be prepared for an emotional reaction or resistance.

Yet in the end, I have felt a peace of mind and emotions that I have never felt before. It is not a starting point for proving my point. But I am saying that there is peace on the other side of a sometimes fearful questioning of what your mind once considered settled. I began writing this blog to jog people's memories. Now I realize I have more to do, because I also have to deal with the emotions of the mind and nervous system as well. May God richly bless your day.

In Christ,

Pastor Jon

2008-07-31T16:14:00.004-05:00

Holy Means Whole: According to a Possible History for Holy's Loss of Meaning

People have asked at one time or another, the question of "What happened?" to the meaning of holy, that it is so controversial to say it has to do with wholeness. I can only speculate, yet I think real history may eventually show real merit to these ideas. I think I have found a possible explanation in the problem of inaccuracy in communication. I think also that a friend has hit on the best interim solution to persuade people of the importance of being whole, since his point of communication does not suffer from this very problem, but is a great example of the reverse.

In healthy communication you need four major things: clarity, ideas, words and things. To put it another way, a person needs to strive for these qualities in communication: clearness, fidelity, naturalness and accuracy. What makes all this happen is these relationships: continuity and change, bond and barrier, rule and freedom and reference and non-reference. And finally, this means that we must use our whole selves to communicate well. We must use our: heart, soul, strength and mind.

What I think first fell apart is accuracy. I say this because in Exodus 31:13-17, God gives the Hebrews the thing called "My Sabbaths" as their reference point for the meaning of holy. My Sabbaths is a very specific reference to God's days of rest. The very first day of rest He blessed and made holy.

What I am convinced has shifted, leading up to our time in history, is the substitution of the thing called rest in contrast to the thing called work, for thing of God's day of rest. The reference point has shifted from a thing called a day (the part) to an action called rest (the whole), or maybe better stated from the thing of a day of rest together to just the thing of rest. The part of day has been separated from the whole of rest and now rest is the thing that is the reference point by itself. When this happened our minds were likely the first part of ourselves that were compromised. It is like saying the word computer, while someone in the room is looking at the computer on a desk and another is looking at the map on my wall. One says the referent is this and not that referent. Another points to something else as the referent. This all turns the mind to mush and makes it hard for people to decide.

This leads then to further compromises in healthy communication. It is likely that the next thing to fall apart is naturalness because scholarship believes that the Pharisees started to use another Hebrew word for the original Hebrew word. Evidently, the original Hebrew for holy was no longer recognized as natural for the person on the street and the Pharisees likely saw an opportunity to say we have a better Hebrew word for what is its natural meaning. To illustrate, this is like me still using the word groovy with a sixteen year old, when someone else has now substituted the word bad. The rules of language are now tough to grasp and freedom can be misused. This dissipates strength, because actions are pulled in two directions.

The next thing to fall apart in healthy communication would likely be fidelity, since now another word is linked to the meaning for holy rather than the original. The argument would now be that of people arguing over who best preserved the meaning originally intended in the Bible. One side would say that they had bonds to those traditions of the past and another would argue that they do. To illustrate, this is like me saying that is my Hot Wheel, while my brother claims it is his. The question is which one really has a bond to that of the past and what is really a barrier to that past. This tears the souls of those, who do not know who is demonstrating fidelity.

Finally, clarity would be compromised, because clearness is best preserved where there is only one option versus many options. Unfortunately, with at least two options, things became complex and no longer simple and unified. Clarity is now compromised, because of the change in meaning and a lack of continuity in meaning. This is where change becomes dangerous. It can also be helpful, if it is balanced with continuity. But in this case, the change did not preserve continuity, but destroyed it. To illustrate, if I give you only one option for an ice cream flavor, it is a lot easier for you to decide, than if I give you fifty flavors. If there has always only been one choice, it is more likely that there is a unity in choosing. This lack of unity rips the heart out of people.

I think this is a healthy summary of what went wrong. I know it is speculative, but like I said earlier, historical inquiry may later prove it to not be far off the mark. I think it is by restoring the part of accuracy, that the whole can be restored. This will take some time. I think people know this.

In the meantime, Luke 10:25-28 gives us the best chance of restoring wholeness to its right place and convincing people to then later look at how they define holiness. There is no chance of inaccuracy, because the text provides the parts of ourselves in such a way that accuracy is there. "Yourself" is made up of: "heart," "soul," "strength" and "mind." That these are equally parts of one’s self is seen in the communication marvel of parallelism. This text has been preserved down to our day in such a way that it is a communication marvel even in translation.

It possesses accuracy, it possesses naturalness, it possesses fidelity, and it possesses clarity. It is not a tough text like some others that are found inside books with the titles that include "Difficult Words." So a good friend has given me a great idea. The wholeness of ourselves is a great starting point for promoting wholeness, even if it would be weak as an ending point. We will need holy in the end to show the importance of this attribute in the character of God. I am looking forward to that day when God's character is seen rightly and so is the reference to the God's day of rest rather than to only God's rest. God bless your day.

In Christ,

Pastor Jon

2008-07-02T11:16:00.004-05:00

Holy Means Whole: According to Linguistic Insights and Probable Etymology

The etymology of holy is controversial. Yet I want to work with one of the two possibilities without settling the controversy directly. I will show how what I wrote in the previous piece is relevant to understanding a possible connection with holy. I want to follow up now, so I do not have to repeat much of what I said there. One possible root for holy is that of another Hebrew word which has to do with the idea of shine.

I will follow the order of the components of the chart I showed the last time I wrote. The chart is:

Attribute

Quantity

Possessive

Agency

Constituents

The attribute for this possible root of shine is brilliance. White light can have the character of being bright. The character of other colors is that they are not as bright as the bringing together of all of them into a whole. This is how the idea of shine would be understood in the sense of an attribute like the idea of holy.

The quantity is the entire or full spectrum of light versus the portion of light represented by a color or less than full combination of colors from the full spectrum. White light is the full spectrum. Red light would be a portion of the entire spectrum. This is how the idea of shine would be understood in the sense of an amount.

The possessive is that the sun’s light is white light and this light possesses different colors that are related or connected to each other. These colors can also make up the different colors that are together and form a rainbow’s spectrum of colors. This is how the idea of shine would be understood in the sense of relationship.

The agency is that the white light comes from the sun and is given off by it. It can also be given off artificially. But sunlight is the most complete light in terms of its action for our health and for other living things. The agency for the other colors, besides white light, is that of the prism or in the case of a rainbow the ability of water to refract light. This is how the idea of shine would be understood in the sense of agency (or action).

The constituents of white light are the colors of a rainbow or the colors that appear with the use of a prism. The constituents or parts are called colors. They include colors like red or yellow. A combination of colors is recognized as the parts of white light. These are the visible components we can see and that we can identify by name. This is how the idea of shine would be understood in the sense of constituents or its physical components.

I say all of this to bring out some of the different ways that the idea of “to shine” plays out in its own right, and how it might tie into the idea of wholeness. It makes a very apt illustration of holy, assuming it has the meaning of wholeness. Remember, I am not trying to prove etymology here, but simply looking at the implications from one of two options. I am convinced that the root idea of shine receives some explanation for why different authors, who recognize this same root, might use different words to explain the same thing or use a different slant on the same word, when you view the word through the prism or chart above. Shine can be a good illustration for the meaning of holy as whole from these many angles. May God bless your day.

In Christ,

Pastor Jon

2008-07-01T15:28:00.005-05:00

Holy Means Whole: According to Linguistic Insights into Parts and Wholes

I have confidence we can solve problems that have not been solved in recent history. I get a lot of this confidence from John Beekman and John Callow, both of whom I have never met. Yet I have read their books over and over, and they have had an immense impact on my confidence. Dr. William Smalley first introduced me to their book, Translating the Word of God, back in the early ‘80s. At the same time, I was taught to observe things over and over in order to gain new insights. I learned this principle from Tom Steller and he learned it from Dr. Daniel Fuller’s hermeneutics syllabus. Without this lesson, I doubt that Beekman and Callow’s books would mean as much to me. Through reading their book yet another time, I discovered some brilliant insights on the subject of parts and wholes that have inspired me in the quest to better understand holy in the context of the story of this world’s beginnings, found in the book of Genesis.

In Beekman and Callow’s book they mention that there is more than one way of speaking of parts and wholes. I am going to rely on their scholarly insight. This means I am not going to elaborate on what they wrote, but I am going to expand their treatment beyond their initial insights. I’ll leave reading their insights up to you, since it is easily found in their book under the subject of genitives.

What I got from their insights, in outline form, is that you can speak of parts and wholes under the following subcategories, which I have expanded from other parts of their insights. The categories are:

Attributes

Quantities

Possessives

Agencies

Constituents

Let me define each one a little bit, as to how I am using them, before developing how these apply to Genesis 1:1-2:3. I will handle them in the order they are introduced in the Genesis 2:1-3, rather than in the idealized systematic outline form above, for ease in our treatment of the text. For example, the attribute of holy comes up last.

Attributes are things that sum up the whole of something. My favorite example is the traditional theological phrase, “the sum of all His attributes.” Each attribute is a summary or whole like the examples of righteousness and justice that apply to a whole set of things within their domain.

Quantities are where we quantify parts and wholes numerically in some way. My favorite example has to do with eating pumpkin pie. We may say he ate some of the pie, or he ate the entire pie, or he ate a portion of the pie, or that he ate a quarter of the pie. In each case it is measurable numerically, even if some measures are more imprecise.

Possessives are concerned with a connection between a person or something and another person or another thing. There is a relationship. We might say that is Joe’s sword. We might also say it is Sally’s TV. We might say in theology that love is one of God’s attributes and does not belong to someone else. It belongs to Him and so is a part of Him relationally. The focus is on God relationally.

Agencies are concerned with actions. Actions can be partly done, incomplete, or they can be wholly done, complete. My favorite example comes from the work place. Very often a boss will ask us, if we have done what he asked. What he usually is asking is whether we completed the action he requested. This is very important in discussing work and rest.

Constituents are something that is a part of a whole. My favorite example comes from the animal kingdom. A tail is part of a cat. In the physical world in general, a leg is part of a chair. They are physically seen as connected as parts of wholes. This is where children begin to learn the concepts of parts and whole at a very young age.

The place to begin is to begin where children first begin, when their teachers are their parents, with the constituents. This is very important because we use language to speak about things and to communicate that meaning to someone else. In the Genesis story, one of the major mistakes is to lose sight of what constituents or things are in focus as a reference point. We sometimes read back into a story what the referents or things we think are in focus, when they are not the focus in a story. This is because our brains are wired to seek out what is relevant in a story and we sometimes carry too much of what is explicit in our minds into what is explicit in the story.

The example of this in Genesis is that sometimes the two actions of create and of rest take priority in our minds over these days “in the beginning.” The reason for God making holy “the seventh day” is that “in it” He did the action of rest. It is not because “He rested,” but because “in it He rested.” The thing that is in focus as being blessed is the seventh day, not the action of rest. The way we know this, is that parts and wholes traditionally fall in the order of the part being first and the whole following. We, for example, will say, “This is the tail of the dog.” We know that the dog is the whole and the tail is the part. Sometimes the whole is shifted to the front, but this is still easily identified. We might say, “The dog’s tail.” In Genesis, this shift in order is similar to what we have with dog and tail.

We have that “in [the seventh day] He rested.” We can state it another way to identify the parts and the whole. We could say, “He rested in the seventh day.” God could have done the part of work or the part of finished or the part of rested, but he only part he did on the seventh day is rested. The seventh day is the whole in this context, as it naturally follows rested, when you reverse them based on the word “in” which indicates the part-whole relationship. The only shift in meaning, in reversing the order, is that the emphasis or focus is not as strong on “in it.” By moving that to the front the writer and the translator is trying to demonstrate focus.
It is also critical and in focus that the rest occurred “in [the seventh day]” from a similar angle. The relationship of time is the major referent. Genesis, as an entire book, is focused on relationships of genealogy and on relationships in time, not on actions, yet they are still part of the story.

Another time example is that often the mention of the seventh day adds the implicit information of a week to the story. The problem is that this is not the focus of the story. The focus is not that seven days make up the parts of a week. It is that the “evening and the morning” make up the parts of each “day.” There is no denying that these seven days make up the unit of a week, but there is no reason to see the focus on the quantifying of a week, when the week is not explicit in the context. The constituents that are explicit are more likely to be the ones in focus, and that would be “evening and morning” as constituents or parts of a day, rather than week and seven days as quantities or parts of a week. Another thing here is that the primary unit of time in focus is not the week, but “in the beginning” and “the seventh day” is specific, because it is related not so much to a week, but to the beginning as a quantity.

The reason this matters is that there is a danger in shifting the meaning of the story, when the focus is shifted. The danger in making the week a focus is that then the idea of separation is given inexplicit support, because the one quantity or part of the week, the seventh day, is seen as separate from other parts or quantities of the week, the six days. It is dangerous to change the focus of the section, even if the week will later be a relevant subject in Scripture. As Dr. Fuller would say, let each passage stand on its own before making any connections with something outside of it. Keep your focus on “evening and morning” being the constituents or parts of each “day,” rather than on “the seventh day” being a quantity or part of a week, when it receives no explicit mention in the context.

Next, let’s deal with quantities. Here we will handle the topic of seven days. Quantitatively, there are seven days mentioned in this section of Genesis. Each day is numbered off up to “the seventh day.” Numerically one day out of seven represents one seventh of the entire seven days in the beginning, but again without mention of the week. It is pretty clear that we can talk about these days quantitatively, like we can talk about a quarter representing one quarter of a dollar. There is also mention of “all the host of them” and to “all His work” which indicate a quantity of all versus some. Finally, we also have the action of “blessed,” which is a great word in any culture, whether it be a hunting and gathering culture or a wholistic culture. For a farmer in the agricultural age, it indicated being fruitful versus fruitless, an amount on a tree; multiply versus fail to multiply, important to a seed counter and fill versus don’t fill, important to the size of a field. These quantities are all significant. The quantity or part of ”seventh” is very important in understanding which part or quantity of the seven days God rested in.

It makes sense to deal with agency next since “blessed” is one of the actions. The completion of blessed involves not just being fruitful, but also multiplying and not just those together, but also filling versus incomplete filling. Yet even before this action in the seventh day, God “finished,” then He “ended” and then he “rested.” He did this because His action of “work” was “done.” He had “created” and He had “made.” His action was completed, as shown by all the past action references to the work of created and made. Then with all this complete, he also “rested.” He then completed the action of rested “in the seventh day.” That is when He completed His action of “rested,” somewhat like His action of “finished.” The whole of completed action was very important in the context. So the whole of completed action versus the part of incomplete action is very important when it comes to God’s rest. It shows again the significance of parts and wholes, only this time in terms of action rather than on another level of our outline earlier.

We must deal with possessives, because it is significant that the work that is done is “His work,” not the work of another. Three times in Genesis 2:1-3, it is repeated that it is “His work.” I like to turn possessives into this form, “work of Him,” or explicitly “work of God.” Work is related to God as a part or extension of who He is. Yet it is far from all the parts of who God is relationally. So God is related to work of creation as its sole or whole author.

Finally, it is important to deal with attributes, because we are told that God “made holy” [my translation] the seventh day. We also see that God created things and attributed to them that they were “good” in Genesis 1. Both of these are obvious attributes, because they are qualities that sum up the character of someone or something. That could be why “good” falls in the position of summing things up at the end of some of the days.

What is it that God attributed to “the seventh day” when He “made it holy?” Did He give the day the character of being separate from the other six days, because of rest versus work? Or did He give the day the character of being whole, for resting both evening and morning, as opposed to resting for part of the day, either evening or morning alone? Or did He do both? How can we make it clear?

I think the key to clarity, goes back to our topic of quantities earlier. I always say things are clear or simple when there is only one thing and they are unclear or complex when there is many. So here we have to figure out what is the one thing that is in focus or if there might be two things in focus which means holy is a complex word. If there were not plausible reasons for each position on it’s meaning, then it would all be simple. But unfortunately translators in the English-speaking world have not made it that simple. So let’s simplify things.

Let’s begin with a very short digression. Let’s start with a simple history for the meaning of holy in translation. For many years going back to at least the 1500s, it meant both whole and separate. Whole was primary and separate was secondary. Following this time period, beginning in the late 1800s, it meant separate. Then as a part of this same tradition of meaning in the early to mid 1900s, whole was added to separate as a modifier, so that the idea was that of wholly separate or wholly other. Separate was now primary and whole was secondary. Then, in the tail end of the mid 1900s, whole as it’s meaning became primary, sometimes without a recognition of the meaning of separate. There are a host of other meanings, but we will not cover those. So all of these meanings seem to at least have plausibility, but that muddies the water of clarity.

Let’s try to reach clarity. There are tools to produce clarity. One technique relates to the awareness that one thing is always clearer than many things to an audience. It is not a good idea to introduce to an audience more than one central idea at a time. One meaning is clear. Without options, it is said, “The choices are clear.” Multiple meanings are confusing. With many options, it is said, “The choices are not clear.” It could be even overwhelming. That is why some avoid holy as a word. They choose something simpler like love that we know is an action. So let’s narrow the options.

A central idea is usually obvious from what gets repeated over and over or from what comes first. In this case, the relationship of time, is a central theme. Genesis begins with “in the beginning.” You could say it this way, “God created the heavens and the earth in the beginning.” As I have said before, the part normally comes before the whole, and also that a shift is made for emphasis on the whole. That is what we have in this case. “In the beginning” is the whole that forms the context. God created the heavens and earth is the major part in this beginning. God is greater in terms of reality than time, yet time and relationships can momentarily be in focus, because the purpose is not a systematic treatment of a subject, but a focus on the story and relationships.

Because relationships and time are central, I believe that the constituents of time are the primary referents that must be noticed in reference to the day, rather than the events. If I was reading from Exodus, then the events would be the focus, but it is not so, if I am reading in Genesis. “In the beginning” is relationally important. So is, “So the evening and the morning were the nth day,” which is repeated many times. And so finally is, “the seventh day.” An attribute, by its nature, tries to sum up the quality or character of a person or thing. I think what easily sums up the seventh day is bring together the whole of the constituent parts of “evening and morning.” They are even related together by the word “and.”

A further extension of quantity related to clarity is that it is helpful to avoid change and keep continuity, because one theme enhances clarity and many themes diminishes it. Let me illustrate, using as an everyday example. On the day of my birthday each year, I am seen as continuing to be the same person and yet at the same time I am identified as having changed, because I am now a year older. Quantitatively, I am no more or less than I have been, and yet at the same time in terms of years I have quantitatively changed. To distinguish the seventh day from the other six together, in any unique way, requires a shift in focus from the quantity of the day and from days themselves. By staying with things related to a relational focus, rather than shifting to events like work and rest, the author keeps things clear. If there is a shift suddenly to a focus on events, then this change can introduce an element of confusion, resulting in a lack of clarity. The exception to this would be to explicitly point out or signal this change and I do not see this in the text.

I also consider it a major change to think that to sum up the seventh day is to say that it is separate from the other six days. Attributes like love sum up other things. That is why love is greater than either faith or hope is, because it sums up actions together, including both of them besides others. Being true also sums up things, including things like humility. Truth is not a kind of humility, but humility is a kind of truth. Holy is generally recognized as an attribute, and I am not sure what there is about this day to sum up the seventh day as separate from the other six except by appealing to action as primary. There is no way to make it truly separate except to appeal, not to the continuing referent of the seventh day, as a theme, but instead to a changed referent of rest, as a new theme. To me, this introduces confusion. Why not stick with the theme of time, as in the seventh day and see it as summed up by holy? It could then mean making whole the relational parts of evening and morning. To express it relationally or possessively, we would call it the evening and the morning of the seventh day. This is what it would mean for the day to be whole relationally and in reference to time rather than in reference to events.

So reading Beekman and Callow over and over has paid off in realizing that there are multiple ways of expressing wholes and parts. Through reading their book just one more time, I have been able to better understand holy in the context of the story of this world’s beginnings in the book of Genesis. I see Genesis as treating days relationally, like it treats genealogy relationally. It does not treat primarily events and agency. That shift is what has caused confusion. Maybe it is because sometimes we try to think systematically, outside of the times it applies. We think that if someone like God or something like an event is greater, then it must always be the theme in a context, and this misleads us. But if for a moment, we can consider time as a focus, I think we can see that God wanted to make the day relationally whole, so that the event of rest did not happen on just part of the day, but the whole of the day. He wanted to make sure we kept tied together the relationship of “evening and morning” in “the seventh day.” May God bless you and make you whole relationally.

In Christ,

Pastor Jon

2008-06-30T15:08:00.009-05:00

Holy Means Whole: According to a Meaningful Translation June 30, 2008

I recently heard a person, whom I consider a friend, slam the New King James Version (NKJV), while I was in attendance. They also praised the New International Version (NIV). They apparently were unaware how much I, and the general public, like the NKJV translation. Not too terribly long ago, I know that the New International Version and the New King James Version were about equal in popularity. So how are we going to settle this disagreement among friends? More importantly, how are we going to settle the disagreement among friends about the meaning of holy?

I think these two issues are closely related, so I am going to treat them together. I think the principles of a meaningful Bible translation in general apply to the principles of a meaningful translation in particular for a single word like holy. So let's try this idea out.

I have to confess that I got distracted not long ago, and was drawn to a quote in an article about art, that came from Jonathan Edwards. He was quoted as seeing beauty in “the clarity of things.” Edwards seems to have thought, in the larger context of his comments, that things themselves bring clarity in God’s and our communication with one another. This idea got me thinking about the whole question of meaningful communication. So please allow me to quickly digress into my upbringing and learning about communication before applying it to both the translation of the Bible and the translation of holy.

I was brought up in the classical understanding of language under Dr. John Piper and Tom Stellar, before Dr. Piper left Bethel College and became Pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This understanding of language was mainly taught in my Greek classes and in my classes focused on a book of the Bible. In addition to this understanding of language was a deeply felt inductive approach to the study of the Biblical text that really got students like myself excited. It was that deep feeling of excitement and humility before the text that was the primary benefit of sitting under Dr. Piper and Tom Stellar. They were both students of Dr. Dan Fuller, who taught at Fuller Theological Seminary, who fanned this flame of excitement about the Biblical text even hotter. I later sat under him directly and benefited immensely.

What did not make my flame even hotter was the classical understanding of language. Certain parts of it are nearly incomprehensible and unbeneficial. Unless you are a scholar, you will reach a ceiling in your understanding that you cannot get past. What got me past this ceiling was sitting under the teaching of Dr. William Smalley, Lois (Malcolm) Smith and Dr. Don Larsen at Bethel College. Dr. Smalley was my primary influence. Dr. Smalley’s two primary sources for his understanding of language were Kenneth Pike and Michael Halliday. Through Dr. Smalley, I was introduced to the writings of both Wycliffe Bible Translators and the Summer Institute of Linguistics. Later, Dr. Dan Shaw, at Fuller Theological Seminary, gave me the practical know how to use the tools of both organizations much more effectively. This entire approach effectively enlarged my basic understanding of the universals of language. The failure of the classical school was in its basic universals of language that created a ceiling that I originally could not get past. I am referring here to the dreaded eight parts of speech.

For many years, I also was stuck at a ceiling in understanding as to what makes a healthy or sound translation of the Bible. Part of the problem was the argument over form and meaning. On the one hand, there was a more literal (form) approach, as reflected in John Piper’s preference for the Revised Standard Version (RSV) and New American Standard (NASB). On the other hand, there was a more dynamic (meaning) approach, as reflected in Dr. William Smalley’s preference for the Phillips translation and the Today’s English Version (TEV), sometimes referred to as the Good News Bible. Dr. Smalley was sometimes critical of the TEV, but he still preferred it to the NASB. I am convinced now that the argument over form and meaning is a little bit misguided, because of a recent breakthrough in my understanding.

Let’s go back now to the article in which Edwards was quoted. He saw three things in communication that stand in connection with each other. This view is not entirely unique. The three things are: things, words and ideas. What is unique is that he regarded things as superior in clarity to the other two. What led to my breakthrough, is that I decided to continue Edwards’ three things, I also decided to change his assumption that things are greater in clarity and instead I made clarity a separate part of communication alongside Edwards’ other three. So this is how I first came up with: clarity, ideas, words and things.

I then decided to bring in the aid of John Beekman and John Callow, who I first learned about through Dr. Smalley. I also decided to bring in the aid of Katharine Barnwell, who I learned about through Dr. Dan Shaw. From them, I had previously summarized the principles of what makes a good, or said better yet, a healthy or sound translation. For them, it came down to a preference for meaning over form, because a translation must be meaningful, and it came down to the qualities of: accuracy, clarity and naturalness. I decided to continue and bolster their preference for meaning over form and I decided to change the need for only 3 qualities and instead add the quality of fidelity, as something separate from accuracy. So this is how I came up with the quality of a meaningful translation overall. This is the only reason it should be preferred over form. It is the whole point in translation or communication. In reverse, translation cannot be meaningful without form. As I perceive it, form is essentially an expression of the quality of naturalness. Form then is a major part of the whole. So the qualities for being meaningful expand to be: clarity, fidelity, naturalness and accuracy.

There are some clear parallels, but what really clinched the deal was the reading of Dr. Smalley’s material that organizes language around: continuity and change, bond and barrier, rule and freedom, and sense and nonsense. I decided to bolster his view by adding his own views on reference and non-reference, based on the need for accuracy and I decided to also bolster his view of sense and nonsense by making it equivalent to the need for a translation to be meaningful. So I came up with sense and nonsense being the whole of translation’s purpose. Then I came up with the parts being: continuity and change, bond and barrier, rule and freedom and reference and non-reference.

So, in the end, I was left with these parallels:

Communication
clarity ideas words things
(Jonathan Edwards)

Meaningful
clarity fidelity naturalness accuracy
(John Beekman, John Callow, Katharine Barnwell)

Sense & Nonsense
Continuity & Change Bond & Barrier Rule & Freedom Reference & Non-Reference
(William Smalley)

Each of these parallels helps clarify the meaning of the others and helps to make each of them more meaningful. You could say it this way, combing the first two sets of understanding, we need meaningful communication, clear clarity, trustworthy ideas, natural words (or forms) and accurate things. What underlies these is that to have meaningful communication, it must have sense; to have clear clarity, it must have continuity; to have trustworthy ideas, it must have bonds; to have natural words, it must have rules; and to have accurate things, it must have reference. Obviously, when I listen to a House Wren sing, some of these elements are missing, so to that extent their communication is nonsense to me, while it make total sense to another House Wren.

So a meaningful translation must be clear, it must be trustworthy, it must be natural, and it must be accurate. The problem in the past has been that when people argued meaning against form, they were unaware that they were arguing for the whole against one of its essential parts. A part is less than a whole, yet it is not optional or unessential. If people understood form as a discussion of what is natural and what are the rules, then I think the discussions would have been more productive. There is a lot of evidence for this in one of Kenneth Pike’s books. What has happened in discussions is that form did not have a chance against meaning, yet it was by nature and everyday example an unfair battle of the whole versus just one part. Also many times translations then tended to downplay form against meaning, as though it was optional rather than essential. This, of course, caused many people to practically feel uneasy. And sometimes this uneasiness happened for good reason. So part of the problem was that people did not see that they were preserving form in naturalness and in words. Rather even worse, they were often fearful of losing accuracy, because they joined accuracy to form rather than referent. This led to even greater fears and stronger disagreements. So the other part of the problem is that rather than coming down the escalator of fear and anger, people instead went up the escalator of fear and anger.

We’ve had similar problems with the meaning of holy. If you look at the word holy, you must ask yourself if it is meaningful language. I would argue that in many ways it is no longer meaningful by itself or in context. It seems to always require substituting another word to explain it. That is not to say it was not very meaningful at one time. We need to be very meaningful, when we talk about the most important character trait that God and we are supposed to possess. The word holy is very important, so it needs to be very meaningful.

Let’s examine it in regard to making it a word that is meaningful, because it is: clear, trustworthy, natural and accurate. I will deal with each of these separately, because each part is essential to making holy meaningful again.

First, let’s look at how clear it is. Something is clear when it has a history of continuity rather than change or when we are talking about one thing versus many things. When you look at me you see both continuity and change. I have been who I am since I was born, so people see continuity, even while they see a change in my age every year. They see me as one person with many years. One person is clear every time I meet a sibling, even if how many years may be unclear. Holy through time has been one, even with its predecessors that were spelled slightly differently, but its definition has changed over time. If you asked the earliest English translators, they would have said it had a primary sense of wholeness and a secondary sense of separation in the context of the church and translations of the Bible. In the English language itself, it likely had only a sense of wholeness, as many etymology people argue. So its translation usage was likely the first change to this word’s meaning, because the idea of separation was added. The second change came at the end of the 1800s, when scholarship said you must cut the loaf of bread in half and choose between wholeness and separation. Scholars largely choose to keep the definition of separation and drop the meaning of wholeness. Then still later it modified this position by bringing back wholeness to describe the degree of separation. Still more recently, wholeness alone has been promoted as it’s meaning. These changes have made holy less than clear to people because there hasn’t been just one definition for holy, but at least four. So this has clearly muddied the waters.

Second, let’s look at how trustworthy it is. For many years it bonded together the definitions of whole and separate. Now that bond has pretty much been broken and there is a barrier between the two meanings, because of scholarship beginning in the late 1800s. There is also a new bond between the two, but it is not the same as the first, since now wholeness is just descriptive of separation. My understanding is that before our times, the context determined pretty much whether wholeness or separation was emphasized in a particular biblical text. Sometimes a commentator like John Albert Bengel would sing the praises of God’s beauty, because holiness summarized the sum of all God’s attributes. Another time it was seen as thundering the message of God’s separation from sin. It bonded these two ideas together that otherwise have a barrier between them in our language. Wholeness and separation have no common bond in our language. You can also add to this that when a translator goes from the original foreign language to the latest native language, there is supposed to be a bond between the ideas in the original and the ideas in the translation. The translator is trying to find the links between the two languages and avoid the breakdowns between them. This is why I continue to look at the original language for holy and I look for possible links with either wholeness or separation. So I see a fair amount in the breakdown of bonds within our own language, when it comes to the idea of holy, even if I cannot go into depth on the translation process here. So there remains the inherent problem of bonding together two ideas like whole and separate which have a barrier between them in our language and possibly also in the original languages.

Third, let’s look at how natural it is. Holy was once a very natural word in our language, as it enjoyed ties to halig, hale, hal and healthy. Of these, only healthy is still commonly around along with holy. It is a little less natural now, because holy no longer has natural ties to healthy, but rather we are taught it is connected with separation and sanctification, which is not natural in English. I think this is one of the reasons that pastors are constantly telling people, depending on which meaning they see, to substitute either wholeness or separation. I think it would be a very practical rule to remove much of the unnaturalness of holy, sanctification, and saints and either go with words related to wholeness or go with words related to separation. For historical reasons, this list of words could be tied to these natural words and forms, but they should not be front and center in a natural translation for today. You must remember God spoke to Abraham in Abraham’s language of Hebrew, then He spoke to His Jews in Babylon in their natural language of Aramaic, and then He spoke to His Jews under Roman domination in their natural language of Greek, even while He spoke periodically in Hebrew too. It is what comes natural to us that is the rule, and to use language foreign to people, even if it is English, is not the rule of Scripture itself.

Fourth, let’s look at how accurate it is. Holy is very accurate, when I understand its historical English reference to be wholeness. In English, its central focus referred physically to a thing that is whole. For example, a healthy body was a whole body. But let’s talk about the thing of separation. Separation is the idea of physically cutting something. For example, you can take a knife and slice a belt in two. That is physically what is meant by separation. These are the two things that one or the other substitution for the word holy is referring to in English.

In the Bible, what is assumed sometimes, is that in the creation story, you are to cut in two the doing of work and the doing of rest. They are both actions, but they are different kinds of action, separate from each other. My problem is that work and rest are not what are blessed and sanctified (a Latin term brought over into English for holy) as the things referred to in the context, but the day is what is referenced and it is what is blessed and sanctified. We must be accurate. It says, “He blessed the seventh day and sanctified it.” He rested “in it,” yet the rest is not what He chose to bless or sanctify. Nor is it accurate to say that He blessed and sanctified it “because … He rested.” No, he blessed and sanctified it “because in it He rested.”

Also in the Bible, is the fact that there is also not a reference to a day being separate from the other days, because referring to a day as “the seventh day” does not separate it so much from the other six, as it refers to the fact that it is “the seventh” day “in the beginning” of days, pointing out that it is quantitatively one part of the first seven days. There is nothing in the context to point out a focus on separation, but rather a focus on a part of a whole, when it comes to the days mentioned. It has to be that the word holy itself would have to refer to separation without any added support from the context. It is important to note that you cannot refer to it simply as a day of rest where the focus is on rest. It is more accurate to refer to it as rest in the seventh day or the rest of the seventh day. In each of these the focus is on the whole of the seventh day, rather than on the part of day referring to the whole of rest that occurred on that day. The other days likewise were not just days of work, but were rather seen as the work of the first day, etc., since time was so much in focus. Remember God created the heavens and the earth in the beginning. The part that He did was that he created the heavens and the earth. The whole of when He did this particular work was “in the beginning.” So the right focus in reference must be maintained.

Yet another thing related to reference is that the seventh day, like the other six, would have had an “evening and morning” that made up that day also. So it is very likely that these would be the parts of a day that would make up a whole day in the case of the seventh day. So parts and wholes are clearly in the context for the word holy to refer to as a possibility.

So a meaningful bible translation and a meaningful translation of holy share the same qualities, when it comes to making sense. I think that due to these qualities of: clarity, trustworthy, natural and accurate, I would go with whole over holy at this time in history. I would have gone with holy against words like sanctification at an earlier time in history. I would also choose to go with whole over separate at this time in history, because of the concern of accuracy in understanding that the thing that is referenced in the section is that God “rested in [the seventh day],” rather than saying that it was a day of rest, where the focus is on rest. Accuracy in reference is critical, but more important is this, that without accuracy, our words are not meaningful. We need to communicate meaningfully. May God bless your whole day.

In Christ,

Pastor Jon

2008-05-30T17:26:00.005-05:00

Holy Means Whole: According to Anthropology and Mary Douglas

The famous anthropologist, Mary Douglas, reached the conclusion, from examining certain biblical texts, that one of the two meanings for holy is whole. Her other definition was that of separate, but this was not based on her own work, but on the scholarly lexicons, which I doubt she felt qualified to challenge. What she was qualified to challenge, as an anthropologist, was any conclusion that came from an outsider's view of a culture as opposed to an insider's point of view of a culture. When it comes to a culture or a religion, anthropologist's try to find out the insider's view.

I find it very exciting that Douglas concluded that the insider's view, from certain biblical texts, is that holy means whole. One of the reasons this is interesting is because science and natural revelation have been speaking, even if science from sometimes strange views of wholeness, to a general need for wholeness. It sees that addressing the partial man is not enough, instead we must address the whole man.

In my undergraduate education, I had the privilege of sitting under former missionaries, who tried to apply the insights of anthropologists to their work in the field of reaching others for Christ. One of their major focuses was on arriving at the story as told by insiders versus a story told by outsiders. They even had technical terms for the difference. What other cultures wanted was to be able to tell their own version of their story from an insider's point of view. Once the missionary would grasp this story or point of view, often doors of evangelism would open up, because now the outsider was no longer seen as a threat, but as a friend.

The danger for scholars and pastors in interpreting the biblical text is imposing our ideas onto the biblical text. It may be that separate is just such an imposition on the biblical text. It may be that we are not listening to it, but to outsiders from Arabic culture, from Roman culture and from German culture. We must be careful to not impose outsider ideas on the insider point of view.

The etymology for separate is not conclusively from an insider point of view. In fact, by open admission of prominent scholars like Norman Snaith, it is controversial. The roots for separate come from Arabic. Also the history of Roman culture produced the idea of sanctification, which may not be the best interpretation of holy or may have itself changed meaning over time, due to cultural change. But last, many of the scholars, who did the work on holy in the late 1800s through early 1900s, arose out of German culture, that sometimes gloried in its separation or superiority over other cultures. Could these outsider's points of view been imposed on the interpretation of the Bible? Let us hope not! We do not want to be a threat to biblical culture or worldview, but a friend to it!

The idea of whole is the reverse of things falling or being torn apart. Please with me, let us test the idea of separation to see, if it makes or fails the test of being from an insider point of view. We owe to the science of anthropology and to the natural revelation of God's creation to test this point of view. Maybe Mary Douglas' work points us toward a very helpful insider's point of view. May God bless your day!

In Christ,

Pastor Jon

2008-05-30T17:20:00.007-05:00

Holy Means Whole: According to Blessed and Sanctified in Genesis 2:3

Two key words are joined together in the Bible, yet are so far apart in historical controversy! You could summarize many theological struggles, as between those committed to fruitfulness and those committed to faithfulness. I grew up in a family clearly committed to faithfulness and yet I also grew up exposed to athletic and educational fruitfulness.

There are people who have a critical eye for things fruitful. Likewise, there are people who have a critical eye for things faithful. The problem is that these two camps usually cannot join forces together.

Those focused on being blessed or fruitful look for what is blessed. They shy away from situations in which they know people are going to struggle. They might discourage those who are very different in age from marrying, because of the struggles they might face that would keep them from being blessed with children, as just one example. These people see with a keen eye that the marriage or another situation might not be blessed. Some people have an eye for something blessed or not.

Those focused on being holy or faithful look for what is separate. They shy away from things where faithfulness is questionable. I ought to know, I grew up with it and fed from this theological vine very strongly for one year. Faithfulness means holiness and holiness means separation, in their view. When marriage questions arise, it not a concern for fruitfulness, but for separateness and godliness that takes front stage. The questions are about the possible spouse's separation from the world or whether they are not separate from the world. Excessive beauty might be one thing that would be questioned. Some people have an eye for faithful or not.

When I talk about holy means whole, it scares some people in either camp, yet it should delight both camps. They need to be patient and realize that their concerns are addressed fundamentally. Let's look at each in biblical order.

First, comes "blessed." I do think blessed is the rule and norm, though there are obvious exceptions. I disagree with those, who conclude we are in the midst of an exceptional time in future history, rather than a time reaching for the rule. I don't think I or we can know, if our time is blessed or cursed, until it has happened. Like the end of time, the future is full of unknowns. I humbly recognize an unknown future, either blessed or cursed. So I seek things blessed by God.

Holy means whole, though not obviously fruitful, has potential for growth that makes holy is separate look like stunted growth. I believe holy means separate has run its full course and has produced a wealth of weeds, rather than a garden of healthy plants. The word blessed means fruitful, multiply and fill. I want to go along with the Bible and side with a concept that means fruit on the tree, multiplying through seeds from the fruit and the filling of entire fields with new plants. I am not satisfied, even as an athlete or coach is not satisfied, with poor productivity. Like an athlete or farmer, I am for changing our approach to holy means whole for reasons of fruitfulness.

We have not begun to see the healthy fruit, the biblical fruit, the historical fruit, the practical fruit and the theological fruit to come. Things will come together as wholes like we have not seen. We will see continuity, we have not seen. We will see bonds between groups, we have not seen. We will see rules that work, we have not seen. We will see things that make sense, we have not seen. It is going to be exciting and fruitful. I've begun to see a small tip of the iceberg or some of this already.

Second, comes "made holy" or "sanctified." This norm is the norm of all norms. The question is what it means, if we are to be faithful. For a long time, faithfulness and holiness have both meant separation from this evil world and age. I agree with separation. So I seek things faithful to God.

Holy means whole, though not obviously faithful, has potential for faithfulness that many have overlooked and in fact faithfulness that surpasses that of separation by itself. The danger with holy means whole is not that separation in the Bible goes away, but rather that it's excesses go away. Separation is a many splendid thing, but it is not equal to the glory of God summed up in all His attributes together. Traditionally and faithfully, this is the first meaning of holy historically, for many in the Protestant tradition and other traditions. But this meaning suffered verbicide equal to any crime of homicide. I want to remain faithful, not to a momentary interpretation, but to the original biblical text. I want to side with this biblical concept that provides faithfulness and separation that will blow people's socks off. This is not some worldly wholeness that I seek, it's a biblical wholeness that will glorify God's most incredible attribute, His holiness in all its full orbed array!

We have not begun to see the sound faithfulness, the biblical faithfulness, the historical faithfulness, the practical faithfulness and the theological faithfulness to come. Things will come together as wholes like we have not seen. We will see continuity, we have not seen. We will see bonds between biblical texts, we have not seen. We will see rules and practices, we have not seen. We will see theological stuff that makes sense, we have not seen. It is going to be faithful and sound. I've begun to see the tip of iceberg here as well.

I seek both fruitfulness and faithfulness. Or to put it another way, I seek "blessed" and "made whole." Do you? May God bless and make whole you and your day!

In Christ,

Pastor Jon

2008-05-30T17:15:00.004-05:00

Holy Means Whole: According to Past Connections, Not According to the Present Connections and According to Future Connections

Other people matter. Connections past, present and future matter. One of the supports for holy means whole is the connection with Christian people through time. At one time it was not so strange to hear this meaning. When I was growing up it was very strange or very unlikely you would hear this meaning. In the future, this may all change. So let me share a summary history lesson on the meaning of this word.

In the past, going back to at least the time of Luther, the meaning of the word connected two ideas. The primary meaning was that of whole. The secondary meaning was that of separate. Which of these two distinct ideas was present in a Biblical text was determined by context. I could quote many on this, but you have access to these quotes in other pieces I have written. This definition of holy lasted until the late 1800s, when there was an explosion of scholarship due to the new status of education.

In the present, going back to the late 1800s scholarship, the meaning of the word had just one meaning. It's meaning was that of separate. This was essentially because of the study of etymology and the discovery that one had to choose one of the two meanings based on which view of etymology was favored. There were some who still stood up for whole, but their scholarly opinion was in the minority. Each view, the majority or minority view held to the idea that one of the two definitions was alone the meaning of holy. Separate clearly moved to being primary and even exclusive.

The majority view did develop also the idea of wholly other, but this idea essentially was still focused primarily on separation. Whole was now just a modifier on the primary stance of separation as the definition of holy. I suppose a person could argue that this is a separate position from the stance of defining holy as only separate, yet I could go either way on that point. In any case, separate is clearly now primary and whole is at best secondary, as now only a modifier of the first.

Also in the present, there is a very small minority, who called for a change from this view altogether and who thought that in every place one sees holy, a person should substitute the idea of whole. I have found only two major people, who would have fallen into this category, in the latter part of the 1900s. I am sure there were other voices, like possibly C. S. Lewis, but this will require more research.

In the future, there will be a change, because the past and the present can't coexist without a solution to their differences. I think the future favors the idea that holy means whole. Time and good biblical study are the only things that will tell, if I am correct. But I base my view on what I already have seen in my study of the Bible. So I believe the future favors whole only, rather than a both-and solution that favored whole in the past or an either-or solution that favored separate in the present.

I think both parts of history contribute something that the other does not. The first contributes a preference for the meaning of whole that I think is biblically correct. The second contributes the need to decide between the meaning of whole and the meaning of separation. I think the future will be very instrumental in working out a solution from both contributions to biblical teaching. May God bless your day.

In Christ,

Pastor Jon

2008-05-30T17:13:00.004-05:00

Holy Means Whole: According to Language Itself in the Bible and Elsewhere

Prepositions are one of the parts of speech that people love to hate. I wish instead we would hate those who taught us to hate them and the things that taught us to hate them. Prepositions are the most loving part of speech, when we learn their universal meaning.

The major reason we learned to hate them is that they are defined differently by different teachers. Another reason we learned to hate them is that it was very difficult to identify them in a sentence, unless we memorized long lists of examples. The final reason we learned to hate them is that classmates, who saw these two problems, heaped a great deal of scorn on these innocent bystanders in speech. Why not learn to love them, rather than hate them?

Let me tell you the reasons we should love them. The first is that they have only one universal meaning, not the multiple meanings we were taught in school. They express in their universal meaning the idea of a part of a whole. Let me give you one example. The sentence, "Sally drove her car to the school," could be changed to "Sally walked to the school." The part of "Sally drove her car" was changed to the part of "Sally walked." The whole of "to the school" stayed the same. There is a variety of ways to get to school that are all parts of how a person could get to school. If time allowed, I could produce a host of examples here. Instead, I would recommend going to my link shown on the side of this blog, where I will treat this more extensively. Second, with this one universal meaning, there is more meaning behind the statistic that this is the most frequently used part of speech that there is in all languages combined. I know this has been studied by linguists and I don't know anyone who would contradict their status as number one. There is also a good chance that this same pattern of frequency would be found in the Bible. In linguistics (the study of language), the reason frequency matters is because it is linked to importance. It is like comparing an elephant to a mouse. The bigger one gets, the more one gets attention at the zoo. Third, with this level importance, it may be dangerous to hate them, because you normally want to deal with the most important things first, if you know anything about time management and the principle of focus.

That brings me to the link with holy means whole. Holy is the only word in the Bible that describes God's character that receives the repetition of "Holy, holy, holy." It does this in both Isaiah and in Revelation. This never happens with love, though the Beatles tried to give it that importance in one of their popular songs. Holy receives distinction in that it gets repeated together the most times of any word.

If holy means whole, then whole would receive this distinction of importance. And if prepositions are connected with dealing with parts and wholes, then they would support this special distinction of importance for wholeness. Language itself, even taking away the word holy to support it, suports wholeness as being of major importance in our lives.

Don't you think the God of the universe would clearly communicate this importance as well? Wouldn't He chose one word to point out the importance of impact of many words combined? Does His revelation in the Bible contradict the revelation of what He created in nature in the form of language? I doubt it. That is why I now love prepositions after I must confess I used to hate them. I owe them an apology, if they were living. May God bless you and your day.

In Christ,

Pastor Jon

2008-05-30T16:45:00.004-05:00

Holy Means Whole: According to the Etymology Flaws for the Meaning of Separate

Etymology is controversial by its very nature. It relies sometimes on hints of connection rather than actual historical reports of connection to establish the meanings of words. That is the case with holy. In Hebrew and in Greek, there is no historical statement that explicitly says that what scholars have determined is the etymology of the words for holy, is in fact the etymology of the words we translate as holy. Not only that, but scholars who have chosen between whole and separate, like Norman Snaith, admit their choice is controversial. He is not the first one to recognize this. Andrew Murray, a great Reformed pastor, admitted the same, when he made his choice. So what are we to do? I think we are to keep moving forward.

Sometimes to move forward, you have to move backward. That is sometimes good in the game of Monopoly and in the real game of life. So, in this case, in order to move forward, we need to move backward with regard to the idea that holy means separate, when scholars examine the original languages of Hebrew and Greek. It would be nice to just remain certain that holy means separate, but sometimes the only way to attain true certainty is to allow uncertainty to enter into the picture. Then we can attain real certainty.

The first step backward, before moving forward again, is to admit that the idea that holy means separate is controversial. This is seldom or maybe never mentioned in lexicons (technical dictionaries) for Hebrew and Greek. We have to deal with the fact that Gesenius, who became seen as an authority in his Hebrew lexicon in the late 1800s, which meant many lexicons are just copies of his views, rather than further research of his views. But Snaith and others are telling the truth, when they admit their conclusions are controversial and not without some uncertainty. This admission though does not have to undo us.

The reason that it does not need to threaten us is, because it then frees us to look at the whole process of etymology in a way that is renewing to our minds. 1 Chronicles 1:24-31 outlines what we know is a genealogy of human beings, though not the geneology of words, as is the case of etymology. What we learn is that there is a history moving from Shem (Semites/Semitic people) to Abraham (the first known Hebrew) to Isaac (Abraham's promised son) that is continuous. Yet from Abraham to Ishmael, there is a break in that continuity, as Ishmael and his mother are sent out from Abraham's household. I learned to pay attention to these kinds of details from my grandmother's analysis of family trees. I grew up hearing all about genealogies.

This is significant, not just in terms of human genealogy, but also in terms of the geneology of words. In the etymology of holy, it is as though we are following what I will call reverse history, because the movement is not from predecessor to descendant, from Hebrew to Arabic, but from Arabic to Hebrew. Or maybe more accurately, as though Hebrew and Arabic came from the same generation. But human genealogy says that history moved from Abraham, whose family tree speaks Hebrew, to Ishmael, whose family tree speaks Arabic, rather than history moving backwards to Abraham. The current view of etymology is problematic, based on what we know explicitly about history. And this history is not uncertain, but certain. What can be added is that not only is it dangerous to proceed backwards from descendant to predecessor, but it might be safer to go back further to another predecessor. We know that in Babylonian, a predessor to Hebrew, there appears to be a word that is very similar to the Hebrew word for holy, that has the meaning of shine, which is the basis for the meaning of wholeness. There is also another Hebrew word that clearly has this same meaning, that is a possible predecessor for the word we translate holy.

The other thing that explicit history tells us is that Ishmael's influence would no longer be that of an insider, but that of an outsider. If Hebrew can be known from what we know in Arabic, then we want to be sure there could not be any outsider corruption. The danger is that when Ishmael moves away, the probability of language change increases. There is now a greater possibility of outsider influence. This problem I would describe as outsider borrowing versus insider inheritance. I wish we knew the meaning of holy from Isaac's descendants rather than from Ishmael's, because language change increases with geographical distance, as a general rule. Leaving and going out geographically is significant to the process of change and the loss of continuity. This I learned when studying linguistics as an undergraduate.

Yet that is not all that I learned. I had the good fortune of studying under Dr. Don Larsen, a linguist, who was working on language continuity related to geographical location. Unfortunately, he never published his material. But I was lucky enough to analyze his material before he would consider publishing it. I recommended he publish it, but I don't think he wanted to get laughed at, like happened to Galileo and to Copernicus in the history of science. His enthusiasm for his material did not get away from him, like it might have for Galileo, but instead something was holding back his enthusiasm.

What Larsen developed was a history of core words, from the perspective of demographic data. His method is that he plotted the relative locations of languages, based on their relations on a map, rather than using the idea of oldest in terms of dating by what was called glottochronology. This is why Larsen's 5 phyla (large language families) are different from the linguist, Morris Swadesh's 5 phyla. I think Larsen feared he would be laughed to scorn like Swadesh was, even though his method was quite different. What is significant for etymology, is that Larsen's work points out that change is greater with geographical distance and less with closer proximity.

So though uncertainty may threaten to undo us, when we say that there are flaws in concluding that holiness is separation, not all hope is lost. We can begin renewing out minds by examining etymology, like we examine genealogy. And we can also realize through languages all around the world, that geography is a factor in language change. So what comes directly before in history is more certain to give us back our confidence and what stays in close proximity is more certain to give us back our confidence in what a word means. That is why I trust the etymological possibilities from Hebrew and from Babylonian, more than I do the possibilities from Arabic. It just makes better sense both in terms of time (genealogy) and place (geography). The relationships seem tighter. Our steps backward into uncertainty can make it possible to take steps forward that lead us into certainty. May God bless you and your day.

In Christ,

Pastor Jon

2008-05-30T10:27:00.005-05:00

Holy means Whole: According to the Warning to Be Discerning

A friend of mine recently shared the story of how much they enjoyed their Christian college education, and yet how much they lamented the lack of warnings at their school about reading certain writers who were contrary to the Christian faith. What they were lamenting was how many of their friends naively thought this stuff was harmless and invited these thinking patterns into their lives. The outcome was rather devastating. I experienced much the same thing when I went through college. I still can't believe the naive carnage.

It is not that either of us wants to impose avoidance of all writers outside the Christian faith. Instead, we want to have our eyes open every time we read. It does not matter whether it is non-Christian, Christian or biblical. It is important to discern between good and evil. If everything was good, then we could be totally carefree when we read. I hope some day to enjoy that in eternity, but right now you have got to have your eyes open. There is both good and evil in this life, and you need to be discerning as to good friends and those who would make bad friends. Of course, none of us human beings are all good or all evil, even with the fruit of God's longsuffering, yet we still need to discern what is predominate in someone's life.

Likewise, sometimes you can trust scholarship as good scholarship and sometimes you can't trust scholarship, because it is bad scholarship. I am not a scholar myself, so I have to rely on scholars to help me discern my way in the case of the foreign and biblical languages. Yet I can discern my way and recognize the good guys or the good stuff versus the bad guys or the bad stuff. This is through the basic principles that inform all discerning people. In this very real world, because we should be discerning, we need to hear more than one side of a controversy, because there is good and there is evil. So I need to remind myself of this often.

I struggle with the lack of discernment by Christians and non-Christians regarding the meaning of holy, the most important descriptive word for God's moral character. Sometimes Christians get careless, act without discernment and then get themselves in trouble. I've seen this in my own life more than I want to admit. Sometimes, too, people trust people who are themselves trustworthy, but who made the mistake of trusting someone not trustworthy. So people get taken indirectly rather than directly.

I've tried to be as discerning as I can about the meaning of holy. I've tried to distinguish the good from evil, whether it comes from a good man or good woman or whether it comes from a bad man or a bad woman. There is saying that goes like this: "All truth is God's truth." I would add to this another: "All lies are the devil's lies." While the first saying means we should read other literature outside of just Christian literature in a Christian's education, the second means Christians should read Christian and all literature with eyes open for lies. Why read non-Christian literature with our eyes closed, when we cannot do that even with our own Christian literature? One quick example is that Martin Luther condemned Copernicus' ideas about astronomy as unbiblical, because of the account of the sun stopping in the sky in Joshua. Most Christians know now that this was one of Luther's bad moments, though not characteristic of him. Because of these kinds of exceptions, we must be very discerning. So you have to separate the two things, good and evil.

What has disturbed me is the bad things I have found in researching the meaning of holy. First, was finding meanings for holy that I had not been taught, when I was growing up. My first hint of failure in my Christian education was discovering the meaning "wholly" in Strong's concordance too late in my Christian life. Second, was finding that the meaning of "separation" or "be separate" in some contexts made no sense. For example, "separate the separate" makes little sense in Ezekiel. It is somewhat empty, because it gives no reason for why something is separate. It ends up arbitrary and without purpose. Third, is the failure of lexicons (technical dictionaries) to solve the problem of what this word means, while some lexicons present their findings as though it is not based on a failure of scholarship, but on a great success. The truth is that the etymology is "controversial" according to Norman Snaith, even when he supports the meaning of separation. Many other scholars say the same thing on both sides of the divide over etymology, whether they think it means separate or whole. Fourth is the failure of the historical authorities to solve the problem. You can go back to even Jewish authorities and you will find Rashi (separate) and Rambam (it says something more) disagreeing over what holy means. Likewise, Christian authorities since the time of the Reformation and early Renaissance (I'll read further back when I get time) taught that it meant primarily whole and secondarily separate until the late 1800s, then new authorities taught it meant separate, then another set of authorities taught it meant wholly separate (or other) and finally in the late 1900s there was a small resurgence in favor of whole. So in the end, I go back to looking for what makes sense, because that is how I will discover the good in defining the word holy.

We need to plug both meanings back into biblical contexts. First, we need to put "separate" or "be separate" back into the Bible where we previously used words like "holy, sanctified and saints"; and see if it makes sense. I think we can see already that it is at least plausible or the idea would not have lasted a century. This has been tested for some time. But after this being tried for a long time, there are still plenty of problems. It seems to be tied to a little nonsense. It carries a lot less impact in the text when already the idea of separation or dividing is present in the text through other words with that meaning. Take, for one example, the creation story where God "divides" and then He later "sanctifies." If He is dividing again, why not just use the same word? There are other examples too, like that of the one I mentioned already in Ezekiel. Second, we need to put "whole" or "be whole" or "make whole" into the Bible where we previously used words like "holy, sancified and saints"; and see if it makes sense. I am discovering that it does.

Right now that may seem controversial, because of majority opinion. But the important thing in discernment is observing things. And with words, we have to test to see whether they produce sense or nonsense. It takes time to discern sense, when there is more than one text to observe. But we can start with the important one in Genesis 1-2. I've written on this in earlier blogs, so I won't repeat it here.

At this time, we are also stuck with a set of definitions that at best are a close approximation to what it should be. We still have differences in points of view among good people. But now and in the future, we have the ability to get beyond just a close approximation of what the word means. We have many professional linguists in our midst, where in the past they were few in number. The tools of linguists today go beyond the tools of yesterday. Wycliffe Bible translators has been translating the Scriptures into many more languages than just Latin, German, English, etc. This has meant that our tools are better equipped to identify the universals of language, which is the big breakthrough needed for words like holy. It is like later astronomers finally having the aid of the telescope to confirm Copernicus' views on astronomy. We have the tools now to finish the job.

So join with me. Let's make the careful observations needed to discern the good from the bad. Let's find the defects in what we have been taught, let's fix them and build a better tomorrow for ourselves and for our children. Amen.

In Christ,

Pastor Jon