Thursday, August 07, 2003

A Brief Word from our Creator

I’ll be at the IOLTA conference for the ABA meeting most of today and tomorrow, so my on-line presence may be a bit whifty.  Whatever.  I get a buffet lunch and dinner at Thirstybear out of it.  And all I have to do is sit quietly in a variety of lectures for hours on hours on hours.  For days.  Two of them.  God I need a nap already.

But instead I’ll foist this bit of ill-tempered dogmatism on you:

- You’re wrong.
- It’s not a matter of right or wrong.  One book says one thing, one book says another. 
- Your book - I’m sorry to have to tell you this - is wrong.
- And your book is right, right?
- Yes.
- And there’s only one way to read it - your way, right?
- Yes.  And people who reject the truth, they won’t be saved.
- No?
- I’m sorry, but your denial of holy scripture is going to condemn you to hell.
- Because of your book.
- Hey, it’s your book too.  It’s everybody’s book.  It’s for us all.
- You know that book pretty well, don’t you.
- From Genesis through Revellations.
- Who wrote it?
- God did, through divinely inspired human intermediaries.
- What are the first words of Genesis?
- Are you testing me?  “In the beginning, there was...”
- Wrong!
- What?
- When do you think this was written?  I’ll tell you - more than five thousand years ago, long before English was even a language.  None of the words you’re saying existed when the bible was written.  Now tell me, what is the language of the bible?
- I know what you’re trying to do.  You’re trying to deny the holy spirit that filled the translators of the bible.  Which, to answer your question, was written in hebrew for the old testament. 
- First, the language of what you call the old testament is not hebrew.  It’s Aramaic.  I guess it’s not a major distinction unless you are putting faith and meaning into every word.  At that point it becomes pretty significant.  And I don’t have to deny that the men who wrote your bible were working on their own, without holy intercession.  Their own failures prove it amply enough.  They changed the order of the books, you know.  Jews throughout history have always organized these writings very differently. 
- So what?  All the words are still true.
- By changing the order, the inventors of your bible completely change the place and role of god in the cosmos.  It’s totally different - like if you take a movie and re-edit it so the middle is at the end and the end comes in the middle.  That’s obviously taking one movie and turning it into something else altogether.
- This isn’t a movie.  It’s holy scripture.
- That just makes the changes more significant.  The jewish bible ends with god detached and observant, and we’re responsible for our own fate; your bible makes the god of the end of the old testament the great holy fixer who’s involved in every mistake and failure we suffer from the day we’re conceived to the day we stand in judgment.  Totally different cosmologies.  Totally different gods.  And you’re saying the difference doesn’t make a difference?
- Each word is true; we have men of god to teach us how to understand them.  You just haven’t availed yourself of the wisdom of sages.  That’s why you’re confused. 
- So in your mind it’s okay if the sages take the aramaic word for “girl” and translate it into greek, then english, as “virgin?” That’s a meaningless change to you?  Do you think all girls are virgins and all virgins are girls, and the words are freely interchangeable without affecting the meaning of a sentence?
- That didn’t happen.  They didn’t change any words.  They are all as god wrote them for us.
- What’s the aramaic word for “girl?” And for “virgin?” And what are the greek equivalents that appeared in the original monastic translations of Ezekiel and Jerimiah?
- I don’t know.
- Face it, you’ve never read the bible.  You are taking it on faith that others are advising you correctly when they hand you a book and tell you it’s an exact translation of something you can’t read on your own.  I can accept that.  What I can’t accept is you telling me that my faith is wrong where yours is right.  Only god knows all.  You can’t know that you’re right.  That’s the sin of pride.  Pride in your supposed omniscience.  But that’s okay - I forgive you.  And as for god’s forgiveness - you’ll have to take that up with her.

That’s it. I’m taking you to dinner at my mother’s house. You could have her weeping in the corner inside of ten minutes.

what you said, dan.  thanks.

Oh yes...well done.

Loved it.

please tell me you were having this conversation with a door-to-door faith salesman of the jehovah’s witness or mormon variety.

because if you were ripping apart a priest, i’m afraid i will have to harm you.

I made it all up.  I was talking to someone who’d had a conversation with a rather under-educated fundamentalist who was a sweethearted good person with a strong sense that she knew “the truth” and everybody else was just wrong.  I took it from there. 

And Romy, the priests I’ve met, and I’ll admit there haven’t been too many of them, typically weren’t so dismissive of other faiths and beliefs.  Sure, I wasn’t allowed to get married in a church, but that’s different.  I was never told that my marriage would not be recognized by god.  (That wedding took place 14 years ago yesterday! - and I’m still a little irked at Monsignor Bannick’s high-handed attitude toward my situation - but it sure wasnt’ anything like the post I wrote....)

Congratulations on the anniversary!

partheno was the ancient greek word for a young girl, it also meant virgin.  as far as aramaic i am not sure.

here’s the word on the aramaic:
* a girl from infancy to age 12 years was called a “katantah.”
* From age 12+one day to age 12-1/2, she was called a “na’arah.”
* From 12-1/2+one day forward, she was a “bogerrt.”
* A woman - including women in their late teens - were called “‘itah” or “itatah.”
* A virgin was called a “betulta.”

Special thanks for the Aramaic transliterations to the rt.rev. Stephen Chucklehut, Rabbi and Scholar Extraordinaire.  I’m not kidding.  Dad rocks the Aramaic house.  To the extent such things rock.

I agree, good pastors and priests aren’t dismissive of other religions. It’s the fundamentalists that give religions a bad name (and I think that can be said for most religions, not just Christianity).

As a practicing Lutheran, I’m appalled by people who are so sure of their rightness that they tell others they are going to hell if they don’t believe the exact same thing. That’s really not the fundamentalist’s decision, now is it?