It is among the most salutary uses of history to expose those faults and inclinations in ourselves to which we would otherwise be blind. Just as it is only in a mirror that we may look upon our own faces, so without the aid of past voices we will never hear our own. Although she claims to be ruled by documents of antiquity, the church of our day would do well to learn that there is real use in a sympathetic engagement with the past. When the United Methodist Council of Bishops last year published a pastoral letter on the state of world affairs, they expressed thusly their reasons for writing:
"We, the Bishops of the United Methodist Church, cannot remain silent while God's people and God's planet suffer."
A statement which appears doctrinally innocuous, even if the limp triteness of "cannot remain silent" is offensive to taste, but compare it with the reasons Thomas Cranmer gives in the introduction to his A Defense of the True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Savior Christ (via Jim West):
"I, not knowing otherwise how to excuse myself at the last day..."
And later on,
"Moved by the duty, office, and place whereunto it hath pleased God to call me..."
If we wished to be charitable, we might say that our bishops could have given Cranmer's second reason, had they possessed the English language in its first youthful vigor and not the aching limp of its declining middle age, for the sentiment is very close. The bishops say they cannot remain silent, we may infer, because of their shepherdly duty; Cranmer says the same. The difference in phrasing, however, is not merely a difference in eloquence, although it is also that (and where is this thing mere eloquence?); the different phrasings betray different pictures of the episcopal vocation.
The bishops today conceive of themselves as apart from the arena of God's activity: they can either speak or remain silent while they view the suffering of God's creation. They themselves are affected only by the inner movements of compassion, or, more precisely, remorse. Their stance, put another way, is of precisely the same sort as God's in the time of Noah: they are sorry to have made the universe a certain way. They are themselves unaffected by the calamity they witness, but, because they consider themselves the authors of it, they feel responsible to set it right. God has apparently had no hand in the administration of his created world; it seems to be God's in the same way property may belong to someone who never sees it and lives thousands of miles away. Although we must bear in mind that this metaphor can be defended by scripture (Mark 12:1-12), we should also ask ourselves who these "Bishops of the United Methodist Church" are in relation to this God who possesses a people and a planet. They do not themselves appear to be God's property in the same way, as the grammar and tone of the sentence alike make clear. Perhaps they are hired overseers, and it is in their contract to take action in a situation such as this; perhaps their retirement benefits are at stake if they don't shape up. But if they are hired administrators, and not themselves part of God's property, what prevents them from being, as the parable says, "hirelings, that care not for the sheep?" (John 10:1-18).
Cranmer is clear that he writes as a servant under God's power. He does not invoke the name 'bishop,' but says only that he is compelled to live in accordance with the calling which God has placed upon his life. It is not as a hired hand, as a free laborer, that Cranmer is compelled to pluck up by the roots the doctrinal weeds in his Lord's garden, but as a serf whose life is tied inextricably to that garden, who is indeed a part of his master's garden. And as a serf, he of course has no rights before his Lord, and so writes "not knowing otherwise how to excuse himself at the last day." Cranmer writes in full humility, and in the firm knowledge that he is God's just as surely as the church and world he has been appointed especially to serve.
One could protest that of course the bishops intend themselves to be included among God's people, but I am not interested in how they would reinterpret their document to meet these objections. What concerns me is the lazy choice of words which not only allows but fosters a decidedly unchristian rhetoric of detached compassion, remorse, and problem-solving, when what is needed are the somber tones of humility. Cranmer knows that his office as bishop is something to which God has elevated him by gracious favor, not hired him for on account of merit. He knows this all the more easily because the immediate and worldly cause of his ordination was the command of a king and not the votes of a Jurisdictional Conference. Most of all, he acts not out of some high-minded compassion, but out of a fervent and pious desire to work out the salvation of his own soul--Wesley would be proud. For Cranmer knows that his "duty, office, and place" carry with them a profound responsibility, a terrifying responsibility, were God not his comfort. "Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters," writes James (3:1), "for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness." Every Christian in authority should know well also the words of Ezekiel: "As I live, says the Lord God, because my sheep have become a prey, and my sheep have become food for all the wild animals, since there was no shepherd; and because my shepherds have not searched for my sheep, but the shepherds have fed themselves, and have not fed my sheep; therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: Thus says the Lord God, I am against the shepherds; and I will demand my sheep at their hand, and put a stop to their feeding the sheep; no longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, so that they may not be food for them." (Ezekiel 34:8-10). The bishop, like any other Christian, who does not weigh his actions with an eye to the last judgment has neither read his Bible with the proper seriousness, nor wholly comprehended the weight of his office.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Beatus Vir?
I am generally more opposed to gender-neutral language as a philologist and a partisan for words than I am as a theologian; in matters of biblical translation, I am even more firmly of this opinion. The NRSV, although very responsible, I find, in the Old Testament, is often a little too enthusiastic with its removal of gender in the New. Whenever these arguments arise, there are generally two philological points that are made in favor of use gender-neutral terms where older translations had generally used "brothers/brethren" or the generic "man." The first is that, in Greek, a plural which designates a mixed group will always be masculine (there are historical-linguistic as well as social reasons for this; historically speaking, the feminine gender is a later development of the masculine); the second centers on the Greek word ἄνθρωπος, which can denote a person of either gender. Both arguments to me seem to drag Greek into an English problem (something to be expected in translation), which is the shift the word "man" has undergone in its meaning, and the political interests which have attached themselves to the shift.
My main aim here, however, is merely to note one of the many cases of over-enthusiasm on the part of the NRSV translators: James 1:12. In the Greek, the first part of this verse reads
Μακάριος ἀνὴρ ὅς ὑπομένει πειρασμὸν
which might be very literally translated:
"Blessed man, who endures temptation."
The NRSV, however, translates
"Blessed is anyone who endures temptation."
To someone with a smattering of Greek who reads that translation, knowing that the translators of the NRSV pay careful heed to render terms which in the Greek are neutral as to gender with correspondingly neutral terms in English, would probably assume that the Greek here underlying "anyone" is ἄνθρωπος, not ἀνήρ. It is possible that in this case the translation committee chose to follow one of the minority readings: two codices, one of them from the fifth century, do have ἄνθρωπος instead of ἀνήρ. It seems more likely, however, that they felt the translation "blessed the man" would be read so as to imply to a modern reader than only men are blessed in enduring temptation, and it is here that we run into dangerous territory. I shall try to be brief.
Such interpretation misunderstands the way language operates in male-dominated societies, assuming that a word, like ἀνήρ or the Latin vir, which denominates a masculine human being, cannot stand for humanity in general, or that a supposedly neutral term, such as ἄνθρωπος or the Latin homo, really imagines humanity as equally as we today would like. Any man writing in the ancient world would not think twice of the idea that the male stands for humanity as a whole; we may now be hesitant about submitting to the subtle ramifications of such an assumption, but they would not have questioned it. When James uses ἀνήρ, he no more means to exclude from blessing those women who endure temptation than the author of the first psalm, rendered in the Septuagint Μακάριος ἀνήρ, meant to exclude from blessing those women who "walk not in the counsel of the ungodly." In the minds of these authors the priority of the male does not annihilate all human kinship between the sexes.
An excellent example of this inclusive but not equalizing use of the masculine may be found in the second chorus of Sophocles' Antigone. The chorus begins
πολλὰ τὰ δεινὰ κοὐδὲν ἀνθρώπου δεινότερον πέλει.
Many are the things wondrous and fearful, none more than ἀνθρώπος.
A world in which the word ἀνθρώπος denominates the human being without any sense of gender would not allow him to continue in the next strophe, as he goes on the describe humanity's conquest of nature, and call this οὕ ούδεν δεινότερον, this thing than which nothing is more fearful, περιφραδὴς ἀνήρ, "man most cunning." It is clear in this passage that, for Sophocles, although he was certainly aware of their different resonances, being as he was poet of the first rank, both ἀνθρώπος and ἀνήρ may stand for all of humanity.
Although we may be uneasy at the implicit hierarchy in this view of things, we should also be conscious that our zealous division of the sexes, while we undertake it in the name (so sacred to our ears!) of equality, is only a different way of skewing our perceptions. I do not know to whom it would not be readily apparent that the instances of this 'inclusive masculine' which I have cited apply to all human beings. Indeed, a language that cannot perceive that the first Psalm, "Blessed is the man," does not exclude the greater half of the human race, or that the praises of Proverbs 31 ("She considereth a field and buyeth it...She openeth her mouth with wisdom: and in her tongue is the law of kindness") are not applicable to women alone, is a language as incapable of figurative speech as it is of profound reflection. Perhaps there is a problem with the historical relation between the sexes, but it will not be solved by pretending than neither one is completely human.
My main aim here, however, is merely to note one of the many cases of over-enthusiasm on the part of the NRSV translators: James 1:12. In the Greek, the first part of this verse reads
Μακάριος ἀνὴρ ὅς ὑπομένει πειρασμὸν
which might be very literally translated:
"Blessed man, who endures temptation."
The NRSV, however, translates
"Blessed is anyone who endures temptation."
To someone with a smattering of Greek who reads that translation, knowing that the translators of the NRSV pay careful heed to render terms which in the Greek are neutral as to gender with correspondingly neutral terms in English, would probably assume that the Greek here underlying "anyone" is ἄνθρωπος, not ἀνήρ. It is possible that in this case the translation committee chose to follow one of the minority readings: two codices, one of them from the fifth century, do have ἄνθρωπος instead of ἀνήρ. It seems more likely, however, that they felt the translation "blessed the man" would be read so as to imply to a modern reader than only men are blessed in enduring temptation, and it is here that we run into dangerous territory. I shall try to be brief.
Such interpretation misunderstands the way language operates in male-dominated societies, assuming that a word, like ἀνήρ or the Latin vir, which denominates a masculine human being, cannot stand for humanity in general, or that a supposedly neutral term, such as ἄνθρωπος or the Latin homo, really imagines humanity as equally as we today would like. Any man writing in the ancient world would not think twice of the idea that the male stands for humanity as a whole; we may now be hesitant about submitting to the subtle ramifications of such an assumption, but they would not have questioned it. When James uses ἀνήρ, he no more means to exclude from blessing those women who endure temptation than the author of the first psalm, rendered in the Septuagint Μακάριος ἀνήρ, meant to exclude from blessing those women who "walk not in the counsel of the ungodly." In the minds of these authors the priority of the male does not annihilate all human kinship between the sexes.
An excellent example of this inclusive but not equalizing use of the masculine may be found in the second chorus of Sophocles' Antigone. The chorus begins
πολλὰ τὰ δεινὰ κοὐδὲν ἀνθρώπου δεινότερον πέλει.
Many are the things wondrous and fearful, none more than ἀνθρώπος.
A world in which the word ἀνθρώπος denominates the human being without any sense of gender would not allow him to continue in the next strophe, as he goes on the describe humanity's conquest of nature, and call this οὕ ούδεν δεινότερον, this thing than which nothing is more fearful, περιφραδὴς ἀνήρ, "man most cunning." It is clear in this passage that, for Sophocles, although he was certainly aware of their different resonances, being as he was poet of the first rank, both ἀνθρώπος and ἀνήρ may stand for all of humanity.
Although we may be uneasy at the implicit hierarchy in this view of things, we should also be conscious that our zealous division of the sexes, while we undertake it in the name (so sacred to our ears!) of equality, is only a different way of skewing our perceptions. I do not know to whom it would not be readily apparent that the instances of this 'inclusive masculine' which I have cited apply to all human beings. Indeed, a language that cannot perceive that the first Psalm, "Blessed is the man," does not exclude the greater half of the human race, or that the praises of Proverbs 31 ("She considereth a field and buyeth it...She openeth her mouth with wisdom: and in her tongue is the law of kindness") are not applicable to women alone, is a language as incapable of figurative speech as it is of profound reflection. Perhaps there is a problem with the historical relation between the sexes, but it will not be solved by pretending than neither one is completely human.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Tanning and Pastoral
We are often told that ideas of beauty have changed over the years (the figures of Rubens are of course the classic example), but our modern taste for tanned skin is an especially peculiar deviation from the western norm. There is, to start with, Homer's "white armed Hera," and I recently ran across this passage in Mantuan's First Eclogue:
Farra legens ibat mea per vestigia virgo
Nuda pedem, discincta sinum, spoliata lacertos,
Ut decet aestatem quae solibus ardet iniquis
Tecta caput fronde intorta, quia sole perusta
Fusca fit et voto facies non servit amantum.
She came upon my steps plucking the grain,
With naked feet, a bosom loosely robed,
And arms uncovered. For the summer sun
She clothed her head, for by the sun once burnt
She darkens, and no lover’s prayer obliges.
There is also the testimony of sacred pastoral that this is not merely a phenomenon of the Hellenistic tradition:
I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem,
as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.
Look not upon me, because I am black,
because the sun hath looked upon me:
My mother's children were angry with me;
they made me the keeper of the vineyards;
but mine own vineyard have I not kept. (Song of Songs 1:5-6)
It would be interesting to hear some speculation as to why we began to prefer tanned to fair skin. I would throw my lot in with changing views towards work and class, but I would probably be liable to speculate in that direction on most social phenomena; perhaps it has something to do with tanned skin being now more rare, with more people working inside, whereas earlier only a few would spent most of their days indoors. Whatever its causes, it is a trend, vampires notwithstanding, which shows no signs of passing out of fashion, however at odds it may be with historical tastes.
Farra legens ibat mea per vestigia virgo
Nuda pedem, discincta sinum, spoliata lacertos,
Ut decet aestatem quae solibus ardet iniquis
Tecta caput fronde intorta, quia sole perusta
Fusca fit et voto facies non servit amantum.
She came upon my steps plucking the grain,
With naked feet, a bosom loosely robed,
And arms uncovered. For the summer sun
She clothed her head, for by the sun once burnt
She darkens, and no lover’s prayer obliges.
There is also the testimony of sacred pastoral that this is not merely a phenomenon of the Hellenistic tradition:
I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem,
as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.
Look not upon me, because I am black,
because the sun hath looked upon me:
My mother's children were angry with me;
they made me the keeper of the vineyards;
but mine own vineyard have I not kept. (Song of Songs 1:5-6)
It would be interesting to hear some speculation as to why we began to prefer tanned to fair skin. I would throw my lot in with changing views towards work and class, but I would probably be liable to speculate in that direction on most social phenomena; perhaps it has something to do with tanned skin being now more rare, with more people working inside, whereas earlier only a few would spent most of their days indoors. Whatever its causes, it is a trend, vampires notwithstanding, which shows no signs of passing out of fashion, however at odds it may be with historical tastes.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Adorno and Cultural Elites
I have fallen into the habit with this blog of either posting something quite long or going quite a long time without posting anything. Other demands being what they are, I would perhaps be better served posting something brief rather more frequently. I do often have ideas occur to me which would be good material for a blog post, but I always find myself working them out in too great detail and come to the point where I inevitably lack the time to be satisfied with my production. This summer we shall see if I can train myself for more frequent short posts.
I picked up Adorno again yesterday, having dipped into Benjamin the day before, and came across this excellent gem in his essay "How to Look at Television":
"The increasing strength of modern mass culture is further enhanced by changes in the sociological structure of the audience. The old cultural elite does not exist anymore; the modern intelligentsia only partially corresponds to it. At the same time, huge strata of the population formerly unacquainted with art have become cultural 'consumers'. Modern audiences, although less capable of the artistic sublimation bred by tradition, have become shrewder in their demands for perfection of technique and for reliability of information, as well as their desire for 'services'; and they have become more convinced of the consumer's potential power over the producer, no matter whether the power is actually wielded."
(A form like 'wielded' always grates on my ear; had a few things turned out just slightly more fortunately in October of 1066 we would have a good strong form like 'wolden' or 'welden.')
Adorno points something out in this paragraph which is both immediately obvious and widely ignored, that the current relation between popular and elite culture is an entirely different relation than that of previous ages. It is as equally misleading to compare Mozart to Philip Glass as it is to compare him to Paul McCartney, although both may appear fitting in different situations. Our 'elite' artists of today (and indeed our cultural elites in general) are far more esoteric and far less intimate with the structures of political power than cultural elites of Mozart's day were. The arguments that align Philip Glass with Mozart will be either aesthetic or social. The aesthetic arguments will inevitably appeal to vague categories, all of them inevitably either Romantic (profundity, feeling) or counter-Romantic (complexity, technique), in an attempt to ignore the obvious disparity in beauty and sophistication between the music of Mozart's era and our own. The social arguments will point out that, like Glass, Mozart really only appealed to a small elite within society, but the facts are rather clearly against this, from the packed opera houses of Prague and Vienna to the pianos of every drawing room in Europe. On the failure of these comparisons, one might perhaps attempt a genealogical justification, tracing a line of teachers and performances between Mozart and Philip Glass, and claiming merely that the profession has changed; but we should remember that in the development of species the new breed after a certain point cannot produce offspring with the old, and is therefore treated as something different.
The comparison with a popular musician like Paul McCartney is just as tenuous, treating popularity as though it overcame all the aesthetic obstacles, and refusing to accept those aesthetic objections for reasons perhaps sometimes more grounded but as a rule less persuasive than those which would defend someone like Philip Glass. Mozart did not string together three minute ditties with his friends and expect to be applauded for it as an artist. That a group like the Beatles should be considered to have produced cultural artifacts worthy of preservation for any reason other than curiosity is as much a political victory for democratic baseness as an aesthetic one, and should alert us of precisely the reasons why our current cultural elite only partially corresponds to the cultural elite of an aristocratic period like Mozart's. In almost every way besides the praises they are effusively afforded popular musicians of our day resemble folk singers and not court composers; that these two breeds should be somewhat alike in popularity is a testimony to radical economic, political, and cultural changes and not aesthetic kinship.
I have gotten somewhat away from Adorno at this point, driven, as are we all when we write without direction, by the goads of my own preoccupations and propensities. We must always keep in mind the important differences between the social situation of our cultural elite today and that of the past. And I have come to the end and this is no particularly short post; perhaps next time.
I picked up Adorno again yesterday, having dipped into Benjamin the day before, and came across this excellent gem in his essay "How to Look at Television":
"The increasing strength of modern mass culture is further enhanced by changes in the sociological structure of the audience. The old cultural elite does not exist anymore; the modern intelligentsia only partially corresponds to it. At the same time, huge strata of the population formerly unacquainted with art have become cultural 'consumers'. Modern audiences, although less capable of the artistic sublimation bred by tradition, have become shrewder in their demands for perfection of technique and for reliability of information, as well as their desire for 'services'; and they have become more convinced of the consumer's potential power over the producer, no matter whether the power is actually wielded."
(A form like 'wielded' always grates on my ear; had a few things turned out just slightly more fortunately in October of 1066 we would have a good strong form like 'wolden' or 'welden.')
Adorno points something out in this paragraph which is both immediately obvious and widely ignored, that the current relation between popular and elite culture is an entirely different relation than that of previous ages. It is as equally misleading to compare Mozart to Philip Glass as it is to compare him to Paul McCartney, although both may appear fitting in different situations. Our 'elite' artists of today (and indeed our cultural elites in general) are far more esoteric and far less intimate with the structures of political power than cultural elites of Mozart's day were. The arguments that align Philip Glass with Mozart will be either aesthetic or social. The aesthetic arguments will inevitably appeal to vague categories, all of them inevitably either Romantic (profundity, feeling) or counter-Romantic (complexity, technique), in an attempt to ignore the obvious disparity in beauty and sophistication between the music of Mozart's era and our own. The social arguments will point out that, like Glass, Mozart really only appealed to a small elite within society, but the facts are rather clearly against this, from the packed opera houses of Prague and Vienna to the pianos of every drawing room in Europe. On the failure of these comparisons, one might perhaps attempt a genealogical justification, tracing a line of teachers and performances between Mozart and Philip Glass, and claiming merely that the profession has changed; but we should remember that in the development of species the new breed after a certain point cannot produce offspring with the old, and is therefore treated as something different.
The comparison with a popular musician like Paul McCartney is just as tenuous, treating popularity as though it overcame all the aesthetic obstacles, and refusing to accept those aesthetic objections for reasons perhaps sometimes more grounded but as a rule less persuasive than those which would defend someone like Philip Glass. Mozart did not string together three minute ditties with his friends and expect to be applauded for it as an artist. That a group like the Beatles should be considered to have produced cultural artifacts worthy of preservation for any reason other than curiosity is as much a political victory for democratic baseness as an aesthetic one, and should alert us of precisely the reasons why our current cultural elite only partially corresponds to the cultural elite of an aristocratic period like Mozart's. In almost every way besides the praises they are effusively afforded popular musicians of our day resemble folk singers and not court composers; that these two breeds should be somewhat alike in popularity is a testimony to radical economic, political, and cultural changes and not aesthetic kinship.
I have gotten somewhat away from Adorno at this point, driven, as are we all when we write without direction, by the goads of my own preoccupations and propensities. We must always keep in mind the important differences between the social situation of our cultural elite today and that of the past. And I have come to the end and this is no particularly short post; perhaps next time.
Friday, April 23, 2010
The Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit
This is a sermon written for my New Testament intro course.
The Text: Matthew 12:22-32
“Therefore I tell you, people will be forgiven for every sin and blasphemy, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age, or in the age to come.” I know any of you who were paying attention when the gospel was read will have had some sort of reaction to these verses. You might have started a bit at the words “will not be forgiven,” and at the words “blasphemy against the Spirit” you were probably a little puzzled as to what exactly Jesus meant. This combination of a vague crime and a strict punishment certainly gives the imagination a lot of room; and where we are so free to imagine the crime we are also all the more dangerously liable to suppose that we ourselves are guilty of its commission and so worthy of its punishment. Terrible fear and doubt has been engendered by these verses in the Christian hearts of all ages, such terrible fear that I might even wish the authors of sacred scripture, when they sat down to record the sayings of Jesus, had left this one out. For they certainly did not record everything he did: these authors were selective in what they preserved, and preserved what they selected to help us grow in faith and understanding, and yet Matthew, along with Mark and Luke, thought it important to include in his gospel this troubling saying, this harshest verdict of the law of God.
Listen to these verses again, listen carefully: “People will be forgiven every sin and blasphemy, but blasphemy against Spirit will not be forgiven.” I want first to note one thing: there is incredible hope in this passage. Perhaps it does not seem so at first glance. But how great an occasion for faith and trust in Jesus Christ, how powerful and comforting a testimony it is to the grace and mercy of our God that Jesus here singles out only one from the many thousands of sins we could envision for an irrevocable and inescapable condemnation. If you have murdered, Jesus is saying, if you have stolen, there is forgiveness for you. If you have hurt those you love out of jealousy or greed, there is forgiveness for you. If you have allowed a father or a sister or a friend to slip into the clutches of death while enmity still reigned between you, there is forgiveness for that as well, from God your heavenly Father already in this age, and, if we may hope in Christ, from that loved one themselves in the age to come. Remember always the abundance of this forgiveness.
So from this Teacher of mercy we hear that of all sin and blasphemy only blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And what, then, is this ‘blasphemy’? I think for us the way this word is often thrown around these days does something to dull its meaning. Don’t we hear, for example, a fierce and empassioned partisan of some musician or actor pronounce it (albeit jokingly) “blasphemy” to criticize their work? Or, more to the point, will we not hear that insufferable race of political commentators assert that in certain circles it is ‘practically blasphemy’ to express support for the health care bill, or, on the other side, ‘practically blasphemy’ to have qualms about supporting it? Now what does blasphemy appear to be if we are led by the way it is used in our popular culture and our everyday language? It seems to have something to do with holding opinions, doesn’t it? It seems as though blasphemy is merely a stronger word for an opinion of yours that is contrary to someone else’s strongly held conviction.
Is that at all that blasphemy means here in the Bible? If that’s what we mean by blasphemy, how can there be blasphemy against someone? That is what Jesus says here, blasphemy against the Spirit. Can I hold an opinion against you? You might disagree with an opinion of mine, but ask yourself how I could be said to hold it against you. But in the Bible, in this verse, blasphemy is something we commit against someone. And it is really a term about respect, about honoring what is worthy of honor. The Greek word blasphemia has a variety of senses, but one of them is slander—something you can commit against someone. This especially applies to the slander of someone of high standing, of great eminence or dignity. And so, since there is no personage on earth or in heaven whose worth and authority and eminence can be equaled or even compared with God’s, the term came more strictly to mean slander against God.
Blasphemy, then, against the Spirit is an affront to the Spirit’s dignity, a disregard for the honor that is due him, a flagrant disrespect of his person. It is to treat him disparagingly, to insult him, to place him in contempt. But of what comfort is this definition to us poor sinners? When there is not one of our sins which does not in some respect insult God or misrepresent him, how can it be that but one sin is blasphemy against the Spirit, who himself is also God? But Jesus goes on a little more, as we heard, so as to be clear on exactly what he means: “Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age, or in the age to come.”
Hold on to that contrast between the Son of Man and the Holy Spirit, we’ll come to that. But to speak a word against someone, what does that mean? It does not strike me as a phrase we use particularly often. “At the meeting she spoke against the ballot measure.” This is how we usually employ the phrase, am I right, in political contexts, in matters of debate. But what about speaking against a person? “Last week in Bible study, Pastor spoke against John Spong.” This is closer to the Biblical usage, but I’m still talking about positions, opinions, sides, am I not? This is the problem we had earlier with the word blasphemy: the way we usually use the word is not quite the same as the way the Bible uses it. It is very close, and I don’t want to give you the impression that you need some secret knowledge to understand your Bible: 99 times out of 100 you can read your Bible carefully in English and understand what it is saying. But there is that one percent—and in a verse like this it is terribly important that we know what Jesus means and what he doesn’t mean.
In Greek, to speak against someone is much more personal that it usually is in English—it is a phrase you use when you take someone to court, or if you are otherwise feuding or in controversy with them, and it comes out in words. It is not something mainly about their opinions, but their person. This is not the sense in which a congressman speaks against a legislative measure; there is animosity in speaking against someone. It is not their opinion, but their person, and it is not about them, but to them that you say these things. That is the sense the Greek language has of speaking against someone, a sense of accusing them, of a verbal attack on their person, of invective, of this direct form of insult and disrespect. And it is this phrase that Jesus uses to characterize that fearful and terrible thing for which we will not be forgiven.
So what then is this blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? How is it that we could speak against the Holy Spirit in this personal and aggressive way? So we have a definition of this sin, of speaking against the Holy Spirit, but the definition is not much less vague than what we started with: “pastor, all you’ve done is to give us more room to imagine and fear.” If you want an evidence of the devil’s subtlest tricks, how he uses our weaknesses against us, how he uses our strengths against us, look to your imagination. Here is a hard teaching from the Lord, but as we contemplate it, as we take time carefully to think upon it, up come thoughts and images that suggest our condemnation, up come the wildest fantasies of how me may have sinned this unforgiveable sin. And this is rightly terrifying. It is rightly terrifying to consider the prospect of an eternal separation from God, in whom is all light and all life and all love, to consider the pain of an eternal punishment for this one temporal transgression. And so we who do yearn—and if you are here this morning there is at least some part of you that yearns—for the face of God, who strive to be called blest because we hunger and thirst for righteousness, we who want to walk as children of the light, we are rightly and justly solicitous to learn what is this sin which in an instant would destroy all those desires sought to gain.
Do not let that easily tempted imagination get the better of you, do not let Satan have his way with your anxiety. There is good news in this commandment, remember, for every transgression under heaven but one. There is forgiveness for all those tangible sins in your life, forgiveness from God and forgiveness for one another. But there is good news for us also in the hardness of the commandment: listen and see if you can hear it. Listen with the ear of your heart for the whispers that the Spirit is sending you, for that Spirit we are here so fretfully and piously endeavoring to never offend is the very same Spirit that blows where it listeth, the Spirit that searches our hearts and carries up to heaven our most intimate and unutterable sighs. It knows us better than we know ourselves, and we feel its power and comfort in us in those moments when we do not feel so dried of our baptismal waters, when in the bread and the juice we feel our Lord most nearly present, when the Word pierces our soul like an arrow. Who of us in such a moment of rapturous power would even think to speak against the very Spirit that endued that memory or that morsel or that message with such power? When in the flesh and sinews of our worship, in the hymns and the prayers, the sermon and the sacraments, we can feel an inexpressible vivacity, there is the Holy Spirit of God—and having met him, we do not condemn him or insult him or dishonor him; I do not know that we are capable of summoning any other feeling than love and wonder. Or in the sinews of our lives, which seem so often weak or straining, when the Spirit of the living God breaks through our mornings or our evenings, our commute or our last thoughts before we sleep, and suddenly Jesus is there and saying “peace be with you”—when that unexpected joy is in you you will not be moved to do the Spirit wrong, to attack him with your words, to speak against him. And yet this is what it would be to speak against the Holy Spirit, for he is not constrained to be ever before us, to always be visible to us, but the Spirit blows where he listeth, and when he does so choose to present himself to us his goodness is overpowering and his joy is irresistible.
But, sisters and brothers, does not the Psalmist cry “take not thy Holy Spirit from me?” Do we not most of us consider ourselves immeasurably blest at all to feel those motions of the Spirit? Those sinews of worship in which the Spirit moves can just as often seem the sinews of a corpse, and the movements of a hymn as lifeless. And those sinews of our daily lives, are they not all too often the most lifeless labors of all? And when in all those things we feel a sickness with our life that passes hour by hour so often without meaning or accomplishment, then are we tempted and do often succumb to a kind of blasphemy, to a kind of accusation against God. But we do not speak against the Holy Spirit there but against the Son of Man; no light matter, yet one for which the merciful Father of our Lord has nevertheless an inexhaustible treasury of forgiveness. For remember how Jesus appeared to the world in his earthly ministry, in every one of his born days even up to those hours of his passion, even up to the hour of his burial. When Joseph of Arimathea had his men roll down the stone into place to seal the tomb, they were burying a man like any other, indeed they were burying the man of whom Isaiah had said in him “there is no beauty that we should desire him.” This was the Lord of all, but who saw it? This eternal Son of the everliving Father in heaven, who saw him? He was a mere son of man, a human being like us all, and when we behold this everyday man with our everyday eyes it is all too easy to forget what we saw in him when the Spirit was shining from him and upon him. And when we see this God at work in what seems like tedium to us, we imagine him to be a tedious God; when we accept his providence over the details, we tend to take issue with how he handles them; when we do not get from every turn a new and blinding revelation, then we accuse him and we speak against this Son of Man, this God who is everyday. In him there is no beauty that we should desire him, but he too is God; he too is worthy of all honor and yet we subject him to all blasphemy—though such blasphemy, alleluia, as God has promised to forgive. Yet to blaspheme this humble Son of Man in those very moments when the Spirit so shines forth from him that in this Son of Man we see the Son of God?—I cannot imagine it. And yet because I cannot imagine it I can grasp its ultimate seriousness; because we cannot comprehend this sin, we may understand why such an enormity could not be pardoned.
Did these Pharisees who prompted Jesus’ words blaspheme against the Spirit? They had not actually seen the miracle that Jesus did, they were not there when the demon was cast out, when the strong man was bound by someone stronger—Matthew says they had heard about it. And isn’t that where we so often are. In all my life as a Christian I have never seen the Spirit go forth in power to heal someone physically, but I have heard of such things. And I confess that I have often responded with the skepticism or even the hostility of the Pharisees and not the love and trust that I owe my Christian brother. But when I am mindful of when I have known the Spirit’s power, if less dramatically than that, I am less liable to speak against the Son of Man, and to remember that behind his everyday appearance is a glory that is brilliantly new every morning. But to see the Spirit accomplish its great act—ask someone who has seen it, and they will not tell you that they doubted in that moment. So it seems to me here, in this story, that the Pharisees blasphemed the Son of Man, but did not blaspheme the Holy Spirit.
Yet I do not think Jesus would have uttered these words if he did not think that there were those who have spoken against his Holy Spirit—and he knows the hearts of us all. But hear this word of comfort: if you have ever felt the Spirit move in you as power and love and joy there is neither force nor compulsion strong enough to change that disposition of your heart to one of blasphemy. If you strive at all for the kingdom, if there is any desire in your heart to be conformed to the image of Christ, and to imitate his life, then know that you have not been put beyond hope by committing this blasphemy. God does not abandon those whom he has drawn to himself. Remember what a treasury of forgiveness these verses promise us for all our offenses, and know that whosoever earnestly seeks forgiveness in his other sins, will not ever be the one to make himself in this sin unforgiveable. Amen.
The Text: Matthew 12:22-32
“Therefore I tell you, people will be forgiven for every sin and blasphemy, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age, or in the age to come.” I know any of you who were paying attention when the gospel was read will have had some sort of reaction to these verses. You might have started a bit at the words “will not be forgiven,” and at the words “blasphemy against the Spirit” you were probably a little puzzled as to what exactly Jesus meant. This combination of a vague crime and a strict punishment certainly gives the imagination a lot of room; and where we are so free to imagine the crime we are also all the more dangerously liable to suppose that we ourselves are guilty of its commission and so worthy of its punishment. Terrible fear and doubt has been engendered by these verses in the Christian hearts of all ages, such terrible fear that I might even wish the authors of sacred scripture, when they sat down to record the sayings of Jesus, had left this one out. For they certainly did not record everything he did: these authors were selective in what they preserved, and preserved what they selected to help us grow in faith and understanding, and yet Matthew, along with Mark and Luke, thought it important to include in his gospel this troubling saying, this harshest verdict of the law of God.
Listen to these verses again, listen carefully: “People will be forgiven every sin and blasphemy, but blasphemy against Spirit will not be forgiven.” I want first to note one thing: there is incredible hope in this passage. Perhaps it does not seem so at first glance. But how great an occasion for faith and trust in Jesus Christ, how powerful and comforting a testimony it is to the grace and mercy of our God that Jesus here singles out only one from the many thousands of sins we could envision for an irrevocable and inescapable condemnation. If you have murdered, Jesus is saying, if you have stolen, there is forgiveness for you. If you have hurt those you love out of jealousy or greed, there is forgiveness for you. If you have allowed a father or a sister or a friend to slip into the clutches of death while enmity still reigned between you, there is forgiveness for that as well, from God your heavenly Father already in this age, and, if we may hope in Christ, from that loved one themselves in the age to come. Remember always the abundance of this forgiveness.
So from this Teacher of mercy we hear that of all sin and blasphemy only blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And what, then, is this ‘blasphemy’? I think for us the way this word is often thrown around these days does something to dull its meaning. Don’t we hear, for example, a fierce and empassioned partisan of some musician or actor pronounce it (albeit jokingly) “blasphemy” to criticize their work? Or, more to the point, will we not hear that insufferable race of political commentators assert that in certain circles it is ‘practically blasphemy’ to express support for the health care bill, or, on the other side, ‘practically blasphemy’ to have qualms about supporting it? Now what does blasphemy appear to be if we are led by the way it is used in our popular culture and our everyday language? It seems to have something to do with holding opinions, doesn’t it? It seems as though blasphemy is merely a stronger word for an opinion of yours that is contrary to someone else’s strongly held conviction.
Is that at all that blasphemy means here in the Bible? If that’s what we mean by blasphemy, how can there be blasphemy against someone? That is what Jesus says here, blasphemy against the Spirit. Can I hold an opinion against you? You might disagree with an opinion of mine, but ask yourself how I could be said to hold it against you. But in the Bible, in this verse, blasphemy is something we commit against someone. And it is really a term about respect, about honoring what is worthy of honor. The Greek word blasphemia has a variety of senses, but one of them is slander—something you can commit against someone. This especially applies to the slander of someone of high standing, of great eminence or dignity. And so, since there is no personage on earth or in heaven whose worth and authority and eminence can be equaled or even compared with God’s, the term came more strictly to mean slander against God.
Blasphemy, then, against the Spirit is an affront to the Spirit’s dignity, a disregard for the honor that is due him, a flagrant disrespect of his person. It is to treat him disparagingly, to insult him, to place him in contempt. But of what comfort is this definition to us poor sinners? When there is not one of our sins which does not in some respect insult God or misrepresent him, how can it be that but one sin is blasphemy against the Spirit, who himself is also God? But Jesus goes on a little more, as we heard, so as to be clear on exactly what he means: “Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age, or in the age to come.”
Hold on to that contrast between the Son of Man and the Holy Spirit, we’ll come to that. But to speak a word against someone, what does that mean? It does not strike me as a phrase we use particularly often. “At the meeting she spoke against the ballot measure.” This is how we usually employ the phrase, am I right, in political contexts, in matters of debate. But what about speaking against a person? “Last week in Bible study, Pastor spoke against John Spong.” This is closer to the Biblical usage, but I’m still talking about positions, opinions, sides, am I not? This is the problem we had earlier with the word blasphemy: the way we usually use the word is not quite the same as the way the Bible uses it. It is very close, and I don’t want to give you the impression that you need some secret knowledge to understand your Bible: 99 times out of 100 you can read your Bible carefully in English and understand what it is saying. But there is that one percent—and in a verse like this it is terribly important that we know what Jesus means and what he doesn’t mean.
In Greek, to speak against someone is much more personal that it usually is in English—it is a phrase you use when you take someone to court, or if you are otherwise feuding or in controversy with them, and it comes out in words. It is not something mainly about their opinions, but their person. This is not the sense in which a congressman speaks against a legislative measure; there is animosity in speaking against someone. It is not their opinion, but their person, and it is not about them, but to them that you say these things. That is the sense the Greek language has of speaking against someone, a sense of accusing them, of a verbal attack on their person, of invective, of this direct form of insult and disrespect. And it is this phrase that Jesus uses to characterize that fearful and terrible thing for which we will not be forgiven.
So what then is this blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? How is it that we could speak against the Holy Spirit in this personal and aggressive way? So we have a definition of this sin, of speaking against the Holy Spirit, but the definition is not much less vague than what we started with: “pastor, all you’ve done is to give us more room to imagine and fear.” If you want an evidence of the devil’s subtlest tricks, how he uses our weaknesses against us, how he uses our strengths against us, look to your imagination. Here is a hard teaching from the Lord, but as we contemplate it, as we take time carefully to think upon it, up come thoughts and images that suggest our condemnation, up come the wildest fantasies of how me may have sinned this unforgiveable sin. And this is rightly terrifying. It is rightly terrifying to consider the prospect of an eternal separation from God, in whom is all light and all life and all love, to consider the pain of an eternal punishment for this one temporal transgression. And so we who do yearn—and if you are here this morning there is at least some part of you that yearns—for the face of God, who strive to be called blest because we hunger and thirst for righteousness, we who want to walk as children of the light, we are rightly and justly solicitous to learn what is this sin which in an instant would destroy all those desires sought to gain.
Do not let that easily tempted imagination get the better of you, do not let Satan have his way with your anxiety. There is good news in this commandment, remember, for every transgression under heaven but one. There is forgiveness for all those tangible sins in your life, forgiveness from God and forgiveness for one another. But there is good news for us also in the hardness of the commandment: listen and see if you can hear it. Listen with the ear of your heart for the whispers that the Spirit is sending you, for that Spirit we are here so fretfully and piously endeavoring to never offend is the very same Spirit that blows where it listeth, the Spirit that searches our hearts and carries up to heaven our most intimate and unutterable sighs. It knows us better than we know ourselves, and we feel its power and comfort in us in those moments when we do not feel so dried of our baptismal waters, when in the bread and the juice we feel our Lord most nearly present, when the Word pierces our soul like an arrow. Who of us in such a moment of rapturous power would even think to speak against the very Spirit that endued that memory or that morsel or that message with such power? When in the flesh and sinews of our worship, in the hymns and the prayers, the sermon and the sacraments, we can feel an inexpressible vivacity, there is the Holy Spirit of God—and having met him, we do not condemn him or insult him or dishonor him; I do not know that we are capable of summoning any other feeling than love and wonder. Or in the sinews of our lives, which seem so often weak or straining, when the Spirit of the living God breaks through our mornings or our evenings, our commute or our last thoughts before we sleep, and suddenly Jesus is there and saying “peace be with you”—when that unexpected joy is in you you will not be moved to do the Spirit wrong, to attack him with your words, to speak against him. And yet this is what it would be to speak against the Holy Spirit, for he is not constrained to be ever before us, to always be visible to us, but the Spirit blows where he listeth, and when he does so choose to present himself to us his goodness is overpowering and his joy is irresistible.
But, sisters and brothers, does not the Psalmist cry “take not thy Holy Spirit from me?” Do we not most of us consider ourselves immeasurably blest at all to feel those motions of the Spirit? Those sinews of worship in which the Spirit moves can just as often seem the sinews of a corpse, and the movements of a hymn as lifeless. And those sinews of our daily lives, are they not all too often the most lifeless labors of all? And when in all those things we feel a sickness with our life that passes hour by hour so often without meaning or accomplishment, then are we tempted and do often succumb to a kind of blasphemy, to a kind of accusation against God. But we do not speak against the Holy Spirit there but against the Son of Man; no light matter, yet one for which the merciful Father of our Lord has nevertheless an inexhaustible treasury of forgiveness. For remember how Jesus appeared to the world in his earthly ministry, in every one of his born days even up to those hours of his passion, even up to the hour of his burial. When Joseph of Arimathea had his men roll down the stone into place to seal the tomb, they were burying a man like any other, indeed they were burying the man of whom Isaiah had said in him “there is no beauty that we should desire him.” This was the Lord of all, but who saw it? This eternal Son of the everliving Father in heaven, who saw him? He was a mere son of man, a human being like us all, and when we behold this everyday man with our everyday eyes it is all too easy to forget what we saw in him when the Spirit was shining from him and upon him. And when we see this God at work in what seems like tedium to us, we imagine him to be a tedious God; when we accept his providence over the details, we tend to take issue with how he handles them; when we do not get from every turn a new and blinding revelation, then we accuse him and we speak against this Son of Man, this God who is everyday. In him there is no beauty that we should desire him, but he too is God; he too is worthy of all honor and yet we subject him to all blasphemy—though such blasphemy, alleluia, as God has promised to forgive. Yet to blaspheme this humble Son of Man in those very moments when the Spirit so shines forth from him that in this Son of Man we see the Son of God?—I cannot imagine it. And yet because I cannot imagine it I can grasp its ultimate seriousness; because we cannot comprehend this sin, we may understand why such an enormity could not be pardoned.
Did these Pharisees who prompted Jesus’ words blaspheme against the Spirit? They had not actually seen the miracle that Jesus did, they were not there when the demon was cast out, when the strong man was bound by someone stronger—Matthew says they had heard about it. And isn’t that where we so often are. In all my life as a Christian I have never seen the Spirit go forth in power to heal someone physically, but I have heard of such things. And I confess that I have often responded with the skepticism or even the hostility of the Pharisees and not the love and trust that I owe my Christian brother. But when I am mindful of when I have known the Spirit’s power, if less dramatically than that, I am less liable to speak against the Son of Man, and to remember that behind his everyday appearance is a glory that is brilliantly new every morning. But to see the Spirit accomplish its great act—ask someone who has seen it, and they will not tell you that they doubted in that moment. So it seems to me here, in this story, that the Pharisees blasphemed the Son of Man, but did not blaspheme the Holy Spirit.
Yet I do not think Jesus would have uttered these words if he did not think that there were those who have spoken against his Holy Spirit—and he knows the hearts of us all. But hear this word of comfort: if you have ever felt the Spirit move in you as power and love and joy there is neither force nor compulsion strong enough to change that disposition of your heart to one of blasphemy. If you strive at all for the kingdom, if there is any desire in your heart to be conformed to the image of Christ, and to imitate his life, then know that you have not been put beyond hope by committing this blasphemy. God does not abandon those whom he has drawn to himself. Remember what a treasury of forgiveness these verses promise us for all our offenses, and know that whosoever earnestly seeks forgiveness in his other sins, will not ever be the one to make himself in this sin unforgiveable. Amen.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
The Night in Which He Was Betrayed
It is partly by my lot and station and partly by the season and week we now are in that I today came across not one, but two different speculative reconstructions of the trial and execution of our Lord. The first, E.P. Sanders' conviction that Jesus was condemned by the Jewish authorities not for the blasphemy of claiming to be the Son of God or to hold other messianic titles, but for his turning over the money-changers' tables in the temple, I encountered while poking around in his book Jewish Law from Jesus to the Mishnah; he apparently discusses it more in-depth in some of his other works. The argument is not terribly far-fetched (Sanders appeals to the difference in Jewish law between blasphemy and false prophecy, and the sense of these messianic titles in pre-Christian usage) but it does come down to suspicion of the gospels on a point where they do not greatly disagree. Suspicion may well be warranted for the historian on a point where the gospels narrate events in markedly different ways, but this is not such a point.
The second account, and by far the more fanciful one, I encountered in a brief essay by Gary Greenberg, arguing that the tradition of Judas' betrayal of Jesus does not correspond to the historical reality. I will not rehearse his argument, since the essay is easily accessible by the link above, but only point out the sort of evidence he is using.
1. An argument from silence in Paul.
2. An argument from "Q Material" which assumes first, that Q exists, of course, second, that in this particular passage Matthew represents the older tradition (the fidelity of Matthew's version to the Q original is argued on the basis of Luke's attempting to re-interpret the Judas tradition, that is to say, Greenberg has very bumblingly begged the question here), and, finally, that the passage in question is to be read in a crudely literal sense and not symbolically.
3. An argument from a non-canonical gospel which Greenberg has given an incredibly early date (pre-Mark!), acknowledging 'controversy' but providing to evidence, save a citation of that universally esteemed scholar, John Crossan.
4. An argument from the semantics of paradidomi.
This claim merits further attention. Paradidomi is the verb your New Testament will translate 'betray' in the passion contexts, but Greenberg claims that it in fact never means 'betray,' but only the more neutral 'hand over' appealing to the work of William Klassen, Judas: Betrayer or Friend of Jesus, which is available on Google Books. It is first of all unclear to me how much different the meanings of 'hand over' and 'betray' would be in the situation as the gospels describe it (for Greenberg's putative reconstruction of history it does make some difference); what we have here is purely the combat of psychologizations. Second, I have it on the authority of a New Testament scholar that many New Testament scholars are unfortunately often not as careful as they should be when appealing to evidence in Classical Greek, especially that the Liddell-Scott-Jones Lexicon, certainly the authoritative record of the Greek language, is not always treated as critically as it ought to be in matters of classical usage. Klassen's argument is a case in point, as he addresses the three citations given in LSJ and a couple uses in papyri; this is not a thorough word study, and there is no excuse not to do a thorough word study in a language as well-attested as Classical Greek if you wish to contest a generally-held meaning.
There are more important problems with Klassen's criticism of LSJ. First of all, he has misunderstood what the lexicon is actually saying about paradidomi. Klassen claims that LSJ gives the meaning "to give a city or a person into another's hands, esp. as a hostage or an enemy with the collational notion of 'treachery, betray.'" (Klassen 47) What LSJ says is "to give a city or a person into another's hands...esp. as a hostage or to an enemy, deliver up, surrender...with collat. notion of treachery, betray..." (LSJ 1308) The words in italics indicate English words with which LSJ suggests you translate paradidomi, and the ellipses indicate examples cited from Greek literature for the given sense. It is unclear why Klassen chose to paraphrase the Lexicon entry instead of quoting it, but his paraphrase gives the impression that LSJ considers this second sense always to have the "collational notion of 'treachery, betray.'" There are a few problems with this. First, when reading an entry in a lexicon, the first meaning given is the general one, and subsequent meanings, separated by semicola, are shades of that general meaning. So when LSJ states "with collat. notion of treachery, betray," it is not stating that paradidomi in this sense always may be translated as 'betray,' but that, when it carries this "collat. notion of treachery" a proper English translation may be 'betray' instead of something more neutral. Second, there is the matter of what "collat." stands for. Klassen takes it as standing for 'collational,' as we have seen, "of or pertaining to collation," according the OED, which appears, from the citations given there, to be a word closely confined to how one presents text-critical information on the printed page; there is no hint of the lexicographical sense Klassen appears to see. On the other hand, the LSJ itself tells us that "collat.= collateral" (LSJ xliii), presumably in the sense (OED 2a) "accompanying, attendant, concomitant." (It is not my intent merely to make Klassen look like a fool; we all make mistakes. A mistake such as this, however, does seem to indicate some careless scholarship) Thus the LSJ is saying that when paradidomi, normally translated "give into another's hands," has a collateral or accompanying notion of treachery, it may be translated "betray" in order to bring out this collateral sense or overtone. A scholar familiar with the tool would not be confused here.
Second of all, he claims that all three of the citations in LSJ make no sense if we translate paradidomi as 'betray.' I confess I have not looked closely at the context of the three passages cited by the Lexicon, but the first two seem to clearly have overtones of treachery or betrayal: guards being intimidated and persuaded to hand over their fortresses (Cyropaedia 5.4.51), Antiope handing over the fortified area to Hercules because of her love for Theseus (Pausanias 1.2.1). On the third (Cyropaedia 5.1.28), I do agree with Klassen that it does not quite seem to fit, at least to my brief glance ("handing over weapons"). People may disagree on these nuances, I suppose. Klassen, however, does nothing to persuade us to trust his sense of the Greek over that of Liddell et al. when he cites the Loeb translations of the passages in question to corroborate his position (Klassen 47, notes on 59). It is an argument of absolutely no weight in questions of semantic nuance to appeal to a translation, which will necessarily pick up on some nuances and not others; translations are useful as illustrations, not as evidence. Even if Klassen's is a popular book (I am not sure of its intended audience) such an argument is unacceptable. It really does give the impression that the author merely flipped open his Loeb and looked over to the facing-page English instead of thinking through the Greek, but that certainly could not be the case.
Third, Klassen's general attitude is accusatory and there seems no reason for this. "Any lexicon," he says, "that suggests otherwise [than that paradidomi can never mean "betray"] is guilty of theologizing" (remember all this bears on the character of Judas) "than assisting us to find the meaning of Greek words through usage." (Klassen 48). I would wager it is this aggression that has prevented Klassen from treating the evidence with the proper care. Such a situation is ironic, since the evidence from LSJ, properly understood, does help his case a bit. LSJ commits only to paradidomi having overtones of betrayal or treachery, not to those concepts being central or important to it. Perhaps even the acknowledgment of an overtone is enough to render them part of the vast anti-Judas conspiracy.
As to all these speculations about 'what actually happened' in those last days that our Lord bore for us the old Adam, I find them tiresome, and threatening only insofar as they have shone great power to seduce my weaker brethren from firm faith in the God of Abraham. There are not many other fields where facts verified by many early sources would be interrogated so antagonistically. Some scholars practice such interrogation responsibly, and I only wish they would exercise themselves in soil more suited for the gospel seed, while others seem eager to propose the most fanciful reevaluations of the events. Surely such fascinations confess the power of Jesus' name. He indeed draws all people to himself, but some upon approaching the light have chosen to close their eyes and employ the imaginations, whether for fear of the heat or to feed their fantasizing vanity, I do not know. It is that light which shines from the God who is a consuming fire and not the light which he created that I will more trust to guide my footsteps. Those who testify to the former light are evangelists, those who point to the latter are historians, speculative and sound alike. To evoke the Philosopher: history I love, but I love the Church more.
The second account, and by far the more fanciful one, I encountered in a brief essay by Gary Greenberg, arguing that the tradition of Judas' betrayal of Jesus does not correspond to the historical reality. I will not rehearse his argument, since the essay is easily accessible by the link above, but only point out the sort of evidence he is using.
1. An argument from silence in Paul.
2. An argument from "Q Material" which assumes first, that Q exists, of course, second, that in this particular passage Matthew represents the older tradition (the fidelity of Matthew's version to the Q original is argued on the basis of Luke's attempting to re-interpret the Judas tradition, that is to say, Greenberg has very bumblingly begged the question here), and, finally, that the passage in question is to be read in a crudely literal sense and not symbolically.
3. An argument from a non-canonical gospel which Greenberg has given an incredibly early date (pre-Mark!), acknowledging 'controversy' but providing to evidence, save a citation of that universally esteemed scholar, John Crossan.
4. An argument from the semantics of paradidomi.
This claim merits further attention. Paradidomi is the verb your New Testament will translate 'betray' in the passion contexts, but Greenberg claims that it in fact never means 'betray,' but only the more neutral 'hand over' appealing to the work of William Klassen, Judas: Betrayer or Friend of Jesus, which is available on Google Books. It is first of all unclear to me how much different the meanings of 'hand over' and 'betray' would be in the situation as the gospels describe it (for Greenberg's putative reconstruction of history it does make some difference); what we have here is purely the combat of psychologizations. Second, I have it on the authority of a New Testament scholar that many New Testament scholars are unfortunately often not as careful as they should be when appealing to evidence in Classical Greek, especially that the Liddell-Scott-Jones Lexicon, certainly the authoritative record of the Greek language, is not always treated as critically as it ought to be in matters of classical usage. Klassen's argument is a case in point, as he addresses the three citations given in LSJ and a couple uses in papyri; this is not a thorough word study, and there is no excuse not to do a thorough word study in a language as well-attested as Classical Greek if you wish to contest a generally-held meaning.
There are more important problems with Klassen's criticism of LSJ. First of all, he has misunderstood what the lexicon is actually saying about paradidomi. Klassen claims that LSJ gives the meaning "to give a city or a person into another's hands, esp. as a hostage or an enemy with the collational notion of 'treachery, betray.'" (Klassen 47) What LSJ says is "to give a city or a person into another's hands...esp. as a hostage or to an enemy, deliver up, surrender...with collat. notion of treachery, betray..." (LSJ 1308) The words in italics indicate English words with which LSJ suggests you translate paradidomi, and the ellipses indicate examples cited from Greek literature for the given sense. It is unclear why Klassen chose to paraphrase the Lexicon entry instead of quoting it, but his paraphrase gives the impression that LSJ considers this second sense always to have the "collational notion of 'treachery, betray.'" There are a few problems with this. First, when reading an entry in a lexicon, the first meaning given is the general one, and subsequent meanings, separated by semicola, are shades of that general meaning. So when LSJ states "with collat. notion of treachery, betray," it is not stating that paradidomi in this sense always may be translated as 'betray,' but that, when it carries this "collat. notion of treachery" a proper English translation may be 'betray' instead of something more neutral. Second, there is the matter of what "collat." stands for. Klassen takes it as standing for 'collational,' as we have seen, "of or pertaining to collation," according the OED, which appears, from the citations given there, to be a word closely confined to how one presents text-critical information on the printed page; there is no hint of the lexicographical sense Klassen appears to see. On the other hand, the LSJ itself tells us that "collat.= collateral" (LSJ xliii), presumably in the sense (OED 2a) "accompanying, attendant, concomitant." (It is not my intent merely to make Klassen look like a fool; we all make mistakes. A mistake such as this, however, does seem to indicate some careless scholarship) Thus the LSJ is saying that when paradidomi, normally translated "give into another's hands," has a collateral or accompanying notion of treachery, it may be translated "betray" in order to bring out this collateral sense or overtone. A scholar familiar with the tool would not be confused here.
Second of all, he claims that all three of the citations in LSJ make no sense if we translate paradidomi as 'betray.' I confess I have not looked closely at the context of the three passages cited by the Lexicon, but the first two seem to clearly have overtones of treachery or betrayal: guards being intimidated and persuaded to hand over their fortresses (Cyropaedia 5.4.51), Antiope handing over the fortified area to Hercules because of her love for Theseus (Pausanias 1.2.1). On the third (Cyropaedia 5.1.28), I do agree with Klassen that it does not quite seem to fit, at least to my brief glance ("handing over weapons"). People may disagree on these nuances, I suppose. Klassen, however, does nothing to persuade us to trust his sense of the Greek over that of Liddell et al. when he cites the Loeb translations of the passages in question to corroborate his position (Klassen 47, notes on 59). It is an argument of absolutely no weight in questions of semantic nuance to appeal to a translation, which will necessarily pick up on some nuances and not others; translations are useful as illustrations, not as evidence. Even if Klassen's is a popular book (I am not sure of its intended audience) such an argument is unacceptable. It really does give the impression that the author merely flipped open his Loeb and looked over to the facing-page English instead of thinking through the Greek, but that certainly could not be the case.
Third, Klassen's general attitude is accusatory and there seems no reason for this. "Any lexicon," he says, "that suggests otherwise [than that paradidomi can never mean "betray"] is guilty of theologizing" (remember all this bears on the character of Judas) "than assisting us to find the meaning of Greek words through usage." (Klassen 48). I would wager it is this aggression that has prevented Klassen from treating the evidence with the proper care. Such a situation is ironic, since the evidence from LSJ, properly understood, does help his case a bit. LSJ commits only to paradidomi having overtones of betrayal or treachery, not to those concepts being central or important to it. Perhaps even the acknowledgment of an overtone is enough to render them part of the vast anti-Judas conspiracy.
As to all these speculations about 'what actually happened' in those last days that our Lord bore for us the old Adam, I find them tiresome, and threatening only insofar as they have shone great power to seduce my weaker brethren from firm faith in the God of Abraham. There are not many other fields where facts verified by many early sources would be interrogated so antagonistically. Some scholars practice such interrogation responsibly, and I only wish they would exercise themselves in soil more suited for the gospel seed, while others seem eager to propose the most fanciful reevaluations of the events. Surely such fascinations confess the power of Jesus' name. He indeed draws all people to himself, but some upon approaching the light have chosen to close their eyes and employ the imaginations, whether for fear of the heat or to feed their fantasizing vanity, I do not know. It is that light which shines from the God who is a consuming fire and not the light which he created that I will more trust to guide my footsteps. Those who testify to the former light are evangelists, those who point to the latter are historians, speculative and sound alike. To evoke the Philosopher: history I love, but I love the Church more.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
From My Reading
It was my intention over the break to turn the energies of my reading and writing to secular matters, having been so totally occupied at seminary with Biblical and Theological exercises. The reading, for what it was, proved pleasurable, but the writing bore nothing full-formed for all its travail. I present you, therefore, gentle reader, some quotations from my holiday studies, with occasional commentary.
"The serf belongs to the land and turns over to the owner of the land the fruits thereof. The free labourer, on the other hand, sells himself and, indeed, sells himself piecemeal. He sells at auction eight, ten, twelve, fifteen hours of his life, day after day, to the highest bidder, to the owner of the raw materials, instruments of labour and means of subsistence, that is, to the capitalist. The worker belongs neither to an owner nor to the land, but eight, ten, twelve, fifteen hours of his daily life belong to him who buys them. The worker leaves the capitalist to whom he hires himself whenever he likes, and the capitalist discharges him whenever he thinks fit, as soon as he no longer gets any profit out of him, or not the anticipated profit. But the worker, whose sole source of livelihood is the sale of his labour power, cannot leave the whole class of purchases, that is, the capitalist class, without renouncing his existence. He belongs not to this or that capitalist but to the capitalist class, and, moreover, it is his business to dispose of himself, that is, to find a purchaser within this capitalist class."
-Karl Marx, "Wage Labour and Capital"
Notice how Marx accurately describes the worker's refusing to participate in capitalist production as renouncing his existence--"Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it." (Mark 8:34-35)
---
Are the growth of productive capital and the rise of wages really so inseparably connected as the bourgeois economists maintain? We must not take their word for it. We must not even believe them when they say that the fatter capital is, the better will its slave be fed. The bourgeoisie is too enlightened, it calculates too well, to share the prejudices of the feudal lord who makes a display by the brilliance of his retinue. The the bourgeoisie's conditions of existence compel it to calculate.
-Ibid.
---
I would express the whole industry [the historical criticism of Beowulf] in yet another allegory. A man inherited a field in which was an accumulation of old stone, part of an older hall. Of the old stone some had already been used in building the house in which he actually lived, not far from the old house of his fathers. Of the rest he took some and built a tower. But his friends coming perceived at once (without troubling to climb the steps) that these stones had formerly belonged to a more ancient building. So they pushed the tower over, with no little labour, in order to look for hidden carvings and inscriptions, or to discover whence the man’s distant forefathers had obtained their building material. Some suspecting a deposit of coal beneath the soil began to dig for it, and forgot even the stones. They all said: ‘This tower is most interesting.’ But they also said (after pushing it over): ‘What a muddle it is in.’ And even the man’s own descendants, who might have been expected to consider what he had been about, were heard to murmur: ‘He is such an odd fellow! Imagine his using these old stones just to build a nonsensical tower! Why did not he restore the old house? He had no sense of proportion.’ But from the top of that tower the man had been able to look out upon the sea.
-J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Monsters and the Critics"
What Tolkien says here is certainly applicable to all instances of historical criticism, that of scripture not least.
---
And you, do you seek great things for yourself? Do not seek them; for I am going to bring disaster upon all flesh, says the LORD; but I will give you your life as a prize of war in every place to which you may go.
-Jeremiah 45:5
It strikes me that this verse contains in many ways the heart of the gospel.
---
Being in company with a gentleman who thought fit to maintain Dr. Berkeley’s ingenious philosophy that nothing exists but as perceived by some mind; when the gentleman was going away, Johnson said to him, “Pray, Sir, don’t leave us; for we may perhaps forget to think of you, and then you will cease to exist.”
-From the Langton Johnsoniana in Boswell's Life of Johnson
A sentiment with which our next author would certainly agree.
---
“At that word we both thought of him.” Let us assume that each of us said the same words to himself—and how can it mean MORE than that?—But wouldn’t even those words be only a germ? They must surely belong to a language and to a context, in order really to be the expression of the thought of the man.
If God had looked into our minds he would not have been able to see there whom we were speaking of.
-Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations II.xi
Wittgenstein's plainness is as often an obstruction to his clarity as it is an aid. But it is the peppering of his philosophy with oracular utterances such as this that allows him to be read with pleasure.
---
'Tis not a freedom, that where all command;
Nor tyranny, where one does them withstand:
But who of both the bounders knows to lay,
Him as their father must the state obey.
-Andrew Marvell, "The First Anniversary of the Government under his Highness the Lord Protector"
The second couplet has not the ease of the first, and may be paraphrased thus: "But the state must obey as a father the man who knows to put limits on both the one and the many."
---
If America ever approached (for however brief a time) that lofty pinnacle of glory to which the proud imagination of its inhabitants is wont to point, it was at this solemn moment[the framing of the Constitution], when the national power abdicated, as it were, its authority. All ages have furnished the spectacle of a people struggling with energy to win its independence, and the efforts of the Americans in throwing off the English yoke have been considerably exaggerated. Separated from their enemies by three thousand miles of ocean, and backed by a powerful ally, the United States owed their victory much more to their geographical position than to the valor of their armies or the patriotism of their citizens. It would be ridiculous to compare the American war to the wars of the French Revolution, or the efforts of the Americans to those of the French when France, attacked by the whole of Europe, without money, without credit, without allies, threw forward a twentieth part of her population to meet her enemies and with one hand carried the torch of revolution beyond the frontiers, while she stifled with the other a flame that was devouring the country within. But it is new in the history of society to see a great people turn a calm and scrutinizing eye upon itself when apprised by the legislature that the wheels of its government are stopped, to see it carefully examine the extent of the evil, and patiently wait two whole years until a remedy is discovered, to which it voluntarily submitted without its costing a tear or a drop of blood from mankind.
-Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America I.I.VIII
A just appraisal. America has never seen a nobler generation than that which founded her. The outrage of lawless insurrection will always hang over them, but it is a testament to their character that a group of men which gained power so basely, and who therefore treated the guides of civil society with utmost contempt, should have governed on the highest principles of virtue.
"The serf belongs to the land and turns over to the owner of the land the fruits thereof. The free labourer, on the other hand, sells himself and, indeed, sells himself piecemeal. He sells at auction eight, ten, twelve, fifteen hours of his life, day after day, to the highest bidder, to the owner of the raw materials, instruments of labour and means of subsistence, that is, to the capitalist. The worker belongs neither to an owner nor to the land, but eight, ten, twelve, fifteen hours of his daily life belong to him who buys them. The worker leaves the capitalist to whom he hires himself whenever he likes, and the capitalist discharges him whenever he thinks fit, as soon as he no longer gets any profit out of him, or not the anticipated profit. But the worker, whose sole source of livelihood is the sale of his labour power, cannot leave the whole class of purchases, that is, the capitalist class, without renouncing his existence. He belongs not to this or that capitalist but to the capitalist class, and, moreover, it is his business to dispose of himself, that is, to find a purchaser within this capitalist class."
-Karl Marx, "Wage Labour and Capital"
Notice how Marx accurately describes the worker's refusing to participate in capitalist production as renouncing his existence--"Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it." (Mark 8:34-35)
---
Are the growth of productive capital and the rise of wages really so inseparably connected as the bourgeois economists maintain? We must not take their word for it. We must not even believe them when they say that the fatter capital is, the better will its slave be fed. The bourgeoisie is too enlightened, it calculates too well, to share the prejudices of the feudal lord who makes a display by the brilliance of his retinue. The the bourgeoisie's conditions of existence compel it to calculate.
-Ibid.
---
I would express the whole industry [the historical criticism of Beowulf] in yet another allegory. A man inherited a field in which was an accumulation of old stone, part of an older hall. Of the old stone some had already been used in building the house in which he actually lived, not far from the old house of his fathers. Of the rest he took some and built a tower. But his friends coming perceived at once (without troubling to climb the steps) that these stones had formerly belonged to a more ancient building. So they pushed the tower over, with no little labour, in order to look for hidden carvings and inscriptions, or to discover whence the man’s distant forefathers had obtained their building material. Some suspecting a deposit of coal beneath the soil began to dig for it, and forgot even the stones. They all said: ‘This tower is most interesting.’ But they also said (after pushing it over): ‘What a muddle it is in.’ And even the man’s own descendants, who might have been expected to consider what he had been about, were heard to murmur: ‘He is such an odd fellow! Imagine his using these old stones just to build a nonsensical tower! Why did not he restore the old house? He had no sense of proportion.’ But from the top of that tower the man had been able to look out upon the sea.
-J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Monsters and the Critics"
What Tolkien says here is certainly applicable to all instances of historical criticism, that of scripture not least.
---
And you, do you seek great things for yourself? Do not seek them; for I am going to bring disaster upon all flesh, says the LORD; but I will give you your life as a prize of war in every place to which you may go.
-Jeremiah 45:5
It strikes me that this verse contains in many ways the heart of the gospel.
---
Being in company with a gentleman who thought fit to maintain Dr. Berkeley’s ingenious philosophy that nothing exists but as perceived by some mind; when the gentleman was going away, Johnson said to him, “Pray, Sir, don’t leave us; for we may perhaps forget to think of you, and then you will cease to exist.”
-From the Langton Johnsoniana in Boswell's Life of Johnson
A sentiment with which our next author would certainly agree.
---
“At that word we both thought of him.” Let us assume that each of us said the same words to himself—and how can it mean MORE than that?—But wouldn’t even those words be only a germ? They must surely belong to a language and to a context, in order really to be the expression of the thought of the man.
If God had looked into our minds he would not have been able to see there whom we were speaking of.
-Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations II.xi
Wittgenstein's plainness is as often an obstruction to his clarity as it is an aid. But it is the peppering of his philosophy with oracular utterances such as this that allows him to be read with pleasure.
---
'Tis not a freedom, that where all command;
Nor tyranny, where one does them withstand:
But who of both the bounders knows to lay,
Him as their father must the state obey.
-Andrew Marvell, "The First Anniversary of the Government under his Highness the Lord Protector"
The second couplet has not the ease of the first, and may be paraphrased thus: "But the state must obey as a father the man who knows to put limits on both the one and the many."
---
If America ever approached (for however brief a time) that lofty pinnacle of glory to which the proud imagination of its inhabitants is wont to point, it was at this solemn moment[the framing of the Constitution], when the national power abdicated, as it were, its authority. All ages have furnished the spectacle of a people struggling with energy to win its independence, and the efforts of the Americans in throwing off the English yoke have been considerably exaggerated. Separated from their enemies by three thousand miles of ocean, and backed by a powerful ally, the United States owed their victory much more to their geographical position than to the valor of their armies or the patriotism of their citizens. It would be ridiculous to compare the American war to the wars of the French Revolution, or the efforts of the Americans to those of the French when France, attacked by the whole of Europe, without money, without credit, without allies, threw forward a twentieth part of her population to meet her enemies and with one hand carried the torch of revolution beyond the frontiers, while she stifled with the other a flame that was devouring the country within. But it is new in the history of society to see a great people turn a calm and scrutinizing eye upon itself when apprised by the legislature that the wheels of its government are stopped, to see it carefully examine the extent of the evil, and patiently wait two whole years until a remedy is discovered, to which it voluntarily submitted without its costing a tear or a drop of blood from mankind.
-Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America I.I.VIII
A just appraisal. America has never seen a nobler generation than that which founded her. The outrage of lawless insurrection will always hang over them, but it is a testament to their character that a group of men which gained power so basely, and who therefore treated the guides of civil society with utmost contempt, should have governed on the highest principles of virtue.
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