#exegesis of a pericope

[mashupofmylife]

The theology teacher from my freshman year of high school died a few days ago. His kids were both younger than me by more than a few years, and its always a weird mortality check on my family when something like that happens.

He was one of the giants of my high school--a teacher that had legends associated with his name. His class was hard. I credit it with being where I actually learned to type. I got lucky and was the first class that didn't have to prepare a massive animated powerpoint presentation on the book of Exodus, because at that point no one needed to be taught how to use powerpoint. (I would have benefitted from that project, but I'm not complaining that I was spared.) One random day, he would cancel class by surprise and regale us with the story of how he proposed to his wife. And at just fifteen years of age, he assigned a gospel research paper so focused that I had to visit a local seminary college and use their physical library to find information. Exegesis of a pericope anyone?

(I now realize how much this ages me, that I went to a highly specific university library to research a few bible verses, because I couldn't access the necessary resources with the limited online research tools available at the time)

I could wax poetic about tiger amulets, a class known as FARTS, and how I learned about so much more than the Catholic bible from this man, but this is already highly specific. Going to a women's high school meant that we had weird narratives built up around the male faculty, even when they were older than most of our fathers, because there weren't high school boys to distract us. Almost all of them have retired, and three of those men have died.

Adulting is weird and sad, and as much as I was a ball of stress and anxiety during high school, I really love my memories, friends, and experiences and look back fondly on those times in life. It makes me more grateful for the relationships that I've been able to form with some of those same faculty members as an adult.

[friarmusings]

Causes of Sin

This coming Sunday is the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time. In seminary exegesis courses one is taught to look for details that indicate a change of scene, location, or other markers to indicate the boundaries of a particular pericope (a technical word used in exegesis meaning “narrative” – and a word that auto-correction keeps wanting to change to “periscope,” which given my history serving on…

[agameforgoodchristians]

A Legion of Demons (Mark 5:9)

Starting at the End

We’re coming at this Card Talk from a different angle than most. Consider this more midrash, than exegesis. A “what if?” more than “this is what happened.” So we’ll start with an unusual proposition: What if it was the man questioning Jesus, not the demons?

The Man, The Demons, The Pigs

Here’s the story in Mark 5:1-20: Jesus and His disciples cross the water into the region of Gerasenes. The second His feet touch the shore, Jesus was verbally accosted by a man with “an unclean spirit,” a demon, whose situation was dire.

He lived among the tombs, and no one could restrain him any more, even with a chain, for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces, and no one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones. (Mark 5:3-5)

When the man saw Jesus, he ran, threw himself at Jesus’ feet, and screamed, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me” (vs 7). So Jesus gets into a shouting match with the demon (which He wins), and He tells the demon he’s about to be exorcised from the man. But being a nice exorcist, Jesus asks the demon its name and learns that it is not one demon, but a whole bunch of them when it/they replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many” (vs 9). The demon(s) beg not to be sent too far away because they like the region (they’ve put down roots, it’s on the beach) and asks to be sent into a herd of pigs nearby. Jesus, again being a nice exorcist, says sure and sends the legion of demons into the assembled pigs.

So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine, and the herd, numbering about two thousand, stampeded down the steep bank into the sea and were drowned in the sea. (vs 13)

Needless to say, this pissed off the owners of the pigs, who ran into town and told everyone in earshot what happened, eventually demanding that Jesus get the hell out of the region (exorcism pun!). In the meantime, the formerly possessed man, now clothed and thinking clearly, asked Jesus if he could go with Him on His journey. Jesus tells him to go home to his family and his people, and “tell them how much the Lord has done for you and what mercy he has shown you” (vs.19), which of course he did to the amazement of everyone.

There’s the story. But let’s return to vs 7 and our initial question.

What if this is the man talking,

not Legion the demons?

Who’s Asking?

When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him, and he shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me!” (Mark 5:6-7)

What are we suggesting? Simple: that it’s the man, not the demons, talking to Jesus in vs 7.

Yes, in vs 8-9 Jesus is talking to the demons and the demons answer in vs 9-12, but we’re asking, what if the initial question was from the man? He isn’t yet “sitting…clothed and in his right mind” (vs 15), but he is briefly lucid in that moment, perhaps because the demons were so scared at the approaching of Jesus. Why would we even propose this question? Re-read verses 3-5 above.

This was a man who had been regularly abused by those in his community who tried everything to cure, save, and help him, but now just try to keep him out of the way: bind him, hold him captive, so he is not a danger to others. He is used to being seen as “other,” as less than. And here comes Jesus. Another in a long line of supposed healers who will only cause him additional pain.

Sure. You think we’re heretics. That’s nothing new. But this reading is not outside the scope of the rest of the chapter. Consider the other pericopes in Mark chapter 5.

The Rest of the Stories

In the rest of chapter 5 of Mark, verses 21-43, Jesus crosses back across the waters and performs two more healings: He brings Jarius’ 12 year old daughter back from the dead, and heals a grown woman with the 12 year old bleeding problem. We won’t spend time with the parallelism (e.g. young and old women, the obvious use of 12 symbolizing the renewal and rebirth of Israel’s 12 tribes heralded by Jesus’ actions). Let’s look at this two women’s stories. Two people who could not find the healing that they needed from those in their community (sound familiar?).

No actions of the religious leaders or politicians saved them. The younger woman was on her death bed, indeed she died and had to be brought back to life by Jesus. For the older women, the text makes it clear that she spent 12 years being taken advantage of by doctors, to the point of her being poverty stricken, while her ailment only got worse.

In addition, she was “unclean” in the eyes of the people, removing her from right worship within the Temple worship [and we’ve written quite a bit about the misconceptions of “clean and unclean” as it relates to the Bible. Read about that here.].

Those in charge of physical, social, and spiritual healing could do nothing for either of these women.

Until Jesus shows up.

All three of these characters know what it is like to have a community think they know what is best and astonishingly fail.

They all have reason to doubt, to question whether healing is possible, whether they will be taken advantage of and hurt by the people who have known them the longest, to say nothing of this stranger.

Which brings to bear another element: the man with legion demons was a gentile, not a Jew (didn’t you wonder why there were so many pigs around? They ain’t kosher.). The man was used to taking it from those in his own community, he didn’t need any more pain from the outside.

Turn on the news and then walk into a church. Listen to things that have been shouted from the pulpit in recent days. Is it really so hard to believe that someone in their right mind might be skeptical of “good christians”?

Perhaps we should not be so quick as to wonder why those on the outside of the household of faith might not be flocking to us for aid or help.

Perhaps we just seem like another in a long line waiting to hurt them.

But what do we know: we made this game and you probably think we’re going to Hell.

[itunesbooks]

John, Volume 36 - George R. Beasley-Murray, Bruce M Metzger, David Allen Hubbard & Glenn W. Barker

John, Volume 36 Revised Edition George R. Beasley-Murray, Bruce M Metzger, David Allen Hubbard & Glenn W. Barker Genre: Bible Studies Price: $35.99 Publish Date: April 24, 2018 Publisher: Zondervan Academic Seller: HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS The Word Biblical Commentary delivers the best in biblical scholarship, from the leading scholars of our day who share a commitment to Scripture as divine revelation. This series emphasizes a thorough analysis of textual, linguistic, structural, and theological evidence. The result is judicious and balanced insight into the meanings of the text in the framework of biblical theology. These widely acclaimed commentaries serve as exceptional resources for the professional theologian and instructor, the seminary or university student, the working minister, and everyone concerned with building theological understanding from a solid base of biblical scholarship. Overview of Commentary Organization Introduction—covers issues pertaining to the whole book, including context, date, authorship, composition, interpretive issues, purpose, and theology.Each section of the commentary includes:Pericope Bibliography—a helpful resource containing the most important works that pertain to each particular pericope.Translation—the author’s own translation of the biblical text, reflecting the end result of exegesis and attending to Hebrew and Greek idiomatic usage of words, phrases, and tenses, yet in reasonably good English.Notes—the author’s notes to the translation that address any textual variants, grammatical forms, syntactical constructions, basic meanings of words, and problems of translation.Form/Structure/Setting—a discussion of redaction, genre, sources, and tradition as they concern the origin of the pericope, its canonical form, and its relation to the biblical and extra-biblical contexts in order to illuminate the structure and character of the pericope. Rhetorical or compositional features important to understanding the passage are also introduced here.Comment—verse-by-verse interpretation of the text and dialogue with other interpreters, engaging with current opinion and scholarly research.Explanation—brings together all the results of the discussion in previous sections to expose the meaning and intention of the text at several levels: (1) within the context of the book itself; (2) its meaning in the OT or NT; (3) its place in the entire canon; (4) theological relevance to broader OT or NT issues.General Bibliography—occurring at the end of each volume, this extensive bibliographycontains all sources used anywhere in the commentary. http://dlvr.it/R4xFRC

[meekspaceng]

New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures

HistoryEdit

Until the release of the New World Translation, Jehovah's Witnesses in English-speaking countries primarily used the King James Version.[7][8] According to the publishers, one of the main reasons for producing a new translation was that most Bible versions in common use, including the Authorized Version(King James), employed archaic language. The stated intention was to produce a fresh translation, free of archaisms.[9] Additionally, over the centuries since the King James Version was produced, more copies of earlier manuscripts of the original texts in the Hebrew and Greek languages have become available. According to the publishers, better manuscript evidence had made it possible to determine with greater accuracy what the original writers intended, particularly in more obscure passages, allowing linguists to better understand certain aspects of the original languages.[10]

In October 1946, the president of the Watch Tower Society, Nathan H. Knorr, proposed a fresh translation of the New Testament, which Jehovah's Witnesses usually refer to as the Christian Greek Scriptures.[11] Work began on December 2, 1947 when the "New World Bible Translation Committee" was formed, composed of Jehovah's Witnesses who professed to be anointed.[12][13] The Watch Tower Society is said to have "become aware" of the committee's existence a year later. The committee agreed to turn over its translation to the Society for publication[14] and on September 3, 1949, Knorr convened a joint meeting of the board of directors of both the Watch Tower Society's New York and Pennsylvania corporations where he again announced to the directors the existence of the committee[15] and that it was now able to print its new modern English translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures. Several chapters of the translation were read to the directors, who then voted to accept it as a gift.[14]

The New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures was released at a convention of Jehovah's Witnesses at Yankee Stadium, New York, on August 2, 1950. The translation of the Old Testament, which Jehovah's Witnesses refer to as the Hebrew Scriptures, was released in five volumes in 1953, 1955, 1957, 1958, and 1960. The complete New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures was released as a single volume in 1961, and has since undergone minor revisions.[16]Cross references which had appeared in the six separate volumes were updated and included in the complete volume in the 1984 revision.[17]

In 1961 the Watch Tower Society began to translate the New World Translation into Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish; the New Testament in these languages was released simultaneously in July 1963 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. By 1989 the New World Translation was translated into eleven languages, with more than 56,000,000 copies printed.[18]

TranslatorsEdit

The New World Translation was produced by the New World Bible Translation Committee, formed in 1947. This committee is said to have comprised unnamed members of multinational background.[19] The committee requested that the Watch Tower Society not publish the names of its members,[20][21] stating that they did not want to "advertise themselves but let all the glory go to the Author of the Scriptures, God,"[22] adding that the translation, "should direct the reader... to... Jehovah God".[23] The publishers believe that "the particulars of [the New World Bible Translation Committee's members] university or other educational training are not the important thing" and that "the translation testifies to their qualification".[23]

Former high-ranking Watch Tower staff have identified various members of the translation team. Former governing body member Raymond Franz listed Nathan H. Knorr, Fredrick W. Franz, Albert D. Schroeder, George D. Gangas, and Milton G. Henschel as members of the translation team, adding that only Frederick Franz had sufficient knowledge in biblical languages.[24][25] Referring to the identified members, evangelical minister Walter Ralston Martin said, "The New World Bible translation committee had no known translators with recognized degrees in Greek or Hebrew exegesis or translation... None of these men had any university education except Franz, who left school after two years, never completing even an undergraduate degree." Franz had stated that he was familiar with not only Hebrew, but with Greek, Latin, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and French for the purpose of biblical translation.[26][27]

Translation Services DepartmentEdit

In 1989 a Translation Services Department was established at the world headquarters of Jehovah's Witnesses, overseen by the Writing Committee of the Governing Body. The goal of the Translation Services Department was to accelerate Bible translation with the aid of computer technology. Previously, some Bible translation projects lasted twenty years or more. Under the direction of the Translation Services Department, translation of the Old Testament in a particular language may be completed in as little as two years. During the period from 1963 to 1989, the New World Translation became available in ten additional languages. Since the formation of the Translation Services Department in 1989, there has been a significant increase in the number of languages in which the New World Translation has been made available.[28][29]

2013 revisionEdit

At the Watch Tower Society's annual meeting on October 5, 2013, a significantly revised translation was released. Referring to the new revision, the publishers stated, "There are now about 10 percent fewer English words in the translation. Some key Biblical terms were revised. Certain chapters were changed to poetic format, and clarifying footnotes were added to the regular edition."[30]

The Pericope Adulterae (John 7:53 – 8:11) and the Short and Long Conclusions of Mark 16 (Mark16:8–20)—offset from the main text in earlier editions—were removed. The new revision was also released as part of an app called JW Library.[31] As of July 2019, the 2013 edition of the New World Translation has been translated into 29 languages.[32]