Hen Scratches 07-07-07

1. Iyov has four posts in his series presenting Harry Orlinsky's notes on Bible translation. Iyov writes,

Harry Orlinsky is an interesting figure. A Reform Jew, he participated in a number of major translations, including the Revised Standard Version, the New Revised Standard Version, and the New Jewish Publication Society translation. In 1969, he wrote a set of notes on his translation of the Pentateuch and his theory of translation -- these provide a fascinating insight to his thought process, and I wish to publish some extracts from those notes.

2. John Hobbins is back with an update on the canon.

3. In response to Iyov's series from Rudolph Hallo, I am currently reading Lord Shaftsbury and the Rise of Christian Zionism by Donald M. Lewis in manuscript form. I am not aware of a publication date for this book. It outlines the history of English Evangelicals thinking about the Jewish Nation from the Reformation to the late 19th century.

4. The conversation continues on Jim Hamilton's blog. My comments are moderated so I don't know if this one will be posted. I wrote,

Jim,

You write that Baldwin and Kostenberger have established the meaning of authentein. However, Baldwin does not present any evidence contemporary with the epistles that confirms the meaning of “have authority” for authentein.

In fact, Kostenberger writes,

At the heart of the book were the two chapters devoted to lexical and semantic analysis. In the former, the likelihood was suggested that “exercise authority” (Grk. authentein) carries a neutral or positive connotation, but owing to the scarcity of the term in ancient literature (the only NT occurrence is 1 Tim. 2:12; found only twice preceding the NT in extrabiblical literature) no firm conclusions could be reached on the basis of lexical study alone.

So there is no firm lexical evidence for the meaning of authentein. Once again the misquote in Baldwin’s article was understood and corrected in an article by Linda Belleville.

Grudem does present all of this material in Ev. Fem. and Biblical Truth. It is well worth reading the entire appendix and then reading L. Belleville’s article in Discovering Biblical Equality, Complementarity Without Hierarchy. I think it would be well worth the time to dip into the studies by Baldwin and then Belleville a bit. They make for interesting reading.

I would very much like to see more conversation about Baldwin's article on authentein. I have only known it from the appendix in Grudem's book and Belleville's article. So far, I have not read a recent thorough defense of the article.

PS There seems to be a new publishing trend in which one can read the very words of Job himself in red letters.