Tag: Christianity

Alphabet soup (Bible study #3)

Published on by Adam Thomas2 Comments

Well, I never thought I’d say this, but Google has failed me. I just gave up on a massive search to find how many English words the translators of the New International Version (NIV) used to translate the Bible.* Although I did not meet my main objective, I did discover a few helpful things:

  • There are some really nutty people on the Interwebs writing about biblical translations (especially ones who think the King James Version–which was translated 397 years ago–is still the cutting edge in biblical scholarship and modern translations are leading us along the path to destruction).
  • It’s difficult to find reputable biblical scholarship on the Series of Tubes.
  • Some Christians are just plain mean.

So, with full knowledge that I am continuing to add my voice to the wacky/sad/puzzling/repellent world of Internet biblical scholarship, I will offer my two cents on which translation to use when studying the Bible.

Cent #1: Use them all.

Cent #2: Get an Interlinear Bible.

While the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) is the primary version I read (because my church uses it during worship), I consult multiple other translations to see how they render the Hebrew and Greek texts.**  Every translation is an interpretation because the biblical languages do not fit nicely and cozily into our grammatical system.

The ancient Hebrew language exists in another universe from modern English. Ancient Hebrew thrives on ambiguity and nuance and feeling. There are often assumed words left out. There is no standard word order. There are no vowels, for that matter. Translating ancient Hebrew is like painting a picture, not solving a math problem. So different translators will come up with different translations.

While Greek is both more exact than Hebrew and more closely related to English, translators still face challenges. Some of the writers of the New Testament nearly flunked Greek 101, so their sentence structure is often confusing. Other writers aced their Greek classes and like to show off, writing compound-complex (oh, so complex!) sentences with so many nouns, adjectives, and verbs that sorting out which goes with which is troublesome. Ironically enough, the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews has the best Greek in the New Testament.

So, with the biblical languages proving to wiggle and squirm while we try to smoosh them into English,*** and with the biases of unbiased translators sneaking into their translations, reading a range of English translations is the way to go. Use the NIV for a Protestant outlook and the New Jerusalem Bible for a Catholic one. Use the NRSV for a mainline Protestant view and the New Living Version for a conservative Protestant one. Always read the King James for its poetry–they really knew how to write English in Shakespeare’s day. There are books you can buy called “Parallel Bibles” that line up several translations next to one another. There are also several good websites that put passages in parallel for you. Check out Bible Gateway for all your conservative Protestant versions and The Unbound Bible for mainline ones.

Okay, that cent turned into about a buck fifty, but my other cent will be short. Interlinear Bibles have text in the original languages with English translations under each word. Even if you don’t know the original languages, you can use this resource to compare words. Often the same Greek word will be translated with three or four different English words. Your Interlinear will show you this. On the other hand, several Greek words will be translated into the same English word. Your Interlinear will show you this, also. I’ve had sermon ideas light up and be snuffed out when I return to the original text. It’s always enlightening and even fun to piece together your own translation using an Interlinear and several English translations.

So, there’s my take on the alphabet soup of biblical translations. Remember that studying the Bible is about encountering God through the text. When you combine several different resources, these encounters can become more fruitful and they can further deepen your relationship with God.

Footnotes

* The reason I couldn’t find how many words the NIV uses is that (when I first conceived this post) I mixed up the NIV with Today’s English Version (or Good News Bible) which limited the number or English words in the translation. Originally, this version was produced for non-native English speakers. So, Google didn’t fail me…Adam = epic phail.

** A few chapters of Daniel are written in Aramaic, but for clarity’s sake, I will more often than not refer to Hebrew and Greek as the languages of the Bible.

*** I’m pretty sure “smoosh” is a technical term.

Pick your periscope (Bible study #2)

Published on by Adam Thomas6 Comments

Biblical scholars have an especially silly sounding word they use for “passage from the Bible.” It is pericope, and if you type this into Microsoft Word, Bill Gates will try to change the word into periscope, because (apparently) the latter is much more frequently used. ‘Pericope’ may look like a three-syllable word (like periscope without the ‘s’), but it has four syllables and rhymes with calliope.* If you are at a Bible study and drop the word ‘pericope’ your companions will probably stare at you and wonder how you got your hands on the Anchor Bible Commentary.

Pericopes are important because they define the amount of text you are going to study. The word is a mash-up of two Greek words meaning “to cut around,” so when you pick a pericope you are figuring out how much text you want to swallow at one go. If you pick too little, you may be in danger of ignoring the context of the bit you pericopized.** If you pick too much, getting your head around it all may be a difficult task. (SPORTS ANALOGY ALERT) Think of it like this: American football games (and for that matter real football games) are time-constrained. The viewer knows just how long a regulation-length game will be. This makes the last few minutes exciting.*** Conversely, cricket (a sport only comprehensible if you were born in a Commonwealth country) can go on for three or four days–though I’m convinced most of that time is spent making crumpets and talking about the weather.

Okay, so how do you choose a pericope? First, I wouldn’t take more than about twenty verses. The fewer the verses, the more in-depth you can go, though I’d probably put a minimum at around four or five. If you’re Bernard of Clairvaux you can write a treatise on a single instance of a word in the Bible, but you’re not, so don’t. If the story you are reading is longer than twenty verses, focus on a particular section of the story each session until you’ve covered the whole thing. It is amazing what you can discover about God in just a few verses of the Bible; if you bite off more than you can chew, you’re likely to miss something exciting and revelatory.

Second, don’t be swayed by chapter breaks or section headings. The chapters were added in the late middle ages and the headers by the publisher of your particular edition of the Bible. Needless to say, neither is original to the text. Now, the chapters usually do a pretty good job breaking up the text, but they aren’t batting a thousand.**** For example, most scholars identify a large pericope from John 15:1 to 16:4a, so the chapter break is misleading. As for the headers, if it were up to me, I’d tell you just to go out and buy a Bible without them (like this one). While they are handy if you are looking for a passage, they often serve to sway a reader’s interpretation before she even gets to the text.

Third, look for transitional words like “immediately” or “the next day.” Mark uses the word immediately about 579 times, and it often serves to signal a new section. Actually, he uses it 41 times, but that’s still 2.5 times a chapter, which is a lot.

Fourth (and this can be a bit tricky when reading in translation) look for any literary structures the writer is employing in a particular section. For example, if the writer uses the same three words to begin three consecutive sentences, they are more than likely related. (This is call anaphora).  We’ll talk about some of these structures in later posts, but for now, if you see one in action, you’ve identified a pericope!

Honestly, though this is an important step in biblical study, choosing pericopes is usually really easy because the biblical writers are really good at what they do. And modern scholars spend way too much energy and way too many pages in their commentaries quibbling over whether this verse goes with this or that pericope. If you take one thing away from this post, remember that choosing a pericope is like eating a healthy serving size. Too little and you’ll still be hungry. Too much and you will have gorged yourself to the point of not remembering everything you ate. Choose a portion you can chew and digest. Let the passage of the Bible fill you. Let the words of the Bible nourish you. And let God encounter you every time you pick up the book for study.

Footnotes

* (1) That strange little organ-like instrument they use in the circus or (2) the Greek muse of epic poetry, who is probably a bit miffed that we now use her name to identify a strange little organ-like instrument they use in the circus.

** I just made up this word, so please don’t use it if you are writing anything a professor will see. Remember, professors think they are the only ones allowed to make up words.

*** You may be quick to point out that the last 2 minutes of American football games take a half hour to play. Good point. My mother makes the same one when she calls my father and me up for dinner and we say there’s two minutes left in the game.

**** Sorry, I forgot to warn you about that sports metaphor.

Competing for spots in my imagination

Published on by Adam ThomasLeave a comment

The day before I returned to VTS for my senior year, I went searching for something in the cupboard under the stairs. The light flickered and hiccupped, casting faint shadows on the cramped, box-strewn floor. The winter coats and old military uniforms brushed me heavily like a gas station carwash. I pulled and pushed boxes of books and elementary school projects out of the way. With a dozen or so boxes disgorged from the closet, I found what I was looking for. Three plastic tubs. Three dusty plastic tubs, each nearly two decades old. I carried them into the living room and lined them up. I slit the packing tape off the first one, opened it, and was met with piles of my childhood.

I began sifting through the legos, pulling out flat black and grey pieces and every human figurine I could lay my hands on. After several hours of collecting, lego pieces littered my living room floor like an abstract mosaic. I fitted the black and grey pieces into a grid and sorted the figurines into groups—knights and pirates, naval personnel and more knights. Another hour and my creation was finished: a lego chess set, complete with knights on horseback and kings in mail and helm.

I spent every rainy day of my childhood and some of the sunny ones building with legos. For many years, I followed the instructions meticulously: each piece went in its place, and when I was finished, I had duplicated the image on the box in three dimensions. At some unidentified point after I had hit double-digits in age, I began straying from the directions. Eventually, the sets I kept prison-like in their own boxes began to mingle. Soon, I had three plastic tubs (they were neither old nor dusty yet) piled high with anachronistic castle legos and futuristic space legos and realistic city legos, all together, all competing for spots in my imagination. I put the directions away and just began to build, to create.

Until the day before returning to seminary, I had not created anything with legos in nearly a decade. But the act of creating infused me with joy. I created videos in high school. I created music in college. And as I began to contemplate God’s movement in my life, I accepted God’s invitation to enter more fully into God’s creation.

Thinking about the call to serve God might prompt one to ask the question: why was I created? But I think this is a faulty question. To reach a better understanding of call, the question should be asked in the present tense: for what am I being created? God’s call in my life is a continuously present reality, always pushing my self-defined limits of possibility. The very act of calling assumes an act of creation, for accepting a call is simply the acknowledgment that God is already at work molding me into a better servant, a better giver, a better lover. I think this is why Paul says that whoever is in Christ is a new creation—new creations that are ever new because of constant and continual creating.

I believe that God has barely begun to create me. This thought comforts me when I realize how much I still have to learn and chastens me when I think I have everything figured out. I have perceived enough of the edge of the expanse that is the life with which God has challenged and blessed me to know that only with God’s help can I respond to God’s call. This call in me is nascent; I am still being formed, still being created. But God has known me since I was in my mother’s womb. Christ is with me until the end of the age. And the Holy Spirit moves my life, always pushing those limits of possibility. I hope that through God’s love and grace, the work God has begun in me is a good one. I hope I can respond to God with a reflection of that love and grace. I hope I continue to catch glimpses of God’s creating movement in my life.

God has invited me to participate in God’s creation. I can comprehend nothing so joyful, nothing so humbling as this. Those three old dusty plastic tubs are back in the cupboard under the stairs. The flickering light is off and the winter coats hang undisturbed. But I am still creating because God is creating me.

(This post originally appeared in the Fall 2007 issue of “The Call” newsletter of the Society for the Increase of the Ministry (SIM), a not-for-profit group that supports Episcopal Seminarians as they move from lay to ordained leadership in the Church. I thank God for this organization, and I thank SIM for generously supporting me, both in prayer and scholarships. Check out SIM’s website.)

Laugh tracking

Published on by Adam Thomas2 Comments

I’ve noticed in my sermons that I always get a laugh when I make oblique references to my age. I remember people chuckling when I’ve said: “A decade ago, when I was a sophomore in high school,” or “Back in 1993 when I was 10 years old” or “I was born during Reagan’s first term.” Now, I’ve never thought that the congregation was laughing at me; they weren’t laughing because someone half or even one-third their age was preaching to them. They laughed because they remembered themselves at 25, remembered how young or naïve or wide-eyed they were. They laughed because their thoughts of themselves in decades past were pretty darn funny. I wonder if their quarter-century selves laughed back then thinking of 25 or 50 years down the road. Laughter marks our journeys. Laughter, in all its tones, for all its reasons, tells us where we are and how we are experiencing life. And laughter is one of God’s most effective means of communicating God’s plan to us.

You see, there’s not just one kind of laughter. You can chuckle or guffaw or cackle or giggle or chortle or snicker or double over and slap your knee or, if you are the Queen of England, “express amusement.” Different kinds of laughter fit different situations. You might not realize it, but God speaks to us in laughter. When we discover why we are laughing, God’s movement in our lives becomes much clearer. Here’s four kinds of laughter to illustrate what I mean.

In our story from Genesis today, the LORD appears to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre and makes a startling, even comical, announcement: “I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah will have a son.” The narrator explains why this is so funny: “Now Abraham and Sarah were old, well advanced in years.” The King James Version puts it a bit more colorfully—the couple was “well stricken in age.” Now, whether she is advanced in years or well stricken, Sarah is most definitely post-menopausal. So Sarah laughs the incredulous laughter of impossibility. This laugh usually consists of one loud sound, almost a bark. There’s no way she can have a baby! God is really selling something this time.

How often does God ask us to do the seemingly impossible: from loving those who hate us to holding the hand of a dying friend to working for justice in a world where disparity is the overarching reality. Sometimes, all we can do is laugh at the hopelessness around us. Thinking God is changing our world is incredible—incredible, as in, “not credible.” This is the incredulous laughter of impossibility. Sarah and Abraham (in the previous chapter) both laugh at the possibility that God can do the impossible.

But as a recent Adidas ad campaign reminds us: “Impossible is nothing.” I think Adidas’s marketing department has been reading Genesis. God hears Sarah laugh and says, “Is anything too wonderful for the LORD?” This may sound like a question, but there’s only one answer. “Is anything too wonderful for the LORD?” No. In another story we all know about a woman (who shouldn’t be able to have a baby) having a baby, the angel Gabriel says: “Nothing will be impossible with God.” Believing that impossible is nothing can spur us to laugh the zealous laughter of confidence. This laugh comes from the belly and usually generates a hair toss or the placement of hands on the hips. This is the fresh, unrefined zeal that accompanies a mountaintop experience or a revelatory conversion. Of course nothing is too wonderful for God! How could I ever have doubted?

But fresh, unrefined zeal has a short shelf life. Don’t misunderstand: there aren’t too many better feelings than riding a spiritual high. But there is a danger when these mountaintops, these highs points become the focus of a life of faith. Too often, spiritual high seekers becomes self-centered, always looking for another buzz, never stopping to realize that God has already filled them with every good thing.

When fresh, unrefined zeal deepens past the surface, past the level where the erosion of daily life always threatens to wash away our confidence in God, another kind of laughter emerges. The narrator of Sarah’s story says, “The LORD dealt with Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah as he had promised.” Believing God’s promise to fulfill all of God’s promises leads to the thankful laughter of surrender. This laugh of relief usually begins with a long exhale and ends with a small, almost inaudible chuckle. This isn’t surrender in the sense of “giving up,” but in the sense of “giving over.” When we give over to God all of our insecurities and anxieties and fears and limitations, we realize that God has already given us the ability to rest in God’s promises. And we thank God for the willingness to embrace us, love us, and transform our lives.

Sarah’s life changes when she conceives and bears her son Isaac. Nine months before, she was laughing incredulously at the thought that she could have a child. But here he is. And Sarah says, “God has brought laughter for me.” In saying this, she’s having a little joke of her own—in Hebrew, Isaac means “laughter.” I imagine Sarah holding him in her arms, a small swaddled gift from God. I imagine his little fist clutching her old, leathery finger. I imagine her throwing her head back and laughing the sparkling laughter of joy. This laugh is unrestrained and spontaneous and unique for every one of God’s children. This laugh connects us to the God who is the source of our joy. When sparkling laughter wells up within us and spills from our lips, we proclaim that God has made our joy complete, as Jesus says in John’s Gospel.

Sarah says, “God has brought laughter for me,” and then she continues, “Everyone who hears will laugh with me.” Our laughter is a testimony, a witness to the movement of God in our lives and in the world. In the story of Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie echoes this witness: “When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies.” When God’s movement in our lives causes us to laugh—incredulously, zealously, thankfully, sparklingly—our laughs break, like our bread, and skip across a world in dire need of something to laugh about.

So laugh for the joy that God is calling us to love and serve God and each other. Laugh for the thankfulness that God equips us for this loving service. Laugh for the faith that nothing is impossible and nothing is too wonderful for the LORD.

(Sermon for June 15, 2008 || Proper 6, Year A RCL || Genesis 18:1-15; 21:1-7)

What size straightjacket?

Published on by Adam ThomasLeave a comment

I have had quite a bit of downtime in this month between graduation from seminary and ordination to the priesthood. While this has been a happy occasion to catch up on sleep and Law & Order:SVU, it has also produced a surplus of mental energy that is no longer being poured into my thesis and papers. Any of my friends could tell you that I think too much, especially about relationships. And when I have the time to think too much, my mind develops every choice, every scenario, every possible combination of what could go right and will go wrong to every logical and illogical conclusion.

In the last two years of seminary, I had few opportunities and even less time for my brain to engage in such frivolous and ultimately useless exercises. But now that formal studies have concluded, my mind wondered what to do with the extra horsepower. Without a relationship with a woman to examine, deconstruct, extrapolate, and fret about, my mind turned to my relationship with God.

As such, in the last month, I have had a few minor anxiety attacks, a couple small bouts of existential dread, and even a dark afternoon of the soul.* Am I ready? Is this really what I want to devote my life to? What about all the other things I could do? How huge is this commitment? Am I committed? Should I be committed? I wonder what size straightjacket I’d wear? My mind climbed the ladders to these lofty questions, and then it found a chute and jumped headfirst. The lofty questions mingled with the old set of relationship questions, and my mind ventured down all the well worn paths it has trod before, all the parallel universes in which I didn’t say this or did recognize that warning sign or missed an opportunity or or or…

Then I realized that all my dread and neuroses were misplaced. When did my relationship with God start mirroring my relationships with women? Now, this is nothing new: the great prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures often compared God’s relationship with Israel to a marriage, sometimes favorably, sometimes not so much. But, in those comparisons, God was always faithful–it was the people of Israel who broke the covenant and went after false gods. My dread came from confusing mine and God’s parts in the story. In my neurotic imaginings, God played the part of the leaver in the relationship. I was the faithful one, the stalwart. But that’s not how it is. The only thing that keeps me going in a world that seems full of leavings, full of broken relationships, is the faith that God will never leave, will never break a relationship. What a revelation.

My ordination is in five days. You might think it strange that someone about to be ordained to the priesthood seems just to be figuring out that God is here to stay. Well, it’s not the first time I’ve realized it, and I’m sure it won’t be the last time I need to. But faith is about remembering to remember. It’s easy to lose sight of God’s promises because life is built on those promises. Over time, they blend into the landscape. Small bouts of existential dread and dark afternoons of the soul jar me into remembering to remember those promises.

At the end of the Gospel According to Matthew, Jesus says, “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Lord, help me remember that you are in this relationship for good. Help me remember that my neuroses aren’t going to scare you away. Help me be in this relationship with you.

Who’s to say where the wind will take you?

Published on by Adam Thomas2 Comments

Adam, a follower of Christ,

to all those who find this blog through the Series of Tubes.

Grace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!

The Apostle Paul really nailed the beginnings of his letters, so I thought I’d borrow his intro formula to begin my blog. Paul journeyed all over the Mediterranean following the little dotted purple and blue and red lines you see on the maps in the back of your study Bible. I’m afraid I can’t afford the airfares to Thessalonica or Ephesus, so I will have to rely on the Interwebs to make a new set of dotted lines from my MacBook to your computer. Since you’re probably in modern day Scranton or Lubbock rather than ancient Greece, I think the Internet is the way to go.

Pop over to the “About” page for an introduction to the blog. I look forward to your comments on future posts. I took the title of this blog from U2’s song, “Kite.” In the midst of the grief that spurred the song to be written, I hear the hope that wind will continue to carry us on. I don’t know U2’s source material for this song, but I can’t get Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus out of my head when I hear the chorus. Jesus says, “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). In Greek, wind and spirit are the same word (pneuma). Who’s to say where the wind will take me? Who’s to say where the Spirit is leading me? In this blog, I will reflect on the movement of God in my life, the movement that dances on the wind of the Spirit. I invite you to follow my reflections and discern how God is moving in your own life.

Here’s that U2 song in case you’ve never heard it. It’s on their album All That You Can’t Leave Behind: