April 18: Women in the Early Church, Molloy College, Rockeville Center

The Siena Women’s Center at Molloy College Presents
Unexpected Leaders: Women in the Early Church

Topics to be covered by the scheduled speakers include Does the Historical Mary Magdalene Matter?; Women in the Ministry and Teaching of Paul: Saying One Thing and Doing Another; and The Hidden Tradition: Women’s Ministry in the Early Church. The presentations will be followed by a panel and audience discussion.

Featured speakers for the symposium are: Melanie Johnson-DeBaufre, Th.D., Assistant Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity, Drew University; Maria Pascuzzi, S.S.L, S.T.D., Associate Professor of New Testament, University of San Diego; Mary Ann Rossi, Ph.D., Independent Scholar and Retired College Teacher of Women’s Studies and Religion.

The symposium is slated for April 18, 2008 from 9:30 a.m. until conclusion of the open discussion, which will begin at 3:15 p.m. The event is open to the public and will take place in the Lucille S. Hays Theatre, Wilbur Arts Center, Molloy College.

There is a $30.00 registration fee required for admission and the deadline for registration is April 10, 2008. Lunch will be provided for attendees. For more information please contact Deirdre McGovern, Coordinator, Siena Women’s Center, Molloy College at 516.678.5000 ext. 6302, or dmcgovern@molloy.edu.

Reading/Seminar Course on the Marys, anyone?

Anyone in and around the tri-state area interested in a reading and discussion seminar course on the Marys in Christian (and Jewish and Islamic) tradition(s)in the fall of 2008? I've just started having a conversation about it (in response to a request to do the course) so now is the time to get in on the ground level.

Presently, I propose that we would read texts and books over the summer so as to be prepared to discuss them in the fall. These books and topics have yet to be identified so feel free to make suggestions.

We would then meet once a month 4x (Sept-Dec) on a Thursday evening over dinner from 6-7pm and then as a seminar from 7-8pm at the seminary. Since this is a reading/seminar class offered for one credit, one short written assignment is required as the basis for the monthly seminar discussion.

Send me an email if you are interested and want more details: good@gts.edu

Thanks!

Is MFA the new MDiv?

Wealth and Patronage in Luke

My talk on the nuances and ambiguities on wealth and riches (alongside poverty) in Luke/Acts today (wealth is not inherently bad since one can be rich towards God; there is a progression for the disciples as listeners to the parables from 12 through 14 and 16, first as recipients of hospitality from benefactors but also as those who in turn show hospitality as Jesus will do in 24) was greatly enhanced by the paper of Eric Heen, "Radical Patronage in Luke/Acts" published in 2006 in Currents in Theology and Mission now available here. Thank you, Eric! I learnt much from the paper and I know the group did too. Now we need a monograph on the topic!

Real Family Values

In one presidential election, a senator asserted that no great civilization could survive destruction of the family, then called for cuts in assistance to those who weren't his idea of family. Clearly, our problems are more than societal: We are besieged by both politicians and misguided religious leaders. What is needed are all the resources necessary to rear children who are well-nurtured for life. Many homes don't have kids, but are families nonetheless — living alone after having reared offspring, for example. What is called the "traditional" family is now but 10 percent of American households — and teams of parents raising children comprise 25 percent and includes same-sex parents and others. Until we recognize the reality of what constitutes current families, outside forces will have us at each other's throats and only symptoms, not causes, will be addressed.

"Real family values" by John Burciaga in Newburyport News, Ma.

Spring! (see the moulting sparrow?)

The "Bibel in gerechte Sprache" part 2

In the SBL Forum (Society of Biblical Literature), Susanne Scholtz has a review article on the new German translation: "The Bible in just i.e. fair language" (BigS). There are three other articles which round out this helpful and even exhaustive survey.

She concludes her essay:
In short, then, this new inclusive Bible translation has succeeded in bringing important exegetical and theological developments of the past forty years to the public and ecclesial attention in German-speaking countries, especially Germany. For the first time, journalists, professors, clergy, and a wide array of post-Christian and conservative Christian voices have felt compelled to engage theologically progressive thought, such as feminist theologies, the anti-racist theological debates especially related to the Jewish-Christian dialog, and social justice. This translation of the Christian canon of the Bible has therefore accomplished what decades of scholarly discourse have not. It goes to the “heart” of the theological enterprise—the biblical text—and, as a consequence, a most controversial debate has developed in German-speaking countries after decades of utter disregard and relentless marginalization of progressive theological voices and research, especially within academia and the higher ranks of the churches.

Luzia Sutter Rehmann comments on assumptions, process and goals of the new translation:

Let me illustrate this point with a passage from Gen 2. The creation of the woman from the rib of the man is inscribed in Christian iconography. The story has also justified the secondary status of women throughout the centuries. The new inclusive translation of this passage emphasizes three convictions: first, adam is not exclusively to be translated as “Mensch” (human), and thus cannot only be viewed as a male noun in German. Accordingly, the Hebrew noun is translated as “Menschenwesen,” which in German is grammatically neutral: “das Menschenwesen.” The translation signifies either a sexually undifferentiated creature (Gen 2) or an androgynous human being (Gen 1:27). Second, the translation of Gen 2 refers to God as “she,” which takes seriously that in Gen 1:27 God creates humans in the divine image as female and male. Third, the noun zela is not translated as “rib” but as “side,” similar to other biblical passages in which the noun refers to the side of the tabernacle in the desert, the ark, or the Temple in Jerusalem. The “side” is anatomically indispensable, whereas one can live without a rib.

Gen 2:21-22

Da liess jAdonajj, also Gott, einen Tiefschlaf auf das Menschenwesen fallen, dass es einschlief, nahm eine von seinen Seiten und verschloss die Stelle mit Fleisch. Dann formte jAdonajj, also Gott, die Seite, die sie dem Menschenwesen entnommen hatte, zu einer Frau um und brachte sie zu Adam, dem Rest des Menschenwesens.

The translation of these two verses indicates that the translator, Frank Crüsemann, attempts to do “justice” to the reception history of this passage in the original text and in the translation. It makes a big difference if the woman is created from one of the many bones of the man or from the side of the “Menschenwesen,” which only after the surgery is called “Mann” in Gen 2:23: “Sie soll ‘ischa’ heissen, denn vom ‘isch’ wurde sie genommen.” Only in Gen 2:23 do unambiguous terms appear in the translation (“Mann”); prior to v. 23, it is “ha-adam” in its double formation (“Menschenwesen”). This translation is based on the Jewish medieval debate that recognized the androgynity of the original human (“Urmenschen”). Also, a contemporary Jewish scholar, Pinchas Lapide, explains that the rabbis did not view the woman as the ruler over the man (then she would have emerged from his head) or his slave (then she would have emerged from his feet). Instead, God created her from Adam’s side because they are supposed to live side by side, because she should side with him and he with her.[2] In contrast, the rib makes for a senseless narrative.

Furthermore, the new inclusive Bible translation is unusual for its canonical ordering of the biblical books. It follows the Jewish canon and includes the Apocrypha: “Tora—Prophetische Bücher/Nevvim—Schriften/Ketuvim—Apokryphen/Deuterokanonische Schriften.“ The Prophets are the center in the Jewish canon, connecting back to the Torah and forward to the Writings. Placed accordingly, the prophetic books cannot be read as christological foreshadowing of Christ, the messiah—a long and problematic tradition in Christian Bible interpretations. The inclusion of the Apocrypha is rare in Protestant Bibles and recognizes the inner-Christian dialog between the Protestant and Catholic churches. They are also included because aprocryphal books such as Judith, Tobit, and the Maccabees provide valuable social historical information that has been of particular interest to German biblical studies. The prayer of the remorseful King Manasse is the end in this canonical arrangement and hints at a hermeneutical attitude that challenges institutionalized socio-political and economic power.

Wolfgang Stegemann's essay, "Translation or Interpretation: Intense Controversy about the New German Translation of the Bible" (Translated and edited by Susanne Scholz) deals with gender-justice.

The application of the criterion of gender justice (Geschlechtergerechtigkeit) has received the harshest criticism; it has also created enormous disagreement among German-speaking feminist theologians.[4] Especially the change from exclusive language—i.e., the fact that the Bible uses mostly male grammar for gender-mixed groups of people—has raised many questions and led to numerous disagreements. For instance, many people find it quite acceptable that the Greek text using “brothers” (adelphoi) to address all members of the Christian congregation is translated with the German term “Geschwister” (siblings; e.g., Rom 1:7; 1 Cor 1:10). The Pauline letters make it clear that the congregations include both men and women so that inclusive language (“Geschwister”) in the translation seems to be justified in the source text. Yet massive resistance occurs when the groups of the Pharisees or scribes (even the tax collectors) that appear only in the grammatical masculine form in the New Testament are translated inclusively. In the public debate the following translation of Matt 23:2.25 is often quoted and debated:

(2) Auf dem Stuhl Moses’ sitzen toragelehrte und pharisäische Leute. . . . (25) Wehe, ihr Scheinheiligen unter den toragelehrten und pharisäischen Männern und Frauen! Ihr reinigt Becher und Schüsseln von außen, doch innen sind sie mit Raub und Gier gefüllt.

(2) On the chair of Moses sit the people who study Torah and are of the Pharisees. . . . (25) Woe, you pretenders among women and men who study Torah and are of the Pharisees! You clean cup and plate from the outside but on the inside they are filled with robbery and greed.

This translation suggests indeed (and the translator, Luise Schottroff, intended it so) that women belonged to the scribes und Pharisees. That is certainly disputed. The opponents of this translation maintain that these two Bible verses do not exemplify the usual linguistic exclusion of women in which a grammatically masculine word is used. They claim that here the androcentric language reflects an androcentric social reality because in the Jewish society of the first-century C.E. female Pharisees (or female scribes or female tax collectors) did not exist.

Of course, the problem is that we do not know exactly if the grammatically masculine noun pharisaioi, which is not a job title but a reference to group identity, also includes women in this group. Regardless of the answer, some commentators consider it already an important success of the Bibel in gerechter Sprache that long-held assumptions about the gendered composition of ancient Jewish society and its various groups are reexamined. Moreover, the strong criticism about the use of inclusive language has raised a fundamental question: Does language have only descriptive or “referential” character, or does it not always already construct reality or realities (“Wirklichkeit[en]”)? If we assume with Wittgenstein that “the boundaries of my language signify the boundaries of my world,” then it would be true that quod non est in lingua non est in mundo. Phrased differently: Repeating the Bible’s exclusive language in modern Bible translations would inevitably lead to repeating linguist reality as it is constructed in the source text; namely, a world in which women played almost no social role. One could therefore ask if the absence of women in a mere mechanical transfer of the Bible’s exclusive language into our language and culture would not lead to a similar absence today, as it did in the ancient society to which the biblical language belonged. I assume that the answer is “probably not.”

A particular concern of this inclusive Bible translation is the translation of biblical references to God. The tetragrammaton of the Hebrew Bible (YHWH), translated by the Septuagint as kyrios, receives various translations in the Bibel in gerechter Sprache. For instance, the tetragrammaton is translated with the female term “die Ewige” (the eternal). In general, the change between masculine and feminine terms for God has led to severe criticism. An important example is the translation of the prayer “Our Father” as follows: “Du, Gott, bist uns Vater und Mutter im Himmel” (Matt 6:9; “You, God, are for us Father and Mother in Heaven”).

Many believe that the text, “Vater unser im Himmel,” is a translation of Matt 6:9, whereas the text, “Du, Gott, bist uns Vater und Mutter im Himmel,” is an interpretation. Yet the term father, the equivalent in the German dictionary to the Greek noun pater, is already an interpretation of the Greek source text. The patriarchal and authoritarian connotations of the Greek word in the Mediterranean cultures of the first century CE are not reflected anymore in the German word Vater. Thus, those who insist on the term “Vater” in the biblical pater hemon would need to supply a term of comparable patriarchal and hierarchical status so that the cultural semantics of the Greek notion of father would be comparable. Yet such a word does not exist in German. In short, when I use the word Vater as the translation for pater, I change the source text by filling it with meaning from my own culture. By using the word Vater, I leave the culture of the New Testament and bring into the text the culture that is connected with that noun. Thus, even the literal translation of the Greek phrase pater hemon with the German “Vater unser” is already an interpretation and definitely a cultural transformation of the source text.

This means that a translation should not only consider the literal words, but also the cultural reality of a text and its words in the translation language. The question is, Can this be done and, if so, how is it best done? Will we ever be able to translate the Greek word pneuma without major cultural loss? The usual translation is the German word “Geist,” a grammatically masculine noun in German but neutral in Greek, and it has created many wrong connotations. The Bibel in gerechter Sprache gives it a try with the word “die Geistkraft.” The Greek pneuma is translated with a feminine noun and sounds less abstract. But even this equivalent does not give us connotations of matter and substance as implied in the Greek word. I also wonder why it is not more appropriate to capture the culture of the biblical languages with words from our own native language. The philological and text-oriented ideals of translation make us forget too quickly that they, too, are the results of cultural transformation because, like the source language, the terminology of one’s own language also has “thick” cultural contexts.[5]

Irmtraud Fischer's essay, Why the Agitation?: The Status of the “Bibel in gerechter Sprache” in Academia and the Churches is here. She points out that there are no paragraph headings:

A Bible Text As It Really Is—Without Rosy Colors

The new inclusive Bible translation foregoes any attempt to outline the biblical text, and it therefore does not include subtitles as reading guides, as they would mold a reader’s assumptions about the text. The original text does not contain any subtitles, which many readers do not even realize. The decision to forego subtitles should be viewed as an act of justice toward the original text. Readers are expected to figure out for themselves what each passage means.

Six previously unknown sermons of Augustine discovered

From the University of Erfurt comes the news that six previously unknown sermons of Augustine have been discovered by Isabella Schiller, Dorothea Weber and Clemens Weidmann in a medieval manuscript.

One sermon is on the martyrs Perpetua and Felicitas, and another on the recently martyred Cyprian, and the final sermon deals with resurrection of the dead and biblical prophecies. The 6 new sermons will be published in Wiener Studien. Zeitschrift für Klassische Philologie und Patristik und lateinische Tradition Sermones Erfurt 1, 5, and 6 in Bd. 121 (2008), pp. 227-284. Sermones Erfurt 2, 3 and 4 in Bd. 122 (2009)

Public Art (contd): Botero's "Adam and Eve"

Fernando Botero information here. These enormous statues are at Columbus Circle inside the arcade.

"He rose AGAIN"?

We all know the Nicene Creed. Here's the International Consultation on English Texts translation as printed in: The Lutheran Book of Worship and The Book of Common Prayer (Episcopal)

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

We've been reading it in Greek in class. Someone noticed that the wording of the English Translation "On the third day he rose again" was puzzling. In the first place, the word "again" isn't in the Greek text (or the Latin or the French). Then there is the problem of what it might mean....

Philip Pullman's new book: Once Upon a Time in the North

Phillip Pullman's new book, "Once Upon a Time in the North" is due out soon in the US (on April 8th). Here's a preview by the author. It sounds like a good read.

The UK edition is already out, and here's a review in the Times (UK) by Amanda Craig:

At 104 pages long, Once Upon a Time in the North is both a compelling adventure and the kind of philosophical game familiar from the author's shorter novels (I Was A Rat!, Count Karlstein and Clockwork). There are bills of lading, extracts from Lee's half-destroyed book on The Elements of Aerial Navigation, a fallacious newspaper report and a board game at the back about getting your balloon as close to the Pole without being “sucked into a terrible and certain death in the Polar Maelstrom”. Compared with the epic Miltonic grandeur of His Dark Materials we get more of a Blake poem.