Henry Imler July 2nd, 2008
This is the last sentence I had to translate for my German project was difficult challenge for my meager German skills and non-existent German vocabulary":
Es ist um so frappanter, dies festzustellen, als die Methode der Religionsgeschichtlichen Schule, die innerhalb der Religionswissenschaft nur noch wenige Anhanger hat, in dieser Weise - namentlich auf dem Gebiet der alten Kirchengeschichte - eine Nachblüte erlebt.
This is the best I can come up with:
It is so much more remarkable, this assertion [ascertaining], as the method of the School of Religious History, which has only but a few supporters within Religious Studies [lit: the Science of Religion] –namely in the area of the old Church History – experiences a second flowering.
I think that sentence makes sense. The assertion that he talks about in the previous sentence (that Christian or Jewish-Christian is programmatic of Edessan “pure culture” when, in point of fact, there was considerable Roman and Parthian influence on the city as a whole as it lied directly on the outer edges of both empires influences) is even more remarkable when you consider that there is a second flowering going on in the study of religion, coupled with the fact that this method of doing Religious History has only a few supporters and that those supporters are primarily in the area of Old Church History.. If I had to put all of that into one sentence, I would do it the following way:
This assertion is so much more remarkable, considering that the method of the School of Religious History, which has only but a few supports within Religious Studies (namely in the area of old Church History) experiences a second flowering.
We will see. Now to pick out some neat grammatical constructions.
Henry Imler July 1st, 2008
This week’s "Point; Counterpoint" comes from Jim West and Richard A. Rhodes on Bible translation. West makes the contention that translations should be "woody" and goes so far as to say, "[they] are better because they maintain the proper distance between ourselves and the Biblical authors." Rhodes strongly disagrees with this sentiment in his reaction against West’s position. He maintains that:
"The stuff of the Bible that is of interest are those things about human nature. The differences in the worlds and worldviews is irrelevant, beyond the fact that knowing something about them helps us to better understand the motivations and reactions of the people."
I encourage you to check out both articles. I can sympathize with West’s sentiment. He is correct that the totality of the "biblical" experience is far removed from us and that it takes a lot of work in order to approach that world. However, I think this can be done and modern translations can be filtered through this necessary legwork to produce a meaningful translation for people who aren’t biblical scholars.
For me it all boils down to a simple question: What question am I asking of the text? If I am trying to figure out historical circumstances or do a detailed grammatical analysis of the relation of two clauses, I’ll go to the Greek and supplement that with a very literal translation like the NASB or the NRSV. If I am seeking to teach laypersons about a saying of Jesus in Sunday school for instance, I’ll go with a translation that tries to place the text into terms and syntax that is the most understandable, thus I’ll probably use the NLV or the ESV. Not everyone asks the same questions of a text and due to this, we should not expect for there to be one “best” translation for all situations everywhere. Each and every translation is an interpretation, whether one likes it or not.
Further reading:
Scholarly Legends by Rhodes
Why Modern Translations of the Bible Bungle It by West
Henry Imler June 25th, 2008
It should be a basic principle of intelligent analysis that a serious attempt is made to understand the most intellectually sophisticated concepts of religious belief. Some philosophers, like Anthony Kenny… do this and still disagree with many religious ideas. But they treat religious beliefs in their best intellectual forms with care and respect and careful analysis, and with due consideration for the many different interpretations that exist. This is what a truly scientific and rational approach to religion requires.
- Keith Ward, “is religion dangerous?” page 26-27
People from Richard Dawkins to Sean Hannity to Pat Robertson to certain unnamed undergrads to Christopher Hitchens would do well to keep the above in mind.
Henry Imler June 24th, 2008
The accident of preservation has skewed the general picture.
-Christine Thomas in Stories without Texts and Without Authors: The Problem of Fluidity in Ancient Novelistic Texts and Early Christian Literature
Above, Thomas is talking about our accidental recovery of what we call ancient novels. All five of them are “ideal romances.” This leads people to use these sources and limit possible constructions of ancient novels into what we can generalize out of the five we have. She maintains that we only have part of the literary picture of the ancient Romans and we have no idea how far reaching and what variety of subject matter, plot structure, etc, that ancient novels displayed. Its like walking into a Walmart and looking at the trashy romance book selection by the cigarette rack and thinking you can get an accurate idea of modern American literature.
She goes on to talk about the problems with abstracting paradigms of the ancient novel with this skewed historical sample and comparing it to the abstracted paradigm of the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles. For those of you that have not encountered the term before, the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, or AAA are the 2nd century non-Canonical accounts of the lives and adventures of several of the Apostles. Among those included are the Acts of Paul and Thecla, the Acts of Peter, the Acts of Thomas, and the Acts of John.
While this certainly applies to the study of the AAA and ancient Roman Romance novels, this issue is generalizable to the whole of Christian literature and ancient manuscript studies. It is difficult to talk about things in the negative, because we simply do not have the entire (or a substantial sample of) record to compare it against. Additionally we are missing a large portion of the Christian record as well. We are missing at the very least several portions of the discourse between Paul and the assembly of Christians at Corinth. Just as we don’t know if the AAA are unique among the literature of the time, we similarly don’t know all of Paul’s thoughts and advice for budding assemblies.
In addition to all of this, we must work with what we do have available to us. Just because we don’t have all of the data we would like, that does not mean we should throw up our hands and call it a day. Instead, theologians, religious studies scholars, laity, and the clergy need to work with what we have while realizing what our sources allow us to say and not to say.
Henry Imler June 17th, 2008
Ugh, how true that is. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone through that. People want a 5 second diddy on what you do, not a 5 minute nuanced explanation of what your field is, followed up by a 3 minute description of where your work is positioned within that field.
Most people don’t get what religious studies is (hint: it’s not theology), let alone how you go about/can take a non-canonical religious text and analyze how it functioned to create and sustain a religious community two thousand years ago. Most people quickly assume that I am a cracked theologian who is trying to elevate the Acts of Thomas to the Bible. That’s understandable given the standard perceptions of what people do with texts, but just frustrating when I constantly have to take more time than the hearer wants to explain what I am doing.
The End.
Henry Imler June 16th, 2008
While part of me agrees with the above picture, I have to also vehemently disagree. The further you get from "purity" the closer you get to real people. I am thinking of history, religious studies, etc… Perhaps what I am trying to say is that dirty has value as well as purity. This is part of my newfound problem with philosophy and philosophers. Philosophy is a nice set of tools and ways to conceive the world. However, I’d rather go build something with my tools rather than spend all day polishing my nice toolbox. (With that said, I have and will always have a deep love for math.)
Henry Imler June 16th, 2008
Of course, I don’t mean your giving should make life easy for others and hard for yourselves. I only mean that there should be some equality. Right now you have plenty and can help those who are in need. Later, they will have plenty and can share with you when you need it. In this way, things will be equal. As the Scriptures say:
“Those who gathered a lot had nothing left over, and those who gathered only a little had enough.”
- Paul, writing to the assembly of Christians in Corinth, 2 Cor. 8:13-15
Henry Imler June 16th, 2008
Mental Floss Blog :: Battlestar Galactica vs. Star Trek - I love me some sci-fi comparisons. Scott Miller looks at how BSG differs from STNG. Star Trek explores our hopes and dreams, a vision of why humanity wants to be; while Battlestar Galactica explores our flaws and our realities, a vision of what humanity is. It is a really good read. While you are at it, check out the following peices of lesser quality:
Wikipedia :: The Resoration Movement - When is a denomination not a denomination? When it says denominations are morally wrong, as the body of Christ is to be a unified body. This is the religious tradition in which I grew up. There are three wings of this denomination movement:
- Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
- Churches of Christ (a cappella)
- The (instrumental) Independent Christian Churches/Churches of Christ
I link to this movement because it came up several times this past week in our 14 hour van rides. One of my friends, has some history in the Churches of Christ (a cappella) movement and I have a long history in the Independent Christian Churches movement. I often get blurry when recalling the differences between thevarious movements within the larger Campbell-Stone movement. As I was telling some of my friends in the van, I really like most of what the C-S movement has to say on paper, but I have huge problems with the application of those values and secondary beliefs.
The Times UK Online :: Scientists find bugs that eat waste and excrete petrol - The first line gives me great hope: “Silicon Valley is experimenting with bacteria that have been genetically altered to provide ‘renewable petroleum’” What?! Wait, even if this is as good as they promise, isn’t it just more of the same environmentally devastating oil? Nope, for “[t]he company claims that this “Oil 2.0” will not only be renewable but also carbon negative – meaning that the carbon it emits will be less than that sucked from the atmosphere by the raw materials from which it is made.“
I am all down for stuff like this. As a matter of fact, I think I remember reading about the early phases of a similar project in Discover a few years ago: Anything Into Oil. While it is great to see the progress made on this front, pessimism rises within me. As my buddy Jake Jones put it when I emailed this article to him, “that is pretty cool. I wonder how long it will before the big oil companies buy the tech and screw it all up.”
Henry Imler June 1st, 2008
What is the Word of God? (for Christians)
- The Bible in a reader’s native language which is faithful in message to the autographs
- The Autographs of Biblical Texts
- The message behind texts we consider inspired
- Jesus
- Other
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