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
Showing posts with label set apart. Show all posts
Showing posts with label set apart. Show all posts
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Monday, May 19, 2014
Blessed and Holy: Understanding Them Better Through 1 Kings 18 as the Text and Now Your Testimony
People want to know things like definitions for certain. That is an admirable desire on high importance topics like blessed and holy. The problem is that the same people don't know how to get there. The same people who want certainty also can get trapped in wavering rather than knowing. Knowing the meanings of blessed and holy for certain, as found in Genesis 2:1-3, requires something that most lexicons and scholars don't provide. They don't test the meanings of these words from inside the text.
Instead, they test the meaning of each word from outside the text. They use etymology (in some instances when they claim they don't) or they use cognate languages (these are languages like French in relation to English). I don't think that either one of these tests is very valid or certain. If you want reasonable certainty on a very important set of topics, then a lexicon or reading another 100 scholars won't get you there. The way to know something for certain over another possibility is to test what is true and humble versus what is false and proud. But it has to be a complete test. So how do we get to a better place and time, where and when we know for certain the meaning of blessed and holy? I got an answer for that. Read on.
I think the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18 shows how to get past various the many opinions on the meanings of blessed and holy. I'm going to present the story in the following format of questions:
1) What are the numbers? (to form judgments) (i.e. must be)
2) What is the test? (to form testimonies) (i.e. will be)
3) What are complete guidelines? (to form laws) (i.e. wants to be)
4) What is the action? (to form commandments) (i.e. can be)
5) What is the thing? (to form statutes) (i.e. let be)
Before I continue let me present the major opinions I think are worth considering on the definition (one of three kinds of meaning) of holy:
1) "set apart" (by far the most popular in the last 100 years, but not previously)
2) "pure" (made popular in groups like the Puritans, but that is no surprise)
3) "moral wholeness" (the most popular of the last 500 years in Protestant theology)
I believe the latter wins after a thorough testing and experimentation. But for the testing to be successful there must be many testifiers, not just many experiments. Too many times we think of them as the same thing. Read on and see the difference.
What are the numbers? Let me stack up the numbers for you first. Do you remember the story of Elijah? He asks the people for a test. He asks for a time out. He says, "How long will you continue to waver between two opinions?" The people like his idea for ending their wavering. So here is how it went #s wise.
Baal's prophets, Yahweh's prophet
1) 2 opinions, 1 opinion
2) 400 reps/prophets of Baal, 1 rep/prophet for Yahweh (Elijah)
3) 1 altar for Baal, 1 altar for Elijah
4) the whole community assembled as testers/witnesses, the whole community assembled as testers/witnesses
5) Only fire from heaven, only fire from heaven.
6) many slashings leading to bleeding, not even one slashing
7) 0 gallons of water, excess gallons of water
8) Very dry wood, very wet wood
I think you can tell that Elijah is not even worried about the odds being stacked against him in this test. He knows there are two options: 1) a guaranteed decline or failure, which is why he makes fun of them, and 2) an uncertain possibility, which he believes will test out just fine.
I likewise am not at all bothered by the numbers. The number of lexicons means little to nothing, if they all are just Xerox copies of each other. The answers that lexicons, dictionaries, word studies, newer scholarship, older scholarship, and church leaders give wavers between opinions.
So what is the test? Let me stack up the test for you. The test is what will be your opinion here and now. Notice that Elijah is not willing to deal with further procrastination on their part. Their desire to avoid the topic in the here and now is seen in his primary question: "How long will you waver between two opinions?"
Here is my breakdown on the place and time:
Baal's prophets, Yahweh's prophet
1) at present they go to worship Baal and Yahweh, Elijah wants them to go to worship only Yahweh,
2) they have perhaps in even the same building worship to each, Elijah wants them to have separate worship,
3) they want to continue waiting, Elijah wants the waiting to stop,
4) they have put off agreeing to test each view at a place and time, Elijah asks them for a test at a place and time - a here and now test (very shortly)
5) they have gotten comfortable with their uncertainty (wavering), Elijah wants them to rid themselves of their uncertainty (He wants them to say: "As for me and my house we will serve Yahweh".
6) apparently they have been putting the place of decision off for a long time, Elijah wants the time out to end so they can get back to action,
7) procrastination, urgency
8) traveling from place to place, finding their place
What Elijah asked for and what he got from the people was a test. That is all he needed from the witnesses. He needed one agreed upon place and time when they could all testify to the results. He alone as a witness was not enough. He wanted maximum testing or witnessing. They made a covenant or bond with Elijah that they would be witnesses to a test. It is no test to hear the testimony of only one witness. That is all that I am. He did not give them any guarantees except that he would be present, when Yahweh proved who he was. They agreed to the same place and time as Elijah and they did not require certainty from him in advance, but rather they sought certainty after the test where they were present to testify. Maybe their wavering was directly a result of their desire to have guarantees in advance, rather than waiting for til the time that they could testify to guarantee what was true and humble.
The difficulty in the present, especially regarding holy's definition is that the tests are quasi-tests. The are not tests that give you a great deal of certainty. In fact, as scholars have assessed the definition of holy more recently, the tests are coming back more uncertain than previously. The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (the grandest work on the Hebrew language) casts serious doubt on the etymological argument for "set apart". It also made the courageous step of leaving out cognate (other language) material and relying primarily on the Hebrew language internally.
I am afraid that the one test of blessed and holy has not really been performed up to here and now standards. Since James Barr, no one has written a full blown test for the definition of holy after he successfully unseated the argument from etymology alone. (He did not say it has no value, but he does say its value is limited.) That is what I am trying to do otherwise in this blog and in an upcoming book. I want to set the stage for a grand test of definitions of blessed and holy. .
So what is complete? What is complete is playing by all the laws.
I think the laws for Elijah and the prophets might have been something like this:
Baal's prophets, Yahweh's prophet
1) no stranger fire other than from heaven, no strange fire other than from heaven,
2) Prayers are permitted, prayers are permitted
3) We can play with up to 400 players against Elijah by himself, I will permit them to have 400 as long as I can play
4) bleeding and slashing is permitted, heckling is permitted without any need for physical violence
5) There is no requirement to use green or wet wood, wet wood will be used that goes beyond required
6) Baal gets to go first based on the "coin toss", Elijah will go second based on the same "coin toss"
7) The contest will continue until a side gets the result of a fire. Elijah continues until fire arrives
8) If Baal wins then everyone is to go with him, if Yahweh wins then everyone is to go with him
What is the action? What is the action is the experiment.
I think the rules for Elijah the prophets of Baal and the crowd of spectators were these:
Baal's prophets, Yahweh's prophet
1) no matches were allowed (that is cheating), no matches were allowed (that is cheating)
2) each side was to set up their own altar, each side was to set up their own altar
3) each side was to ask their god to send fire from heaven, each side was to ask their god to send fire from heaven
4) the action of the people of Israel was to be witnesses, the action of the people was to be witnesses
5) neither side could sell money back guarantees in advance, neither side could sell money back guarantees
6) the guarantee came after the experiment, the guarantee came after the experiment
7) certainty would come from knowing the results following the experiment, certainty would come from knowing the results after the experiment,
8) prayers and blood-letting allowed, prayers allowed but no blood-letting except from animals
To sum it up, it is to set up an experiment and perform it. To be specific about the definitions of blessed an holy, I have only given a rough sketch of the experiment mainly for the definition of holy. I still have a lot of writing to do and a lot of writing that is not on my blog yet. I have thought it all through in my own mind and I already know the outcome for me personally. But that does not mean there are many testimonies to that definition.
I knew holy's definition with certainty and personally back in November 2013. Before that time, mainly the last 10 years, I knew through experimenting that there were lots of problems with the etymological argument arriving at "set apart" as the definition (one of three kinds of meaning). I also knew that in the last 500 years that the Christian church and even the Jewish synagogue are divided on its meaning. My question is a lot like Elijah's: "Why are satisfied with procrastinating between so many opinions?" So I have begun the experiment that people can give witness to on-line. I want witnesses. I am not doing this in the dark somewhere. I am doing it in the light of everywhere and at hyper-speed. These are the twin advantages of the internet.
Let me illustrate the importance of experimenting and not just guessing in our brains. This is how I used experimenting just this morning (5/19/14). .
So this morning, I did not know where my coffee or tea cup had disappeared to. Rather than waver too long as to where it might be, I started out by experimenting with where it might be. I had a few opinions in my mind. I experimented first with the location of the passenger's side seat in my car. I seemed to recall that the solution to this mystery had some connection with my car. Well, it wasn't there. Then I decided, let's re-check the kitchen looking in the open at the counter space and then in the cupboard. I didn't find it there either. Then I checked the other lower probability rooms.like the living room, etc. Still, no success. Then upon returning to the kitchen, I spotted where it was most likely hidden. I noticed that I had not emptied my lunch container from the day before. Than I recalled also that there was something I had placed in there the day before that was unusual for me. It was then that I opened the packet and there it was! I found in truth where my cup was located and I also have to admit humbly that I did not know were it was with certainty until that moment. No mental experiment was as good as finishing the experiment by opening the bag.
The problem is that too many people rely on their minds and not on their souls. They think of knowledge as something that is mind-based rather than relationship-based. I now realize for myself more than ever that knowledge in the Bible makes a lot more sense as a term of intimacy as one of my professors once called it. I think his idea leans in the right direction. Where and when will we be? That is where and when we shall know. No elsewhere and not any time before.
I also found my cup fairly fast, because I tested my theories rather than tried to just think my way into certainty in advance. This is, I think, a great mistake by many people. They don't just do it - experiment that is. Peter Drucker taught me, through one of his books many years ago, the superiority of this method of experimenting. People who are unsure need to experiment, to paraphrase his advice.
What is the thing? No longer wavering between two opinions as to which one is god. It is either Baal or it is Yahweh. Which one shows that he is God?
Let me stack up the things for you at last:
Baal's prophets, Yahweh's prophet
1) fire from heaven will demonstrate that Baal is god, fire from heaven will demonstrate that Yahweh is god
2) we don't believe that any human being can command fire from heaven, we don't believe that any human being can command fire from heaven
3) the demonstration has to be something that we cannot do ourselves, the demonstration has to be something that we cannot do ourselves
4) the demonstration cannot be subject to coincidence (fire from heaven during a lightning storm), the demonstration cannot be subject to coincidence (it has not even rained for a long time and there are no clouds)
5) the demonstration can happen using wood that burns very easily, the demonstration can be with dry wood but let's make it more miraculous by adding water than no human being can overcome without trouble)
6) our god will answer us while the people are still there, my god will answer even after part of the day is lost and the people might be starting to want to go back home
7) our god surely knows he has a stake in this and hasn't been distracted, your god I think is distracted by the latreen while my god is still interested
8) we think by slashing ourselves greater attention will come from our god, my god needs no such attention getting measures
Some at least have heard who the winner in this experiment was in terms of demonstrating which god was the God. It was the god named Yahweh. Elijah now had not only his own testimony, he also now had the testimony of the people of Israel. No longer was it him alone while the crowds limped along. I know that later in the story Elijah starts to feel sorry for himself all over again. But notice that God reminds him that he is not the only prophet of Yahweh who did not bend the knee and he certainly too was no longer the only one to testify as to who is God among the people. There were now many witnesses.
That is where every reader of this blog can make their mark. They can become witnesses of the things they have seen. You can do it by leaving a comment to let others know you have witnessed what I have said. Others can then add their testimony to yours. I know that I am not alone. I don't have Elijah's problem today at least.
So I would like the testifiers of truth and humility, people who wait until after the experiment and have stopped procrastinating, to join with me and start using my tools under my "communication tools" tab and to start reading my prior experiments in this blog. You'll be surprised what you'll find once you kick procrastination to the back seat of the bus. It is an absolute necessity to understand your importance as fellow connection, witness, and testifier, who waits truthfully and humbly for certainty. Then you shall know and not before. Ah, isn't it fun to stop procrastinating and instead begin to get things done? Take care my fellow witnesses.
In Christ,
Jon
Instead, they test the meaning of each word from outside the text. They use etymology (in some instances when they claim they don't) or they use cognate languages (these are languages like French in relation to English). I don't think that either one of these tests is very valid or certain. If you want reasonable certainty on a very important set of topics, then a lexicon or reading another 100 scholars won't get you there. The way to know something for certain over another possibility is to test what is true and humble versus what is false and proud. But it has to be a complete test. So how do we get to a better place and time, where and when we know for certain the meaning of blessed and holy? I got an answer for that. Read on.
I think the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18 shows how to get past various the many opinions on the meanings of blessed and holy. I'm going to present the story in the following format of questions:
1) What are the numbers? (to form judgments) (i.e. must be)
2) What is the test? (to form testimonies) (i.e. will be)
3) What are complete guidelines? (to form laws) (i.e. wants to be)
4) What is the action? (to form commandments) (i.e. can be)
5) What is the thing? (to form statutes) (i.e. let be)
Before I continue let me present the major opinions I think are worth considering on the definition (one of three kinds of meaning) of holy:
1) "set apart" (by far the most popular in the last 100 years, but not previously)
2) "pure" (made popular in groups like the Puritans, but that is no surprise)
3) "moral wholeness" (the most popular of the last 500 years in Protestant theology)
I believe the latter wins after a thorough testing and experimentation. But for the testing to be successful there must be many testifiers, not just many experiments. Too many times we think of them as the same thing. Read on and see the difference.
What are the numbers? Let me stack up the numbers for you first. Do you remember the story of Elijah? He asks the people for a test. He asks for a time out. He says, "How long will you continue to waver between two opinions?" The people like his idea for ending their wavering. So here is how it went #s wise.
Baal's prophets, Yahweh's prophet
1) 2 opinions, 1 opinion
2) 400 reps/prophets of Baal, 1 rep/prophet for Yahweh (Elijah)
3) 1 altar for Baal, 1 altar for Elijah
4) the whole community assembled as testers/witnesses, the whole community assembled as testers/witnesses
5) Only fire from heaven, only fire from heaven.
6) many slashings leading to bleeding, not even one slashing
7) 0 gallons of water, excess gallons of water
8) Very dry wood, very wet wood
I think you can tell that Elijah is not even worried about the odds being stacked against him in this test. He knows there are two options: 1) a guaranteed decline or failure, which is why he makes fun of them, and 2) an uncertain possibility, which he believes will test out just fine.
I likewise am not at all bothered by the numbers. The number of lexicons means little to nothing, if they all are just Xerox copies of each other. The answers that lexicons, dictionaries, word studies, newer scholarship, older scholarship, and church leaders give wavers between opinions.
So what is the test? Let me stack up the test for you. The test is what will be your opinion here and now. Notice that Elijah is not willing to deal with further procrastination on their part. Their desire to avoid the topic in the here and now is seen in his primary question: "How long will you waver between two opinions?"
Here is my breakdown on the place and time:
Baal's prophets, Yahweh's prophet
1) at present they go to worship Baal and Yahweh, Elijah wants them to go to worship only Yahweh,
2) they have perhaps in even the same building worship to each, Elijah wants them to have separate worship,
3) they want to continue waiting, Elijah wants the waiting to stop,
4) they have put off agreeing to test each view at a place and time, Elijah asks them for a test at a place and time - a here and now test (very shortly)
5) they have gotten comfortable with their uncertainty (wavering), Elijah wants them to rid themselves of their uncertainty (He wants them to say: "As for me and my house we will serve Yahweh".
6) apparently they have been putting the place of decision off for a long time, Elijah wants the time out to end so they can get back to action,
7) procrastination, urgency
8) traveling from place to place, finding their place
What Elijah asked for and what he got from the people was a test. That is all he needed from the witnesses. He needed one agreed upon place and time when they could all testify to the results. He alone as a witness was not enough. He wanted maximum testing or witnessing. They made a covenant or bond with Elijah that they would be witnesses to a test. It is no test to hear the testimony of only one witness. That is all that I am. He did not give them any guarantees except that he would be present, when Yahweh proved who he was. They agreed to the same place and time as Elijah and they did not require certainty from him in advance, but rather they sought certainty after the test where they were present to testify. Maybe their wavering was directly a result of their desire to have guarantees in advance, rather than waiting for til the time that they could testify to guarantee what was true and humble.
The difficulty in the present, especially regarding holy's definition is that the tests are quasi-tests. The are not tests that give you a great deal of certainty. In fact, as scholars have assessed the definition of holy more recently, the tests are coming back more uncertain than previously. The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (the grandest work on the Hebrew language) casts serious doubt on the etymological argument for "set apart". It also made the courageous step of leaving out cognate (other language) material and relying primarily on the Hebrew language internally.
I am afraid that the one test of blessed and holy has not really been performed up to here and now standards. Since James Barr, no one has written a full blown test for the definition of holy after he successfully unseated the argument from etymology alone. (He did not say it has no value, but he does say its value is limited.) That is what I am trying to do otherwise in this blog and in an upcoming book. I want to set the stage for a grand test of definitions of blessed and holy. .
So what is complete? What is complete is playing by all the laws.
I think the laws for Elijah and the prophets might have been something like this:
Baal's prophets, Yahweh's prophet
1) no stranger fire other than from heaven, no strange fire other than from heaven,
2) Prayers are permitted, prayers are permitted
3) We can play with up to 400 players against Elijah by himself, I will permit them to have 400 as long as I can play
4) bleeding and slashing is permitted, heckling is permitted without any need for physical violence
5) There is no requirement to use green or wet wood, wet wood will be used that goes beyond required
6) Baal gets to go first based on the "coin toss", Elijah will go second based on the same "coin toss"
7) The contest will continue until a side gets the result of a fire. Elijah continues until fire arrives
8) If Baal wins then everyone is to go with him, if Yahweh wins then everyone is to go with him
What is the action? What is the action is the experiment.
I think the rules for Elijah the prophets of Baal and the crowd of spectators were these:
Baal's prophets, Yahweh's prophet
1) no matches were allowed (that is cheating), no matches were allowed (that is cheating)
2) each side was to set up their own altar, each side was to set up their own altar
3) each side was to ask their god to send fire from heaven, each side was to ask their god to send fire from heaven
4) the action of the people of Israel was to be witnesses, the action of the people was to be witnesses
5) neither side could sell money back guarantees in advance, neither side could sell money back guarantees
6) the guarantee came after the experiment, the guarantee came after the experiment
7) certainty would come from knowing the results following the experiment, certainty would come from knowing the results after the experiment,
8) prayers and blood-letting allowed, prayers allowed but no blood-letting except from animals
To sum it up, it is to set up an experiment and perform it. To be specific about the definitions of blessed an holy, I have only given a rough sketch of the experiment mainly for the definition of holy. I still have a lot of writing to do and a lot of writing that is not on my blog yet. I have thought it all through in my own mind and I already know the outcome for me personally. But that does not mean there are many testimonies to that definition.
I knew holy's definition with certainty and personally back in November 2013. Before that time, mainly the last 10 years, I knew through experimenting that there were lots of problems with the etymological argument arriving at "set apart" as the definition (one of three kinds of meaning). I also knew that in the last 500 years that the Christian church and even the Jewish synagogue are divided on its meaning. My question is a lot like Elijah's: "Why are satisfied with procrastinating between so many opinions?" So I have begun the experiment that people can give witness to on-line. I want witnesses. I am not doing this in the dark somewhere. I am doing it in the light of everywhere and at hyper-speed. These are the twin advantages of the internet.
Let me illustrate the importance of experimenting and not just guessing in our brains. This is how I used experimenting just this morning (5/19/14). .
So this morning, I did not know where my coffee or tea cup had disappeared to. Rather than waver too long as to where it might be, I started out by experimenting with where it might be. I had a few opinions in my mind. I experimented first with the location of the passenger's side seat in my car. I seemed to recall that the solution to this mystery had some connection with my car. Well, it wasn't there. Then I decided, let's re-check the kitchen looking in the open at the counter space and then in the cupboard. I didn't find it there either. Then I checked the other lower probability rooms.like the living room, etc. Still, no success. Then upon returning to the kitchen, I spotted where it was most likely hidden. I noticed that I had not emptied my lunch container from the day before. Than I recalled also that there was something I had placed in there the day before that was unusual for me. It was then that I opened the packet and there it was! I found in truth where my cup was located and I also have to admit humbly that I did not know were it was with certainty until that moment. No mental experiment was as good as finishing the experiment by opening the bag.
The problem is that too many people rely on their minds and not on their souls. They think of knowledge as something that is mind-based rather than relationship-based. I now realize for myself more than ever that knowledge in the Bible makes a lot more sense as a term of intimacy as one of my professors once called it. I think his idea leans in the right direction. Where and when will we be? That is where and when we shall know. No elsewhere and not any time before.
I also found my cup fairly fast, because I tested my theories rather than tried to just think my way into certainty in advance. This is, I think, a great mistake by many people. They don't just do it - experiment that is. Peter Drucker taught me, through one of his books many years ago, the superiority of this method of experimenting. People who are unsure need to experiment, to paraphrase his advice.
What is the thing? No longer wavering between two opinions as to which one is god. It is either Baal or it is Yahweh. Which one shows that he is God?
Let me stack up the things for you at last:
Baal's prophets, Yahweh's prophet
1) fire from heaven will demonstrate that Baal is god, fire from heaven will demonstrate that Yahweh is god
2) we don't believe that any human being can command fire from heaven, we don't believe that any human being can command fire from heaven
3) the demonstration has to be something that we cannot do ourselves, the demonstration has to be something that we cannot do ourselves
4) the demonstration cannot be subject to coincidence (fire from heaven during a lightning storm), the demonstration cannot be subject to coincidence (it has not even rained for a long time and there are no clouds)
5) the demonstration can happen using wood that burns very easily, the demonstration can be with dry wood but let's make it more miraculous by adding water than no human being can overcome without trouble)
6) our god will answer us while the people are still there, my god will answer even after part of the day is lost and the people might be starting to want to go back home
7) our god surely knows he has a stake in this and hasn't been distracted, your god I think is distracted by the latreen while my god is still interested
8) we think by slashing ourselves greater attention will come from our god, my god needs no such attention getting measures
Some at least have heard who the winner in this experiment was in terms of demonstrating which god was the God. It was the god named Yahweh. Elijah now had not only his own testimony, he also now had the testimony of the people of Israel. No longer was it him alone while the crowds limped along. I know that later in the story Elijah starts to feel sorry for himself all over again. But notice that God reminds him that he is not the only prophet of Yahweh who did not bend the knee and he certainly too was no longer the only one to testify as to who is God among the people. There were now many witnesses.
That is where every reader of this blog can make their mark. They can become witnesses of the things they have seen. You can do it by leaving a comment to let others know you have witnessed what I have said. Others can then add their testimony to yours. I know that I am not alone. I don't have Elijah's problem today at least.
So I would like the testifiers of truth and humility, people who wait until after the experiment and have stopped procrastinating, to join with me and start using my tools under my "communication tools" tab and to start reading my prior experiments in this blog. You'll be surprised what you'll find once you kick procrastination to the back seat of the bus. It is an absolute necessity to understand your importance as fellow connection, witness, and testifier, who waits truthfully and humbly for certainty. Then you shall know and not before. Ah, isn't it fun to stop procrastinating and instead begin to get things done? Take care my fellow witnesses.
In Christ,
Jon
Friday, March 28, 2014
Holy: Understanding it Better Through Genesis 1:1-2:4a (Training - Day/Step 4 of 5)
The thing that cannot be overlooked is that the meanings of words can in fact determine what we must do practically as well. If "blessed" in the Bible means prosperity, then we will take someone's prosperity to mean that they are "blessed" and we will flock to hear them speak. If "blessed" in the Bible instead means integrity, as in a person being consistent between their perception of themselves and who they actually are, then we will flock to hear the person who demonstrates integrity the most.
Likewise with the meaning of "holy" in the Bible. If it means set apart, we will flock to meet or hear the person that demonstrates a morality that is out of this world. If it means moral wholeness (holy consists of more than righteousness, but also includes truth, etc.), then we will try to live morally healthy lives consisting of more than one moral character trait. If on the other hand, it means pure, we will practice keeping ourselves pure from contamination as one of our highest goals and activities.
My next post (planned for tomorrow) will point to what blessed and holy are. In this post, I will assume [if you are uncomfortable with assuming temporarily. then jump to the next post] the meaning of "blessed" as being integrity, based on a working definition. A specific example of this is: "I am who I am". In this post, I will also assume [again, jump ahead if you like] the meaning of "holy" as being moral wholeness. The next post will answer the question of definition, but for this entry I hope you will allow me some indulgence in working out the practical actions with regard to treating the beginning days of generations and the six days of work and the Sabbath rest appropriately.
The first thing in deriving practical applications from this unit of Scripture is to be aware that this is primarily a relationship text. In turn, this also means it has a large portion of the text that is narrative. Genesis as a whole is laying out for us the beginnings and endings of some things and also the ongoing relationship of many generations in places and times. In telling us about the opening days of generations for the heavens and the earth and ourselves, it tells us also what God did and also what we should do.
Besides the practical relationship advice a person can pick up from the stories of Biblical characters in Genesis, there is in this story of creation the opening of work or action by God. He both creates and makes. So here is where we might be able to learn some great action lessons.
First, I wonder, if the creation story does not mean that each time we work we are creating and we are making and that without our working, the world reverts back to a kind of chaos and void. Is that perhaps why the world of neglected buildings tells a story of reverting back to chaos and nothingness to the point of needing even demolishing? Is our work part of the necessary part of sustaining creation beyond its beginning? Are we in any way supposed to be imitators of God and pumped up about going to work rather than reluctant to get to it? What obviously separates us from God is that we in no way started things at the beginning. Rather we ourselves are a part of the beginning. But should we see human work in a much more positive manner?
Let me give you a classic example from my own love of nature as to how work has become a negative rather than a positive. When I was in my junior high years, I acquired a book from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. That pamphlet is my Bible on trout stream habitat. In there, it showed how to do thing with regard to developing trout habit and how not to do things. But in the last decade or more, the DNR has taken a much less active role in creating trout habit in trout streams. As a result, just the other day, I witnessed a former trout brook that no longer supported even one trout in its entire stretch of water. I mean not even one! The entire day that I spent walking (not fishing) the stream, as I scouted this stream for good opportunities to fish later, I never witnessed one fish darting from my approach. What I did see were three major and old "log jams" that I knew would prevent trout from being able to survive in the stretch that I was investigating. By doing no work on this stream, rather than basic regular maintenance, it had led to the death of that stream in terms of trout. It was an instance where our fear of working and of making a mistake on behalf of the trout had led to our entire failure to work and therefore create and make habit for a species who would thrive in these waters. That is a great illustration of why work needs to be seen more positively, like what I saw in playing football where doing something correctly was supposed to replace doing something incorrectly rather than either being replaced by doing nothing.
Second, I think this passage teaches a relationship component, when it comes to work. There should be a limit on the work week or better perhaps a line drawn between weeks. Work it appears is not supposed to be endless. The other day, I ran into a person who bragged to me that she worked every single day. She was a great person and I admire her hard work ethic. But I think one danger is like the danger for Jack in the old saying, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy". Another danger is that one becomes a slave. Working all seven days in ancient times was considered to be the mark of a slave. Right now, this person is being enslaved without seeing it.
A further danger is the obvious danger of burnout. For me, working six days a week for about seven hours per day seems to be the best schedule. That one day break is just enough to re-invigorate me and also only seven hours per day allows me other things in each day besides work. I don't have any idea that I would ever work something like ten to eleven hours per day for four days and take the next three off. I find that when I work that long each day, things like my capacity for quality work diminish. I can work, but the mind is not there. So I think that God's work pattern should be ours. Six days on, one day off is my personal favorite and I think I like it because God liked it. Again, I love work as much as I loved playing football. As long as I accomplish something in reasonable time, leaving time for other things every day, what is not to like? And this little vacation each week maybe is the pattern for all the longer ones as well. Check out the Hebrew Old Testament sometime for all their times off. I think ample time off is part of the practical outcome of the creation story.
Third, because God blesses and makes holy the Sabbath Day, we should do the same. If bless means to call a person by a name that fits them (or has integrity with who they are), then that action likely needs to be part of our day. I would think that it would have the effect of what we call affirmations. God in this day, called his rest day by a name that means rest day. Maybe we should be more thoughtful in choosing names for children or nicknames for friends.
Also in making the day holy, if holy means moral wholeness, this would then mean observing the whole day as a day of rest without any mixture of work in it (impurity), and as seeing it as distinct (set apart) from the others in that they are work days while this is a rest day the entire day and maybe not just the better part of it like our work days. I think the idea of keeping the Sabbath a Sabbath for the entire day can do the whole of who we are a lot of good. God seemed to be pleased by it in not doing any work that day. He did not seem the least displeased with having to end his work for the week, before moving on to the next week. I got a feeling God is not done working or making each week until his own Sabbath arrives. The question is not what God is doing now however, but what are we doing. Do we work and rest? Or do we work and work? Or do we rest and work? Or do we rest and rest? Are we like God in our actions?
So ask yourself first, "Do I love working - creating and making?" Ask second, "Do I know when to work and when to take a break?" Ask third, "Do I affirm others in a way that fits with who they are? And do I not work at all for a whole day as far as my wage earning job is concerned? "
I hope you have answer affirmatively to some of those questions, because then you are living out this passage, not just reading it and never looking in the mirror at yourself. Take a good look. Do you have God's demeanor when it comes to creating and making? Get out there and do something!
In Christ,
Jon
Likewise with the meaning of "holy" in the Bible. If it means set apart, we will flock to meet or hear the person that demonstrates a morality that is out of this world. If it means moral wholeness (holy consists of more than righteousness, but also includes truth, etc.), then we will try to live morally healthy lives consisting of more than one moral character trait. If on the other hand, it means pure, we will practice keeping ourselves pure from contamination as one of our highest goals and activities.
My next post (planned for tomorrow) will point to what blessed and holy are. In this post, I will assume [if you are uncomfortable with assuming temporarily. then jump to the next post] the meaning of "blessed" as being integrity, based on a working definition. A specific example of this is: "I am who I am". In this post, I will also assume [again, jump ahead if you like] the meaning of "holy" as being moral wholeness. The next post will answer the question of definition, but for this entry I hope you will allow me some indulgence in working out the practical actions with regard to treating the beginning days of generations and the six days of work and the Sabbath rest appropriately.
The first thing in deriving practical applications from this unit of Scripture is to be aware that this is primarily a relationship text. In turn, this also means it has a large portion of the text that is narrative. Genesis as a whole is laying out for us the beginnings and endings of some things and also the ongoing relationship of many generations in places and times. In telling us about the opening days of generations for the heavens and the earth and ourselves, it tells us also what God did and also what we should do.
Besides the practical relationship advice a person can pick up from the stories of Biblical characters in Genesis, there is in this story of creation the opening of work or action by God. He both creates and makes. So here is where we might be able to learn some great action lessons.
First, I wonder, if the creation story does not mean that each time we work we are creating and we are making and that without our working, the world reverts back to a kind of chaos and void. Is that perhaps why the world of neglected buildings tells a story of reverting back to chaos and nothingness to the point of needing even demolishing? Is our work part of the necessary part of sustaining creation beyond its beginning? Are we in any way supposed to be imitators of God and pumped up about going to work rather than reluctant to get to it? What obviously separates us from God is that we in no way started things at the beginning. Rather we ourselves are a part of the beginning. But should we see human work in a much more positive manner?
Let me give you a classic example from my own love of nature as to how work has become a negative rather than a positive. When I was in my junior high years, I acquired a book from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. That pamphlet is my Bible on trout stream habitat. In there, it showed how to do thing with regard to developing trout habit and how not to do things. But in the last decade or more, the DNR has taken a much less active role in creating trout habit in trout streams. As a result, just the other day, I witnessed a former trout brook that no longer supported even one trout in its entire stretch of water. I mean not even one! The entire day that I spent walking (not fishing) the stream, as I scouted this stream for good opportunities to fish later, I never witnessed one fish darting from my approach. What I did see were three major and old "log jams" that I knew would prevent trout from being able to survive in the stretch that I was investigating. By doing no work on this stream, rather than basic regular maintenance, it had led to the death of that stream in terms of trout. It was an instance where our fear of working and of making a mistake on behalf of the trout had led to our entire failure to work and therefore create and make habit for a species who would thrive in these waters. That is a great illustration of why work needs to be seen more positively, like what I saw in playing football where doing something correctly was supposed to replace doing something incorrectly rather than either being replaced by doing nothing.
Second, I think this passage teaches a relationship component, when it comes to work. There should be a limit on the work week or better perhaps a line drawn between weeks. Work it appears is not supposed to be endless. The other day, I ran into a person who bragged to me that she worked every single day. She was a great person and I admire her hard work ethic. But I think one danger is like the danger for Jack in the old saying, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy". Another danger is that one becomes a slave. Working all seven days in ancient times was considered to be the mark of a slave. Right now, this person is being enslaved without seeing it.
A further danger is the obvious danger of burnout. For me, working six days a week for about seven hours per day seems to be the best schedule. That one day break is just enough to re-invigorate me and also only seven hours per day allows me other things in each day besides work. I don't have any idea that I would ever work something like ten to eleven hours per day for four days and take the next three off. I find that when I work that long each day, things like my capacity for quality work diminish. I can work, but the mind is not there. So I think that God's work pattern should be ours. Six days on, one day off is my personal favorite and I think I like it because God liked it. Again, I love work as much as I loved playing football. As long as I accomplish something in reasonable time, leaving time for other things every day, what is not to like? And this little vacation each week maybe is the pattern for all the longer ones as well. Check out the Hebrew Old Testament sometime for all their times off. I think ample time off is part of the practical outcome of the creation story.
Third, because God blesses and makes holy the Sabbath Day, we should do the same. If bless means to call a person by a name that fits them (or has integrity with who they are), then that action likely needs to be part of our day. I would think that it would have the effect of what we call affirmations. God in this day, called his rest day by a name that means rest day. Maybe we should be more thoughtful in choosing names for children or nicknames for friends.
God in this day, called his rest day
by a name that means rest day.
Also in making the day holy, if holy means moral wholeness, this would then mean observing the whole day as a day of rest without any mixture of work in it (impurity), and as seeing it as distinct (set apart) from the others in that they are work days while this is a rest day the entire day and maybe not just the better part of it like our work days. I think the idea of keeping the Sabbath a Sabbath for the entire day can do the whole of who we are a lot of good. God seemed to be pleased by it in not doing any work that day. He did not seem the least displeased with having to end his work for the week, before moving on to the next week. I got a feeling God is not done working or making each week until his own Sabbath arrives. The question is not what God is doing now however, but what are we doing. Do we work and rest? Or do we work and work? Or do we rest and work? Or do we rest and rest? Are we like God in our actions?
So ask yourself first, "Do I love working - creating and making?" Ask second, "Do I know when to work and when to take a break?" Ask third, "Do I affirm others in a way that fits with who they are? And do I not work at all for a whole day as far as my wage earning job is concerned? "
I hope you have answer affirmatively to some of those questions, because then you are living out this passage, not just reading it and never looking in the mirror at yourself. Take a good look. Do you have God's demeanor when it comes to creating and making? Get out there and do something!
In Christ,
Jon
Monday, March 24, 2014
Holy: Understanding it Better Through Genesis 1:1 - 2:4a (Translation - Day One of Five)
PREFACE
Welcome to a place where you can learn what holy really means rather than what it supposedly means. I write about the meaning of holy with due seriousness, because it is one of the three most important words for God's identity. This will be my initial post on a Monday for what is now to become my weekly habit. Each week, I will write 5 posts in the following order on a particular biblical passage: Mondays - Translation Topics, Wednesdays - Transfer Topics, Thursdays - Total Topics, Fridays - Training Topics, Saturday - Teaching Topics. Each time you return to this blog, you will grasp even better what I am saying. Rome was not built in a day and neither can the persuasive arguments for the meaning of holy, etc. be built in a day. It will ultimately take a book, like the one that I am writing. and that I hope will be published before the end of the year to straighten out a lot of confusion and blindness.
Each time you visit or receive an email through signing up for emails each time I write, I will explain in greater detail the entire process of understanding a complete unit of Scripture and the meanings of the big three words in Scripture: 1) Yahweh/the LORD, 2) blessed, and 3) holy. None of these three can stand entirely alone, though I have listed them in the order of priority. Each Biblical passage will be able to stand alone as an argument for the meanings of the big three including holy, but also each passage will add more strength and power to the persuasive arguments that came before it.
So today I am going to look at the primary translation issues in our text for today. Every text in translation has an enormous amount of consensus related to it that I will not discuss. There is no point in re-inventing the wheel in places where translators have done a wonderful job. My experience says that the majority of times, they do pretty well. But also my goal is to find those key words that function as very important to the unit of Scripture being explained and where there is some disagreement among translations and then to try to make improvements in those areas.
First, it is important to put my view of translation into context. I believe the goals of a great translation (in its strict or narrow sense) are two primarily: 1) clarity, and 2) meaningfulness. What I mean by strict or narrow sense is that the total of communication is summed up in: 1) translation, 2) transfer, 3) total, 4) train, and 5) teach. So here I am dealing with translation as a PART of the total communication process rather than as the WHOLE of the communication process. You can see the difference?
There is a great way to accomplish each one of these goals of clarity and meaningfulness. For clarity to be enhanced, it is important to keep one word for one thing as much as you can, if it is that way in the original. Unfortunately, it is seldom that this can be done entirely the way it is in the original unless we stick to every use of the original being translated by the exact same word which creates a very literal translation. That ideal may be great in a study bible, but it is not really possible in most cases when we are also talking about being meaningful.
There is also an important issue that needs to be cleaned up. This brings me, to the argument between literal or figurative being the best kind of translation. If these are two opposing opposites, then balance would be admirable. That is the case with the NKJV and the NIV, for the most part. My distinctive view is that clarity is the vertical and greater axis of what we strive for and meaningfulness the horizontal and lesser axis of what we strive for. They are not opposite poles on a horizontal line. Clarity is the more important of the two, but also the lesser is not to be neglected for the sake of only the greater. The greatest translations accomplish both effectively. So literal translations are the greater for clarity, figurative translations are the lesser for meaning, but the greatest is a translation that accomplishes both altogether. That is why I will be using both the NKJV and the NIV, because they come closest to the ideal. What I think would clean up the mess we have with so many translations is to base them on clarity and meaningfulness in the picture I suggested. Clarity is best accomplished when we can answer the question of "How many? with the quantity of "One" . Meaningfulness is best accomplished when we can answer the question of "How much?" with the quality of "Equal". The NKJV accomplishes a bit better clarity, while the NIV accomplishes a bit better meaningfulness.
The other reason that these two translations are my starting point is that many churches with pastors leading them, are using one of these two. My primary target audience is pastors who stand between the specialist scholars and the common person. These two translations work the best on that level. Having said that my primary audience is pastors, I do not mean that many competent common people will find my writing to be over their heads, but rather than occasionally that will be the case. Likewise a scholar can learn from what I will write, but I will be doing my best to avoid seminary jargon that the common person would have a hard time grasping meaningfully. So read on all three groups, there will still be great benefit for all. That is the end of my introductory material today. It is a bit long today and the rest of this week, but it will gradually shorten as I see less and less need to introduce or explain new materials.
INTRODUCTION: TRANSLATION TOPICS
The first step is to determine a natural unit of Scripture . In other words, I must use what the writer considers one natural unit, so I can pick up the clues that are most relevant to the words I am discussing. In most cases, I will be relying on the best sources I have found for what are called (rhetorical) outlines of a text. In the case of Genesis, I will be using Allen P. Ross' Creation & Blessing: A Guide to the Study and Exposition of Genesis, as my starting point. I also was a student of his at one time. But also this does not mean that I have used only him as a source. Rather, it means that I found his treatment to be among the best that I have read. He points out that Genesis 1:1 - 2:3 is a complete unit as do most others. So I will be dealing with those verses primarily as my one unit of Scripture over the next 5 days.
In Ross' treatment of themes in Genesis, he believes that "blessing" and "cursing" are the significant theme of Genesis. In picking the theme, I tend toward what he considers to be only a structural theme in the word usually translated as "generations". I am convinced that Genesis is a book focused on relationships more than any other general theme and this is manifested specifically through "generations". In any case, all three words are significant enough that they require attention. Also God's name does come up immediately after in the opening story in Genesis 2:4, while holy is in direct connection with blessing in 2:1-3. Also significant is words that have great consensus around them like "divide" that could be seen as near synonyms for the definition of "set apart" that is associated with "holy".
TRANSLATION OF YAHWEH
The opening section or unit of Genesis only tells us "what' kind of person creates the world, God. Sometimes we speak of God as though it were God's name. God is not his name any more than my name is "man". "Man" by the way is not necessarily a term of endearment, so "God" could have the same chilling effect. We do not yet find out God's name in the first section of Genesis. But immediately in the beginning of the second section, we learn who this God is. This God's name is "Yahweh".
Unfortunately, many people end up calling God by a very impersonal name. We also cannot see God's name in the typical translation like the NIV. We see something else in its place.
Here is the explanation from the NIV translators in their preface, p. ix.:
In regard to the divine name YHWH, commonly referred to as the Tetragrammaton,
the translators adopted the device used in most English versions of rendering that
name as "LORD" in capital letters to distinguish it from Adonai, another Hebrew
word rendered "Lord," for which small letters are used. Wherever the two names stand
together in the Old Testament as a compound name of God, they are rendered
"Sovereign LORD. "
I note that we are not given a reason for adopting the device used in most English versions, unless the explanation is that they adopted it for the reason that "most English versions" do what they have done. The problem is that "LORD" in most people's minds means the same thing as "Lord". Also clarity has dropped significantly, because most people do not distinguish "LORD" from "Lord", but instead place one word or idea in place of two words or ideas. On Wednesday, under the topic of Transfer, I will discuss further why this may not be the way to go anymore while it may have been the only way to go in the 1st century.
TRANSLATION OF BLESSING
Back in the early 90's maybe even late 80's, I learned that our definition of blessing as primarily prosperous had a significant problem in its application to certain texts. I learned this initially from Dr. William Bean at the Center for Biblical Research (CSBR) in Pasadena, CA. (He now is part of the same kind of ministry under a different name in Redlands, CA.) The unique aspect of his research was his connection to Dr. David Bivin in Israel along with Dr. David Flusser of Hebrew University.
At that time, I was not necessarily impressed by the new idea for its translation as I was by the idea that there was clearly a problem in how we understood its meaning in certain contexts, especially those that applied to God. Recently, I arrived at a new definition that makes a lot of sense in many (but not all!) contexts. People need to realize that the fact that the primary definition does not apply to all contexts is quite natural. The average English dictionary demonstrates this fact.
But also I think this idea that words typically have more than one meaning beyond its first sense needs some explanation as to why. It may help to realize that ancient alphabets in some cases even developed more meanings from one letter by rotating those letters to different positions. So more than one meaning from one written object has a long tradition. The one can be made into the many within a certain span of meaning.
It is also important to realize that meaning itself has more than one meaning. I found Robert H. Stein's A Basic Guide to Reading the Bible: Playing by the Rules very helpful in this regard. If I clarify what he says just one step beyond his own 3 forms of meaning, I think it is fair to speak of 3 kinds of meaning as: 1) definition, 2) implication, and 3) signification or significance. Now as in any scenario, by having more than one meaning be possible, there becomes room for abuse or confusion, but I as a player in a game of studying my Bible, I always have tried to play within the rules.
With trying to define blessed, I think it is important to point out the various options for its meaning and not just quickly chose one from a set of suggestions and prematurely eliminate the other options. What it boils down to is to ask the question: "What if blessed means: 1) integrity in terms of definition, 2) means holiness by implication, and 3) prosperity by significance. Are we willing to consider what all dictionaries seem to see as inherent, that the great majority of words at least have more than one meaning?
I believe that in the context of Genesis 2;1-3, that blessed is being used in the sense of its definition, since its possible implication is directly connected to it. But I also think in Genesis chapter 1, it can be used in the sense of its significance, where prosperity makes much more sense. The type of meaning, I believe, would be signaled by the context, just like the 22 letters in an ancient alphabet could have more than one meaning through signaling a change by turning the letters to differing positions. Same letter, different meaning is possible and I believe that same word, different meaning is also possible; but also with a clear signal of the change. That is part of the rules. Changing meaning in a whimsical way or to be clever would be outside the rules except in humor and poetry. There the whole point of the rules might be to be whimsical or clever.
TRANSLATION OF HOLY
Back in the early 90's and again maybe early 80's, I remember Dr. Daniel P. Fuller presenting to a class where we used inductive Bible study tools, the idea that holy did not mean what most scholars thought, but rather it had a connection with the definition of "worthy". Here again, I was not convinced by his replacement definition, but I was convinced that "set apart" had a problem in the particular verses we were studying.
I don't know if there is any important word in the Bible other than holy that has suffered more in the effort to find a good definition for it. As I once mentioned in one of my earlier blog posts, I counted something like 20 options for its definition. The good news is that probably 17 of the 20 deserve little or no more effort applied to them. The experts in scholarship in times of uncertainty, seem to sometimes take shots in the dark out of their own sense of urgency. That is what many of the 17 definitions appear to be, but I think they do show up due to underlying uncertainty about what the original text words underlying our English word, holy, mean.
The largest conflict and controversy as a result is about 3 options: 1) moral wholeness, 2) purity, and 3) set apartness. The first thing to consider is that most translators have assumed there can only be one meaning as in one definition. They have not readily considered Dr. Stein's concern that there is more than one kind of meaning, even while there would only be one definition for holy.
The other aspect of this discussion is that Andrew Murray, a rather famous pastor from South Africa near the end of the early 1800s and early 1900s also raised a similar concern about meaning. In his little devotional book, Holy in Christ, he added a little word study at the back of the book on various proposed meanings on holy. He actually labels each definition under a letter of the alphabet A-G (7 possible definitions). His own favorite is C, but he also sees subsets of his view under 1 - 8. I have verified my opinion that he favored C. (since he does not say it directly) in his book from the early 1900s in his book Andrew Murray on Prayer. One of the most important parts of his discussion is where he points out that in general if holy means "set apart", then it does not by itself explain why.
I liken his argument to that of the difference that Dr. Stein drew between definition, implication, and significance. What Murray seems to be saying is that "set apart" fits more in the position of significance or implication, but that it does not have by itself a definition for why it is "set apart", because it is not the definition of holy, but moral wholeness does fit that role. I think that may put Pastor Andrew Murray's point on a more solid footing as far as the rules of interpretation are concerned.
So much for trying to clarify the meaning of holy. There are at least 3 good options that have a strong standing. Now it is important to no longer assume that it has to be 1 of the 3 meanings given. It could be all 3, if they are related to definition, implication, and significance. When I come later to looking at the Transfer aspect of holy, then I will make more of the contextual argument and then later under teaching, I will work more on the referent aspect of meaning. But also I will then make more of the common sense or specialized sense argument for what it is and it is not.
Now let's develop its meaningfulness. I think it is important to define the top 3 proposed meanings for maximum meaning in their usage.
1) moral wholeness - the moral aspect has to do with goodness in conduct or character. Wholeness here refers to containing all the elements or parts, so that it is a complete morality. Jonathan Edwards spoke of a moral wholeness that included right, true, loving, and good.
2) purity - the quality or condition of being pure or clean. It has the quality of not being mixed like pure water or pure gold.
3) set apart - to separate and to keep for a purpose as in reserving a seat for someone in particular.
In each case, these words each have a relatively high level of meaning to us. It is not the case that they are meaningless words. Holy on the other hand, can become rather meaningless when you ask people on the street to define it. In a standard dictionary like Webster's New College Dictionary, we find the idea of dedicated to religious use; consecrated, sacred. The problem is that each of these ideas are nearly completely religious ideas, making them hard to relate to other parts of life. This is why holy can be difficult to understand.
CLOSING
What is really needed is to define holy in terms of the 3 options suggested in order to give it more meaning and clarity. Each of these is somewhat useful in that they have more contexts for use than the purely religious one. Holy can still be found to be useful in terms of being meaningful, if we can define it clearly using 1-3 of these words. Hallow on the other hand and sanctified on the other hand may need to disappear in an English context, because they are even more meaningless than holy is in English. When is the last time anyone realized that "hallowed be your name" is connected to "holy be your name"? Halloween be your name might be closer to the common person's thinking. That is far too meaningless. And when is the last time I've met someone who knows Latin? No time that I know of in recent years.
In Christ,
Jon
Welcome to a place where you can learn what holy really means rather than what it supposedly means. I write about the meaning of holy with due seriousness, because it is one of the three most important words for God's identity. This will be my initial post on a Monday for what is now to become my weekly habit. Each week, I will write 5 posts in the following order on a particular biblical passage: Mondays - Translation Topics, Wednesdays - Transfer Topics, Thursdays - Total Topics, Fridays - Training Topics, Saturday - Teaching Topics. Each time you return to this blog, you will grasp even better what I am saying. Rome was not built in a day and neither can the persuasive arguments for the meaning of holy, etc. be built in a day. It will ultimately take a book, like the one that I am writing. and that I hope will be published before the end of the year to straighten out a lot of confusion and blindness.
Each time you visit or receive an email through signing up for emails each time I write, I will explain in greater detail the entire process of understanding a complete unit of Scripture and the meanings of the big three words in Scripture: 1) Yahweh/the LORD, 2) blessed, and 3) holy. None of these three can stand entirely alone, though I have listed them in the order of priority. Each Biblical passage will be able to stand alone as an argument for the meanings of the big three including holy, but also each passage will add more strength and power to the persuasive arguments that came before it.
So today I am going to look at the primary translation issues in our text for today. Every text in translation has an enormous amount of consensus related to it that I will not discuss. There is no point in re-inventing the wheel in places where translators have done a wonderful job. My experience says that the majority of times, they do pretty well. But also my goal is to find those key words that function as very important to the unit of Scripture being explained and where there is some disagreement among translations and then to try to make improvements in those areas.
First, it is important to put my view of translation into context. I believe the goals of a great translation (in its strict or narrow sense) are two primarily: 1) clarity, and 2) meaningfulness. What I mean by strict or narrow sense is that the total of communication is summed up in: 1) translation, 2) transfer, 3) total, 4) train, and 5) teach. So here I am dealing with translation as a PART of the total communication process rather than as the WHOLE of the communication process. You can see the difference?
There is a great way to accomplish each one of these goals of clarity and meaningfulness. For clarity to be enhanced, it is important to keep one word for one thing as much as you can, if it is that way in the original. Unfortunately, it is seldom that this can be done entirely the way it is in the original unless we stick to every use of the original being translated by the exact same word which creates a very literal translation. That ideal may be great in a study bible, but it is not really possible in most cases when we are also talking about being meaningful.
There is also an important issue that needs to be cleaned up. This brings me, to the argument between literal or figurative being the best kind of translation. If these are two opposing opposites, then balance would be admirable. That is the case with the NKJV and the NIV, for the most part. My distinctive view is that clarity is the vertical and greater axis of what we strive for and meaningfulness the horizontal and lesser axis of what we strive for. They are not opposite poles on a horizontal line. Clarity is the more important of the two, but also the lesser is not to be neglected for the sake of only the greater. The greatest translations accomplish both effectively. So literal translations are the greater for clarity, figurative translations are the lesser for meaning, but the greatest is a translation that accomplishes both altogether. That is why I will be using both the NKJV and the NIV, because they come closest to the ideal. What I think would clean up the mess we have with so many translations is to base them on clarity and meaningfulness in the picture I suggested. Clarity is best accomplished when we can answer the question of "How many? with the quantity of "One" . Meaningfulness is best accomplished when we can answer the question of "How much?" with the quality of "Equal". The NKJV accomplishes a bit better clarity, while the NIV accomplishes a bit better meaningfulness.
The other reason that these two translations are my starting point is that many churches with pastors leading them, are using one of these two. My primary target audience is pastors who stand between the specialist scholars and the common person. These two translations work the best on that level. Having said that my primary audience is pastors, I do not mean that many competent common people will find my writing to be over their heads, but rather than occasionally that will be the case. Likewise a scholar can learn from what I will write, but I will be doing my best to avoid seminary jargon that the common person would have a hard time grasping meaningfully. So read on all three groups, there will still be great benefit for all. That is the end of my introductory material today. It is a bit long today and the rest of this week, but it will gradually shorten as I see less and less need to introduce or explain new materials.
INTRODUCTION: TRANSLATION TOPICS
The first step is to determine a natural unit of Scripture . In other words, I must use what the writer considers one natural unit, so I can pick up the clues that are most relevant to the words I am discussing. In most cases, I will be relying on the best sources I have found for what are called (rhetorical) outlines of a text. In the case of Genesis, I will be using Allen P. Ross' Creation & Blessing: A Guide to the Study and Exposition of Genesis, as my starting point. I also was a student of his at one time. But also this does not mean that I have used only him as a source. Rather, it means that I found his treatment to be among the best that I have read. He points out that Genesis 1:1 - 2:3 is a complete unit as do most others. So I will be dealing with those verses primarily as my one unit of Scripture over the next 5 days.
In Ross' treatment of themes in Genesis, he believes that "blessing" and "cursing" are the significant theme of Genesis. In picking the theme, I tend toward what he considers to be only a structural theme in the word usually translated as "generations". I am convinced that Genesis is a book focused on relationships more than any other general theme and this is manifested specifically through "generations". In any case, all three words are significant enough that they require attention. Also God's name does come up immediately after in the opening story in Genesis 2:4, while holy is in direct connection with blessing in 2:1-3. Also significant is words that have great consensus around them like "divide" that could be seen as near synonyms for the definition of "set apart" that is associated with "holy".
TRANSLATION OF YAHWEH
The opening section or unit of Genesis only tells us "what' kind of person creates the world, God. Sometimes we speak of God as though it were God's name. God is not his name any more than my name is "man". "Man" by the way is not necessarily a term of endearment, so "God" could have the same chilling effect. We do not yet find out God's name in the first section of Genesis. But immediately in the beginning of the second section, we learn who this God is. This God's name is "Yahweh".
"God" is not his name
any more than my name
is "man".
Unfortunately, many people end up calling God by a very impersonal name. We also cannot see God's name in the typical translation like the NIV. We see something else in its place.
Here is the explanation from the NIV translators in their preface, p. ix.:
In regard to the divine name YHWH, commonly referred to as the Tetragrammaton,
the translators adopted the device used in most English versions of rendering that
name as "LORD" in capital letters to distinguish it from Adonai, another Hebrew
word rendered "Lord," for which small letters are used. Wherever the two names stand
together in the Old Testament as a compound name of God, they are rendered
"Sovereign LORD. "
I note that we are not given a reason for adopting the device used in most English versions, unless the explanation is that they adopted it for the reason that "most English versions" do what they have done. The problem is that "LORD" in most people's minds means the same thing as "Lord". Also clarity has dropped significantly, because most people do not distinguish "LORD" from "Lord", but instead place one word or idea in place of two words or ideas. On Wednesday, under the topic of Transfer, I will discuss further why this may not be the way to go anymore while it may have been the only way to go in the 1st century.
TRANSLATION OF BLESSING
Back in the early 90's maybe even late 80's, I learned that our definition of blessing as primarily prosperous had a significant problem in its application to certain texts. I learned this initially from Dr. William Bean at the Center for Biblical Research (CSBR) in Pasadena, CA. (He now is part of the same kind of ministry under a different name in Redlands, CA.) The unique aspect of his research was his connection to Dr. David Bivin in Israel along with Dr. David Flusser of Hebrew University.
At that time, I was not necessarily impressed by the new idea for its translation as I was by the idea that there was clearly a problem in how we understood its meaning in certain contexts, especially those that applied to God. Recently, I arrived at a new definition that makes a lot of sense in many (but not all!) contexts. People need to realize that the fact that the primary definition does not apply to all contexts is quite natural. The average English dictionary demonstrates this fact.
But also I think this idea that words typically have more than one meaning beyond its first sense needs some explanation as to why. It may help to realize that ancient alphabets in some cases even developed more meanings from one letter by rotating those letters to different positions. So more than one meaning from one written object has a long tradition. The one can be made into the many within a certain span of meaning.
It is also important to realize that meaning itself has more than one meaning. I found Robert H. Stein's A Basic Guide to Reading the Bible: Playing by the Rules very helpful in this regard. If I clarify what he says just one step beyond his own 3 forms of meaning, I think it is fair to speak of 3 kinds of meaning as: 1) definition, 2) implication, and 3) signification or significance. Now as in any scenario, by having more than one meaning be possible, there becomes room for abuse or confusion, but I as a player in a game of studying my Bible, I always have tried to play within the rules.
With trying to define blessed, I think it is important to point out the various options for its meaning and not just quickly chose one from a set of suggestions and prematurely eliminate the other options. What it boils down to is to ask the question: "What if blessed means: 1) integrity in terms of definition, 2) means holiness by implication, and 3) prosperity by significance. Are we willing to consider what all dictionaries seem to see as inherent, that the great majority of words at least have more than one meaning?
I believe that in the context of Genesis 2;1-3, that blessed is being used in the sense of its definition, since its possible implication is directly connected to it. But I also think in Genesis chapter 1, it can be used in the sense of its significance, where prosperity makes much more sense. The type of meaning, I believe, would be signaled by the context, just like the 22 letters in an ancient alphabet could have more than one meaning through signaling a change by turning the letters to differing positions. Same letter, different meaning is possible and I believe that same word, different meaning is also possible; but also with a clear signal of the change. That is part of the rules. Changing meaning in a whimsical way or to be clever would be outside the rules except in humor and poetry. There the whole point of the rules might be to be whimsical or clever.
TRANSLATION OF HOLY
Back in the early 90's and again maybe early 80's, I remember Dr. Daniel P. Fuller presenting to a class where we used inductive Bible study tools, the idea that holy did not mean what most scholars thought, but rather it had a connection with the definition of "worthy". Here again, I was not convinced by his replacement definition, but I was convinced that "set apart" had a problem in the particular verses we were studying.
I don't know if there is any important word in the Bible other than holy that has suffered more in the effort to find a good definition for it. As I once mentioned in one of my earlier blog posts, I counted something like 20 options for its definition. The good news is that probably 17 of the 20 deserve little or no more effort applied to them. The experts in scholarship in times of uncertainty, seem to sometimes take shots in the dark out of their own sense of urgency. That is what many of the 17 definitions appear to be, but I think they do show up due to underlying uncertainty about what the original text words underlying our English word, holy, mean.
The largest conflict and controversy as a result is about 3 options: 1) moral wholeness, 2) purity, and 3) set apartness. The first thing to consider is that most translators have assumed there can only be one meaning as in one definition. They have not readily considered Dr. Stein's concern that there is more than one kind of meaning, even while there would only be one definition for holy.
The other aspect of this discussion is that Andrew Murray, a rather famous pastor from South Africa near the end of the early 1800s and early 1900s also raised a similar concern about meaning. In his little devotional book, Holy in Christ, he added a little word study at the back of the book on various proposed meanings on holy. He actually labels each definition under a letter of the alphabet A-G (7 possible definitions). His own favorite is C, but he also sees subsets of his view under 1 - 8. I have verified my opinion that he favored C. (since he does not say it directly) in his book from the early 1900s in his book Andrew Murray on Prayer. One of the most important parts of his discussion is where he points out that in general if holy means "set apart", then it does not by itself explain why.
I liken his argument to that of the difference that Dr. Stein drew between definition, implication, and significance. What Murray seems to be saying is that "set apart" fits more in the position of significance or implication, but that it does not have by itself a definition for why it is "set apart", because it is not the definition of holy, but moral wholeness does fit that role. I think that may put Pastor Andrew Murray's point on a more solid footing as far as the rules of interpretation are concerned.
So much for trying to clarify the meaning of holy. There are at least 3 good options that have a strong standing. Now it is important to no longer assume that it has to be 1 of the 3 meanings given. It could be all 3, if they are related to definition, implication, and significance. When I come later to looking at the Transfer aspect of holy, then I will make more of the contextual argument and then later under teaching, I will work more on the referent aspect of meaning. But also I will then make more of the common sense or specialized sense argument for what it is and it is not.
Now it is important to no longer
assume that it [holy] has to be
1 of 3 meanings.
Now let's develop its meaningfulness. I think it is important to define the top 3 proposed meanings for maximum meaning in their usage.
1) moral wholeness - the moral aspect has to do with goodness in conduct or character. Wholeness here refers to containing all the elements or parts, so that it is a complete morality. Jonathan Edwards spoke of a moral wholeness that included right, true, loving, and good.
2) purity - the quality or condition of being pure or clean. It has the quality of not being mixed like pure water or pure gold.
3) set apart - to separate and to keep for a purpose as in reserving a seat for someone in particular.
In each case, these words each have a relatively high level of meaning to us. It is not the case that they are meaningless words. Holy on the other hand, can become rather meaningless when you ask people on the street to define it. In a standard dictionary like Webster's New College Dictionary, we find the idea of dedicated to religious use; consecrated, sacred. The problem is that each of these ideas are nearly completely religious ideas, making them hard to relate to other parts of life. This is why holy can be difficult to understand.
CLOSING
What is really needed is to define holy in terms of the 3 options suggested in order to give it more meaning and clarity. Each of these is somewhat useful in that they have more contexts for use than the purely religious one. Holy can still be found to be useful in terms of being meaningful, if we can define it clearly using 1-3 of these words. Hallow on the other hand and sanctified on the other hand may need to disappear in an English context, because they are even more meaningless than holy is in English. When is the last time anyone realized that "hallowed be your name" is connected to "holy be your name"? Halloween be your name might be closer to the common person's thinking. That is far too meaningless. And when is the last time I've met someone who knows Latin? No time that I know of in recent years.
In Christ,
Jon
Monday, March 03, 2014
Holy: Understanding it Better Through Understanding the Arrangement of my Blog Entries
I am sure you came to this blog looking for the definition of holy. Since that is the case, I will begin by saying that I recommend not letting go of the three top possibilities. They are: 1) moral wholeness, 2) pure, and 3) set apart. That is what I recommend until you dig deeper and read more. But to do either the digging or reading on this blog, it will be helpful for you to know how my entries are arranged or organized. You can have the biggest library in the world, but if it is disorganized, it is worth less than a smaller one tightly organized.
I think an effective way to think of their organization is to think in terms of the persuasion or communication cascade found in The Complete Idiot's Guide to Persuasion: 1) reception, 2) processing, 3) response, and 4) behavior. Near the end of last year (Nov. 18, 2013), I became a person persuaded so far in the progress of the cascade that I reached stage 4, behavior. But that is not where I have always been starting with 2004. So let me point out the different kinds of reading that you will find.
RECEPTION POSTS: DID YOU GET IT?
From the beginning of 2004 to mid 2006, my posts are of the reception kind. This is when I first began to get it that holy could mean "moral wholeness". Prior to that time period, I didn't even know that the idea existed. So it was all brand new to me during the first period of reception. By the way, I had times when I really doubted the idea in the early going even if it does not show. If you still need to just receive the idea of a new definition for the first time, then I recommend going back to my earliest writing.
PROCESSING POSTS: DID YOU THINK ABOUT IT?
From mid 2006 to the end of 2008, my posts are of the processing kind. Toward the end of this time I also enrolled in post-graduate studies to process things more fully. I wanted to be able to answer the question: "Did you think about it?" with an affirmative. This is when I did a great deal of digging. It was my time to be thoughtful beyond just receiving the idea of moral wholeness. Here is when I began to dig more thoroughly into Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. If you need to dig more thoroughly, I would look at my posts during that time period.
RESPONSE: DID IT CHANGE YOU?
From 2009 through mid 2001, I began to think more about how I could make my blog posts more easy to use (user friendly), more fun (see the implications from this!), and more popular (to help people see that in the past it was the most popular position and that in the future this idea can rise to a majority view). In geek speak, these motivators for change are called: 1) self efficacy, 2) attitude, and 3) norms. As the saying goes like a rose, regardless of the name it's still the same thing. Don't think that 1) easy, 2) fun, and 3) popular are the whole story. There is a cost before you reach that result. But I've never heard of someone who doesn't appreciate a user friend device over one that is not.
BEHAVIOR: DID YOU HAVE A TACTFUL VIEW?
From mid 2011 through the end of 2013, I began to have a more TACTFUL VIEW of what I was writing. This is primarily seen in trying to cover all ten of the major questions that the mind asks to have answered before proceeding. It is also much more specific and not vague. Good intentions are not what is looked for here, but something that is concrete, observable performance and results that can be seen. It is what allows things to be known through action and results rather than unknown through vague or unclear things that are desired. By asking all ten questions contained in a TACTFUL VIEW (the eleventh letter states all ten are needed), it guarantees a full of answering all the major questions rather than just some.wide open dreams. It also guarantees more tact or class will be used in communication. Tact and class are something we can use more of in discussing conflict and controversy especially.
So depending on where you are in the persuasion cascade that is where you should begin in checking out my posts. My latest are especially more of a wrap-up than a starting point. To see the full effect of what is needed at each stage it can be helpful to consult the dates I suggest. Happy hunting everyone!
In Christ,
Jon
I think an effective way to think of their organization is to think in terms of the persuasion or communication cascade found in The Complete Idiot's Guide to Persuasion: 1) reception, 2) processing, 3) response, and 4) behavior. Near the end of last year (Nov. 18, 2013), I became a person persuaded so far in the progress of the cascade that I reached stage 4, behavior. But that is not where I have always been starting with 2004. So let me point out the different kinds of reading that you will find.
RECEPTION POSTS: DID YOU GET IT?
From the beginning of 2004 to mid 2006, my posts are of the reception kind. This is when I first began to get it that holy could mean "moral wholeness". Prior to that time period, I didn't even know that the idea existed. So it was all brand new to me during the first period of reception. By the way, I had times when I really doubted the idea in the early going even if it does not show. If you still need to just receive the idea of a new definition for the first time, then I recommend going back to my earliest writing.
PROCESSING POSTS: DID YOU THINK ABOUT IT?
From mid 2006 to the end of 2008, my posts are of the processing kind. Toward the end of this time I also enrolled in post-graduate studies to process things more fully. I wanted to be able to answer the question: "Did you think about it?" with an affirmative. This is when I did a great deal of digging. It was my time to be thoughtful beyond just receiving the idea of moral wholeness. Here is when I began to dig more thoroughly into Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. If you need to dig more thoroughly, I would look at my posts during that time period.
RESPONSE: DID IT CHANGE YOU?
From 2009 through mid 2001, I began to think more about how I could make my blog posts more easy to use (user friendly), more fun (see the implications from this!), and more popular (to help people see that in the past it was the most popular position and that in the future this idea can rise to a majority view). In geek speak, these motivators for change are called: 1) self efficacy, 2) attitude, and 3) norms. As the saying goes like a rose, regardless of the name it's still the same thing. Don't think that 1) easy, 2) fun, and 3) popular are the whole story. There is a cost before you reach that result. But I've never heard of someone who doesn't appreciate a user friend device over one that is not.
BEHAVIOR: DID YOU HAVE A TACTFUL VIEW?
From mid 2011 through the end of 2013, I began to have a more TACTFUL VIEW of what I was writing. This is primarily seen in trying to cover all ten of the major questions that the mind asks to have answered before proceeding. It is also much more specific and not vague. Good intentions are not what is looked for here, but something that is concrete, observable performance and results that can be seen. It is what allows things to be known through action and results rather than unknown through vague or unclear things that are desired. By asking all ten questions contained in a TACTFUL VIEW (the eleventh letter states all ten are needed), it guarantees a full of answering all the major questions rather than just some.wide open dreams. It also guarantees more tact or class will be used in communication. Tact and class are something we can use more of in discussing conflict and controversy especially.
So depending on where you are in the persuasion cascade that is where you should begin in checking out my posts. My latest are especially more of a wrap-up than a starting point. To see the full effect of what is needed at each stage it can be helpful to consult the dates I suggest. Happy hunting everyone!
In Christ,
Jon
Friday, February 28, 2014
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
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
Thursday, February 06, 2014
Holy: Celebrating Its Definition being Viewed 40,000 Times!
I believe it is a good time to celebrate the visiting of this blog 40,000 times plus. When I began this effort, I received a lot of help from a pastor friend, Jeremiah Fyffe. He allowed me to learn what Google and other search engines are looking for, so that my blog would not get lost in the search.
I am extremely grateful to him, because this blog has continued to be at or near the very top of the search engines entries, when people enter the words "definition of holy". I want to also celebrate the fact that this now means that 40,000 times people have taken time out of their day to read my humble thoughts. I feel very fortunate to see this even further benefit from one fellow pastor's sage comments.
I also want to re-commit myself to continuing to writing much more and producing better quality entries to read. I know on one level that I am getting better, but I do wish I had more time to add diagrams and pictures to make my entries even clearer and more interesting.
A big "thank you" goes out to Jeremiah (and other helpers) and to all who have spent part of the their life reading what I have to say. Your time is precious, so hope you feel you have spent your time wisely.
In Christ,
Jon
P. S. I want you to know that the definition of holy that I propose is that it is "moral wholeness", but check out my other entries for what I do with "set apart" and "pure". You might find my treatment to be a new insight for you and very viable in terms of solid scholarship. Thank you again.
I am extremely grateful to him, because this blog has continued to be at or near the very top of the search engines entries, when people enter the words "definition of holy". I want to also celebrate the fact that this now means that 40,000 times people have taken time out of their day to read my humble thoughts. I feel very fortunate to see this even further benefit from one fellow pastor's sage comments.
I also want to re-commit myself to continuing to writing much more and producing better quality entries to read. I know on one level that I am getting better, but I do wish I had more time to add diagrams and pictures to make my entries even clearer and more interesting.
A big "thank you" goes out to Jeremiah (and other helpers) and to all who have spent part of the their life reading what I have to say. Your time is precious, so hope you feel you have spent your time wisely.
In Christ,
Jon
P. S. I want you to know that the definition of holy that I propose is that it is "moral wholeness", but check out my other entries for what I do with "set apart" and "pure". You might find my treatment to be a new insight for you and very viable in terms of solid scholarship. Thank you again.
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Holy: Understanding it Better Despite the Hype or Conspiracy Theory
I was taught a great principle many years ago. It is that it is best approach to a would-be customer is to "under-promise and over-deliver" rather than the reverse. Despite this good advice, many people still make the same mistake - they over-promise. When you do that you open yourself to the charge of just offering a lot of hype along with broken promises. But hype is not the only danger. You also have to avoid the conspiracy theory - the idea that all promises are made to be broken. This is the fear of promises being there just to bring you aboard before you discover that the attitude of promises are made to be broken and that high expectations are meant to crumble. So how do you know if you have got a legitimate promise from a scholar or non-scholar as to what holy means in the Bible?
First, I know from experience the meaning of being over-promised. One thing that happens in Christian circles is that Christians over-promise what God's promises are for this life. Bad things never happen to good people. The truth is that this life includes the promise and guarantee of persecution. To say that your life in this life will be changed dramatically needs to be qualified. It is not an over-promise when it comes to eternity, but it is a dangerous promise for this life. We live in a day when manic-depression is becoming more and more common place. Could it be that people are becoming more manic though over-promises that they take seriously? They think everything will have a fairy tale ending. How much better if we promised people promises that can be kept?
Second, I also know from experience the meaning of every opportunity being seen as a conspiracy. Good things never happen to good people. We're always under attack from the persecutors. Good things happen only to those who compromise their principles and avoid persecution. I've heard my fair share of this kind of talk as well. I call it the radio talk show host syndrome. Drum up enough sentiment that the end is near and that all is going not well. Everyone knows the great conspiracy is winning without our seeing it. But is that a promise that is for sure? Do we really know the secret will of God? I thought so. We don't. And maybe depression could be lifted too if people did not experience so often the broken promises of fairy tales and conspiracy theories? Who knows.
So now let's look at the definition of holy. Scholars promise people that they will help people become consciously aware of what the Bible in the original languages is saying to us. If they are not, then they promise to be open about their uncertainty and be real with us. So far, so good it seems. But some Christian scholars even promise that in God's secret providence they know that on the major things in the Bible that the church cannot be wrong. As good evangelicals or otherwise, they know God would not let us down in this way. I find this over-promise very interesting, because if that is true, then God would never allow the church to not have the definition of holy wrong. The problem is that the church has contradicted itself over time as to what holy means in the Bible. So some Christians (those who call themselves by that name) must be wrong on a major topic.
I have proven many times before that at least since the Reformation, the primary definition of holy for the five major Protestant Reformers is that holy meant moral wholeness. The problem is that today many evangelical followers of these leaders have a different definition for holy. They say it means set apart. In between these two periods there were also some who claimed it meant pure. So if God keeps us always aware in His providence of the meaning of major words in Scripture, then how are these contradictions possible? There is another example of a major in Scripture having a problem the church is not sure how to solve. How can the Greatest Commandment (a major in the Bible), be quoted differently in Scripture? I thought we always know the majors? Returning again to holy, you can find the idea of set apart with moral wholeness in the older literature, but moral wholeness was the primary then unlike now. Up to this moment, you usually find set apart as the definition with little or no mention of moral wholeness. It is not even treated as secondary. It is treated as blatantly mistaken. I think we have an over-promise being made about God's providence in hat case. Majors in the Bible do not automatically mean that the church is not making any errors in its understanding through history. Not only that, but it flatly contradicts biblical history with its ebb and flow of God's people understanding God Himself correctly. That Biblical history to me is the real promise in history that should be promoted. Despite errors in understanding and elsewhere, the Jews survived. So can Christians today, based on God's providence for the Jews.
If biblical history was our guide for how much God really promises rather than our thinking we know the secret things of God in history, then I think we would not be so afraid of admitting our errors. Right now, to admit our errors is tantamount to saying God has let us down, because we have created a false promise or an over-promise that has people saying the church is all hype. That in turns can create a great deal of conspiracy theorists who realize that people are then disillusioned. The over-promise of understanding the Bible on major things all the time has got to get out of the way for God's real promises to be fulfilled.
Luther discovered a misunderstanding, Calvin a misunderstanding, Cranmer a misunderstanding, Wesley a misunderstanding, and Spurgeon a misunderstanding within the church's theology or teaching. Don't think that our generation of Christian's is automatically an exception to the rule of what God has done previously. He has let the church drift away through its own failure. He does not guarantee that we are right, because He is right. He guarantees to right us when we seek His face. Not on everything, not on the majors, not all the time, not to equal perfection, and not just because we think we are consciously aware of what God is secretly doing. He does it all according to His will including both what we know and what we don't know.
If I had to guess the #1 reason that few people today (who knows about tomorrow) take seriously the definition of moral wholeness, I would say it is because of all the false hype. The promises that have been promised that have not been kept. People everywhere are disillusioned by the over-promises of the past. Here is what I can promise. I will trust God that whatever level of understanding He gives me of his Word, He gives it to me in accordance with His promises and not according to some excessive hype nor due to some conspiracy that all churches are liars about God's promises and Christian understanding of Scripture.
Christians need to do the work. God never promised good fruit without a good tree. And a good tree comes from a good gardener who works his orchards. He does not just assume what the weather will be like. He trusts God through the wind and the rain as well as through the calm and the sunshine. Good Christians know that the question is not whether God is on our side, but whether we are on His side, because He does not guarantee that we always fight for what pleases Him. He only promises that He always fights for what is right and will give us light as He sees fit to give us light.
Please let go of over-promises and find the great promises of God as we come up on that season where God's Son rose from the dead even as He promised. Ah, a real promise that is kept. Now that's how we all ought to like it. God that time really over-delivered!
Sincerely,
Jon
First, I know from experience the meaning of being over-promised. One thing that happens in Christian circles is that Christians over-promise what God's promises are for this life. Bad things never happen to good people. The truth is that this life includes the promise and guarantee of persecution. To say that your life in this life will be changed dramatically needs to be qualified. It is not an over-promise when it comes to eternity, but it is a dangerous promise for this life. We live in a day when manic-depression is becoming more and more common place. Could it be that people are becoming more manic though over-promises that they take seriously? They think everything will have a fairy tale ending. How much better if we promised people promises that can be kept?
Second, I also know from experience the meaning of every opportunity being seen as a conspiracy. Good things never happen to good people. We're always under attack from the persecutors. Good things happen only to those who compromise their principles and avoid persecution. I've heard my fair share of this kind of talk as well. I call it the radio talk show host syndrome. Drum up enough sentiment that the end is near and that all is going not well. Everyone knows the great conspiracy is winning without our seeing it. But is that a promise that is for sure? Do we really know the secret will of God? I thought so. We don't. And maybe depression could be lifted too if people did not experience so often the broken promises of fairy tales and conspiracy theories? Who knows.
So now let's look at the definition of holy. Scholars promise people that they will help people become consciously aware of what the Bible in the original languages is saying to us. If they are not, then they promise to be open about their uncertainty and be real with us. So far, so good it seems. But some Christian scholars even promise that in God's secret providence they know that on the major things in the Bible that the church cannot be wrong. As good evangelicals or otherwise, they know God would not let us down in this way. I find this over-promise very interesting, because if that is true, then God would never allow the church to not have the definition of holy wrong. The problem is that the church has contradicted itself over time as to what holy means in the Bible. So some Christians (those who call themselves by that name) must be wrong on a major topic.
I have proven many times before that at least since the Reformation, the primary definition of holy for the five major Protestant Reformers is that holy meant moral wholeness. The problem is that today many evangelical followers of these leaders have a different definition for holy. They say it means set apart. In between these two periods there were also some who claimed it meant pure. So if God keeps us always aware in His providence of the meaning of major words in Scripture, then how are these contradictions possible? There is another example of a major in Scripture having a problem the church is not sure how to solve. How can the Greatest Commandment (a major in the Bible), be quoted differently in Scripture? I thought we always know the majors? Returning again to holy, you can find the idea of set apart with moral wholeness in the older literature, but moral wholeness was the primary then unlike now. Up to this moment, you usually find set apart as the definition with little or no mention of moral wholeness. It is not even treated as secondary. It is treated as blatantly mistaken. I think we have an over-promise being made about God's providence in hat case. Majors in the Bible do not automatically mean that the church is not making any errors in its understanding through history. Not only that, but it flatly contradicts biblical history with its ebb and flow of God's people understanding God Himself correctly. That Biblical history to me is the real promise in history that should be promoted. Despite errors in understanding and elsewhere, the Jews survived. So can Christians today, based on God's providence for the Jews.
If biblical history was our guide for how much God really promises rather than our thinking we know the secret things of God in history, then I think we would not be so afraid of admitting our errors. Right now, to admit our errors is tantamount to saying God has let us down, because we have created a false promise or an over-promise that has people saying the church is all hype. That in turns can create a great deal of conspiracy theorists who realize that people are then disillusioned. The over-promise of understanding the Bible on major things all the time has got to get out of the way for God's real promises to be fulfilled.
Luther discovered a misunderstanding, Calvin a misunderstanding, Cranmer a misunderstanding, Wesley a misunderstanding, and Spurgeon a misunderstanding within the church's theology or teaching. Don't think that our generation of Christian's is automatically an exception to the rule of what God has done previously. He has let the church drift away through its own failure. He does not guarantee that we are right, because He is right. He guarantees to right us when we seek His face. Not on everything, not on the majors, not all the time, not to equal perfection, and not just because we think we are consciously aware of what God is secretly doing. He does it all according to His will including both what we know and what we don't know.
If I had to guess the #1 reason that few people today (who knows about tomorrow) take seriously the definition of moral wholeness, I would say it is because of all the false hype. The promises that have been promised that have not been kept. People everywhere are disillusioned by the over-promises of the past. Here is what I can promise. I will trust God that whatever level of understanding He gives me of his Word, He gives it to me in accordance with His promises and not according to some excessive hype nor due to some conspiracy that all churches are liars about God's promises and Christian understanding of Scripture.
Christians need to do the work. God never promised good fruit without a good tree. And a good tree comes from a good gardener who works his orchards. He does not just assume what the weather will be like. He trusts God through the wind and the rain as well as through the calm and the sunshine. Good Christians know that the question is not whether God is on our side, but whether we are on His side, because He does not guarantee that we always fight for what pleases Him. He only promises that He always fights for what is right and will give us light as He sees fit to give us light.
Please let go of over-promises and find the great promises of God as we come up on that season where God's Son rose from the dead even as He promised. Ah, a real promise that is kept. Now that's how we all ought to like it. God that time really over-delivered!
Sincerely,
Jon
Friday, December 27, 2013
Holy: Understanding Better the Resistance to Changing Definitions
I love the following opening lines from Thomas Paine's Common Sense:
Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable
to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial
appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But
tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.
Perhaps the view that I have expressed that holy by definition means moral wholeness does not seem like much in relationship to the long history of people assuming it means set apart, but as Paine says custom and its outcry of defense will eventually subside. The need for time as well as reason is not an optional need. People do need soak time with new ideas before they will set aside old ideas.
I also agree that reason means something less than more time. The reason for my position on the definition of holy is solid in regard to reason, but time honored custom is very hard to break. So let's not be influenced so much by custom and by the superficial appearance of what is right. Let's consider other options and then give time for these options to prove themselves right in more than a superficial way.
John A. Lee's comments, as a biblical scholar on the status of Biblical lexicons, as sometimes preservers of tradition more than a producer of higher quality definitions is worthy of consideration. He too warns about the superficial appearance of authority by the sheer number of lexicons that say the same thing. But quantity is not the same as quality.
Perhaps in time, Lee's wisdom and that of Paine's common sense will be taken more seriously and what first appeared right as a definition might then also be considered wrong. That though will take time. I only hope not too much longer.
In Christ,
Jon
Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable
to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial
appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But
tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.
Perhaps the view that I have expressed that holy by definition means moral wholeness does not seem like much in relationship to the long history of people assuming it means set apart, but as Paine says custom and its outcry of defense will eventually subside. The need for time as well as reason is not an optional need. People do need soak time with new ideas before they will set aside old ideas.
I also agree that reason means something less than more time. The reason for my position on the definition of holy is solid in regard to reason, but time honored custom is very hard to break. So let's not be influenced so much by custom and by the superficial appearance of what is right. Let's consider other options and then give time for these options to prove themselves right in more than a superficial way.
John A. Lee's comments, as a biblical scholar on the status of Biblical lexicons, as sometimes preservers of tradition more than a producer of higher quality definitions is worthy of consideration. He too warns about the superficial appearance of authority by the sheer number of lexicons that say the same thing. But quantity is not the same as quality.
Perhaps in time, Lee's wisdom and that of Paine's common sense will be taken more seriously and what first appeared right as a definition might then also be considered wrong. That though will take time. I only hope not too much longer.
In Christ,
Jon
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Holy: Understanding it Better Through the Cart Before Horse and the Level without Plumb
Conceal and Carry
I can no longer support "conceal and carry" by committing two different mistakes. First, by"putting the cart in front of the horse" and second, by "measuring level without measuring plumb". Here is what I mean. It is not helpful for us to conceal the meanings of the top three most important words in the Bible and then carry that Bible with its incorrect definitions to others.
Both mistakes conceal the meanings of holy, blessed,Yahweh and to some extent the top 20-25 words in the Bible in terms of importance. So what do I mean?
The Cart Before the Horse
The cart before the horse picture should be pretty clear. There are lots of humorous photos on-line illustrating its absurdity. I tried to find a picture of a trailer in front of a truck to modernize the analogy, but it seems we are all too smart to make that mistake in our day. So why is this allowed in studying the meaning of words and by the people called lexicographers who put together lexicons?
[photo insert]
Here is what I have observed. Scholars when they have read some of the older writings on the meaning of words have not been careful to separate: 1) meanings, 2) implications, and 3) significance. This is a rule in Dr. Robert H. Stein's A Basic Guide to Interpreting the Bible. He was one of my best teachers during my college and seminary education. Stein's "meanings" is what people like the translator Eugene Nida mean by "definition". The other two are not definitions. The reason I am concerned about holy and the other two words is because of their significance to the meaning of the whole text of the Bible, but that does not indicate their definitions. Likewise neither does their implications define the word.
For example, we separate people in a hospital because of the danger of the well becoming ill through at least some of the sick. We do not separate people due to an arbitrary rule of separation, but rather we separate the unhealthy from the healthy in some cases to keep the healthy from also becoming unhealthy. The central point and definition that needs to be known is the difference between healthy and unhealthy. The definition of healthy is not separate and yet it seems to me that we have defined holy through the same error. When Rashi (a early Jewish teacher) says that holy means separate, does he mean it implies separate or that it is defined by separate. Second, has he himself switched an implication into the role of definition. You see the horse is the meaning, the implication is the cart, and the farmer or whoever is driving operating this machinery is the one who can explain the significance of what the horse and cart are for.
The Level without the Plumb
When a carpenter measures, they measure both vertically the walls to see if they are straight (plumb) and also the floors to insure they are straight (level). They would never consider it adequate to operate in building a structure without both vertical and horizontal measurements combining for a convergence of perspective. It simply makes no sense, because these meanings have been concealed by not seeing the difference between a horse and its cart.
[insert photo]
What I have discovered is that the meaning of 1)Yahweh, 2) blessed, and 3) holy have been concealed by the mistaken move of substituting the implications of a word for the definition of a word. Holy just happens to be one of the most important (#3).
[A work in process as I have time. Thank you for your patience.]
Jon
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Holy: Understanding it Better Through Digging (like an archaeologist)
It is unbelievable some days what I discover through digging through old books rather than old rocks. I consider what I am doing a little like digging through the layers that archaeologists dig through and indicate in their photos. Today, I found another incredible discovery. It is a book by John August Henry Tittmann. Its title is: Remarks on the Synonyms of the New Testament.
It is an older book, but I am not ashamed to say that I like digging through the old as well as the new. What I have found is that many things obvious to previous generations have been lost due to a simple bias against the old. In this case of trying to discern the meaning of holy, it is a bias against older scholarship. I think instead what scholars, students, and pastors should do instead, is dig through the older layers and recognize all the layers in the process, not just the top soil of our present time. John A. L. Lee's work on lexicography shows how danger it can be to operate without a knowledge of layers and a blind trust in authority rather than trust and verify.
Here is a link to what this older scholar, Tittmann, has to say, so you can dig for yourself a bit: http://openlibrary.org/books/OL23329406M/Remarks_on_the_synonyms_of_the_New_Testament. Check out especially pages 35-46. And also if you really want to get right to the heart of what holy means, you can examine pages 45-46 for his summary.
If I may summarize what he says here, he says: "hagios (Greek) is that which, on account of integrity of mind and morals, is sacred to God and revered." What is most interesting to me in my investigations is his use of "integrity ... of morals". This would fit very well with the idea of "moral wholeness". But perhaps what is more valuable is that he also places purity and being set apart alongside of his "integrity of morals". He says that "ieros" (Greek) has a connection with the idea of "consecrated to, or set apart for God". He also adds that katharis (Greek) is connected to the idea of "pure" as would also "agnos" (Greek).
If you read what he says carefully, then you can see its parallelism with the proposal (by Andrew Murray many years later), that there are other possible words for being set apart rather than the words qadosh (Hebrew) or hagios (Greek). This proposal is worth considering and I must give credit to Richard Trench for his volume on synonyms for alerting me to this once renowned scholar. Its it too bad that often awareness gets buried by generations and time? I rejoice in another discovery and another opportunity to make people aware and bring knowledge to a sometimes darkened world. Digging has its rewards!
In Christ,
Jon
It is an older book, but I am not ashamed to say that I like digging through the old as well as the new. What I have found is that many things obvious to previous generations have been lost due to a simple bias against the old. In this case of trying to discern the meaning of holy, it is a bias against older scholarship. I think instead what scholars, students, and pastors should do instead, is dig through the older layers and recognize all the layers in the process, not just the top soil of our present time. John A. L. Lee's work on lexicography shows how danger it can be to operate without a knowledge of layers and a blind trust in authority rather than trust and verify.
Here is a link to what this older scholar, Tittmann, has to say, so you can dig for yourself a bit: http://openlibrary.org/books/OL23329406M/Remarks_on_the_synonyms_of_the_New_Testament. Check out especially pages 35-46. And also if you really want to get right to the heart of what holy means, you can examine pages 45-46 for his summary.
If I may summarize what he says here, he says: "hagios (Greek) is that which, on account of integrity of mind and morals, is sacred to God and revered." What is most interesting to me in my investigations is his use of "integrity ... of morals". This would fit very well with the idea of "moral wholeness". But perhaps what is more valuable is that he also places purity and being set apart alongside of his "integrity of morals". He says that "ieros" (Greek) has a connection with the idea of "consecrated to, or set apart for God". He also adds that katharis (Greek) is connected to the idea of "pure" as would also "agnos" (Greek).
If you read what he says carefully, then you can see its parallelism with the proposal (by Andrew Murray many years later), that there are other possible words for being set apart rather than the words qadosh (Hebrew) or hagios (Greek). This proposal is worth considering and I must give credit to Richard Trench for his volume on synonyms for alerting me to this once renowned scholar. Its it too bad that often awareness gets buried by generations and time? I rejoice in another discovery and another opportunity to make people aware and bring knowledge to a sometimes darkened world. Digging has its rewards!
In Christ,
Jon
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Holy: Understanding it Better through Awarness
For anyone coming to this blog, I am sure the #1 question is: "What is the meaning of holy?". But I think there is also a second question behind the first question: "Why are there different definitions for this central word of the Bible?" For example, this evening I heard a member of the Christian band, Petra, define holy as "totally unique" on YouTube. It is maybe a more contemporary version of Rudolph Otto's definition of "wholly other" from early in the 20th century. So, do I think these definitions are correct? The simple answer is that I think they fall wide of the mark despite their agreement. The lack that I see is a lack of awareness. The more and more I research the topic of the meaning of qadosh (translated into English as holy), the more aware I have become of things that I was not aware of previously. So let me tell you about some of these new discoveries.
The first is that the quality of a Hebrew-English, Aramaic-English, or Greek-English lexicon is not improved by the number of them that agree with each other. Rather this may rather indicate that one source is behind the many lexicons. While the many agreeing is a positive quantity, the many does not change the quality of the first that is copied by all the others. John A. L. Lee (A History of New Testament Lexicology) has probably argued this the best. So Petra's agreement with Rudolph Otto does not mean that the quality of Otto's argument for his meaning of holy is improved.
The second is that the etymology of qadosh in Hebrew is both over-rated and under-rated as a tool to learn the meaning of holy. James Barr, as a scholar, really helped biblical scholarship by making a great argument for the need for the insights of linguistics and semantics. In the case of what is called etymology (the true history of a word), though, he throws the baby out with the bathwater. On the other hand, many scholarly articles begin with etymology and then after downplaying its value don't really downplay it in fact. They do not test its meaning beyond that point, but rather use a plausible meaning from the etymology that is uncertain. The best example of this is in Jo Bailey-Wells' argument that the etymology of qadosh as being "set apart" is no longer supported by recent scholarship and yet she uses that definition in the following discussion without a different kind of test to determine holy's meaning.
The third is that the method needed for determining the meaning of holy goes beyond a lexicon. A lexicon is an enormous project and falls under what is called lexicology. The problem is that when a lexicon is constructed, it cannot look into every word entry with great depth. What is needed for that is what is called a "word study". Here though there is another distinction that must be made. There are small-scale word studies and then there are in-depth word studies. If you look on-line you will find numerous shorter word studies on qadosh (the Hebrew behind the English word holy) like that of the scholar, Dr. Allen P. Ross. I studied under Dr. Ross and he is a top-notch biblical scholar, but the study he offers on-line is not on the depth of word studies like those offered by TDOT (The Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament) and NIDOTT (New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology (William A. VanGemeren, General Editor). What is needed is a focused study on the set of words that are translated into English as "holy". These books mentioned have studies that have the right depth and length, but also need a solid method added to them. What I now realize is that I need to use the method of doing a word study to really contribute something on the meaning of holy. It will likely be in the 80-100 page category and so be enough in-depth to really contribute something to the discussion. Unfortunately, most lexicons with the exception of Klein's do not mention the quality of the definition that is offered. It would be nice to someday have a letter system like that associated with textual variants that makes explicit a quality rating.
The fourth is that awareness is itself a very important value. Lack of awareness is the primary reason for the need for education. Yet with all the education that is offered, there can still be large gaps in awareness or the need to slow down and really consider what is taught. Many of the things that I was taught at the university level, I did not realize until later what was meant. In other words, I finally became aware of something that I was not aware of previously, though I was already taught the topic. The need to really observe and keep observing as part of inductively studying the Bible was taught to me at the university level and then in Seminary by three great teachers: Tom Stellar, Dr. John S. Piper, and Dr. Daniel P. Fuller. The latter is the one who most applied this principle of observation. I was fortunate to have hung on to old notebooks from my college years, so I could re-read what I read before and have continued observation pay off. I then got the pay off of greater awareness!
Finally, it takes awareness of all four of these to really have a great opportunity to understand the meaning of holy in our English translations. They again are: 1) quantity though it comes before quality, does not replace it when it comes to lexicons, 2) that etymology has value though it must not be allowed to have undue influence on how holy is defined, 3) a word study of some length is what is needed at present to resolve the problem of differing definitions for qadosh, and 4) awareness is itself the value behind each of these things I have learned through "getting an education".
I like to put awareness on the level of the traits of being "ready, willing, and able". I say a person needs to be "ready, willing, able, and aware". If any of these is missing, then a decision is likely to falter in the future. If they are all present, then the future is likely to match with the present. I hope what I have written today has at least raised your awareness about the meaning of holy. I am presently working on sorting out which of three English words best defines holy: 1) pure, 2) set apart, or 3) moral wholeness. Please check back to see my further work on my word study for this incredibly important word. I would also appreciate your prayers that I have ample time and that I use my time well to finish a large word study on qadosh and its translations down to the English language and beyond.
Thank you.
In Christ,
Jon
The first is that the quality of a Hebrew-English, Aramaic-English, or Greek-English lexicon is not improved by the number of them that agree with each other. Rather this may rather indicate that one source is behind the many lexicons. While the many agreeing is a positive quantity, the many does not change the quality of the first that is copied by all the others. John A. L. Lee (A History of New Testament Lexicology) has probably argued this the best. So Petra's agreement with Rudolph Otto does not mean that the quality of Otto's argument for his meaning of holy is improved.
The second is that the etymology of qadosh in Hebrew is both over-rated and under-rated as a tool to learn the meaning of holy. James Barr, as a scholar, really helped biblical scholarship by making a great argument for the need for the insights of linguistics and semantics. In the case of what is called etymology (the true history of a word), though, he throws the baby out with the bathwater. On the other hand, many scholarly articles begin with etymology and then after downplaying its value don't really downplay it in fact. They do not test its meaning beyond that point, but rather use a plausible meaning from the etymology that is uncertain. The best example of this is in Jo Bailey-Wells' argument that the etymology of qadosh as being "set apart" is no longer supported by recent scholarship and yet she uses that definition in the following discussion without a different kind of test to determine holy's meaning.
The third is that the method needed for determining the meaning of holy goes beyond a lexicon. A lexicon is an enormous project and falls under what is called lexicology. The problem is that when a lexicon is constructed, it cannot look into every word entry with great depth. What is needed for that is what is called a "word study". Here though there is another distinction that must be made. There are small-scale word studies and then there are in-depth word studies. If you look on-line you will find numerous shorter word studies on qadosh (the Hebrew behind the English word holy) like that of the scholar, Dr. Allen P. Ross. I studied under Dr. Ross and he is a top-notch biblical scholar, but the study he offers on-line is not on the depth of word studies like those offered by TDOT (The Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament) and NIDOTT (New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology (William A. VanGemeren, General Editor). What is needed is a focused study on the set of words that are translated into English as "holy". These books mentioned have studies that have the right depth and length, but also need a solid method added to them. What I now realize is that I need to use the method of doing a word study to really contribute something on the meaning of holy. It will likely be in the 80-100 page category and so be enough in-depth to really contribute something to the discussion. Unfortunately, most lexicons with the exception of Klein's do not mention the quality of the definition that is offered. It would be nice to someday have a letter system like that associated with textual variants that makes explicit a quality rating.
The fourth is that awareness is itself a very important value. Lack of awareness is the primary reason for the need for education. Yet with all the education that is offered, there can still be large gaps in awareness or the need to slow down and really consider what is taught. Many of the things that I was taught at the university level, I did not realize until later what was meant. In other words, I finally became aware of something that I was not aware of previously, though I was already taught the topic. The need to really observe and keep observing as part of inductively studying the Bible was taught to me at the university level and then in Seminary by three great teachers: Tom Stellar, Dr. John S. Piper, and Dr. Daniel P. Fuller. The latter is the one who most applied this principle of observation. I was fortunate to have hung on to old notebooks from my college years, so I could re-read what I read before and have continued observation pay off. I then got the pay off of greater awareness!
Finally, it takes awareness of all four of these to really have a great opportunity to understand the meaning of holy in our English translations. They again are: 1) quantity though it comes before quality, does not replace it when it comes to lexicons, 2) that etymology has value though it must not be allowed to have undue influence on how holy is defined, 3) a word study of some length is what is needed at present to resolve the problem of differing definitions for qadosh, and 4) awareness is itself the value behind each of these things I have learned through "getting an education".
I like to put awareness on the level of the traits of being "ready, willing, and able". I say a person needs to be "ready, willing, able, and aware". If any of these is missing, then a decision is likely to falter in the future. If they are all present, then the future is likely to match with the present. I hope what I have written today has at least raised your awareness about the meaning of holy. I am presently working on sorting out which of three English words best defines holy: 1) pure, 2) set apart, or 3) moral wholeness. Please check back to see my further work on my word study for this incredibly important word. I would also appreciate your prayers that I have ample time and that I use my time well to finish a large word study on qadosh and its translations down to the English language and beyond.
Thank you.
In Christ,
Jon
Friday, August 30, 2013
Holy: Understanding it Better Through Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
The top 10 of frequently asked one or two word questions
are: 1) How many?, 2) How much?, 3) Where?, 4) When?, 5) Who?,
6) Whole?, 7) How?, 8) Why? ,
9) What?, and 10) Which?. Using these as the starting point for
questions about the definition of holy, let’s look at the answers to 10
frequently asked questions.
[This summer I have been particularly busy. I apologize for delays in getting things complete. As fall approaches I expect this to change. Please be patient.]
In Christ,
Jon
1)How many definitions
of holy have been proposed (or denied)?
(i.e. quantity)
At one time, I listed somewhere in the neighborhood of 20
proposed definitions for qadosh (Hebrew) or hagios (Greek) usually translated
as holy. Obviously, not all 20 are
right! Many people assume wrongly, there
is only 1 – set apart.
2) How much? Are each of these definitions worth
considering (or not worth considering)? (quality)
The 3 that seem to have the most credibility are: 1) pure,
2) set apart, and 3) moral wholeness.
These are listed in alphabetic order, but there quality can be measured
by the comparative quality of these proposals.
“Set apart” is currently seen as the # 1 proposal.
3) Where? Is the definition of holy to be found (or
lost)? (place)
It should be found in the texts originating out of primarily
two cultures: 1) Hebrew and 2) Greek.
Aramaic is also a source, but there is comparatively less text to
compare.
Some arguments point out that the meaning of the English
word holy does not matter. This is true
in the strictest sense. But there is
also an overstatement of this argument that should not be tolerated regardless
of who makes the argument. The truth is
that holy does have a connection to moral wholeness in the English language,
even if qadosh or hagios may not. The
meaning of holy in English is irrelevant in terms of where the meaning of
qadosh or hagios originated. Where the
meaning of holy as moral wholeness is relevant is in understanding the origin
of the meaning of holy and why it was chosen by early English translators.
When? Is the definition of holy found (or lost)?
(time)
It is important to realize that the time periods of when the
texts containing qadosh and hagios were recorded are primary. Texts that come before or after that time
have less value. A variety of contexts
can matter, but the most immediate in terms of time matter more than those that
come before or those that follow. It is important
to realize also that qadosh precedes hagios in time and that hagios like holy
is a translation of qadosh. This would
also be true for the Aramaic word for qadosh.
Qadosh and its time period must be kept primary.
Who? Is
identified with the definition of holy (or who is not to be identified as holy)?
(identity)
Yahweh and his name are identified in Scripture over and
over as holy. It is said that he is the
only one that is holy. Unfortunately,
this is extended beyond comparison to other gods and it is said humans too are
not holy. The last I checked “saints”
are holy ones and they are human. So
overstretching the comparison with Yahweh to knock human holy ones is not in
agreement with Scripture.
Whole? Of who a person is complete in the definition
of holy (or only a part of who a person is)?
(makeup)
How? Are we able
to determine the definition of holy (or do we not know how to determine its
definition)? (Method)
Why? Work on the definition of holy (or why not
work on it)? (Purpose)
What? Is the
definition of holy (or is not the definition for holy)? (Likeness)
Which? Of the different kinds of definitions for
holy is the right kind (or which is the wrong kind)? (Kinds)
In Christ,
Jon
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