Definition of Holy: The Contribution of Mental Health to Defining it Correctly

I recently completed a book titled, Mental Health for Everyone, that is one part of what will be two parts to my post-graduate degrees including a Ph.D., where the central thesis will be on the definition of holy.  Fortunately, one of advisers for my first thesis paper noticed that my work on definition of holy originally had two papers inside of one paper.  As a result, I wrote my book on mental health since it is really my method for approaching the definition of holy.

I am excited to announce that my book on mental health is now officially published as of October 27, 2015.  It is on sites like Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.

The link for Amazon.com is:

http://www.amazon.com/Mental-Health-Everyone-Making-Choices-ebook/dp/B017ADOLBS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1447991414&sr=8-1&keywords=mental+health+for+everyone

The link for Barnes and Noble is:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/mental-health-for-everyone-jon-westlund/1122880720?ean=9781498438858

If either link does not work for you, then use either my full name or the full title or both together.

You can also see a video on the book on youtube at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uC5XDFly3GA


If you need to, then copy these links into your browser.  I am not convinced that they will work otherwise.


The key to a successful definition of holy and blessed is the use of the principles that the mind uses to successfully reach decisions on things in our world.  These principles of teaching, coaching, schooling, and educating are the method that I use in solving the differences over the meaning of holy as it is found in the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Scriptures.  There is truly one definition for it, not the many available on the internet!

My next project will be to write another version of this book on mental health and my method that will fill in the all the footnotes that formed the foundation for my published book.  That version will be what I submit for my project for my S.T.M. (Masters of Sacred Theology).  I can't wait until it too is complete.

The following 2 years I hope to devote to the meaning of blessed and holy.  Please pray that I might even finish my footnoted version by this coming Spring and then devote myself on THE big project - the definitions of blessed and holy!  That wish or goal is a stretch, but I would love it if it happened that way.

For now, I will let you know what you are looking for as in a definition of blessed and holy with further proof coming in the future. Blessed consists of an exhaustive set of wonderful things.  Holy consists of the the fullness of these things.  These definitions are a bit abstract, but if you read further I fill the details in more fully.

May God richly bless you with being mentally healthy and even more with being blessed and holy!


In Christ,

Jon

Blessed and Holy: A Quick Exciting Update

There was a saying I used to hear that never made much sense to me, when I was very young.  Maybe now this saying has some meaning - "You will know, when you know".  I sort of feel that way now about the meaning of holy (and blessed).  Things have come full circle for me after a lot of study, but the key study has been for my book Mental Health for Everyone: In Captivating, Motivating, Inspiring, Meaningful Pictures.  (That book is the main reason you have not seen me posting here regularly in this last year.)  So I now am convinced that holy does in fact mean whole, but in a different sense than the materials that I have presented previously in this blog.

Let me explain this in short version today, because my ultimate goal is to write as my final Ph.D. paper on the topic of the definitions for both blessed and holy.  The paper could end up with a title something like this: Blessed and Holy is Yahweh and His Followers.

Let me give you a glimpse first into my start into the race of knowing the meaning of these two key biblical words - blessed and holy.  Let me define what I mean by a classical and traditional definition of holy before I talk about the history of the definition of holy.

When I speak of the classical definition of holy, I am talking about its definition beginning no later than the 1500s (16th ct.) and extending into the 1900s (20th ct.).   During this time, beginning from the Reformation, scholars relied heavily on the renaissance (renewal) of classical thinking.

The traditional definition refers to a definition that began in the late 1800s to gain a real foothold among scholars and it extends into the 1900s (20th ct.).  It is a movement that primarily tries to remove the errors of classical thinking, dating back to the Greeks and Romans and including the Renaissance.

Each of these has a longer history, I am sure.  What I am doing here is limiting it to the scholarship of these times.  The evidence outside of these time periods is much more susceptible to different interpretations.  The emergence of another renewal of science in the late 1800s removed some of the mist surrounding the meanings that biblical scholars were expressing.  This made the separation of the two definitions much more clear and meaningful.  A little book on holy, by Andrew Murray, a pastor and not a scholar technically, summaries the benefits of the work of scholarship in the late 1800s (19th ct.).

With those imposed limits, the history of the definition of holy can be boiled down to this:

• Classical definition of holy (16th - 20th ct.) - whole as in righteous, just, true, loving, and good.  Whole as perfect; whole as the summation of God's character, etc.  

• Traditional (19th-20th ct.) definition of holy - set apart; separate; relational separation; moral separation; object separation; etc.  

These were the two competing views, when I started my best efforts to settle the issue of the definition of holy.

I have now arrived at a definition for holy that uses the insights from the classical definition of holy, but also applies a corrective.  I likewise am convinced that elements of the traditional view are helpful here, though its helpfulness varies from scholar to scholar.

My goal is to arrive at a definition for blessed and holy that is both natural (fits with all of nature) and Scriptural (fits with all of Scripture).  That is a very tall order, but I think a worth finish line.

I am not at all interested in classical view or traditional views unless they first meet those criteria.  In some ways they do not.  That is the main reason why I depart from their views.  I find good among the efforts under each umbrella, but where I find unnatural things I remove them.  I do the same, when I find un-scriptural things as well.  I eliminate them.

So here are my preliminary definitions:

blessed . blessed as in righteous, true, loving, and good.  (ex. Abraham has many sons)

holy - whole as in wholly just, wholly humble, wholly perfect, wholly great.  (ex. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy - the whole of the day)

The proof of all this will be mainly in my first book to be published soon, Mental Health for Everyone and it will be further supported by my final paper for my S.T.M. Degree (a 2 year doctoral program).  It too will be titled Mental Health for Everyone, but it will have a different subtitle like - The Evidence from the Original Languages of Scripture.

The reason for the proof being separate is that my advisers in seminary recognized that I had two projects going in my thesis proposal.  These two projects are each big enough alone to merit individual treatment.  So I am doing my mind-related work first, because the mind is the natural thing to address when we are working on definitions.  Without first thinking well, it will be very hard to define blessed and holy well.  It will end up very sloppy.  Mental health eliminates the basic errors in definition that we otherwise make.

I am very excited about the definitions that I give.  My mental health material which addresses the mind more naturally also addresses the mind more scripturally or biblically.  Those two sources furnish a ton of evidence for those willing to give up being classical and traditional when it contradicts nature or Scripture.  I am willing.

So I am now speaking from the finish line of my first race on the definition of blessed and holy. I will enter another race soon after I am done writing on mental health for seminary.

That race will then be run for a minimum of 2 years.  I can't wait to start the next leg of my journey.  I know that I know at the first finish line, if you know what I mean!  May God truly bless you and make you holy even as he is blessed and holy.


In Christ,

Jon

Blessed and Holy: Understanding Them Better Through Exodus 19:1-8 (Credibility - Part 4 of 5)

I think I am going to be wrapping up my work on the definition of holy this week.  I am now going to re-direct my major efforts toward the parts of Scripture that are much simpler and provided the tools for me to recognize that the popular definition of holy in our day is an error.

The definition of holy as "set apart" is reading too much into one ancient writing that say that "holy means set apart".  Means does not always mean definition.  In this case, I am convinced that it means significance.  I do believe that being blessed and being morally whole do set people apart from those who are not.  This is just like a hospital separates the healthy from the unhealthy in cases of communicable diseases.  But to claim that what we are chiefly to imitate in God in being blessed like he is with some kind of prosperity (which seems kind of weird) and to claim that we are chiefly to be like him in his separation from sin (again which seems kind of weird) is not the God that I want to emulate.  I want to emulate a greater God who has a blessedness that indicates "I am who I am" and a God who is above all else chiefly "morally whole" as holy.  My God is not morally one kind like just love.  Give me a much more robust God than that and then I will emulate God for the rest of all eternity!

May you learn the meaning of holy as I have and long the day when all the world knows it too!


[This piece too is still in process, but it does cut the point doesn't it?]



"Are you afraid of success?"  Remember that line from "It's a Wonderful Life"?  Maybe the fear of success is greater than we imagine.  "The only thing to fear is fear itself".  Remember that line from FDR?  Could it be that our fear is greater than fear itself?  Could it be that our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but rather our fear is that our adequacy or confidence demonstrates the inadequacy of others?  How can we possibly succeed where they failed?  Are we also fearful of hurting other people's feelings of adequacy or confidence?   I believe I can see and feel these fears every day.  So now fear rather than confidence is our primary stance.

Perhaps, following failure after failure which came after proclaiming success after success, we are a bit weary and fearful of confidence.  Look at the path of our own pasts and those leaders around us covered with failed successes.  From religion, Jimmy Baker; from politics, Richard Nixon; from business, Kenneth Lay; from sports, Tiger Wood and the list for all these areas goes on and on.  People who once had our confidence that then turned around and shattered it.  It is a fearful past that we live with everyday.

In a very real sense, fear is helpful.  We need confidence that is not just fearless.  We have to be able to discern when confidence makes sense and when fear makes sense.  The problem is when fear so controls us that we now believe that we too will not possess the strength to solve the previously unsolvable.  The ones older than us didn't, goes the reasoning.  Why would this generation of human beings in the 21st century succeed, where many in the 20th century did not?  Could we possibly be more adequate than the so-called "Greatest Generation"?  Is this our fear?  Does latching on to them as the "Greatest Generation" just give us a convenient excuse to not try what they found impossible?  Is it an attempt to shield us from the fears of the 20th century?  Is it an attempt to find one place and time where we can be confident?

I believe excess fear and excess confidence are both hurting the legitimate feeling of confidence.  In the story of Joshua, he is told that instead of being afraid that he is to "be strong and courageous".  Notice not strong and fearless.  Remember too that "the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom".  So woe to the fearless!  So what about us?  We are not to be frightened by other people' s feelings of fear and inadequacy, are we?   We are not to join the fearless, are we?

A biblical theology is one of those specific areas where people are afraid.  People are afraid that a biblical theology is not possible.   The let's boil that all the way down to a specific biblical definition of holy.  It simply is not possible, we reason, based on all the ones before us that failed. I repeat and capitalize for emphasis two words: NOT POSSIBLE.

Now before I say much more about a biblical passage this week over 5 steps in 5 days, I want to point out the many times that I have learned the danger of these words "not possible" and why they ought to be feared (fear itself again!).   They can be very dangerous words.  They can undercut confidence itself.  So here is some instances outside of biblical theology but still part of life's experiences, where I have experienced the danger of NOT POSSIBLE.  They are:

1) it is not possible for your parents to love you as much as their natural born, because you are adopted,
2) it is not possible to beat someone in wrestling, because they beat you a year ago,
3) it is not possible for you to be a mile runner on the high school track team, because the first time you were ever timed in a mile run in high school, you were beaten by an offensive lineman,
4) it is not possible for you to ever be smart, because your IQ score in high school was very low,
5) it is not possible to get a high grade in college Greek, because you struggled even with English grammar,
6) it is not possible for you to become a good communicator, because who scored very low in the English section of the ACT during high school,
7) it is not possible for you to be a good basketball coach, because at one point you did not know the short list of fundamentals,
8) it is not possible for you to succeed as a fisherman, because you previously failed as a fisherman,
9) it is not possible for the tool you have to be better, because others used it before you and it did not prove better but instead controversial,
10) It is not possible to be emotionally intelligent, because you previously were not emotionally intelligent.

All of these and more (ex. player, coach, and AD) contribute to why I believe "not possible" is dangerous.   Everyone has proved instead to be very possible.  Besides that, it makes us (me included) all hypocrites, who sang when we were younger, "nothing is impossible with God".  It is not our mindset alone that needs to change as much as our strength-set.  We need to boost our confidence, when it is appropriate!

An emotionally healthy person knows there is a time to be confident and there is a time to fear.  The healthy person knows when to be one and not the other.  Again, they are not fearless.  They are confident.  There is a huge difference.  Lots of people get hurt being fearless.  Me included, so that is not what I am looking for from us.  I am instead looking for confident people, who know when to be confident.







In Christ,


Jon

Blessed and Holy: The Possibility of Understanding Them Better Through Exodus 19:1-8 (Credibility: Part 1 of 5)

What is the significance of our emotions, when it comes to defining either blessed or holy?  Let's be more specific.  Are you feeling that the definitions you have been given deserve acceptance?  Or are you rather feeling that they are shameful attempts to define a key word in the Bible?  Emotional intelligence, while it has received some really excellent attention in recent years, is also shackled to outmoded ideas from the 1800's and it lacks a real clear test like that used for logical intelligence.  While testing for the Intelligence Quotient, IQ, is elaborately developed, there is no equivalent test for a person's Emotional Quotient, EQ. Worse yet is that the combination of both together, a person's Credibility Quotient,CQ, is even less developed.  The reason that I began my discussion with questions of acceptance and shame is that these are the basic questions of emotion that relate to the logical question of amount like a test score of say, 90 out of 100..  In school, if I take a test and receive an acceptable score like 90 out of 100, then I feel the pleasure of acceptance.  If I take a test and receive an unacceptable score of 50 out of 100, then I will feel the pain of shame.  So what should be our emotional state?

So what ought we to feel about test scores relating to understanding blessed and holy?  In speaking to Christians in particular, what do the test scores say about the definition of each of these words.  It make shock you to learn that recent scores are lower rather than higher.  The emotional diagnosis is one moving toward shame rather than acceptance.  If John A. Lee is correct, most of what scholars labeled as a definition in a lexicon is simply a good copy of an earlier tradition of definition.  Most of it has not been re-tested.  But in the case of holy, there have been some important (acceptable) advances in scholarship.

First, Jo Bailey Wells, author of God's Holy People: A Theme in Biblical Theology, points out in her excellent summary of recent scholarship on the definition of holy, that the "old consensus that the original etymology was `separation' ... has now been abandoned" (p. 17-18, see footnote 10).

When I speak of outmoded ideas in the 1800s, I am referring to the continuing development of fight versus flight, or the idea that anger and fear are opposites.  Worse yet is the idea that anger is simply another form of fear.  I guess you could call that an update of an odd idea whose time to die has come.

When I speak of a test, I am referring to the need to test emotional intelligence (EQ) in schools just like logical intelligence (IQ)


[I actually wrote a great deal today, but I found the material fits better with part 4 of 5)


In Christ,

Jon

Blessed and Holy: Understanding Them Better Through Luke 10:25-28 (Whole - Part 3 of 5)

OPENING: WHOLE

The difficulty with trying to understand the meaning of the Greatest Commandment relates mainly to the idea of a commandment or command.  Here is what I mean.   If you were to look up commandment in your concordance, then you would discover 4 other close cousins as part of what looks remarkably like a set. They are:

1) laws
2) judgments
3) testimonies
4) commandments (* already noted above)
5) statutes

You might even see two other words commonly in close proximity.  They are:

1)  charge (or burden)
2)  covenant

The question I want to answer this time, which has implications especially for the meaning of holy, is how these fit together as a whole set (if they are a set).

Israel ... Yahweh


AMOUNT


Yahweh your God is one (AM1)  (how many?)
love your neighbor as yourself  (AM2)  (how much?)


RELATIONSHIP

God - far  (where?)  neigh - near
neighbor  (when?)  bor - liberated


ACTION

hear  (how?)
love   (how?)
love (how?)

above yourself (why?)
equal to yourself (why?)



THING

"is" "is not" excuse
who is my neighbor
trying to excuse himself
avoiding accountability



"like" "not like" excuse
different kind


CLOSING: WHOLE

with whole of your heart,
with whole of your soul
with whole of your strength
with whole of your mind


[will continue later]

In Christ,

Jon

Blessed and Holy: Understanding Them Better Through Luke 10:25-28 (Relationship - Part 2 of 5)

RELATIONSHIP

There is no more important time to define holy correctly than RIGHT NOW.  And the best people to have on your team to reach the correct definition are those who possess both common sense and a specialized sense.  It is also good to have on your side commonly known passages like Luke 10:25-28 to make sure your point of view is well-supported.  (More on this part later this week.)  When it comes to understanding the definition of holy in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, surprisingly the biggest problem is not that people do not know Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.  I still wish more did! The bigger problem is that the specialists who know Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek lack too often common sense in their own language.

When people lack common sense, they are undependable.  That can leave us running scared.  That is a very big problem.  It can result in what are called "random catastrophic failures" by yourself and those who are around you.  You need brains that don't have this problem.  You need a brain that has common sense.  It is like a computer with a dependable microprocessor. We have got computer integrated circuits that have overcome this issue, but do we have the brains too?  These kinds of errors need to be taken care of and fast as learned in the computer industry years ago. Again, brains with those kinds of mistakes can leave people running scared.

Let me give you a concrete example.  I once was coaching on a sideline, when the head coach sent into the quarterback a signal from the sidelines for the next play.  The quarterback took the signal to mean that we wanted to do a quick kick.  That wasn't nearly so bad until the rest of the team lined up with him and did just that. It made absolutely no sense whatsoever.  We had time outs to use.  It ended up costing us the game. We were driving at the time for a potential score.  The quarterback had a great sense of his mechanics as a quarterback, which is a specialized knowledge that other players don't possess, but he also lacked common sense.  That made him at a critical point in the game undependable.  It was really costly.  But that was only a game.  In the case of holy, its wrong definition is much more costly.  It can cost us our lives.

So how can "random catastrophic failures" be avoided?  I think I know how.  First, there has to be no opposition to continuing to grow in our specialized knowledge of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.  That has to be a GIVEN right now.  What is not a GIVEN is that those with this specialized knowledge are dependable.

The problem of their lack of dependability seems to keep growing.  They keep pointing out what is not dependable (ex. James Barr), but they do a weak job of replacing what is not dependable with something that is dependable.  I'm afraid that a major part of this problem goes back to the place where our schools that were designed to give us sense failed to do so.

Don't get me wrong, I am strongly in favor of schools.  I believe in "sense and schools" as much as I believe in "rules and freedom".  They are inseparable.  But the point of schools is to provide sense and eliminate nonsense. Nonsense is what I believe is resulting in "random catastrophic failure".  Something is wrong. Elimination of what is wrong is not happening frequently enough.  We have got a problem right NOW.

What I would like to do is have everyone take a deep breath (in football we call this a "time out") and take some time to find out to text if they possess common sense.  That goes for everyone who wants to know the meaning of holy or blessed or any biblical words for that matter.  The problem is that there has not been a good test for common sense.  (While there are a lot of tests for whether you know Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek).

Reading Thomas Paine's Common Sense won't do it.  That is somewhat of a dead end.  Common sense is something that you can't study for once you are asked, because then you are admitting you don't HAVE it. Relationally, you either HAVE or you DON'T' HAVE it, when you are asked the question.   So here is the big test.  By the way, I would have struggled to come up with the answer not that long ago myself. So don't feel bad, rather get yourself tested.  That is the first step to getting it, if we don't have it already.

I want you to answer a simple essay question without any studying.  I want to find out whether you have it right NOW (not later).  I want everyone who is going to read my definition of holy or give me their definition of holy to at least possess common sense BEFORE they or I speak on the topic.  (I have already given my definition in earlier posts, if you trust my common sense.)

To do this testing of common sense, I am offering a series of tests.  It will have three parts over the remaining days of this week (the week starting Sunday, April 20, 2014).  Remember to really prove you have common sense right now you have to avoid cheating.  This is all based on a honesty system.  I can't check all the cheaters at the door, but you can check yourself.  By the way, God is checking you at the door (according to my mother).

I want you to post your answers in the comment sections below.  You can write out the answer in as little as 5 to 10 words in a list or you can expand on it.  The question is whether you are among the HAVES or the HAVE NOTS in the place and time you are RIGHT NOW.  There is no better timing.

I will not be posting answers, until there is enough interacting with the question (100 + people), but I will let you know if you get 100 % as soon as I can without giving the answer away to everyone else.  (I will be open to common sense suggestions on how to do this process better. I also have never done this process quiet like this before. You know what that means.  )

So here is the question:  "Tell me in as short of a manner as you can, the common sense words in your language?"  Please time yourself and give yourself a full 15 minute time period, if needed.  I hope you do well!  Thank you for taking part.  

Don't worry, I'll giving the definition of holy to all who possess common sense without "random catastrophic failures!  Again, thank you for taking an active part.


Sincerely,

Jon

Blessed and Holy: Understanding Them Both Better Through Isaiah 6 & Revelation 4 (Total - Part 3 of 5)

When it comes to language, it is important to realize that some words get used extremely frequently. Sometimes due to that frequency, we take them for granted.  In reading the scholarly articles or books written about the Bible, you frequently find writers trying to find the next seldom used word that needs to be better defined.  In the business world, they would call this looking for the unique rather than the common. I've come to the conclusion that sometimes we spend way too much time on the infrequently used words in the Bible text and way too little time on the frequently used ones.  "Blessed" and "holy" are not themselves the most commonly found words in the biblical text, but does that have to mean we cannot ground their meanings in those that are the most common?  I think that the correct answer is that we CAN ground the meaning of blessed and holy in common sense language.  We just have to do it.

What this means is that I and many of us have to break some old habits in reading a text of Scripture.  My tendency is to look for the key unique words in a text, but to ignore those that are more widely known or common.  We see this too in an exhaustive concordance, where words like "and", "the", "but", "a" and many others like them are relegated to an appendix.  We also see this in older lexicons (and maybe even some newer ones), where at one time in the history of their creation, only the less well-known words were included and the most commonly words were left out.  The thinking was: "Why have a dictionary for those?".  Even in a children's picture dictionary that I own, the word "strong" gets a picture dedicated to its definition, but the word "the" does not have a picture assigned to it.  The authors seem to assume that a child will grasp the meaning of "the" from a couple of example sentences.  

This situation reminds me of the Biblical principle that "the greatest shall be the least and the least shall be the greatest".  It also reminds me of another principle where Jesus warned people that "what you have done to the least of these, you have done to me".  These principles seem to apply only to people, but what if they also extend to our words?  Are we paying a big price for not paying attention to the common words as much as the special words?  Do those who read the Bible as scholars need a reprimand like the chiding Lincoln gave to the elite politicians that he understood the democratic principle to mean to pay attention to the common people, because there were so many of them?  Do we need to do the same with the least of the words in the text that are so incredibly frequent?  It is my view that we do.

Some very scholarly writing from a cutting edge linguistic model called "cognitive linguistics", in paraphrasing their point, says that the words we see or hear more frequently than others become more entrenched in our minds and tend to shape more our way of thinking more and even effect things more at the expense of the less frequent and therefore the less entrenched in our thinking.  In other words, these least words are the words that are greater than the greatest words.  The great words, the last heard at the spelling bee or the words hardest to define on the ACT or SAT are in fact the least when it comes to grounding or entrenching our views.

So what I am going to begin doing overall is looking at a text through this set of words in English:

the, a(n)
on, as (so)

and, but (not)
with, at

I (be), to (not)
of (have), had

by (do), use
for, said

this, that
or, each

So what I am going to begin doing overall is looking at a text through this set of words in Greek:

    

So what I am going to begin doing overall is looking at a text through this set of words in Aramaic:




So what I am going to begin doing overall is looking at a text through this set of words in Hebrew:



This is how I will be able to approach a biblical text in a way that is not only healthy, but also incredibly grounded or entrenched (in a good sense!).  the good news in all of this is that this will make the common person and all of those above them in expertise to have a common ground from which to begin.  Right now what happens is the expert is given the advantage and also the loopholes to escape accountability for their ways of thinking.


[this deserves a lot more work and it will get it and so will Isaiah 6 ]

In Christ,

Jon

Blessed and Holy: Understanding them both Better Through Leviticus 19 (Teach Things - Part 5 of 5)

Sometimes trying to convince people, who hold onto nonsense to see what makes sense, is a lot like Anthony Hecht describes it: "A lot of fun lies in trying to penetrate the mystery; and this is best done by saying over the lines to yourself again and again, till they pass through the state of sounding like nonsense, and finally return to a full sense that had at first escaped notice."

The Bible does not possess a lot of nonsense in my experience, but in its interpretation there is a plenty.  Picture sense and nonsense this way: One sees (sense) and the other doesn't see (nonsense).  Too often the average person is excluded in their average reading of the Bible from being able to see what makes perfect sense. 

[This too was interrupted by the Badger game this evening, or I could have gotten much more written.]


In Christ,

Jon

Blessed and Holy: Understanding Them Better Leviticus 19 (Train Actions - Part 4 of 5)

When it comes to training the focus has to be on action and results.  It also has to be understood that seeing is not doing.  You can even watch a video of the action and not learn immediately how to do an action.  But also with training it is important to give the why for the how or the reason for the action.  We can also say that usually a person does the action or does something how they were taught for the sake of the effect of that action or their desire to reach a certain goal. 

In Leviticus 19, there are a myriad of different kinds of actions to perform.  But there are also reasons for that action.  The introduction to the chapter begins with "Be holy, because I Yahweh your God am holy".   So, right from the outset, we are to "Be holy".  That then begs the question, "What does it mean to be holy?"

John Eldredge, in this recently published book (2013), The Utter Relief of Holiness: How God's Goodness Frees Us from Everything that Plagues Us, says something that must not be ignored.  He moves past the meaning or definition of holy to what being holy means in its effect or the reason why "be holy" is to be done.  He says:

     Follow this closely now: God is working with us ---  correcting, guiding, disciplining ---
     so that we might share in his holiness (whatever that is).  Therefore, choose your way
     carefully, so that whatever is broken in you might be healed.  Severity is not the point;
     discipline is not the point.  The point is the restoration of your creation.  Whatever
     holiness truly is, the effect of it is healing.  That what it does to a person. (p. 14)

This paragraph by Eldredge on holiness is one of the best statements on holiness that I have ever read or heard.  That is saying a lot, since it would be hard to imagine any book on holiness that I have not at least opened or any sermon on holiness that I did not listen closely to, since 2004.  (That being said, I did spot a new title today on Amazon, but beyond that I have read close to anything you can get your hands on about holiness.)

Now what makes John's statement in this single paragraph so good in my opinion?  First, it  is a great job of training people in the sense of separating action and motivation.  It answers the how or in his words, the "way", and the motivational why, or in his words, the "effect", of being holy.  I like especially that he points out that two effects are not the purpose behind being holy.  It is not to bring the effect of being severe.  So many people I talk to about holiness think that it is the desired effect or point of being holy.  He then says that discipline is not the desired effect or point either.  I've heard people speak of the point of holiness being that as well.  (By the way, what John says does not necessarily exclude these things from the way holiness is arrived at.)  The point or effect for Eldredge is to heal what is broken.  Now that is a great "why" behind the "how"! 

When people do something or choose not to do something, they usually do it seeking an outcome for someone, whether themselves, others, or God.  I admit people do things only because they were told to do something, but more often they do it for a higher purpose than that.  That especially becomes more true for adults.  Hence the reason that they are harder to lead sometimes! 

Seeking a better purpose behind their actions is also a clear reason why Rick Warren was able to sell a lot of books about having a purpose-driven life rather than a purposeless-driven dull action of drudgery.  The questions "How?" and "Why?" need each other and in that order of priority.  You see that in the problem in our day that we are given many purposes in our jobs, but now without a lot of how to.  This is our bigger problem post-Warren, it seems.  If you disagree with me here, it is not terrifically important.  I just want you to think about it then next time at work. 

So how am I to be holy?   I believe that question is very well answered in Dr. Alllen P. Ross' four sets of four instructions that he found in Leviticus 19 and as found in his book, Holiness to the Lord.   [I am currently working on Smart Art displays of what are the actions and then pre-effects and post-effects of non-action or action.]

The next question is why be holy?  First, let's recall John Eldredge's effect of healing.  Is there any sign of this in Leviticus 19?  There might be.  Repeatedly in this section of Scripture there is a repetition of "I am Yahweh" following instructions of conduct as part of "be holy".   If you want to make it real explicit, then you might translate "I am Yahweh" out into "I am I am who I am".   How is that a motivator, we might ask?

First, keep in mind this is a bigger motivator than "Do it, because I [God your parent] said so".   That says nothing about whether we are doing what he is doing or whether we are to just do as we are told.  A big difference is that God in this case is "I am who I am".  There is no incongruently, no lack of integrity, and no lack of fit.  Who God asks us to be is consistent with who he requires himself to be.  Now that's the kind of person and God, I would love to work for, especially if he can teach me to be the same - "I am who I am". 

Second, if Yahweh is our God, the creator, then it would be a good idea as his creatures to conform also to what he has made in consistency with who he is.  I can see how this could be restorative and by implication healing.  It could have the ring of "repair" to what we too once were - "holy". 

So "be holy" is no small instruction.  It is one of the greatest instructions along with "be blessed".  Being who we are as God is who he is might be a great way to begin restoration and revival.  So please be blessed and be healed, whatever holy means.   Be healed in what is broken.  Just do it!


In Christ,

Jon

. 

Holy: Understanding It Better through Leviticus 19 (Total Wholes - part 3 of 5)

Totaling up the parts of the process for interpreting a passage of Scripture is very important.  It is always important to keep all the parts in mind, even as you work on individual parts.  The individual parts that go into the total in this case are: 1) translate, 2) transfer, 3) train, and 4) teach.

As each of these is brought together the goal is to form a single fabric that points to things like the themes of Leviticus and how the parts of the book are arranged together.

What is a bit disappointing when you read the literature regarding Leviticus is how quickly nearly everyone sees the singular theme of holiness as primary.  (I myself did the same following their lead in the past.)  There is a sense in which much of commentary is commentary on commentary and not original research, listening, or digging. 

I find one part of a sentence in Leviticus 19 to be very telling because a part of this sentence is repeated over and over in the chapter without repeating the holiness part.  In Leviticus 19:2d, we read: "For I Yahweh your God am holy".  Then one of my best professors at outlining a passage, dr. Allen P. Ross, points out that there are four sets of four built throughout the chapter around "I am Yahweh" or "I am Yahweh your God".  So with this repeating structure in the chapter what does it tell us about the theme of Leviticus?  Could there be something more important than holiness?

Notice I say "could there be?" not that "there is" at least quite yet.  Now that there is a proposal of another possible theme (along the lines of worship as a theme), I would like to clarify a possible idea. 

For many years (both unconsciously and consciously), I have treasured the theme in a book titled, Who Am I?  I have, for many years, considered the basic question, "Who?" to be possibly the greatest question that can be asked in a variety of forms whether it be: "Who are you [God, etc.]?" or  "Who am I?" or "Who are they?".  God's personal name would seem to address the question of "Who?" on the most basic level.  It is how we often times introduce ourselves to another or what we first ask them about themselves. 

The  name "Yahweh" is unique.  It is called, "the name about all names".  That raises the question of "Why is it the name above all names (if it is not only because it is the name of God)?"  So asking in another way, what lies behind its exalted status? 

I would like to make another proposal, but again not necessarily a definite answer at this point.  It is something to meditate on rather than something to swallow on first bite.  It is this idea.  What if the Israelites on hearing God's name regularly recalled God's words to Moses, when Moses asks who he should say sent him, "I am who I am".  In answering the question, "Who are you?", there could not be a better answer.  It even includes "who" in the response!

In that case, God's exalted name (or the integrity of his name) could be even more of a theme in Leviticus than holy.  I will only suggest here, as well as my other suggestions, that blessing might first get its meaning from integrity.  The question that remains is whether on further testing these possibilities hold up or whether they fail to show any possibility. 

You may in the end, if you are a Christian, find yourself singing:

Yahweh Is the Sweetest Name I Know

but, of course,

Jesus ("Yahweh saves") is Too the Sweetest Name I Know. 

May God bless you in your meditations on the possibilities of these proposals.  And may you also not be too limited by only the ideas you have heard many times before. 


In Christ,

Jon

Holy: Understanding it Better through Leviticus 19 (Transfer Relationships - part 2 of 5)

This post will be delayed like most of my 2 of 5 posts due to the extensive work it takes to really understand the transfer part of a passage.  I will be updating this later, so please check back. 

Sorry for the inconvenience.  Thank you for understanding.


[I have now found my prior work on the connections in the text.  I hope to copy and post these soon and maybe even today - 4/3/14]. 

Sincerely,

Jon

Holy: Understanding it Better Through Genesis 1:1 - 2:4a (Translation - Day One of Five)

PREFACE

Welcome to a place where you can learn what holy really means rather than what it supposedly means.  I write about the meaning of holy with due seriousness, because it is one of the three most important words for God's identity.  This will be my initial post on a Monday for what is now to become my weekly habit.  Each week, I will write 5 posts in the following order on a particular biblical passage: Mondays - Translation Topics, Wednesdays - Transfer Topics, Thursdays - Total Topics, Fridays - Training Topics, Saturday - Teaching Topics.  Each time you return to this blog, you will grasp even better what I am saying.  Rome was not built in a day and neither can the persuasive arguments for the meaning of holy, etc. be built in a day.  It will ultimately take a book, like the one that I am writing. and that I hope will be published before the end of the year to straighten out a lot of confusion and blindness. 

Each time you visit or receive an email through signing up for emails each time I write, I will explain in greater detail the entire process of understanding a complete unit of Scripture and the meanings of the big three words in Scripture: 1) Yahweh/the LORD, 2) blessed, and 3) holy.  None of these three can stand entirely alone, though I have listed them in the order of priority.  Each Biblical passage will be able to stand alone as an argument for the meanings of the big three including holy, but also each passage will add more strength and power to the persuasive arguments that came before it. 

So today I am going to look at the primary translation issues in our text for today.  Every text in translation has an enormous amount of consensus related to it that I will not discuss.  There is no point in re-inventing the wheel in places where translators have done a wonderful job.  My experience says that the majority of times, they do pretty well.  But also my goal is to find those key words that function as very important to the unit of Scripture being explained and where there is some disagreement among translations and then to try to make improvements in those areas. 

First, it is important to put my view of translation into context.  I believe the goals of a great translation (in its strict or narrow sense) are two primarily: 1) clarity, and 2) meaningfulness.   What I mean by strict or narrow sense is that the total of communication is summed up in: 1) translation, 2) transfer, 3) total, 4) train, and 5) teach.  So here I am dealing with translation as a PART of the total communication process rather than as the WHOLE of the communication process.  You can see the difference? 

There is a great way to accomplish each one of these goals of clarity and meaningfulness.  For clarity to be enhanced, it is important to keep one word for one thing as much as you can, if it is that way in the original.  Unfortunately, it is seldom that this can be done entirely the way it is in the original unless we stick to every use of the original being translated by the exact same word which creates a very literal translation.  That ideal may be great in a study bible, but it is not really possible in most cases when we are also talking about being meaningful. 

There is also an important issue that needs to be cleaned up.  This brings me, to the argument between literal or figurative being the best kind of translation.  If these are two opposing opposites, then balance would be admirable.  That is the case with the NKJV and the NIV, for the most part.  My distinctive view is that clarity is the vertical and greater axis of what we strive for and meaningfulness the horizontal and lesser axis of what we strive for.  They are not opposite poles on a horizontal line.  Clarity is the more important of the two, but also the lesser is not to be neglected for the sake of only the greater.  The greatest translations accomplish both effectively.  So literal translations are the greater for clarity, figurative translations are the lesser for meaning, but the greatest is a translation that accomplishes both altogether.  That is why I will be using both the NKJV and the NIV, because they come closest to the ideal.  What I think would clean up the mess we have with so many translations is to base them on clarity and meaningfulness in the picture I suggested.  Clarity is best accomplished when we can answer the question of "How many? with the quantity of "One"  .  Meaningfulness is best accomplished when we can answer the question of "How much?" with the quality of "Equal".  The NKJV accomplishes a bit better clarity, while the NIV accomplishes a bit better meaningfulness. 

The other reason that these two translations are my starting point is that many churches with pastors leading them, are using one of these two.  My primary target audience is pastors who stand between the specialist scholars and the common person.  These two translations work the best on that level.  Having said that my primary audience is pastors, I do not mean that many competent common people will find my writing to be over their heads, but rather than occasionally that will be the case.  Likewise a scholar can learn from what I will write, but I will be doing my best to avoid seminary jargon that the common person would have a hard time grasping meaningfully.  So read on all three groups, there will still be great benefit for all.  That is the end of my introductory material today.  It is a bit long today and the rest of this week, but it will gradually shorten as I see less and less need to introduce or explain new materials. 

INTRODUCTION: TRANSLATION TOPICS

The first step is to determine a natural unit of Scripture .  In other words, I must use what the writer considers one natural unit, so I can pick up the clues that are most relevant to the words I am discussing.  In most cases, I will be relying on the best sources I have found for what are called (rhetorical) outlines of a text.  In the case of Genesis, I will be using Allen P. Ross' Creation & Blessing: A Guide to the Study and Exposition of Genesis, as my starting point.  I also was a student of his at one time.  But also this does not mean that I have used only him as a source.  Rather, it means that I found his treatment to be among the best that I have read.  He points out that Genesis 1:1 - 2:3 is a complete unit as do most others.  So I will be dealing with those verses primarily as my one unit of Scripture over the next 5 days. 

In Ross' treatment of themes in Genesis, he believes that "blessing" and "cursing" are the significant theme of Genesis.  In picking the theme, I tend toward what he considers to be only a structural theme in the word usually translated as "generations".  I am convinced that Genesis is a book focused on relationships more than any other general theme and this is manifested specifically through "generations".  In any case, all three words are significant enough that they require attention.  Also God's name does come up immediately after in the opening story in Genesis 2:4, while holy is in direct connection with blessing in 2:1-3.  Also significant is words that have great consensus around them like "divide" that could be seen as near synonyms for the definition of "set apart" that is associated with "holy". 


TRANSLATION OF YAHWEH

The opening section or unit of Genesis only tells us "what' kind of person creates the world, God.  Sometimes we speak of God as though it were God's name.  God is not his name any more than my name is "man".  "Man" by the way is not necessarily a term of  endearment, so "God" could have the same chilling effect.  We do not yet find out God's name in the first section of Genesis.  But immediately in the beginning of the second section, we learn who this God is.  This God's name is "Yahweh".   

                                                                                             "God" is not his name

                                                                                             any more than my name

                                                                                              is "man".

Unfortunately, many people end up calling God by a very impersonal name.  We also cannot see God's name in the typical translation like the NIV.  We see something else in its place. 

Here is the explanation from the NIV translators in their preface, p. ix.:

     In regard to the divine name YHWH, commonly referred to as the Tetragrammaton,   
     the translators  adopted the device used in most English versions of rendering that
     name as "LORD" in capital letters to distinguish it from Adonai, another Hebrew
     word rendered "Lord," for which small letters are used.  Wherever the two names stand
     together in the Old Testament as a compound name of God, they are rendered
     "Sovereign LORD. "

I note that we are not given a reason for adopting the device used in most English versions, unless the explanation is that they adopted it for the reason that "most English versions" do what they have done.  The problem is that "LORD" in most people's minds means the same thing as "Lord".  Also clarity has dropped significantly, because most people do not distinguish "LORD" from "Lord", but instead place one word or idea in place of two words or ideas.  On Wednesday, under the topic of Transfer, I will discuss further why this may not be the way to go anymore while it may have been the only way to go in the 1st century. 



TRANSLATION OF BLESSING

Back in the early 90's maybe even late 80's, I learned that our definition of blessing as primarily prosperous had a significant problem in its application to certain texts.  I learned this initially from Dr. William Bean at the Center for Biblical Research (CSBR) in Pasadena, CA.  (He now is part of the same kind of ministry under a different name in Redlands, CA.)   The unique aspect of his research was his connection to Dr. David Bivin in Israel along with Dr. David Flusser of Hebrew University. 

At that time, I was not necessarily impressed by the new idea for its translation as I was by the idea that there was clearly a problem in how we understood its meaning in certain contexts, especially those that applied to God.  Recently, I arrived at a new definition that makes a lot of sense in many (but not all!) contexts.  People need to realize that the fact that the primary definition does not apply to all contexts is quite natural.  The average English dictionary demonstrates this fact. 

But also I think this idea that words typically have more than one meaning beyond its first sense needs some explanation as to why.  It may help to realize that ancient alphabets in some cases even developed more meanings from one letter by rotating those letters to different positions.  So more than one meaning from one written object has a long tradition.  The one can be made into the many within a certain span of meaning. 

It is also important to realize that meaning itself has more than one meaning.  I found Robert H. Stein's A Basic Guide to Reading the Bible: Playing by the Rules very helpful in this regard.  If I clarify what he says just one step beyond his own 3 forms of meaning, I think it is fair to speak of 3 kinds of meaning as: 1) definition, 2) implication, and 3) signification or significance.  Now as in any scenario, by having more than one meaning be possible, there becomes room for abuse or confusion, but I as a player in a game of studying my Bible, I always have tried to play within the rules. 

With trying to define blessed, I think it is important to point out the various options for its meaning and not just quickly chose one from a set of suggestions and prematurely eliminate the other options.  What it boils down to is to ask the question: "What if blessed means: 1) integrity in terms of definition, 2) means holiness by implication, and 3) prosperity by significance.  Are we willing to consider what all dictionaries seem to see as inherent, that the great majority of words at least have more than one meaning? 

I believe that in the context of Genesis 2;1-3, that blessed is being used in the sense of its definition, since its possible implication is directly connected to it.  But I also think in Genesis chapter 1, it can be used in the sense of its significance, where prosperity makes much more sense.  The type of meaning, I believe, would be signaled by the context, just like the 22 letters in an ancient alphabet could have more than one meaning through signaling a change by turning the letters to differing positions.  Same letter, different meaning is possible and I believe that same word, different meaning is also possible; but also with a clear signal of the change.  That is part of the rules.  Changing meaning in a whimsical way or to be clever would be outside the rules except in humor and poetry.  There the whole point of the rules might be to be whimsical or clever. 
 
TRANSLATION OF HOLY

Back in the early 90's and again maybe early 80's, I remember Dr. Daniel P. Fuller presenting to a class where we used inductive Bible study tools, the idea that holy did not mean what most scholars thought, but rather it had a connection with the definition of "worthy".  Here again, I was not convinced by his replacement definition, but I was convinced that "set apart" had a problem in the particular verses we were studying. 

I don't know if there is any important word in the Bible other than holy that has suffered more in the effort to find a good definition for it.  As I once mentioned in one of my earlier blog posts, I counted something like 20 options for its definition.  The good news is that probably 17 of the 20 deserve little or no more effort applied to them.  The experts in scholarship in times of uncertainty, seem to sometimes take shots in the dark out of their own sense of urgency.  That is what many of the 17 definitions appear to be, but I think they do show up due to underlying uncertainty about what the original text words underlying our English word, holy, mean. 

The largest conflict and controversy as a result is about 3 options: 1) moral wholeness, 2) purity, and 3) set apartness.  The first thing to consider is that most translators have assumed there can only be one meaning as in one definition.  They have not readily considered Dr. Stein's concern that there is more than one kind of meaning, even while there would only be one definition for holy. 

The other aspect of this discussion is that Andrew Murray, a rather famous pastor from South Africa near the end of the early 1800s and early 1900s also raised a similar concern about meaning.  In his little devotional book, Holy in Christ, he added a little word study at the back of the book on various proposed meanings on holy.  He actually labels each definition under a letter of the alphabet A-G (7 possible definitions).  His own favorite is C, but he also sees subsets of his view under 1 - 8.  I have verified my opinion that he favored C. (since he does not say it directly) in his book from the early 1900s in his book Andrew Murray on Prayer.  One of the most important parts of his discussion is where he points out that in general if holy means "set apart", then it does not by itself explain why. 

I liken his argument to that of the difference that Dr. Stein drew between definition, implication, and significance.  What Murray seems to be saying is that "set apart" fits more in the position of significance or implication, but that it does not have by itself a definition for why it is "set apart", because it is not the definition of holy, but moral wholeness does fit that role.  I think that may put Pastor Andrew Murray's point on a more solid footing as far as the rules of interpretation  are concerned.

So much for trying to clarify the meaning of holy.  There are at least 3 good options that have a strong standing.  Now it is important to no longer assume that it has to be 1 of the 3 meanings given.  It could be all 3, if they are related to definition, implication, and significance.  When I come later to looking at the Transfer aspect of holy, then I will make more of the contextual argument and then later under teaching, I will work more on the referent aspect of meaning.  But also I will then make more of the common sense or specialized sense argument for what it is and it is not. 

                                             Now it is important to no longer

                                             assume that it [holy] has to be

                                             1 of 3 meanings.

 Now let's develop its meaningfulness.  I think it is important to define the top 3 proposed meanings for maximum meaning in their usage.

1) moral wholeness - the moral aspect has to do with goodness in conduct or character.  Wholeness here refers to containing all the elements or parts, so that it is a complete morality.  Jonathan Edwards spoke of a moral wholeness that included right, true, loving, and good. 

2) purity - the quality or condition of being pure or clean.  It has the quality of not being mixed like pure water or pure gold. 

3) set apart - to separate and to keep for a purpose as in reserving a seat for someone in particular. 

In each case, these words each have a relatively high level of meaning to us.  It is not the case that they are meaningless words.  Holy on the other hand, can become rather meaningless when you ask people on the street to define it.  In a standard dictionary like Webster's New College Dictionary, we find the idea of dedicated to religious use; consecrated, sacred.  The problem is that each of these ideas are nearly completely religious ideas, making them hard to relate to other parts of life.  This is why holy can be difficult to understand. 

CLOSING

What is really needed is to define holy in terms of the 3 options suggested in order to give it more meaning and clarity.  Each of these is somewhat useful in that they have more contexts for use than the purely religious one.  Holy can still be found to be useful in terms of being meaningful, if we can define it clearly using 1-3 of these words.  Hallow on the other hand and sanctified on the other hand may need to disappear in an English context, because they are even more meaningless than holy is in English.  When is the last time anyone realized that "hallowed be your name" is connected to "holy be your name"?  Halloween be your name might be closer to the common person's thinking.  That is far too meaningless.  And when is the last time I've met someone who knows Latin?  No time that I know of in recent years.    


In Christ,

Jon

Holy: Understanding it Better through Better Understanding the Greater, the Lesser, and the Greatest

The problem with a lot of Biblical scholarship is that it presumes the principle of synonymous parallelism in the Hebrew language too often.  It is assumed that to witness something parallel in a text is to witness the synonymous supposedly.  While in some contexts this may in fact be very true, I think it has been over applied to texts that actually are not trying to present a synonymous pair, but instead a set of two or three that are based on the distinctions between greater, lesser, and greatest. 

My favorite example of this error is the idea that righteous and just are the same thing.  Sometimes the greatest enemy to knowledge is not ignorance, but presumed knowledge.  It is a laughable error, because no contemporary carpenter would argue that plumb and level are the same.  The most novice carpenter quickly learns the obvious lesson that plumb and level are not the same thing.  In Isaiah, the level of the carpenter is the illustration for the principle of justice.  Likewise, the plumb line is used to illustrate the principle of righteous. 

Maybe we need to bring carpenters into seminaries and lecture the Biblical scholars rather than the reverse.  What do you think?  In the early 80s, the idea that righteous and just are not synonymous, was expressed by one lone scholar of Hebrew.  Now we can use one concrete example drawn from carpentry and publicized by the Bible to overturn what is not very good scholarship. 

In Scripture, there is a set of principles that clear up some of the confusion both in determining the meaning of righteousness, etc. and also in determining the meaning of holy.

[This piece will be continued tomorrow.  Sorry for the slight delay.  Please stop back late tomorrow.]

In Christ,

Jon

Holy: Understanding It and other Great Things Better

You've heard of the "Greatest Show on Earth".  You've probably also heard of the "Greatest Commandment".   The thing in common between both of these is "Greatest".  My quest to determine the definition (the primary meaning) of holy has a lot to do with the idea of "Greatest".  I thought at one time that "holy" might be the most important word in the Bible and in one sense it is .  Well, it is one half of what is "greatest", so not way off.  It is clearly as important as "holy, holy, holy" indicates in both Isaiah and Revelation.  There are two words though that eclipse it in importance and they are:  "Yahweh" and "blessed".  So "holy" is for me the third greatest word in the Bible. 

Let me add a bit more to this to drive home my point about holy's position of greatness or importance.  "Yahweh" as in "holy is Yahweh" is more important than "holy".  Also  "Yahweh" as in "Blessed be His Name" is more important than "blessed".  We also see holy combined with blessed in in "blessed and sanctified" or "blessed and holy" as found in Genesis 2:1-3 and in Revelation.   What is missed is that in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek" there is a pattern in the order that shows importance. 

In Hebrew as in Greek, the "greater" precedes the "lesser".  That makes perfect sense even in English, but there is a VERY GREAT distinction that must be drawn.  In English we often place a greater in front of a lesser in the sense of a greater number and a lower number on the same level plane.  So we place 5 ahead of 4 on a numerical scale of what is greater.  That is not the way "greater" and "lesser" and even "greatest" is being used in Hebrew, (likely Aramaic), or Greek.  In this case it would be a good idea to draw from our memory of geometry where there is a vertical axis and a horizontal axis.  In Hebrew, the idea is that of the "greater" corresponding to the vertical line and the "lesser" corresponding to the horizontal and the "greatest" corresponding to where the two lines intersect with one another.  At that point the "greatest" may be at the point of 0,0 rather than out at 5.1, etc. 

I first got wind of this in the early 80s from an article on righteousness and justice and learning that they were not the same thing.  This was first brought to my attention by a Hebrew scholar, but he never fully convinced me as to what they each meant in that case.  That came 20 years later, when I was working in carpentry and noticed that Isaiah pointed out that righteousness corresponded to the plumb line and justice to the level line in carpentry.  This was an astonishing confirmation of what the Hebrew scholar had convinced me of 20 years prior, that the two words were not entirely synonymous.  This great scholar and my homely parable of carpentry experience verified a greater grasp of what these two words meant in definition.  I also learned that when both righteous and justice were meant then the Hebrew for justice was used and then translated into judgment to mean both together.  This was the practice that the early KJV translators saw practiced in the Old Testament by the Jews or Hebrews.

There is more to this.  In Greek, they refer to narrow definitions for a word and broad definitions.  This discussion is found in Aristotle among others.  Righteousness would be a narrow definition.  Justice would be a narrow definition.  Judgment would be the broad use of the word for justice meaning both righteousness and justice altogether. 

I think the thing that is holding the church back from anything "Great" happening like a "Great Awakening", another "The Reformation", another incredible revival, or another wonderful renewal movement is a failure to know and teach what things are great and what words point to that greatness in the Bible.  The last example I would like to use is that the Bible in the opening creation story speaks of great things God created.  Among then were the "greater light" to the light the day and the "lesser lights" to light the night.  To me the greatest thing about each is that the combination of them both is what makes God's creation the "greatest" we can imagine or think.  I hope and pray that the church especially can find its way back to the greatest things with admiration for both the greater and the lesser.  We need to pay attention to those things that are truly greatest and avoid the distractions of lesser things in life.  Poor judgment has become too common.  Thank you for reading my humble thoughts that attempt to point others to the greatest things. 


In Christ,

Jon

[I will be re-visiting this and making improvements as possible.12/11/13]
  

Holy: Understanding It and Other Key Words Through the Analogy of Identity Theft

We all know about identity theft.  It is, I believe, the # one crime worldwide at present.  (Feel free to correct me, if I am wrong.)  In either case, I thought it was happening to me today when an unexpected charge ended up in my checking account.  Can we say bounce!   Fortunately, with the trouble that occurred the day before in my account, I had transferred nearly all my money elsewhere.  But something dawned on me.  I think this is what has happened to God's identity, the God of the Bible that is.  Not only is the identity of His holiness stolen, but  many other key words that identify who God really is, are also stolen.

Here is what I mean in terms of specifics.  The #1 most important word in the Bible is God's personal name.  His name, Yahweh, is usually seen as "LORD" and so is defined as lord in many Bible readers minds.  This is not actually who God is in terms of identity in those passages.  You might get the impression He's over-consumed with lordship.  The #2 most important word in the Bible is blessed.  This is usually defined as prosperity, but that is not accurate in Hebrew.  That is not who God is, when the Bible says "Bless Yahweh" (usually "the LORD" in translation).  The #3 most important word in the Bible is God's character summary, holy.  This is usually defined as set apart, but I can now make a tremendous case that this misses the mark by substituting holy's significance for its definition.  It is like getting not only the cart before the horse, but also in front of the driver in importance too.   The definition of holy is the greater party in this case before significance.  The #4 most important thing is not one word in English, but a group translated as "I am who I am".  This is the real key to understanding God's name, Yahweh, and what blessed means correctly.  #5 is a set of words that equal what holiness is and one of them is badly misunderstood and that word is love.  Its relationship to faith and hope is badly misunderstood.  Also in that same set of words that equal the part of holiness, the words righteousness and justice are treated wrongly as synonymous.  I wish I could present the argument for this last one right here. 

I know I have not given a great deal of evidence here.  You can find that elsewhere on my blog or you will have to trust my character for the moment, but later you will also be able to see the evidence for what I am saying.  What I am giving here is a brief summary of my conclusions.  I want you to see the results of my search and research in summary form, so you know that identity theft may have occurred and so you should be alert to what is happening.  Again, this is not the entry where I try to prove it.  That requires chapter and verse analysis.  You could call this my opening statement. 

So with these five mistaken notions, I think we can say that the identity of God in the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek of what is called the Bible is stolen.  You don't get the right identity, if you don't know the meaning of his name and his character.  Someone else has stolen His and He is not getting what he truly deserves for His real identity.  If you confuse these 5 words or groups enough, then you end up with a very sad picture of who God is in the Bible. 

I'm only interested in one God, the one in "The Book".   Have we gotten that identity right?  I think we have failed much more than many scholars and Christian leaders like to acknowledge.  The last I checked, identity theft is still a crime.  We need to catch the thieves and put them on trial for what they have done.  Then we can restore God's actual identity, so he can say again, "I am who [my name, etc.] says I am".   We might even begin to realize why God said what He did to Moses. 


In Christ,

Jon Westlund

Holy: Understanding it Better Through the Cart Before Horse and the Level without Plumb

Conceal and Carry

I can no longer support "conceal and carry" by committing two different mistakes.  First, by"putting the cart in front of the horse" and second, by "measuring level without measuring plumb".  Here is what I mean.  It is not helpful for us to conceal the meanings of the top three most important words in the Bible and then carry that Bible with its incorrect definitions to others. 


Both mistakes conceal the meanings of holy, blessed,Yahweh and to some extent the top 20-25 words in the Bible in terms of importance.  So what do I mean? 

The Cart Before the Horse

The cart before the horse picture should be pretty clear.  There are lots of humorous photos on-line illustrating its absurdity.  I tried to find a picture of a trailer in front of a truck to modernize the analogy, but it seems we are all too smart to make that mistake in our day.  So why is this allowed in studying the meaning of words and by the people called lexicographers who put together lexicons? 

[photo insert]

Here is what I have observed.  Scholars when they have read some of the older writings on the meaning of words have not been careful to separate: 1) meanings, 2) implications, and 3) significance.  This is a rule in Dr. Robert H. Stein's A Basic Guide to Interpreting the Bible.  He was one of my best teachers during my college and seminary education.  Stein's "meanings" is what people like the translator Eugene Nida mean by "definition".  The other two are not definitions.  The reason I am concerned about holy and the other two words is because of their significance to the meaning of the whole text of the Bible, but that does not indicate their definitions.  Likewise neither does their implications define the word. 

For example, we separate people in a hospital because of the danger of the well becoming ill through at least some of the sick.  We do not separate people due to an arbitrary rule of separation, but rather we separate the unhealthy from the healthy in some cases to keep the healthy from also becoming unhealthy.  The central point and definition that needs to be known is the difference between healthy and unhealthy.  The definition of healthy is not separate and yet it seems to me that we have defined holy through the same error.  When Rashi (a early Jewish teacher) says that holy means separate, does he mean it implies separate or that it is defined by separate.  Second, has he himself switched an implication into the role of definition.  You see the horse is the meaning, the implication is the cart, and the farmer or whoever is driving operating this machinery is the one who can explain the significance of what the horse and cart are for. 

The Level without the Plumb

When a carpenter measures, they measure both vertically the walls to see if they are straight (plumb) and also the floors to insure they are straight (level).  They would never consider it adequate to operate in building a structure without both vertical and horizontal measurements combining for a convergence of perspective.  It simply makes no sense, because these meanings have been concealed by not seeing the difference between a horse and its cart. 

[insert photo]

What I have discovered is that the meaning of 1)Yahweh, 2) blessed, and 3) holy have been concealed by the mistaken move of substituting the implications of a word for the definition of a word.  Holy just happens to be one of the most important (#3). 

[A work in process as I have time.  Thank you for your patience.]

Jon