Koinonia

To Metaphor, or not to Metaphor? (Monday with Mounce 61)

That is the question of Galatians 3:24. I was reminded of this question this morning as I listen to my nephew preach a good sermon on Galatians 3.

Dave preaches from the NIV, so in v 24 he read, “So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith.” “Put in charge” is a colorless phrase that conveys a very basic meaning of authority, but it does convey meaning to almost any reader.

The NASB (also NKJV and ASV) has “become our tutor,” which defines a little more closely what the NIV means by “charge.” It is probably meant to reflect the KJV “schoolteacher.” The problem is that the Greek term παιδαγωγος evidently does not contain the sense of “teacher.” BDAG defines the word as, “the man, usu. a slave … whose duty it was to conduct a boy or youth … to and from school and to superintend his conduct.” They offer the gloss “one who has responsibility for someone who needs guidance, guardian, leader, guide” and specifically states that the word does not include the nuance of “teacher.”

The RSV had “custodian,” which was changed to “guardian” by the ESV (also in the NET); I am sure “custodian” sounded too much like the person cleaning the halls of a school after the children have gone home. The NLT typically splits the difference by including both, using “guardian and teacher.”

Glosses and Context (οτι) — Monday with Mounce 52

Someone asked the other day about the translation of οτι in 1 Timothy 1:12. “I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because (οτι) he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service” (ESV). He wondered about the difference between “that” (NIV) and “because” as a translation of οτι.

 

This is actually a good chance to talk about how to read BDAG, our main Greek lexicon.

BDAG gives this basic set of meanings. Be sure to read their entire entry.

1. marker of narrative or discourse content, direct or indirect, “that”

• after verbs of saying, indicatin
• after verbs that denote sense perception

2. marker of explanatory clauses, “that”

• as a substitute for the epexegetical inf.
• in ellipses

3. marker introducing direct discourse

4. marker of causality, “because, since”

The first entry talks about οτι meaning “that,” but only after verbs that express a sense of saying (e.g., he said that …,” “he yelled that”) or perception (e.g., “she heard that …”). The moral of the story is that in BDAG you always check the subheadings. Don’t just latch on to the gloss (“that”) without seeing the specific meaning of the gloss. Because there is no verb of saying, or perception in 1 Tim 1:12, this gloss does not apply in our passage, which also is not narrative.

ει μη and the Joys of Idioms (Monday with Mounce 51)

Idioms can really be a pain, can’t they? Idioms are phrases in which the individual words don’t bear their normal meaning, but together they have a special meaning. The trick is to learn which words form idioms.

 

Take for example Mark 6:8. “He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in their belts” (ει μη ραβδον μονον, μη αρτον, μη πηραν, μη εις την ζωνην χαλκον). I received a question the other day that wondered why μη ραβδον was not translated “no staff” like the rest of the terms in the list.

 

The key is the ει, which when combined with μη, forms an idiom translated “except.” So the first four words are properly translated as “except a staff.” NASB explicitly translates μονον as “except a mere staff.”

 

So how are you supposed to know that ει μη is an idiom?

ETS Paper on ESV/TNIV (Monday with Mounce 50)

This is a bit off-topic, but thought I would share about my paper at ETS on the ESV/TNIV. Basically I think it went well, and hopefully set the tone for further debate.

 

My paper was entitled, “Can the ESV and TNIV Co-Exist in the Same Universe?” (It was a response paper to Mark Strauss.) I jokingly answered, “In light of current developments, evidently not” and opened the floor for questions.

 

My real answer was, “Yes, in fact, they must co-exist” (thinking of the NIV2011). I do not believe that one size fits all. Children no longer learn to read by reading the Bible, and we live in a post-Christian culture that is attempting to expunge any hint of biblical language/metaphor.

 

When I was a full-time pastor, I preached from the ESV, but for VBS we used the TNIV. We had hundreds of unchurched kids from the neighborhood, and I had no idea of their church background and how their mom felt about “man” and “he.” After all, the goal of translation is communication, so I used the translation that helped me communicate the best in both contexts.

 

So if they must exist together, the question becomes how. My suggestion was that we all learn to “Play Fair,” and I suggested seven principles of how to play fair.

ψαλλω and Musical Instruments (Monday with Mounce 45)

Someone asked me the other day about the precise meaning of the Greek word ψαλλω and any relationships it has, if any, to the ancient debate of musical instruments in worship.

I hesitate to blog on this because I am sure there has been much discussion in the Worship Wars literature about this and I am not aware of the pitfalls lying in wait for me. (Can pitfalls "lie in wait" or am I mixing my metaphors? Oh well, you understand.) My books on worship are at school and I can't get to them. So much for disclaimers.

But the person mentioned that some lexicons support one position, and others lexicons support the other. Let's see.

Introduction to the Imperfect (Monday with Mounce 33)

As you learn Greek, you will be exposed to the whole issue of aspect. At first it is a little confusing, but after a while you will get the hang of it. But what can become frustrating is trying to be attentive to aspect, and then coming across let’s say an imperfect; you know it is continuous in aspect but you can’t see what the big deal is. This piece of knowledge doesn’t make the passage come clear, or zing, or anything else. After a while you start wondering why you are spending the time learning Greek. Does it really help?

There are several issues going on here, but before getting into them let me summarize aspect, especially for those of you who are not yet.

Are translations really based on the Greek and Hebrew? (Monday with Mounce 31)

I received an interesting question the other day from a Filipino brother. He had learned Greek and was starting to notice certain tendencies in his native translations. Here are the relevant potions of his email.

"As I try to further learn the Greek language, it inspired me to probe on the Tagalog (my countries native tongue) translation of the Bible. I discovered that we had two versions: Ang Biblia (1905) brought by the Evangelical Union Missionaries and the newer ones , Ang Magandang Balita (1970) translated by our very own Philippine Bible Society. Now both translations, as stated in their prefaces, claimed to have based their translation work from the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts but as I work my way through the translation, I began to notice that our Tagalog translation of the Bible may have based its work not on the Hebrew and Greek themselves but actually on the English Bibles (KJV and NIV)….

John 3:13—Can ei me mean "but" (Monday with Mounce 29)

Jesus has just chastised Nicodemus for not understanding, and then he adds v 13. "No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man" (ESV). This is the normal translation of ei me. The source of Jesus’ heavenly knowledge is the fact that he descended from heaven.

But notice the problem with timing. No one has ascended (past time) except the Incarnate Jesus who has descended. But how can Jesus at the beginning of his ministry say that he has (past item) ascended? Did John make a mistake?

airo in John 15:2 (Monday with Mounce 29)

I recently received this question, and I thought the answer would be helpful for those learning to determine the meaning of words.

"I was wondering if you could answer why most of (I have not read all) the different translations translate airo in John 15:2 as "take away"? I’ve only had an introduction to Greek, but it seems to me that "raise up" (or something similar) would be more contextually appropriate, especially in light of vs. 3, so I was wondering if it is translated the way it is because of some other textual reasons."

Before answering the question, please note two good parts of the question. (1) Humility. The writer sees his lack of experience as a potentially limiting factor. (2) His question is based on the context of John 15. Both are very good. Congratulations.

1 Tim 3:2—Can an elder be divorced? (Monday with Mounce 28)

This is one of those perennial questions, and it came up again the other day so I thought I would summarize the issues. For more detail, see my commentary (pages 170-173).

Paul urges Timothy to insist that an elder is above approach. What this means is laid out in the following verses, and one of the requirements is that he is "a man of one woman," or, "a husband of one wife," mias gunaikos andra. What does this mean?