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A Taiwanese friend was struggling in a bible study
where my pastor was explaining "The Word" as in "In the beginning was the Word
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." She went home and looked the
passage up in her Chinese bible and the translation for "The Word" is "Tao" and
she smiles and says, "I get it!"
But did she? :-)
Love,
Caroline
P.S. for all ya mono-culture people, linguists
often say Tao is one of the best translation for Logos. It's symbol is the
familiar yin-yang symbol.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, April 14, 2005 11:23
PM
Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] Re [Truth Talk]
Saved -- Salvation -- and the pigpen
Yes, Kevin, I'm sure it is harder to understand
some things 2000 years later. And yes, those living in non-Western cultures do
have contextual obstacles too. Do you imagine they don't? I doubt they
are worse than ours, though; in some ways, their cultures are more
similar to that in which Jesus lived. Talk with some Bible translators, or
learn a second language. You would find out a lot about how integral cultural
and historical context are to understanding verbal communication.
Being slow of thought (that's me, BTW!!),
or any number of other things may also pose natural obstacles when
reading or hearing anything. I am not saying that God can't overcome
these. Please listen to what I am saying; I'm simply saying, why would we set
aside the normal linguistic tools? Why would we handicap ourselves
deliberately in understanding this text by not using all the same tools we use
every day to understand other spoken and written texts? It's just that we have
to reach a little for the tools in this case.
And now I really am finished talking about this,
as I have said it three times and it is probably boring the heck out of
everybody on the list.
Debbie
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, April 14, 2005 11:49
PM
Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] Re [Truth
Talk] Saved -- Salvation -- and the pigpen
So according to your theory a modern christian, being unfamiliar
to the context, culture & original languages can not possibly
understand as well as a first century christian who was immersed in the
language, culture, context. Worse yet what if one were unfortunate enough to
be born in a third world culture, or even worse, one that is slow of
thought?
I had a nieghbor who was the unfortunate victim of a car accident as a
child, who recieved a brain injury. She could not read, had some problems
even "seeing" orientation such as left & right, let alone context! When
she got saved, somehow she learned to read the KJV of all versions. I'll
bet with all her handicaps and lack of context, she could not get it as
well as you learned theolog's. It is just that you wouldn't know it by
meeting her, she was the sweetest christian lady.
Debbie
Sawczak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Certainly. We all fully agree with Kevin and
Judy here, that we STILL (emphasis mine, again; please see
original post below) need the Holy
Spirit to enlighten us and enable us to receive the truth of Scripture.
The point Kevin and Judy didn't seem to
notice at all was that we do have to actually read the text, and "reading"
the text without drawing on (historical, cultural) context
is qualitatively similar to "reading" it in an unknown
language. Making use of such context is something we do all the time
in order to understand verbal communication; it's part of the
communication. Only usually we're standing right in the context and
it's pouring into our ears and eyes daily. In the case of Scripture,
we have to do some work to get at the context.
Debbie
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, April 14, 2005
10:29 PM
Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] Re [Truth
Talk] Saved -- Salvation -- and the pigpen
I'm totally stunned but I fully agree with
Kevin here. The bible can only be read with the Spirit. My pastor said
the same thing when he wrote about Karl Barth and scripture. I
posted it here sometime ago.
All I can add is, come Holy Spirit and
illumine our conversations here.
Love,
Caroline
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, April 14, 2005
3:00 PM
Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] Re
[Truth Talk] Saved -- Salvation -- and the pigpen
Knowing the Language, the customs, the greek, the hebrew and
knowing the stories & words in the scriptures without having the
Holy Ghost is like having the table of Contents only, it is seriously
lacking. One needs the Enlightenment of God's spirit to understand
"spiritual" words
Jesus said "The words I speak unto you they are SPIRIT"
This is exactly why the learned have no understanding of the
spiritual content.
They are spiritually discerned, what can a dead man
understand?
Judy Taylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
Maybe, then, Judy, we needn't even
bother to read the Bible in our own language. We could "read" it in
Inuktitut
and the Holy Spirit could just siphon
the content into our brains without ANY of the normal means
of linguistic processing.
Debbie, please tell me you are
being silly rather than serious here...
The point being (as laid
out in an earlier post) that making use of
context is something we all do every day in
understanding
anything we hear or
read. But in this case, we are so far away from the context
(Jesus' hearers weren't) that we have to make
a conscious effort to go after it.
Of course it will STILL be necessary for the Holy Spirit
to enlighten and enliven us, as it was
for Jesus' hearers back then; but why
would he expect us to deliberately short-circuit the normal
process of understanding
language? Debbie
He doesn't expect this from us
and this is why He has made His Word available to us in our
generation in the English language. However, an English speaking person can read an English
Bible and a Greek speaking person can read a Greek Bible with both
knowing all about Israel's history and local customs and
yet it will still be a closed book without the ministry of
the Holy Spirit which is not so with what we read
and what we hear every
day on TV and in the newspaper.
It's something to think
about...
Judyt
Do you use biblcial, historical and
cultural context to help understand the meaning of words?
Or do you see that as a devise of the
uninspired? JD
I don't see Jesus leaving any
admonition about history, culture, and Word Studies in
order to understand the meaning
of His Word. He sent the Holy
Spirit to give us understanding. I don't know what Kevin's
response will be but I see the above
qualifiers as an excuse to make the Word of God say what you
want it to and conform it to strange
and different doctrines rather than receive the "faith once
delivered to the saints". jt
In a message dated 4/14/2005
4:36:24 AM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
writes:
Does the "context" of your writings demand that
we REDFINE your words also?
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