Holy: Understanding it Better Through Emotional Intelligence

The odds today (3/30/12) of someone winning the current lottery jackpot is incredibly small and yet many people are willing to gamble their hard-earned money for its potential payoff (around a half-billion).  I will not state my personal views on gambling, because then people "will not see the forest for the trees" and they will get caught up in the issue of whether this form of gambling is morally corrupt or not.  Setting that tree in the forest aside for now, there are two important people who have influenced people's view of what to do in the face of uncertainty like that found in gambling.  One of them suggests that the wise wager for the person with uncertainty is to consider the possiblitity that the claims of the Bible and God are in fact true, since the implications at the end of life can be catastrophic, if in fact they end up true.  This is the argument of Blaise Pascal, who is known for "Pascal's Wager".   The other of the two suggests boldness in the face of uncertainty, so a person must take a leap into the face of uncertainty.  This is the  argument of Soren Kierkegaard, who is known for his "leap of faith".   I think the current state of biblical scholarship on the definition of holy is more like a "leap of faith" than a "Pascal's Wager". 

This is important, because this general outlook toward risk and uncertainty is very important in many areas of life including scholarship.  It is likely behind the sticker on some pickup trucks that reads: "No Fear".   The current "No Fear" attitude among some scholars to the possibililty that the original Hebrew and Greek words for holy may not mean "set apart" is somewhat telling.  It is important do as Edwin H. Friedman, author of A Failure of Nerve, suggests.  He recommends that we do not look at just the intellectual aspect of an issue, but also the emotional processing connected with it.  Uncertainty and its emotional component of fear or no fear is therefore extremely important. 

People and some scholars today seem to have "No Fear" even when probability and statistics suggest that they ought to fear.  For Pascal, it was not viable to take a "leap of faith", but rather he suggested that a person hedge their bet toward God because of the relative possible outcomes.  This is not a radical leap of faith. It is not a person "with both feet firmly planted in the air."   It was a moderate option to protect a person against the worst possible outcome.  This is an important shift in emotional processing that works alongside the mind's intellectual aspect.  It is part of the combination that makes up emotional intelligence of one kind.  The leap of faith is a different kind of emotional intelligence.  It dares against even against fear.  That is a different kind of emotional intelligence.  They both are combating "a failure of nerve", but in different ways.  They view probability differently and handle it differently. 

At one time (not necessarily a better time) biblical scholarship favored the approach of Pascal as it handled uncertainty in manuscipts or in interpretation by preserving both options in the face of uncertainty.  In this way, a person made sure that at least one of the two choices they preserved was in all probability the right one.  They thought it was dangerous to eliminate the less probable or minority position as long as uncertainty remained.  This also follows the ancient practice of preserving marginal readings in manuscripts, even if in greater probability the one preserved in the main text was correct. 

At a later time (not necessarily a better time) biblical scholarship moved more (yet not entirely) toward the approach of Kiekegaard and challenged uncertainty with greater boldness.  The most extreme form is not seen in bilical scholarship so much as in the existential call to "be bold" in the face of uncertainty about one's own identity.  What you see in biblical scholarship is that you can still find the marginal readings in a Greek text of the New Testament.  Some readings may be ranked on their probability as very low and yet they are still preserved.   Still at another level the argument as to which manuscript tradition is more reliable is more like the idea of setting one option aside and going with just one option.  Having brought up this as only as example to illustrate my point, don't get caught in this tree and miss the forest.  My point is to simply say that part of and not the whole of what has been done in action with regard to ancient Greek manuscrips is more like the emotional processing of the "leap of faith".  If an emotional wager approach like that of Pascal is used, I think biblical scholarship on the texts would shift or change. 

The key is to realize is that with the wager approach versus a leap approach, emotional uncertainty is dealt with differently.  Peace is preserved not by eliminating an option or setting it aside dramatically in proof of a person's nerve and boldness, but rather by keeping both options on the table until further evidence gives proof that one option is no longer possible.  It is somewhat like the statement that when all other options are made impossible, the the one that remains (however improble it may have once looked) is the right one.  In other words, ambiguity is sometimes acceptable and only eliminated when another option becomes impossible. 

I consider most of the possible meanings for the biblical word we translate as holy as now impossible.  They are rightly eliminated.  But also I believe we are still left with two possibilities.  This ambiguity is not as threatening as some scholars may think as long as we wager correctly and keep both options on the table and especially are careful that the one with greatest implications is not eliminated.  I think holy means whole has the greater potential implications for our understanding of God and our living of life.  That is the one that most scholars have gambled on eliminating, because as the most renowned in the twentieth century (Rudolph Otto and Norman Snaith) of their company have said in the past they realized that "wholly other" and "set apart" are based on a probability, not on certainty.

It is only later that the issue of probability is set aside as seen the Evangelical Quarterly in 1979 when Brian Daines supposedly warns against playing games with biblical words and his example is that of the interrelation of the Engish terms holiness, wholeness and health.  This leads to the full elimination of the option that holy means whole that just a generation before was still an option, even if then only a secondary option.  But it is only in the abstract for his writing that this position is suggested.  It is not in the heart of his own article.  The abstract for his article boils it down to the fact that "the implications of semantics for biblical study have been set forth at a high academic level by such writers as Professor [James] Barr and Dr. [Anthony] Thiselton, ...."   It seems that the writer of the abstact took two scholars refered to in Daines' footnotes and placed one of the postions of these scholars, Barr's position, in the place of Daines' postion.  Daines says:

... some of the mistakes made by expositors....

a) That we can get the meaning of a word by examining its Hebrew or Greek root or even the root of the English translation.

It is a popular view that the 'true' or 'correct' meaning of a word is in some sense the original one, the oldest that can be traced. In fact the present uses of words often bears little relation to older ones. The original meaning of "history" was "investigation" and the English word "nice" originates from a Latin word meaning "ignorant". The same applies to the biblical languages. Even if the Hebrew word for "holy" came from a Semitic root meaning "to be separated" (which in itself is open to dispute) this does not imply that the Hebrew word as used in the Old Testament means this any more than if I say you are nice I mean that you are ignorant.

The meaning of a word can only be found by studying its contemporary use. Looking at an older state of the language simply sets up ideas that have to be modified or disregarded. An even worse error is to try to understand the meaning of Greek or Hebrew words by referring to the root meaning of words in the English translation. Therefore "holy" is claimed to mean "clean" in the Bible because
that was an early meaning of the English word. Such turns of argument fall into double error. The older meaning has nothing necessarily to do with present usage of "holy" in English let alone
the way words were used in another language thousands of years ago.   (p. 210 The Evangelical Quarterly)

I have two comments I want to make.  First, as a student of semantics (the study of meaning within the broader study of language [linguistics]), I disagree with the abstract's assessment, but I agree far more with Daines' balanced assessment on the meaning of holy.  I also agree with the general principle that he and James Barr promote with regard to contemporary use.  We have to be cautious with the use of root meanings and with etymological arguments.  It can only be a part of our process in trying to learn the meaning of a word.  Daines' example from Latin meaning of nice is valid.  I have never heard anyone ever argue that holy at its root means clean.  He does overstate, however, the idea of a "double error".  Some though not all, who clarify the meaning of a word in English translation, are not making the argument for what the original means from a translation, but rather clariying what the translation was meant to communicate when the word was chosen by its contemporary translators.  Charles Spurgeon I would place in this group and likely Ray Stedman years later.  They are only clarifying an earlier contemporary meaning for earlier translators, not proving that the Hebrew means what they thought it meant.  That is a separate issue.  Their argument is an argument against those who later want to re-assign a meaning to an earlier use of the word holy.  This does not exclude the separate issue of what the word means in the original Hebrew or Greek.  For example holy, in English, did not mean "set apart" exclusively, unless we want to now assign it that meaning.  It does not have that central meaning in its early use in English translations.  That is a valid use of a root meaning and it does not lead to a double error as long as a scholar understands that this does not prove what is right, but what earlier translators thought was right.  Daines seems to miss that point.   Or maybe he applies his statement to broadly to include "all" as making this mistake when they refer to the earlier meaning of "holy" in English translation.    

Second, Barr is fairly well-known to be given to exaggeration and is guilty of sometimes being hypercritical in making his points.  I wish he were still living, so I could address him directly by email or phone.  He certainly brought forward some great points from semantics and linguistics to biblical scholarship, but that does not make all that he says equally valid.  With him you sometimes have to throw the bathwater out to find the baby.  Thistelton is another admirable scholar, but I still have some reservations where I find he is not solid either.  I have not run across his comments directly on the topic of holy, while I have those of Barr.  Barr refers to this issue in his 1961 book on Semantics.  Barr's argument is an overstatement of what he actually proves, because he is missing the point that is being made in many cases and so accuses some people of a double error that they are not making.  I think he is accusing some people of ignorance in cases where they are not ignorant.   For a play on words from Daines' example: He should be nicer than that. 

So I suggest that in terms of wagering or emotional intelligence and processing that we keep both on the table till one of the two can be eliminated by its sheer impossibility.  This is not easy, because both have some plausibility.  My firm task is the eliminate one of the two by using the tools that Barr suggests and even a few more.  I think the emotional processing of Blaise Pascal is more healthy than that of Soren Kierkegaard.  I  consider it more emotionally intelligent.  Please pray for my emotional processing and intellectual processing to come together and to make greater sense of biblical words we translate as holy. 

In Christ,

Pastor Jon

Holy: Understanding it Better Through What Definition People are Accustomed to in their Lifetime

It is very important to understand that the mind and the conscience do not work separate from the emotional aspect of who we are as human beings.  In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul points out that some are afraid of eating meat sacrificed to idols because of what they are accustomed to rather than to what knowledge he possesses.  What people are accustomed to can function as a block to what others know.  Part of the difficulty in considering the meaning of holy as being whole is that people are today are largely acquainted only with the definition of set apart.  As a result, in their conscience they may feel that they are doing something wrong, if they were to surrender the definition of set apart and instead believe that the definition of whole is correct. 

I understand this emotional hesitancy.  I grew up with being taught just the definition of set apart and I never heard of the possibility of whole as holy's meaning until approximately the year 2000.  It is only through reading a great deal of writing that I have come to realize that my conscience could be misinformed and I can have the courage to test two possible plausible meanings for holy and not just hold onto one.   The other issue here is to realize that defining holy as whole does not mean that the idea of set apart goes away.  It only shifts in its priority and in its location in the biblical text.  It wiil always be in the text through other words in the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. 

I am writing this to say that we must not overlook the emotional and conscience issues in dealing with the meaning of holy.  Our weak conscience can tell us that any other meaning than set apart is impossible and yet it can mislead us like those who could not eat idol meat.  So my first recommendation to people before they plunge into this topic, is to take measured steps in looking at the plausibility that holy in the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek could mean whole. 

Don't plunge in and violate your conscience as a guide.  Take measured steps from where you've always been before this time and have been accustomed to being.  Remember the lessons of 1 Corinthians 8.  Don't let another's authority and knowledge lead you to quickly to change your position. 

Follow your conscience as well as the evidence.  The truth is that the conscience and our emotional side cannot be ignored, even in the pursuit of finding out what we all should know.  I pray your desire to know the meaning of holy is one that acknowledges not just he evidence, but also the emotional side of the process of learning to know the truth.  Read through the evidence I've uncovered carefully and thoughtfully.   I don't want anyone to push to hard against their conscience, but rather to find a place where conscience and evidence meet. 


In Christ (the King-appointed),

Pastor Jon.

Holy: Understanding it Better Through Expertise

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Christ,

Pastor Jon