Hebrew, Greek, and Jabneh

If I had a purpose behind the information in this post, it is now lost. But I'm going to post anyway. Because I can.

As I'm sure most all of you are aware, there are not two different versions of the Bible (Hebrew and Christian) but three: Hebrew, Catholic/Orthodox, and Protestant. It is important to understand what separates the latter two when looking at the historical uses of the Bible. It also helps explain a little more about the Bible.

Somewhere between 300 and 200 B.C. some Jews in Alexandria got together and translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek for common use (because more Jews spoke Greek than Hebrew). Traditionally it is believed 70 scholars were involved, and hence the translation received the name the Septuagint, or LXX (from Latin for Seventy). This work contained all the books of the modern Hebrew Testament as well as the Deuterocanonical books (see below) and a few others (Esdas, Prayer of Manassess, etc.).

The LXX is the translation used throughout the entire New Testament by its authors, and was also likely the most common version read during its day.

Around the year 80 A.D. a collection of Jewish scholars got together (after getting premission from the Emporer) at Jabneh or Jamnia and, among other things, decided on what we might call a 'canon' of Jewish Scripture. It was not quite so formal as one might expect, but they selected the 39 books now found in the Hebrew Scriptures and the Protestant Old Testament, based almost completely on the fact that these books were the only ones with Hebrew versions surviving.

When St. Jerome translated the Bible into Latin in the 5th century he used the LXX (among other works) and included in his canon the books today found in the Catholic and Orthodox Bible, called the Deuterocanonical books. This term is essentially the same as the Apocrypha, except it is a more accurate and exact term. Apocrypha simply means hidden, and is used to describe almost any book of uncertain authenticity, including any book speaking of Jesus and not in the Christian Canon (they do not have to be written near the time of the accepted scripture, since most of what we know consider the Gnostic Gospels were written at least two hundred years after Christ, though some were earlier). Deuterocanonical is limited in scope to 1 and 2 Maccabees, Tobit, Judith, Baruch, Sirach, Wisdom, and the additional material in Daniel and Esther.

As I'm sure all of you are aware, the Bible did not fall from heaven, nor was it instantely revealed to someone as it is today. Many years went into determining the Canon of Scripture, and I hope this post clarifies some of the differences between each Canon.

Bloom's Irony

Bloom makes a point of how the J author is ironic. As I've mentioned before, I'm pretty sure I don't agree with this position. I do, however, believe that Bloom is ironic in a rather unfortunate way.

In The Book of J he says that "Scholars have a way of dividing up strong ancient works and assigning them to several authors . . . destroying . . . individual creativity" (18). Bloom is speaking here about the Book of J and how people try to say it was not simply written by one person (J), but the irony seems to be lost on him. He has already broken up an ancient work (the Pentateuch), assigning it to four different authors simply because one cannot let good books lie.

Somehow I don't think that was the irony he was going for.

Disobediance

I have an answer to part of Dr. Sexson's question today on why X is punished so much: Disobediance.

Throughout much of the Pentateuch God is laying down laws, from "Don't eat of the tree" to "put the seat down when you're done" (well, not quite). The point is, there are these rules, and often they don't make sense (though there is certain logic to not eating pork -- it was more likely to carry diseases that would not be cooked out -- or to not peeing on the wall -- it smells), but they're still there. If there is an Authority over someone, one must obey it or suffer the consequences (one does not have to agree to obey).

Why certain similar sins are punished to differing degrees is a more complicated question that has repurcussions I don't know so I won't answer beyond the exciting (and essentially meaningless) answer of "Providence."


I have another faith-based post on the Bible at my other Blog dealing with Biblical origins and the meaning of who wrote what.

An answer to the Question

So the question has been possed in our class: "Why do bad things happen to innocent people?"

Simply Christian and Biblical answer: There are no innocent people.

This will be the fundamental premise of essentially all Catholic Christian Literature for the past two thousand years. When reading Chesterton, Tolkien, or O'Conner one aught to remember that they believe all man to be sinful, though inherently good. This means all mean deserves hell (God's Vengence) but is given the chance of life (God's Mercy). Flannery O'Conner specifically makes use of the premise throughout her writing.

I think G.K. Chesterton said it best: he was among a group of famous literary figures of the early twentieth century asked to write an essay on what is worng with the world. His answer was short and to the point:

Dear Sirs;

I am.

Sincerely Yours,
G.K. Chesterton

Breath, Wind, Spirit

So at one point we discussed the breath of God. We failed, however, to make an important linguistic analysis of the word that was translated breath. The Hebrew for 'breath' is the word Ruach [חר] (where [ch] is pronounced as in Ich or Loch). This same word, however, also means 'wind' and 'spirit.' In fact, it is the same with most ancient languages, including Greek (pneûma, πνευμα) and Latin (spiritus).

What this means for any study of the Bible is that a translator can pick what word he wants and fully justify it in the text, even if tradition and intent is considered different. Thus, whenever the words Breath, Wind, or Spirit in the Bible one must consider whether the translator had any bias (which should always happen with every translated work) and then consider whether one of the other words would be a better fit.

Chapter and Verse

It is important to note that the Bible, when originally written, did not have chapter nor verse. It was simply penned as history, literature, poetry, prophecy, epistle, etc. In the middle of the thirteenth century Archbishop Stephen Langton inserted chapters into the Bible as we know now them, though he retained the natural division of the Psalms into seperate poems.

In 1551 Robert Estienne divided the New Testament into verses in the Greek Bible. The same verse arrangement was later retained in the Geneva Bible.

The importance of this is that we cannot really read the Bible in Chapter and verse format (with the primary exception of the Psalms). Taking a verse out of context can destroy the entire meaning of the book or the intent of the author. That is a common technique used by people who want to prove the Bible says whatever they want it to say.

Thus are reading of the Bible as an entirety is really the only way to read the Bible. To break it apart and only read what intrests you is to dispose of the work as a whole. The Book of J is not really the Bible in any way shape or form. It's simply Bloom and Rosenberg's view of part of the Bible, and thus it becomes an independent work of litature. Imagine if somebody took every part of the Iliad that dealt with the gods and made another book out of that. We would not call that book part of the Iliad or critical to understanding it, so we can't do the same with the Book of J, at least while being intellectually honest.


And now for an etymological moment: contrary to what has been stated, Peter (Petros, rock) and Father (patri, patris) are not related. Peter comes from the Greek Petra, itself being drawn from the Indo-European root [per], meaning roughly the same thing.

Father, or Pater in the Latin, comes from the Greek pater (via the Latin) and is from the Indo-European root [pter], meaning father. Despite their apparent simularities, there is no connection. Peter's name comes solely from the fact that Christ said "You are Peter, and on this rock [petros] I will build my Church."

Actually, I should clarify. Christ was likley speaking Aramiac and therefore called Simon Bar-Jonah "Kepha" (see John 1) and said on this "Kepha" he would build his Church. Not Peter even involved until the Greek.

Short

I'll probably pop up with a larger and more proper post later today, but at the moment I just want to link you to here. It is a discussion of the accuracy of the Bible on one of my other blogs. It is there because of the necessary faith language, so if you want to avoid that please don't read.

Translation and Intent

I suspect I am not the only to find David Rosenberg's translation of J's writing to be a little odd, or at least unexpected.

This is, it seems, primarily because Rosenberg has an agenda with his translation. Now, most translators have a specific intent while translating, particularly with a book as influencial as the Bible. The problem as I see it is that Rosenberg is forwarding his beliefs (or maybe just Bloom's beliefs) ahead of the text itself. Let me give you an example:

The third chapter of Gensis, verse 5, Rosenberg translates as "The God knows on the day you eat from it your eyes will fall open like gods, knowing good and bad." Most other translators ( Christian, Hebrew, and Secular) use 'God' or 'him' for the word 'gods' Rosenberg used. The Hebrew word here is Elohim (םיהלא), the plural, but, interestingly enough, what he translates as "The God" is also the word Elohim. Most of the fall narrative uses the word Elohim instead of Yahweh (הןהי), yet Rosenberg translates it differently depending on the message he wants to send.

I'll talk more about translations later, but at the moment I am out of time.

Nothing Comes of Nothing

I'd like to make a clarification for the class: Gnosticism has nothing to do with the Bible.

How can I make such a statement? Simple. The Bible is defined by the Christian or Hebrew religion and which books the leaders of said group decided to include. I won't discuss the Hebrew canon here because Gnosticism is primarily (at least to the modern mind) associated with Christianity.

Up until about the year 350 there was no single canon of Christian Scripture. Most every major Christian Theologian had there own canon. Included in these were all the books currently in the Christian Scripture (though James and the Apocalypse were less common). There were also a collection of books that appeared in some canons but were not accepted as inspired, and therefore did not appear in the final canon. They included such works as the Shepherd of Hermes, the Didache, and the epistles of Clement. None of this books, however, were Gnostic. They are in fact still used by Christians as the writings of the Fathers.

The only references to Gnosticism in the early Christian writing are in works written against heresy, such as St. Iraenus' work entitled, unsurprisingly, Against Heresies. This work, written around AD 190 denounced such works as 'The Gospel of Judas.' Gnosticism therefore can only be seen as an example of early non-Christian beliefs loosely related to Christianity and not something which can validly be considered as part of the early Christian belief or the early creation of the Bible.


On a unrelated note, I've noticed a lot of you are writing long entries. One thing I've learned that really helps the reading of those is to separate each paragraph from the previous one by a double space, since Blogger seems incapable of recognizing tabs. This will make your work much more readable and you'll get more comments.

Irony and Paradox

I have a bone to pick with Bloom. One of the major points he attempts to make throughout The Book of J is that the work is highly ironic, as he seems to see that as the only logical conclusion for the way things don't seem to add up. I disagree.

Irony is not the only writing technique which places two ideas in opposition to each other. G.K. Chesterton (author of such famous works as the Father Brown Mysteries) is probably the most well known purveyor of the other technique: Paradox.

Paradox, like irony, looks at two seemingly inreconciliable ideas and attempts to bring them together. While irony does this to suggest that they are humoursly or odly united, paradox says that they can go together, it just is slightly beyond man's normal comprehension.

The Bible is rife with paradox: there is an infinitely high God who is willing to come infinitely low and talk to his creation. Yahweh is a vengeful God yet he is also merciful (sometimes these traits appear in the same psalm).

The Christian understanding of the Bible offers even more paradoxes: Christ is both fully God and fullt man. God is one, yet three. Man has free will but is predestined by God. The logical brain is unable to reconcile these, yet they appear in the Bible.

As you read the Bible keep an eye out for these paradoxes. They are both large and small, sometimes occuring only in a single passage, other times being a summation of the entire purpose of the Bible (such as the mercy/wrath dichotomy). If you'd like more information on the Christian view of paradox there is a chapter in G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy intitled "The Paradoxes of Christianity."

Tolkien, Jordan, the Bible, and Homer

LotR

So more Tolkine and the Bible, though I plan to expand my scope for this post and look at The Wheel of Time, by Robert Jordan, both for its similarities to The Lord of the Rings and differences.

We talked about the concept of Lacuna and Lacunae within the Bible. I made mention that The Lord of the Rings has a similar nature, that Tolkien does not bother to explain everything. He chooses instead to leave much open for the interpertation and understanding of his audience. This is how Peter Jackson was able to come in and create so much of the look of his film trilogy differently from any previous incarnation of the books while still mainting the spirit of the works.

In opposition to the Bible in this area Dr. Sexson mentioned the works of Homer. Both The Iliad and The Odyssey are loaded with details not necessary to the working of the story. It would be easy to qualify those two works as being more fluff than plot, in the most basic sense.

The Wheel of Time, by Robert Jordan, could be called a modern day example of Homer's 'problem' (somebody else can debate whether detail or Lacuna is better). There are currently eleven books published in the series, the twelth and last is supposed to come out in the summer of 2007. The longest of the books is about 1,000 pages, the shortest around 600 (paperback). The final series will be around 10,000 pages long, or 2.5 million words. For comparrison, The Lord of the Rings comes in at a little over 500,000 words. The Lord of the Rings covers a time of about one year, for the main part (total time between first and last word is about five years) while The Wheel of Time contains three years worth. They both tell a story of man's battle against an ageless evil aiming to remake the world in his own image.

The most common complaint about Jordan's series is that he mentions anything and everything. He'll say that someone is wearing a blud dress, made from Andorian wool, which is normally sheared by older woman while they sing some song in which a Hero goes of to far, and how the hero's grandosn discovered a new way to smelt metal and steel was born and that steel was used to protect the palace guards from an insurrection which saved the life of a little boy who grew up to be king, then he returns to the narative. Obviously I'm exaggerating a little, but you get the idea.

And this is the reason the Wheel of Time will probably never be the same sort of success The Lord of the Rings is, because we, as an audience, don't always want to know every little detail. We want to be led through a story. This also is why almost everybody knows passages of the Bible (whether nothing more than "Our Father who are in Heaven") while almost no-one knows the origin of "Sing, goddess, of Achilles ruinous anger."

The Devil, they say, is in the details.

More on the Covanents

(Please read the previous post for background information).

I'm going to make a quick defintion adjustment: when I use the word Bible, I mean only the Christian Bible, because the Hebrew 'Bible' only got that name retrocactively. It will regularly be called the Hebrew Scriptures.

We know that the Bible is diveded into two parts, the Old and New Testament. What, though, is the relation of those parts and how does that relation apply to Biblical foundations of literature?

St. Augustine probably said it best: "the new is in the old concealed; the old is in the new revealed." This means that, two the Christian writer, the New and Old Testaments are not really two separate and independant collections of books, but rather a single collection with separate emphasises (which I mentioned in my previous post).

The most telling part of this connection is found in the idea of Biblical Typology: that events in the Old Testament prefigure things that happen in the new. Most of these have to do with Christ, the Last Supper, and His Passion.

For example, one of the most obvious is the Sacrifice of Isaac. For the benefit of those of you who don't remember the story, God asks Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac on top of a mountain. Abraham loves his son but goes to do what God asks. When he is about to kill his son (who does not offer much in the way of objections) an angel stays his hand and God Himself provides a lamb for the slaughter. Very much in the same way is the Crucifixion of Christ presented in the New Testament, only God Himself is the Father and he does not stay his own hand.

Typology appears quite regularly in Medieval literature, particularly the Mystery plays. These tell Biblical stories and expand upon the information in the Biblical account, filling out more of the characters and what they do. Almost everyone of the plays has some reference to typology, and some (such as the Abraham Isaac play) is overloaded with imagery.

So my suggestion to you is this: while reading the Old Testament look how some of it is an echo of the New Testament. It will give you both a better grasp of the Bible as a whole and its importance to Christian Literature.

A Brief Survey of the Relations of the Two Covanents

As most anybody who has given the Christian Bible even a cursory study knows, it is not only divided into 73 (or 66) books, it also is seperated into two Covanents, or Testaments: the Old and the New.

The Old Testament is also called the Hebrew Scriptures. It is not, in fact, represented by one Covanent but by five. The first is between God and Adam and Eve, and involves couples. The second is with Noah, moving to families. Abraham is the third, involving a people. The fourth is with Moses and a Nation, and the fifth is with David, bringing about a Kingdom.

Fundamentally though, the Covanent of the Old Testament is the one with Abraham that brought about the Jewish people as God's Chosen People and all the stories of the Hebrew Scriptures center on that.

The New Testament is centered on one Covanent, the "new and everlasting covanent" Jesus brings about through the Last Supper and his Death. This is, in Christian understanding, simply the next (or final) step in the long line of covanents which start back with the very act of creation.

I'll have more in the next post about the two Testaments and their relation to each other.

Brief Introduction

I offer this post as a breif introduction to one of the two themes I am planning on working throughout this blog (more may come up on their own, but two are defintely going to be there). If any of you have taken a previous class from me (or noticed what seems to appear in my blog more than anything else) you already know what I am going to write on: The Lord of the Rings.

Because my expertise is in Literature of the Fantastic, and because ninety percent of all Fantastic Literature owes a major debt to Tolkien, my studies have in many ways centered around his works (Also, I was given the order to not write about him from one of my professors so I have taken it upon myself to include Tolkien in a paper for every class except hers).

I want to make a quick comparison which will figure throughout the rest of my examination: The Lord of the Rings is written in the style of the books of Maccabees, and, to a degree, the entire Bible. Tolkien does not fill in all the lacuna present within his world, at least no in the Lord of the Rings proper (his volumes of back story, on the other hand, cover everything except Queen Berúthiel's Cats).

Expect to see more Lord of the Rings, though because it is so specialized I will have all entries of this nature begin with a LotR: in the title.

Clarifications

While reading Bloom, he seems to imply that one can either read the Bible with an eye of faith or with an eye of litature, but they do not come together. Personally, this is not the case, as I read with both. I have long enjoyed the Bible as a work of litature. One of my favorite poems is Psalm 88.

The reasons this is important is that essentially all Christian litature, and most any litature prior to the Reformation, used the Bible as a foundation both as litature and as the basis of faith. This means that, while we are essentially looking at the Bible on as litature, one must always keep in mind that most others who reference it treat it as a work of faith as well. Imagine trying to read Dostoyevsky without having any understanding of the Eastern Orthodox Biblical tradition he came out of.


The second point I would like to make is one of definition, primarily aimed at avoiding any chance of offense or pointless argument (at least pointless to the aim of this course in its strictest sense).

When one is talking about the Bible, everybody seems to have a different viewpoint on the validity and accuracy of the Bible. So, in the future, I will be using the term Biblical Myth. Now, before anyone accuses me of calling the Bible false, please remember that I am an Orthodox Catholic and myth doesn't mean what you think it means.

Myth, in its best definition, is simply the stories and tales that are the foundation for a worldview. Therefore, one might be able to consider On the Origin of Species to be the myth for Darwinism, or the work of Copernicus to be the myth of modern astronomy.

Myth does not, contrary to popular opinion, carry inherent connotations of truth or falsehood. Rather when one calls something a myth it is because it is being examined in light of its foundational nature. No one would argue that the Bible is not the foundation of Christianity and Judaism (at least Orthodox Judaism), and therefore, one cannot help but calling it a myth.

Likewise, no intellegint scholar would deny the historical validity of most of the four books of kings (1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings). Scholarship has reapidly shown that most of the information in these books is valid, paricularly when it comes to listing rulers and wars.

I will be using the word myth with the above definition and would recommend it, simply because if we understand this meaning no one is stepping on anyone else's toes, and we need not debate the actual accuracy of the Bible, something largely unimportant to its litarary merits.