23rd May 2011

Alistair McIntosh, in his climate change book Hell and high water, describes an important irony. He notes that similar to today, ‘the biggest fear of the ancients was of flooding…on a global scale that threatened cities near the coast’ (McIntosh 2008:109). The ancients tended to blame natural disasters on moral degradation. From a scientific perspective, however, disasters were unlikely to have been caused by human badness but rather ‘the plate tectonics of the Earth’s crust and…to ‘natural’ prehistoric climate change’ (p109). The irony, then, ‘is that the ancients developed an astute moral analysis of anthropogenic climate change but one that is perhaps more applicable to us today than it often was to them. As ecological prophets they were two or three thousand years ahead of their time’. To illustrate this, McIntosh uses the description of flooding in the King James ‘Authorised’ version of 1611, because he considers it ‘the most poetic, the most dramatic and, therefore, the most psychodynamic English translation’ (p111). The relevant verses are Genesis 6.5 – 7.21.

References

McIntosh, Alistaire (2008) Hell and high water: climate change, hope and the human condition. Edinburgh: Birlinn

18th May 2011

‘William Tyndale (c.1494-1536)

Tyndale was a scholar and theologian whose translation of the New Testament was the first to be printed in English. His simple, clear style was a model for subsequent English translations of the bible.

William Tyndale was born in Gloucestershire and educated at Oxford and Cambridge where he became a strong supporter of church reform. He was ordained as a priest in around 1521 and returned to Gloucestershire to serve as a chaplain to a member of the local gentry.

Tyndale's controversial opinions attracted the attention of the church authorities, so in 1523 he moved to London. His intention was to translate the New Testament into English, which was strictly forbidden. He believed passionately that people should be able to read the bible in their own language, but such translations were by this time closely associated with Martin Luther and other Protestant religious reformers.

In 1524, Tyndale left England for Germany where he hoped to continue his translation work in greater safety. He visited Luther at Wittenberg. Printing of his English New Testament began in 1525 and by the following year copies were being smuggled into England. The work was denounced by the Roman Catholic church authorities and Tyndale was accused of heresy. He went into hiding, where he began work on a translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew into English.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/tyndale_william.shtml

From the BBC History site

9th May 2011

‘In translating the Bible, Tyndale introduced new words into the English language, and many were subsequently used in the King James Bible:

Jehovah (from a transliterated Hebrew construction in the Old Testament; composed from the Tetragrammaton YHWH)

Passover (as the name for the Jewish holiday, Pesach or Pesah)

Atonement (which goes beyond mere "reconciliation" to mean "to unite" or "to cover", which springs from the Hebrew kippur, the Old Testament version of kippur being the covering of doorposts with blood, or "Day of Atonement")

Scapegoat (the goat that bears the sins and iniquities of the people in Leviticus, Chapter 16) From Daniell, David (1994) William Tyndale: a biography. New Haven & London: Yale University Press

4th May 2011

Samuel 22:3 (King James Version)

 ³The God of my rock; in him will I trust: he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my saviour; thou savest me from violence.

Samuel explores what it is to have faith.  When you falter, you need a bedrock of absolute reassurance which will not fail you in your hour of need:  ‘my high tower, and my refuge’.  This place of absolute integrity – that is what faith is.  ‘The God of my rock’ is the one who will never betray you, never forget you.   When you are hurt, help is on its way: ‘thou savest me from violence’.   You can shelter in the knowledge that ‘he is my shield’ - your sacred talisman of trust.

18th April 2011

Babel: The English language and globalisation, Genesis, 11:1-9

Author Douglas Adams uses Babel as a metaphor to propose a ‘solution’ to ‘the problem’ of multilingualism and of communication –

 ‘ – the Babel Fish, … is small, yellow and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. …if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you… Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.’

Equally in our world, global English brings potential for greater destruction and unsustainable practices in the context of globalization.

References:

Genesis, 11:1-9

Douglas Adams 1979 The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. London: Pan

11th April 2011

Psalms 8:2: Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.

Matthew 21:16: And said unto him, Hearest thou what these say? And Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?

‘"Out of the mouths of babes," we now say (slightly misquoting), come the darndest things. Children sometimes speak, in their simplicity, more wisely than their elders.

But adults will notice that, in coining this phrase, the author of Psalm 8 (allegedly David) isn't talking about darling little remarks or amusing notes. What he is talking about depends on the translation. In the King James Version, the Lord "ordains strength" (issues strong words) against his enemies, even through "babes and sucklings." In the New English Bible, babes likewise "rebuke the mighty." But in the Revised Standard Version and in the Jerusalem Bible, the little ones chant the glory and majesty of the Lord.

Though translators can't agree on whether the Psalmist's babes spout fighting words or waft hosannas -- either way it's a miracle -- Jesus preferred the latter. When the chief priests and scribes of the Jerusalem Temple cringe at the din of children crying "Hosanna to the son of David," Jesus scolds them: "Yea, have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?" (Matthew 21: 16). Jesus' quote, or rather paraphrase, is the main reason "out of the mouths of babes" became a popular catchphrase. But it didn't ensure the phrase would be well employed. ‘

Michael Macrone, http://www.gracecathedral.org/enrichment/brush_excerpts/brush_20050816.shtml

4th April 2011

In the Preface to The Obedience of the Christian Man (1529), William Tyndale wrote of the need for readers to have access to the Bible whether they were learned or not.  According to this source, he wrote that ‘if they go abroad and walk by the fields and meadows of all manner doctors and philosophers, they could catch no harm; they should discern the poison from the honey and bring home nothing but that which is wholesome.’ (p149)
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~sben0056/Tyndale.London.htm