Blessed and Holy: Understanding Them Both Better Through Improving our Mental Health

I know you are likely checking out this blog to find the definition of holy.  I won't disappoint, if you can wait until I give the issue some context and then give you a definition in the third paragraph.

You may have noticed lately that in the United States there is a mental health crisis.  The mass shootings with a concluding suicide in our schools and elsewhere is only the tip of the iceberg.  Insanity is much deeper in our society than meets the eye. I would conclude that 90% of the insanity is not even noticed except to the trained observer, who knows that what is happening above the surface and is obvious is only a small part of a bigger problem.  I agree with those who say that health is the next big issue that faces us in the coming of age of our times.  Mental health is only one part, but a significant part toward all types of health.  Blessed and holy are words that actually have a lot to say about that bigger picture of health or being wbole, but it is being missed due to a poor job of defining both words.  I do believe that this problem starts with poor mental health.

I think most of us would agree that a mentally healthy person is healthy both emotionally and logically. Likewise a mentally healthy person or sane person has more credibility than a mentally unhealthy or insane person who has little credibility.  In fact, the significant feature we like in any person is that they are mentally credible.  You can rely on what they say.  The problem is that you cannot always rely on what is given as the definition of blessed and holy.  I am not going to go into detail in this post, but let me state what I believe is the definition for blessed and then for holy that has the most credibility.  Then I will give you some direction for finding that credibility.  So the definition of blessed that I find is most credible is that of "I am who I am".  It is a character trait of a person being who they are consistently.  There is no variance.  What people don't realize is that the popular definition of blessed of "blessings" is not the definition of blessed but its significance.  If you are who you are, then will reap blessing as a consequence.  "Blessed are the peacemakers" is because they are "peacemakers" and not war mongers.  So how about the definition of holy that I find most credible.  I find moral or ethical wholeness to be the best definition.  What is missed is that meaning is not the same as definition.  One of the meaning is that of significance and that is where "set apart" fits.  But it is not the definition of the word, a different kind of meaning.

So where can you find evidence for what I am saying.  Let me begin with this blog.  In my past posts up until very recently, you will find a lot of arguments from biblical texts, etc.  What they boil down to is that I am saying that the definition of "set apart" is illogical.  It is not mentally healthy in that sense. It has as many holes as Swiss cheese.  You will not find much on the emotional aspect that is also very important.  I owe everyone an apology for that, because it is a key component of being mentally healthy and spotting mental illness.

Let me give you an example.  I am going to leave out nay names to keep what I have to say anonymous, but what I am describing actually happened while I was a student in one of my three seminaries that I have attended.  I wanted to present my argument for the definition of holy in all its grand glory in an Old Testament class.  Fortunately for me, I had a very smart colleague in the class who warned me "not to put strange fire on the altar".   Here's what he meant.  I would not get a good grade and it would not be pretty in class if I were to present a definition for holy that was contrary to my professor's definition for holy.   In other words, there would not be a great dialogue on this topic.  He was exactly right.  I did a much more tempered approach and got a reluctant OK from the professor.  Emotionally, this is not a good sign.  It should have been that I could present a well-reasoned argument that would get full consideration in a calm and peaceful atmosphere.  I think my classmate was right to see that emotionally I was only going to get some level of anger for what I said.

This is not how it should be in seminary.  I was not going to present a view that it anywhere near to some classical heresy.  In fact, I would have been introducing a kind of classical orthodoxy from Luther to Spurgeon in the Protestant perspective, which is what this seminary belonged to at its core.  So there was not an openness to a mentally healthy dialogue between competing views, but a sense of subtle suggestion that it would be treated like "strange fire on the altar".

From nearly the earliest part of my writing 10 years ago, I have known about the logical issues.  But now I realize their are emotional issues as well that need to be faced and not ignored.  We need healthy people who know the basics of mental health.  They need to know the feelings of:

!) Acceptance versus shame
2) Joy versus grief
3) Emulation versus jealousy
4) Confidence versus fear
5) Peace versus anger

Now the second examples in each case are not in all cases to be avoided.  We need those emotions too.  But these are not ones we should take pleasure in.  Remember that statement: "Rejoice not that your enemy has fallen, but that your names are written in heaven.  Our joy becomes a double joy when we share it with others.  That is a reason for pleasure.  But what pleasure should there be in separation from an enemy.  Should that predominate?  I don't think so.

I think you also see this in Paul's advice in Ephesians where we are told to: "Be angry, and sin not".  So how do we do that?  We "do not let the sun go down on our anger".  Instead, we go to be in peace rather than anger.  So what is the benefit of that?  We "do not give the devil an opportunity".  See, if we cannot discuss definitions without negative emotions predominating, we are giving the devil a foothold.  We are not helping one another.

I think it is good advice when people disagree on the meanings of words that we don't go to sleep with shame, grief, jealousy, fear, or anger.  At some point we have to realize these are those emotions that while necessary, we should not get pleasure from them.  This is what I think Luther realized, when he said that 'anger" was for God an alien thing.  Sometimes God has to get angry, but we have to remember he does not enjoy it.

So I do think that to have a mentally healthy definition of blessed and holy, you have to consider not just the issues of logical versus illogical, but also the issues of emotional versus ill emotional.  Was it right to consider in seminary a classic definition of holy as strange fire?  I don't think it was.  But behind it was an emotion of both fear for the students and anger for the teacher.  At least, I think that his what my wise fellow classmate was trying to tell me.

Let's rise now to a healthy level.  Let's rise to both healthy emotions and healthy logic.  Then we can all take pleasure in mental health while we take not pleasure in mental illness.  We also then too might get the definition of blessed and holy right as well as each definition's significance and meaning in that sense.  Have a great night and remember healthy emotions before bed.  Soak them up and sleep well.  Ah, the devil will hate you for that.  Pleasure only in the good?  Take care.

In Christ,


Jon

Holy: Understanding It Better Through Understanding Persuasion Better

We can all be really gullible sometimes.  The discussion surrounding the meaning of LORD/Yahweh, blessed, and holy all clearly demonstrate the danger.  This danger is aggravated or heightened by the fact that each of these words are critical to understanding God's Word as a whole.  When I ask people around me about how they discern an expert opinion from one that is not, they tell me they are very confused by all the different opinions.  I personally know the feeling, but I also know a way out from all the different views and how to find a viable agreement among the experts. 

Let me first remove some gullibility by explaining how you and I are persuaded by others.  When you know how people persuade you, then it dramatically reduces your gullibility and makes you able to make your own decisions.  How you are persuaded is not necessarily evil.  It is like someone who knows any skill.  It can be used or abused.  It can be used for people's own selfish ends or for ends that advance not only selfish ends but the other's ends as well.  Any skill can become something that conforms to love your neighbor as much as yourself.  So persuasion as a skill does not always have to lead to love myself more than I love my neighbor.  So what we need to know is when people are abusing persuasion skillfully and when they are using persuasion skillfully.

In The Complete Idiot's Guide to Persuasion, the author uses the analogy of a cascade to illustrate how persuasion works.  He identifies this sequence to bring about a communication cascade toward persuasion.  The steps are:

1) reception
2) processing
3) response, and
4) behavior.

So if these are the steps, let me give you the simplest explanation of each.  I will get you a one sentence definition of each.  Here is each one:

1) reception - it is the first dawn of awareness that there is something new out there and it needs to saturate communities with its message  (ex. 2004 is when I first heard something new about holy - that it can mean moral wholeness and I found it in lots of communities of faith)

2) processing - it is discerning whether the light bulb in your receiver's mind is bright or dim and realizing that sometimes people are highly willing (the light bulb burns brightly) and other times not so much so (the light bulb burns dimly), so you have to move the dimmer switch to burn more brightly before there will be willing processing to maintain and make time for what is needed (ex. for the next 10 years, I processed the idea of moral wholeness and other ideas related to holy)

3) response - it is that point when the processing turns to action through demonstrating a favorable outcome through key motivators like easy, fun, and popular.  The author here recognizes that we are adults, so the geek speak or adult equivalent for each of these is self-efficacy, attitude, and norms.  The message has to create strong intentions or goals and strong motivators.  (ex. it was easy [I could do it] using Eugene Nida's word classes to play around [attitude] with possible meanings for holy looking for the one that ought to be popular [fit the norm of biblical])

4) behavior - this is where a TACTful view is required according to this author by getting very specific about behavior, not just a generic response.  Unfortunately, the author is not specific enough to satisfy a high school level mind, so I will add to their "TACTful view" a more "TACTFUL VIEW".  Here it goes:

T) Target - who?
A) Action - how?
C) Context - where?
T) Time - when?
F) Fun - why?
U) Uncommon - which?
L) Label - what?
V) Vigorous - whole?
I) Intense - how many?
E) Enough - how much?
W) Way - all the way through all 10 of these or persuasion behavior will fail

Unfortunately, many people are persuaded even with huge gaps in answering these questions that the mind requires answers to before it finds what it is looking for ultimately.  So if you want to avoid gullibility, then avoid persuasion that leaves you feeling these are not questions they answer, but questions they leave out.  Even today, as I write, this one entry should not a case make.  You need to read other of my entries too (read the newest first!).  The only case I am making today that might be fully persuasive is that this is how persuasion works for the good (and unfortunately sometimes to the bad). 

So each step of the persuasion cascade is how our words as persuaders cascade all the way into full blown behavior on every level - heart, soul, strength, and mind.  So let me move from this common communication cascade of persuasion to one of the specifics of the meanings of LORD/Yahweh, blessed, and holy,  It does no good, if nothing if I am not specific at this point about my behavior.

As I look at things, I sense right now (and I am gathering wise counsel at this point) the need to write a book and a paper on the topics of the three most important words in the Bible - LORD/Yahweh, blessed, and holy.  The reason is because even though the internet is a wonderful way to gain reception in the world, it does not gain reception in some of the places that I would like my writing to gain reception.  I would like scholars to hear what I have to say.  I would like pastors to hear what I have to say.  I would like lay people to hear what I have to say.  Especially the last, since they are so numerous and I want heaven filled with people!  Reception is a little harder to get than just writing on the internet alone.  You also have to be persuasive! 

A more popular book for pastors is where I think I should begin, since that type of speech communication comes easiest to me.  The next would be the write to the scholarly community, because they are critical in a discussion of who really has expertise.  And by expertise, I hope part of it is persuasive expertise.  Finally, I want to speak anytime I can and write to the average person, because there is a lot more of them than the first two categories making them immensely important.  But I think that they have the right to see me earn my wings of expertise too.  It does no good if they see me ducking the tough (fun!) road of ministry professionals and seminary scholars.  There may be other means, but so far it appears those two pieces are needed to be specific enough to get the job done. 

In the meantime, keep in your mind the three major scholarly opinions for the biblical meaning of holy: 1) moral wholeness, 2) purity, and 3) set apart.  Treasure all three and do not let anyone take any one of the three from your mind of discovery.  Receive it don't let anyone steal any of them.  I'll need something a little longer to make my case for the biblical understanding of holy (and the others), but Lord willing it is coming given time.  May God bless your day.

In Christ,

Jon

Holy: Understanding it Better Through the Minority and Majority Views

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 Means Whole: According to Thomas Cranmer

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 ofc 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 nursesd 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 ofn1 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 revelations2 : 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 What If ....

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 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

Holy means Healthy and Whole: According to a Simple and Clear Understanding

There are objections that can be raised to my position that holy means whole. I want to deal with two of those and I will deal with others later (and have in some cases before). The first is the objection of not keeping things simple. The second is the objection that it is unclear what kind of wholeness I mean.

Let's begin with keeping things simple. To be simple rather than complex is what one thing is in contrast to many things. It is very important to keep things simple, as shown in a April 2008 documentary on television called "The Woman who Thinks Like a Cow." The point of view of the woman featured was that due to her autism, she had a better sense of the basics of the brain of animals, because their brains are more basic than the typical humans. She was able to baffle the experts through her ability to see the basics. She didn't deny complexity, she just recognized the basics first.

The concept of a whole is simple, except that it is a general idea for many concrete and specific examples. When we are very young and adults teaching us are very careful to keep things simple, we learn about the tail of the kitty or the ear of the dog. We are then talking concretely and simply about one example of parts and wholes. I confess that the concrete examples are simpler than the abstact idea that comes from many examples. Even in the case of the word translated as holy, the word is most likely abstracted from the simple and concrete example of white light, which is a combination of a few colors like red and yellow. So I need to keep things concrete and singular whenever possible, if I am going to keep things simple.

Another way to keep things simple is to talk in the popular words of the day. Something that is heard over and over again is often simpler in people's minds, because of its repeated use. I must confess that health or healthy is the popular word used in Christian circles for what I am trying to say. It is popularized in the phrase "healthy church."

What is meant by that phrase is that a healthy church is one that balances ministry activities like discipleship and evangelism among the other major activities. That is what I mean by wholeness or whole, yet whole is not a popular word in Christian circles like healthy. So it is helpful to use the more popular word healthy more often, if I am going to keep things simple.

Let's move now to keeping things clear. I think one of the main reasons that healthy is more popular than whole, in Christian circles, is because of the dangers from what I will call weird wholeness or muddy wholeness. I find it hard to separate good wholeness from bad wholeness.

Being whole is often not as clear as distinguishing between the cat versus only its tail. My favorite concrete example of a whole in my junior high years would have been a bike versus only the spokes or only the sprocket or only the handle bars. Philosophy has complicated things, or rather made things less clear rather than more clear, as I advanced beyond junior high to college.

In philosophy or in science, there is a view of wholeness that muddies the water. Some try to separate themselves from it by distinguishing between holistic and wholistic. But most people don't see clearly the difference from just changing spellings.

There are two techical words out there, holistic and mereology, that really muddy the water, because the parts they try to fit together are parts that don't relate to my concrete examples of cat or bike. Instead, they try to make a whole from deep philosophical differences, like joining together opposites like good and evil. This kind of whole curdles my stomach. It also doesn't work for car engines. The goal is not to bring together an ecletic collection of cylinders and then just de-power some versus others to balance them out, but to build a refined engine that by its nature loves balance and harmony. Science too struggles with thinking that holism versus reductionism means uniting conflicting things. That is a long way from where I find myself on the map. This isn't in my Bible. While I love the word whole, it is not as clear sometimes as healthy, because it is loaded down with weird ideas, related to what is sometimes called New Age thinking. This is also why alternative medicine gets a bad rap that makes it hard to separate the good from the evil. This creates then the idea that whole or wholeness is a red flag.

So while I will stick by whole as in its concrete examples of dogs, cats and bikes; I've no choice but to start with healthy to keep things clear of strange or different thinking. I want to be simple and clear. Biblically, I think holy supports the idea of a healthy church that balances all the activities of what makes an active church versus an unenergetic church. A healthy or whole church leaves no part out and it balances the parts equally. That is why it is an active church and not an oppressive church, running out of energy to act.

May you and I unite in this simple and clear health and leave behind any complexity or unclear thinking that divides us. While complexity and lack of clarity are a part of life, its not where we should begin. I hope its mostly simple and clear now.


In Christ,

Pastor Jon

Holiness is Wholeness: According to Ignatius of Antioch (35 to 107 A.D.)


Ignatius of Antioch was once quoted as saying:

Pray Unceasingly. And pray ye without ceasing in behalf of other men. For there is in them hope of repentance that they may attain to God. See, then, that they be instructed by your works, if in no other way. Be ye meek in response to their wrath, humble in opposition to their boasting: to their blasphemies your prayers; in contrast to their error, be ye steadfast in the faith; and for their cruelty, manifest your gentleness. While we take care not to imitate their conduct, let us be found their brethren in all true kindness; and let us seek to be followers of the Lord (who ever more unjustly treated, more destitute, more condemned?), that so no plant of the devil may be found in you, but ye may remain in all holiness and sobriety in Jesus Christ, both with respect to the flesh and spirit. —Letter to the Ephesians, 10

What I see here are a list of things that may make up a list of what makes up holiness in its parts, and his summary of this list in the word holiness. This is a very real possibility to any careful reader. This is a quote worth re-reading and pondering as to its implications for the meaning of holy in the early church.


In Christ,

Pastor Jon

Holiness is Wholeness: According to Thomas Carlyle

There is a wonderful quote from Thomas Carlyle on the meaning of holy. If you do not know who he is, I will give you a short description following the quote. He once said:


It is a curious thing, which I remarked long ago, and have often turned in my head, that the old word for `holy` in the Teutonic languages, heilig, also means `healthy.` Thus Heilbronn means indifferently `holy-well` or `health-well.` We have in the Scotch, too, `hale,` and its derivatives; and, I suppose, our English word `whole` (with a `w`), all of one piece, without any hole in it, is the same word. I find that you could not get any better definition of what `holy` really is than `healthy.` Completely healthy; mens sana in corpore sano [Applause]. A man all lucid, and in equilibrium. His intellect a clear mirror geometrically plane, brilliantly sensitive to all objects and impressions made on it, and imagining all things in their correct proportions; not twisted up into convex or concave, and distorting everything, so that he cannot see the truth of the matter without endless groping and manipulation: healthy, clear and free, and discerning truly all round him. We never can attain that at all. In fact, the operations we have got into are destructive of it. You cannot, if you are going to do any decisive intellectual operation that will last a long while; if, for instance, you are going to write a book, - you cannot manage it (at least, I never could) without getting decidedly made ill by it: and really one nevertheless must; if it is your business, you are obliged to follow out what you are at, and to do it, if even at the expense of health. Only remember, at all times, to get back as fast as possible out of it into health; and regard that as the real equilibrium and centre of things. You should always look at the heilig, which means `holy` as well as `healthy.`

Thomas Carlyle, Inaugural Address Edinburgh University

Here's a concise history of who Carlyle was:

Thomas Carlyle (Born Dec. 4, 1795, Ecclefechan, Dumfriesshire, Scot. — died Feb. 5, 1881, London, Eng.) Scottish historian and essayist. The son of a mason, Carlyle was reared in a strict Calvinist household and educated at the University of Edinburgh. He moved to London in 1834. An energetic, irritable, fiercely independent idealist, he became a leading moral force in Victorian literature. His humorous essay "Sartor Resartus" (1836) is a fantastic hodgepodge of autobiography and German philosophy. The French Revolution, 3 vol. (1837), perhaps his greatest achievement, contains outstanding set pieces and character studies. On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (1841) showed his reverence for strength, particularly when combined with the conviction of a God-given mission. He later published a study of Oliver Cromwell (1845) and a huge biography of Frederick the Great, 6 vol. (1858 – 65). Britannica Concise Encyclopedia.



In Christ,



Pastor Jon

Holiness is Wholeness: According to Universally Understood Virtues


In place of the words, universally understood virtues, you could place the words, world-wide understood virtues. At one time in history a philosopher proposed the following as a list for the world-wide recognized virtues: beauty, goodness, justice and truth. I would like to propose a new list. It is new only in the sense that it needed to be dusted off so it can be clearly seen. They have been there all along for us to discover. It would be wholeness, justice, truth, love and goodness. Wholeness would be what holds the four together and keeps them in perfect harmony with each other.


I have yet to find a sound theologian, anywhere in the world, who did not or does not recognize and understand all of these virtues. What is also wonderful about this set of virtues is that they are easily understood by adults, even if not ideally so. Most adults could define any one of these fairly well. For justice they might decribe fairness, for truth they might describe reality, for love they might describe service, for goodness they might describe concrete goods versus the evil choices of this life. For wholeness they might describe the necessity of all these together. Again, not ideal, yet still very real.

I am convinced that ultimate reality is made up of these ideal virtues or values. What is comforting is knowing that these virtues are universally known by the people who live by the virtues of the Bible. The words of the Bible include these virtues, but they also penetrate each of us and point to things that are realities in our lives, however clouded our understanding might be. We may know only in portion, yet we universally know, these are virtues.


In Christ,


Pastor Jon