Hen Scratches 26-08-07

Update: I apologize for the wrong link for Martin Shields paper. Martin has also written The End of Wisdom.

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Now I know how to get my cobloggers to pitch in. Post something completely arcane. Medieval textual apparatus in shorthand.

Jason Hood at Deinde has a good post, Social Location and Interpretation: Wealth in 1 Kings 10-11 on how the translation of waw seriously affects the way a passage is interpreted. If the waw is translated in a disjunctive way, as in "but" or even "now", the thought is completely different than if it is translated "and". Another solution is not to translate it at all. His post ends with a plug for Iain Provan's notes in the New Oxford Annotated Study Bible, described here.

Martin Shields has joined us as a commenter. I recently read his thesis Man and Woman in Genesis 1–3. HT Unrelated Ramblings. Download it here. It's a good read.

His paper mentions another translation point that came up in Waltke's class. Dr. Waltke mentioned that תשוקח in Gen. 3:16b,

and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee

should be understood as "try to control". So the wife wants to control the husband and the husband rules the wife. This is the curse, bad on both sides. I am not sure that this contributes anything to the gender debate. I think the point is that it doesn't, but it makes more sense realistically than the previous interpretations of that verse. On page 96 Martin writes,

Etymology, then, would suggest that the (unused) Hebrew verbal root שוק III should be connected to the Arabic sāqa, which leaves us to determine the possible semantic field for the feminine noun תשוקח . Waltke and O’Connor tell us that “a t-prefix noun usually designates the action of the verb it is derived from,”32 in light of which the most likely meaning for the noun would be something like ‘control, direction, regulation’33–so the text would indicate here that the woman will direct her control over her husband.

Martin's paper is very level headed and contributes to the notion that the scriptures do not unequivocally support either complementarianism or egalitarianism. Thank you, Martin.

Here are two important posts from the Bayly Blog. First, according to the Bayly Blog, Karen Jobes, one of the few women to serve on the translation team of an evangelical Bible, the TNIV, attends a church where women are ordained.

And this post, my friends, is for all of us, an expression of affection that transcends our differing beliefs and agendas. Throw our disagreements to the wind and learn about the Man Hug. I hope you feel hugged at the end of watching this video! (Note: There is not a hint of sarcasm. I mean it. Its lovely.)

Bryan L has numerous good posts on Gordon Fee's Books at Things on Bryan L's Mind. Bryan L is a frequent reader of this blog and an encouraging commenter elsewhere.

Sam of Unrelated Ramblings, mentioned above, has some good posts on translation and a question about Zech. 9:1.

One last note, before signing off. I was looking at BIBLES THROUGH THE AGES as I often do, when I noticed this metrical psalm book, 1635 (shown at right), where some tunes are printed upside down on facing pages, so that one book could be used by singers on either side of the choir.

I noticed something funny the other day. I was meeting with someone to discuss their book on the Psalms. I had taken a printout of various verses in different versions of Latin and Greek. I only had one copy, so at lunch as we discussed this across the table, I was reading the Latin text upside down. I would guess that between playing scrabble and teaching children how to read, I have acquired the skill of reading upside down. However, when we got to the Greek text, I was completely stumped, I could not read it upside down. I wondered at first if I had forgotten how to read Greek, and then I realized that it must be because I was reading upside down. Whew.

Additions: Lots of additions to this post. I am reading John's series on Psalm 19.