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

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

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

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

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

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

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




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



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

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

In Christ,

Pastor Jon

Holy means Whole: According to the Warning to Be Discerning

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Christ,

Pastor Jon