@courtenay I cannot understand on what basis Ancient Hebrew could be called a "corrupt, deprived language"
I don't understand that basis, either. Historically, after King Josiah died in battle against the Egyptian Pharaoh Necho, in 609 BC, the Assyrian empire collapsed at the Battle of Carchemish, (2 Chronicles 35:20-25) Nebuchadnezzar had his turn, to destroy Jerusalem & take over Judah as well as the rest of the Middle East. If you read the Book of Daniel Chapter 7, the Babylonian empire under Belshazzar was taken over by Cyrus the Mede, & his son Cambyses, but more empires were to come, firstly the Achaemenid dynasty, which finally collapsed when Alexander the Great defeated them on October 1st, 331 BC at the Battle of Gaugamela.
However, the Seleucid Empire, one of these 4 empires was also fighting against the Ptolemaic Empire based in Egyptian territory, with Judea the meat in the sandwich for much of the time. And when Antiochus IV Epiphanes, conflicted with growing Roman power (Daniel 7, 7 - the fourth beast) on his return back to Syria, he took Jerusalem by force and tried to Hellenise or de-Judaise the area, also killing many who preferred Ptolemy. He also spoiled the temple, and interrupted the constant practice of offering a daily sacrifice of expiation, for three years and six months. His heavy-handedness provoked the Maccabean revolt, but finally under Pompey the Great, in 63 BC, the Romans also despoiled the temple, taking over from the Seleucids who held Syria and Lebanon as well as Judea. By that time, the lingua franca had become Syrian Aramaic, still retained as the language in the liturgy of Lebanese & Syrian churches, and maybe by the Samaritans, descended from the Assyrians and Northern Israelites, who intermingled over the centuries, & still living, it would seem, in the West Bank.
In 70 AD, Vespasian's son Titus destroyed the repaired Herodian temple, and in 132 AD, after the Bar Kochba revolt, put down by the Emperor Hadrian, a shrine was erected there to his Latin god, Jupiter. As early as 610 BC & by 636-637 AD, Arab armies conquered Jerusalem, during the era of the Caliphates, until in 1099 it fell to the first crusade. Since then, the original Phoenician language of Lebanon has disappeared long ago, and now the lingua franca between Türkiye & Egypt, & east to Iraq is Arabic for everyone, though accents differ of course, especially in Syria (Sham or Aram, in the Old Testament.)
But the original Hebrew still remains the liturgical language of the Torah and the Taanach, at Jewish services, taught to their children as well, at Sunday school, I was told. About a decade ago, a group of us went on a visit to the Great Synagogue, arranged by a Sydney University Adult Education course*, to broaden my mind. Hebrew is also used as the official language of Israel, revived much like Irish was revived when Eire, the Irish Republic was formed in the 1920's. The Rabbi in charge explained how they carefully copied out the Torah by hand, on great rolls of parchment, just like they did in Biblical times, and scrolls that fall to pieces are buried, with great solemnity and respect.
* Sydney Uni at the time, conducted similar day courses, to the Ba'hai temple at Mona Vale, which would have been really interesting to see, the Gallipoli Mosque at Auburn where they had an open day, and to a Buddhist temple as well, I think.
This is just following up a discussion @courtenay and I were having on another thread. (I don't think we are in disagreement, just I am not communicating clearly).
Reading what you've said, I would say we are in disagreement, but it comes down to differences in theological stance, not to miscommunication.
The point was not to say that Biblical Hebrew is debased. The quotation came from the lecture “Exposition of Genesis D (Genesis 5 - 8)” by Bruce Waltke at Regent College in Vancouver in 1997.
In context, Bruce was saying the Canaanite language was considered the most debased and insidious of languages. The Hebrew language has its lineage directly from Canaanite. The Old Testament is written in Hebrew. Bruce’s point (as I understand it) is that God can take something that has been corrupted, he can then sanctify it, transform it, purify it, and make it holy. Thus, where Bruce was despairing that all language can be corrupted, in fact the opposite is also true. God can take something that has been corrupted and take away its corruption, such that it is sacred and holy. (Think of Jesus touching a leper. Normally, if you touch a leper you would become unclean, but Jesus touches the leper and the leper becomes clean.)
I scribed a portion of what he said in the lecture:
“
Man has [Humans have] corrupted the earth. Every inclination of the heart [is] a vivid portray of the depth and the comprehensiveness of this Human depravity. [He is paraphrasing Genesis 6:5 - every thought of the human heart is evil]
I commented on this in class: when we worked on the N.I.V. [Bruce Waltke was a part of the N.I.V. translation committee], I had a horrible flash of incite. I discovered that so many words that we wanted to use, we could not use because of a double entendre; they had a second meaning; they were puns. And they could have an evil connotation. And at one point we were throwing out words, and I was trying words, and so many of them had this double entendre; that they could be misunderstood until it hit me: ‘every word could be so contaminated with another meaning that you couldn’t talk without thinking evil’. Every imagination is only evil continually. Even your hymns could be totally subverted. It can all take on other meanings. … You can subvert the entire language this way. It was a frightening thought!
And then I realized that Biblical Hebrew is Canaanite; the most debased, insidious language God used to write Hoy Scripture. And He can transform it!"
The main issue, as I see it, is something like this. All human languages (whether ancient or modern) have issues of puns, double meanings, words changing their meaning over time, and so on. It's not something that's inherent solely to English, or to Hebrew (ancient or modern), or Canaanite, or any other language in particular. Any language can be used to speak or write of holy things, or evil things, or anything in between.
And there will always be difficulties (probably near impossibilities) in conveying divine concepts, things that are beyond our full grasp, in human language. Anybody who's ever felt the presence and the love of God even for a moment, or had any other kind of experience of holiness and awe, knows how hard it is to find words adequate to describe or explain it.
But the idea that some (or all) languages are inherently corrupt, and yet God has taken the most corrupt one of them and used it to write Holy Scripture... well, this is where we're talking at theological cross-purposes.
The idea that absolutely everything about human beings is evil, that we are inherently depraved and can think and produce nothing but evil and that our depravity has corrupted the whole earth, is popular in some conservative forms of Christianity, mainly found in the US. It's not the basis on which every single form of Christianity works. I recently read something by a Catholic writer criticising the "total depravity" doctrine of Calvinism by pointing out that in her own tradition, although humanity's tendency to sin is acknowledged, we are still inherently made in the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1:26-27), and that image in us can never be totally lost, no matter how obscured and distorted it is by sin.
C.S. Lewis was of course an Anglican, and Anglican doctrines, while Protestant, originated with Catholicism and are still quite closely related. Interestingly, Judaism — which of course is the religion that the Hebrew Scriptures originated with and most fully belong to — also doesn't have the concept that human beings are totally and utterly corrupt. As far as I understand (not being Jewish myself), it sees us as capable of both good and evil, and of choosing between good and evil. And yes, all too often, whether ignorantly or deliberately, we choose evil. Which is why we need God. (Proverbs 3:5-6, for one example.)
Getting back now to the point about languages... as I was saying, languages — like the human beings who create and use and shape them — can express good or evil or everything in between; can and do change over time; are pretty much incapable of expressing the very highest and holiest concepts; and can easily be misunderstood, or even deliberately twisted for evil purposes. That's the way it is.
But the idea that the Biblical Hebrew language was or is "considered the most debased and insidious of languages" — where does that claim actually come from? If somebody said it in ancient times, that probably says a lot more about that (obviously non-Hebrew) writer's personal prejudices against the Hebrew people than it does about anything to do with the Hebrew language itself.
And out of all the other languages that were around at the time, why exactly were they less corrupt than Hebrew, or than any other human languages?
Seriously, the claim that Hebrew was "the most debased and insidious of languages" is a very strong assertion to make with no credible evidence. It also has uncomfortable echoes of the idea that the Hebrews / Jews themselves (and by extension, their religion) were or are intrinsically corrupt. I don't think we need to go into what that particular concept has led to over the centuries, including things for which we Christians are more than a little at fault (to put it mildly).
[Slight diversion — as @waggawerewolf27 has also pointed out, the Hebrew language survived down the centuries as the scriptural and liturgical language of the Jewish people, even while it was no longer their day-to-day language, and so it was quite easy for Jewish scholars in the 19th century to revive and promote Hebrew as an everyday spoken language in hope of it becoming a unifying factor in building a Jewish nation, as it eventually did. I cannot think of any other language from the Mesopotamian region with origins going as far back as Hebrew — certainly none of the other languages that were spoken in that area during the time of King David et al. — that has survived in any meaningful form, along with the culture that it originated with, to this day. So how anything about that language can be considered more "debased and insidious" than any other language... really is beyond me.]
Back on topic — also, the idea that God took this "debased and insidious" language and "used it to write Holy Scripture"... well, there we're at theological cross-purposes again.
The idea that God personally dictated every word of the Bible is another concept that's popular in certain conservative forms of Christianity, again mainly in the US. It's not part of what would be considered mainstream Christianity as I know it from Australia and the UK and across Europe. I've done Bible study with a range of teachers and textbooks from a range of different denominations, and always there is the acknowledgment that (for a start) we don't have anything we can consider "the original" texts of either the Hebrew or Greek Scriptures.
More to the point, there's the acknowledgment that these texts were, in every case, written by human beings, each coming from their particular time and place and culture, attempting to write down — in those inherently inadequate human languages — what they understood about God, or had heard from God, or what had been passed down in oral tradition as the history of their people's relationship with God. Most of us would agree those writers were guided and inspired by the Holy Spirit, but it's only fair to say that as human beings, none of them were absolutely infallible. Hence why there are contradictions between some Biblical texts, and different possible interpretations, and so many differing theological opinions among Christians and Jews alike.
So, no, I don't subscribe to the view that the Bible is the result of God taking "the most debased, insidious language and using it to write Holy Scripture." Neither do all Christians of other denominations. Some do, obviously, and some don't.
I'm not saying this to get into an argument about who is right and who is wrong, just to point out that Christianity worldwide is a hugely diverse religion, and it's not wise to assume that one's own preferred theological positions are universally accepted and unassailable.
I'm aware that my own theological positions are non-orthodox on a number of matters, and so when reading something like the Chronicles of Narnia, I try to be mindful of the author's particular theological stance (generally easy with Lewis, since he wrote so much on the topic) and to understand and respect it, even where I don't wholly agree with it, rather than imposing my own views over his on the assumption that mine are just naturally the correct ones.
I was trying to echo this idea. If Calorman had begun by a group of outlaws fleeing justice (I think from Archenland) across the desert, than this is not the most moral beginning for a society. However, just as God is able to take something that has been corrupted and restore it, so to, Calorman's poor beginning as a corrupt society does not mean that Aslan cannot redeem something from it. (My own life is a testimony of something that I have made a mess of, but God can turn around and make something holy from in spite of the mess that I often have made.) Hope that makes sense.
It does, but it doesn't seem to fit entirely with what Lewis is telling us about the nature of Aslan's country. That's back on the topic of the other discussion, so I'll take it over there.
"Now you are a lioness," said Aslan. "And now all Narnia will be renewed."
(Prince Caspian)
@courtenay I cannot understand on what basis Ancient Hebrew could be called a "corrupt, deprived language"
I don't understand that basis, either.
I think this is the source of the misunderstanding / disagreement.
Did Bruce Waltke or myself say that Hebrew is a depraved language?
No.
Did Bruce Waltke say that Canaanite was a depraved language?
Yes.
On what basis?
The context was the use of puns, euphemisms, etc. for evil intent. (As @Courtenay pointed out, a language is not evil in of itself, it is how you use it that makes it evil. Language reflects the culture in which it exists and vice versa. Thus cultures that do not follow the one true God are likely to have more words that are used for vile concepts.) If I understand Bruce Waltke correctly, he is saying that there is more language relating to evil practices in Ancient Canaanite than other languages of that time.
He is then stating that Hebrew is derived from the ancient Canaanite language (I can not confirm this, as I do not know much about ancient Canaanite - I only ever learned the Hebrew alphabet and a smattering of basic Hebrew words that allowed me to use basic exegetical tools in the the Old Testament - so I can not even say I know much about Hebrew, much less Ancient Canaanite). But given that Bruce Waltke is a highly respected scholar on Ancient Hebrew, I am accepting his word that Hebrew is derived from Ancient Canaanite.
Assuming this last paragraph is accurate, than the Hebrew scriptures were written in a language that is near identical to Ancient Canaanite. Bruce says Ancient Canaanite was "the most debased, insidious language". But Hebrew is not a 'debased, insidious language', in spite of its origins; it is the language God used to write Holy Scripture. My assumption is that this means, as the Canaanite language was adopted by Abraham / the Hebrews under the influence of the LORD, that it was sanctified - the words referring to abhorrent concepts disappeared (as you need words for the things that you speak about; things that you do not talk about need less vocabulary).
You can witness this in the practice of the English language. There are a lot of slang for various sinful activities. If you are outside the community where that sin is practiced, it is often surprising to find out how many words there are to refer to that particular conduct and sometimes to the various intricacies of it.
This then makes sense of Bruce's quotation. He was in dismay because in translating the Hebrew to English for the NIV (I think it was the 1984 version he was referring to in the quote), there were so many words that the committee was wanting to use, that could not be used because they now had a double meaning that would spoil the translation. He was running into this problem all the time. He was reflecting on it and saw it as a manifestation of the fact that "every thought of the human heart is evil" - that all language can be corrupted.
For him, the counterpoint is that God is able to redeem all language. The Canaanite language was apparently foul and evil, reflecting the culture that it communicated. Into this culture came Abraham, a man following the one true God. To communicate with the locals, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob would have had to adopt the local language to some degree. This would explain in part why Hebrew looks more like Ancient Canaanite and less like Ancient Sumerian (Abram was originally from the city of Ur in the Sumerian civilization). But Abraham followed the one true God, as did his descendants, and under the influence of the LORD, the Hebrew language became something that was not foul and evil. (Again, the words used reflect the culture - and thus language develops new words to embrace the concepts that it needs to communicate in its culture. @Courtenay pointed this out when she commented that modern Hebrew is almost unchanged from Old Testament Hebrew, but it has added new words for concepts that did not exist in Ancient times - I'd use 'Nuclear Fission' as an example. The same would be true for the Ancient Israelites.)
The Holiest book written was written in Hebrew. But Hebrew was a language derived from the Ancient Canaanite language. Bruce's point is that God can take something that is not holy (Canaanite language) and transform it and make it holy. He makes all things new (Rev 21:5). The corruption of humanity is not the last word, the redemption of God is the last word.
This is similar to the Early Church converting Pagan Temples into Church buildings. In the 1st to 4th Centuries, Christians mostly met in house churches. But at some point around the 6th and 7th centuries, Christians met more publicly and during this time they would repurpose pagan temples. Apparently, the Pantheon in Rome, the Parthenon in Athens, and the Temple of Hephaestus were all used as buildings for Christians to Assemble for worship. I have heard people say that this shows a compromise in Christians and that we were apostatizing at that time. Most Christians though have (rightly I think) said that the Christians were realizing that just as God could make a new person from the old, fallen person, so too He can sanctify a building that had once been used for pagan worship and use it to make His name known throughout the earth. This does not make Christians, or church buildings unholy, or compromised, rather it shows that God can transform what was evil and make it good - and in so doing a building that was once used for evil can now be used for the greatest good.
Thus none of this is to say that the Hebrew language is unholy, debased or anything like that. That is not what I am saying and I am certain that is not what Bruce Waltke is saying either. I have the highest respect for the scribes and Rabis who meticulously preserved the Hebrew scriptures (with remarkable accuracy - the Dead Sea scrolls witnessing how little they changed in over a millennia).
The point here is not to criticize the Hebrew language, but rather to show that God is able to purify language. Canaanite was an extremely 'unclean' language - but God could take something so corrupted and redeem it - and use it as part of His perfect plan. "But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption."
The term is over: the holidays have begun.
The dream is ended: this is the morning
I think this is the source of the misunderstanding / disagreement.
Did Bruce Waltke or myself say that Hebrew is a depraved language?
No.
Did Bruce Waltke say that Canaanite was a depraved language?
Yes.
On what basis?
The context was the use of puns, euphemisms, etc. for evil intent. (As @Courtenay pointed out, a language is not evil in of itself, it is how you use it that makes it evil. Language reflects the culture in which it exists and vice versa. Thus cultures that do not follow the one true God are likely to have more words that are used for vile concepts.) If I understand Bruce Waltke correctly, he is saying that there is more language relating to evil practices in Ancient Canaanite than other languages of that time.
Ah, right, I think I understand better now. If I'm reading this right, Bruce Waltke is stating that the ancient Canaanite language was the most corrupt and debased language of its time, but God took it and "purified" it into the Hebrew language that God used to write Holy Scripture. Is that it, more or less?
I did misunderstand this earlier as a claim that Hebrew itself was the "the most debased and insidious of languages", so I'm glad to have that cleared up.
However, the assertions Waltke is making are not entirely matters of provable historical fact, but theological claims, with which some Christians agree and some do not. That's all I'm getting at, really.
Again, there are those who take the stance that God did not literally dictate the scriptural texts; human beings wrote them, in human languages that are no more inherently pure (or corrupt) than the humans who create and use those languages. Hebrew is a fascinating language, but the idea that it was somehow specially and divinely purified from a "debased" ancestral language is a statement of theological belief, rather than something that professional linguists and historians would attempt to claim, since there's no objective proof of it.
The fact that a language can be used to write or speak about debauched concepts and practices, does not make that language inherently corrupt (though it may suggest something about the culture whose language it is). There are parts of the Hebrew Scriptures that talk pretty frankly about horrible or uncomfortable matters. They're written in the same language that is used for the beautiful and lofty passages that we prefer to quote much more often.
And again — changes in language, and in meanings of words, happen all the time in every language over decades and centuries. Some of these changes actually entail a negative word becoming more positive, not always a formerly positive word coming to mean something debased. For example, "silly" in English originally meant happy or blessed, not foolish — whereas "fond" originally meant foolish, yet has come to mean affectionately loving. That of course is why we need new Bible translations from time to time, and expert historians to decipher the meanings of ancient languages in their original contexts. But there's nothing necessarily inherently horrifying about that.
He was reflecting on it and saw it as a manifestation of the fact that "every thought of the human heart is evil" - that all language can be corrupted.
There's a non sequitur in that statement. "Every thought of the human heart is evil", if we take it as absolute fact, would mean that all human language IS corrupted, not merely "can be". And as I said, the idea that all of humankind is completely depraved, in every single thought and action, is the basis of certain forms of conservative Protestantism. It's not the basis of every single Christian theology that exists.
In fact, the Bible passage being referenced there is Gen. 6:5, which refers specifically to the state of humankind before the flood and the building of Noah's ark. (Which, to be clear about, some Christian theologies take as a factual historical event, and others see as fable and metaphor.) Again, I'm no expert on Jewish theology, but from what I can gather, Jews in general do not take that statement in the early part of their Scriptures as conclusive proof that all human beings, to this day, are entirely corrupt and incapable of thinking or doing anything good at all. Nor do all varieties of Christianity — just some of them.
And once more, I'm not going to engage in debate over who is right or who is wrong. Just wanting to make clear that some of these assertions about the Hebrew and Canaanite languages, and the origins of the Bible texts, and the nature of the human heart, are statements of theological opinon rather than absolute provable fact — and there are some matters on which Christians of different denominations and traditions can only agree to disagree. I'm guessing Bruce Waltke himself must have discovered this repeatedly on the NIV translation committee.
"Now you are a lioness," said Aslan. "And now all Narnia will be renewed."
(Prince Caspian)
@courtenay Ah, right, I think I understand better now. If I'm reading this right, Bruce Waltke is stating that the ancient Canaanite language was the most corrupt and debased language of its time
I've been following this discussion and for the sake of its historic context, the Ancient Canaanites lived in what in 1922, was the Palestine Mandate, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, when the then Republic of Turkey was founded by Kemal Ataturk. They were a bunch of tribes, not necessarily related, which, like the Phoenicians (called that name by Greeks) spoke similar Semitic languages, including Hebrew, spoken by the ancient Israelites, also known as the Habiru. The Phoenicians, coming from Tyre, Sidon, Byblos & Baalbek, were famed for the Tyrian purple dye they traded with across the Mediterranean. They also developed the earliest alphabet, and an empire which included Carthage in Tunisia, Syracuse in Sicily, Malta, Cartagena & Gades (Cadiz) in Spain, even trading with the inhabitants of Cornwall in the British Isles, where tin was mined to manufacture Bronze, made of tin & copper. In those days, people were identified by their home cities, like Tyre & Sidon, all in today's Lebanon.
According to Wikipedia, the first mention of the name of the Israelites was on the Merneptah stele, an inscription by Merneptah, a pharaoh in ancient Egypt who reigned from 1213 to 1203 BCE. Discovered by Flinders Petrie at Thebes in 1896, it is now housed at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The text is largely an account of Merneptah's victory over the ancient Libyans and their allies, but the last three of the 28 lines deal with a separate campaign in Canaan, then part of Egypt's imperial possessions. It is sometimes referred to as the "Israel Stele" because a majority of scholars translate a set of hieroglyphs in line 27 as "Israel". Merneptah in this line says "Israel has been wiped out ... its seed is no more." on his stele. But his father, Rameses II, (1303-1213 BC) who fought the Hittites at Quadesh in Syria, as well as Nubians & Libyans, dominated the Middle East to Asia Minor, including the area the Greeks called Phoenicia after the Greek word for purple. (The stele represents the earliest textual reference to Israel and the only reference from ancient Egypt). It is one of four known inscriptions from the Iron Age that date to the time of known Israelite existence and mentions ancient Israel by name, with the others being the Mesha Stele, the Tel Dan Stele, and the Kurkh Monoliths. When Exodus contains the oldest parts of the Torah, that is to say, the Pentateuch, & the 5 first books of the Bible, I've wondered if Merneptah's inscription could have been taken out of context to infer that he was the Exodus 1:15-22 Pharaoh who ordered midwives to kill all new-born Hebrew sons, rather than his boast of conquering an army of the Canaanites, including their Israelite allies.
The five cities of Gath, Ekron, Ashdod and Askelon, and yes, Gaza, were built by the Philistines, in an area that Herodotus, who wrote about the Persian wars against Athens in 490 & 480 BCE, calling that area Palestine, south of Phoenicia, and north of Egypt. These were the Sea Peoples called the Peleset who were settled in that area by 20th Dynasty Rameses III (1186-1155 BC), and yes, they, too, feature in 1 Samuel Chapter 15, I think it is, which we have been studying at church, when we found that the fate of the Amalekites has been mentioned extensively, even in online news. These Peleset are said to have come from either Libya or Crete, and may even have been Greek in origin. But they also adopted the Canaanite gods of Baal, Dagon, and Astarte (Aphrodite in Greek?), even though they were not directly related to the Canaanite Phoenicians.
The Merneptah Stele is pictured below, as well as the Mesha or Moabite Stele, which I've seen, myself, when in 2012 we visited the Paris Louvre. This stele was erected at the time of Mesha, telling of the Moabite king's struggles against Ahab, the Israelite king married to Jezebel, the daughter of the Sidonese priest/king of Baal, who thus wanted to impose that religion on Ancient Israel, thus getting into conflict with the Prophet Elijah. You can find an account of this in the links I've left or in relevant texts in the Bible, itself. Mesha was thanking his own national god, Chemosh, who had seemed angry with Moab, subjecting them to Hebrew rule, but returned and assisted Mesha's victory over Ahab, the son of Omri, to throw off the yoke of Israel and restore the lands of Moab, now in the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan, whose capital, Amman, recalls the related Ammonites, who also lived in the area. This stele is written in a variant of the Phoenician alphabet, closely related to the Paleo-Hebrew script. As well as the pictures below, I've linked to the Mesha stele's Wikipedia article.
The Merneptah stele in Cairo Museum The Mesha Stele on display in the Louvre.
Posted by: @courtenay
I'm not going to engage in debate over who is right or who is wrong.
I was weighing up whether to respond or not for this very reason. A flaw I have is that I often like to prove that I am right – and it is a fruitless pursuit that does not help anyone and only serves to puff up my pride even more than it already is. Speaking of which …
Posted by: @waggawerewolf27
…for the sake of its historic context, the Ancient Canaanites lived in what in 1922, was the Palestine Mandate, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire…
So, after the discussion earlier in the week, it occurred to me that I had never followed up and learnt anything about the Canaanite languages. The first thing to report is the obvious confession that there is no one ‘Canaanite language’ (I.E., my understanding in previous posts was completely wrong). The Canaanite language group is a group of Semitic languages that include Edomite, Moabite, Phoenician, Ammonite and Hebrew.
I think this was partly what you were getting at, wasn’t it @waggawerewolf27 (I.e that I was mistaken on this point)?
And another confession – the quotation I selected was rather poorly chosen. I thought the quotation would reflect the idea that God can take something broken and make something very good out of it. (In relation to the question, “Could Calorman ever be good?” – we see in our world, that God can overcome human evil and restore us).
I have listened to lectures by a variety of Calvinists & Arminians, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Pentecostals, Baptists, United Church, Catholics (amongst others) – I agree with some views they present and disagree with others. To some degree, if a theologian shares a concept that they present within the confines of their own theological framework, I can filter out that given theologian’s framework and hear the more general heart of what they are saying. As such, I quoted Bruce without even thinking about that he is coming to Genesis 6:5 with a Calvinist view. I certainly did not mean to imply that all Christians should embrace TULIP (I, myself do not). For full transparency, I personally see strengths to the doctrine of Total Depravity (depending on how it is defined – part of the quote I present below from R C Sproul, I agree with, and part of it I do not), though I certainly do not affirm Limited Atonement and I do not remotely expect all Christians to agree with me.
Posted by: @courtenay
The idea that absolutely everything about human beings is evil, that we are inherently depraved and can think and produce nothing but evil and that our depravity has corrupted the whole earth, is popular in some conservative forms of Christianity, mainly found in the US. It's not the basis on which every single form of Christianity works.
Agreed. Calvinism and Arminianism are both viewpoints that have been held by different Christians and theologians throughout history. My own background is that I grew up in the Uniting church of Australia (my parents brought me up implicitly with a Methodist Arminian theology). Later in life, I attended Church of Christ, Baptist and Anglican congregations – all of which have been largely Arminian in their theology. I have known Calvinist who I nonetheless respect.
Some years ago, a good friend of mine was serving in a foreign country as a Missionary (I cannot go into much detail as people can die in that particular country for proselytizing). For much of the time my friend was respected in that community of missionaries. Things changed when a Pastor who was a good friend to several of the other missionaries visited the group. This pastor witnessed my friend saying “Jesus loves you” to a local. The pastor then interrupted my friend and said - in front of the local - “You cannot say that. If this woman is not elect, then God does not love her and He has foreordained her to hell.”
This pastor later called my friend a ‘heretic’ in front of the other missionaries (for merely holding an Arminian position) and said to my friend, “Your’ God is unjust!” – implying that the God she worshipped is not the God of the bible. I was angry that this man could call a fellow believer a ‘heretic’ for holding a view that roughly half of Christians have held throughout history. The other missionaries (who were all Calvinist in their theology) then lost trust for my friend and made them feel isolated. After many months of being treated as less than a Christian by the other missionaries, while living in a foreign country with almost no other Christians around, my friend burnt out and ceased working in the mission field.
Christians have believed different things on this subject (and I will not ride off the subject as being unimportant – but it is not something to divide fellowship over) and we do need to realise there is a spectrum of views and be understanding with one another.
Posted by: @courtenay
I recently read something by a Catholic writer criticising the "total depravity" doctrine of Calvinism by pointing out that in her own tradition, although humanity's tendency to sin is acknowledged, we are still inherently made in the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1:26-27), and that image in us can never be totally lost, no matter how obscured and distorted it is by sin.
…
C.S. Lewis was of course an Anglican, and Anglican doctrines, while Protestant, originated with Catholicism and are still quite closely related.
Agreed. And, even within of Anglicanism there is a lot of variance.
The church that I have attended for the last 7 years is low Anglican (the theology is largely Arminian, both from the pulpit and for the people in the congregation).
C.S. Lewis was an Anglican and his theology seems (to me at least) to be essentially Arminian. His comments about “The Gates of hell are locked from the inside” does not necessarily deny Calvinism, but at least one Calvinist friend of mine was offended when I once borrowed this quote. Apparently, John Piper thought C S Lewis was a Calvinist, but I really don’t see it. His entire argument in chapter 2 of The Problem of pain (I.e., that pain is possible because God cannot contradict Himself; he cannot give us free will and withhold it simultaneously; if we use our free will to inflict pain and suffering, this is a consequence of creating creatures that have the free will to choose to love faithfully or not to love selfishly) is heavily based in an Arminian mindset.
J.I. Packer was a British, Anglican, Calvinist Theologian.
N.T. Wright (the former Anglican Bishop of Durham) has stated that he is a Calvinist – or at least that he considers his views to be in keeping with Calvin. (He affirms that humans maintain the image of God post-fall, I do not know if I have ever heard him say anything directly in regard to TULIP and specifically Total Depravity). If I understand him correctly, then I would put him in a similar boat to Thomas F. Torrance, James B. Torrance and Karl Barth – where his theology does not neatly fit into stereotypical Arminian or Calvinist views. To be honest, I am highly influenced by all 4 of these theologians and I also don’t fit neatly in either camp.
Posted by: @courtenay
There's a non sequitur in that statement. "Every thought of the human heart is evil", if we take it as absolute fact, would mean that all human language IS corrupted, not merely "can be". And as I said, the idea that all of humankind is completely depraved, in every single thought and action, is the basis of certain forms of conservative Protestantism. It's not the basis of every single Christian theology that exists.
I hope this is not argumentative. I think there is likely more agreement here than it initially seems. For clarity, I do not think Bruce Waltke would say “every thought of the human heart is evil” in an absolute sense either. I have heard him say [paraphrasing] that the image of God is distorted, but still present in humanity after the fall (as evidenced by passages like Genesis 9:6 & James 3:9). Insofar as I understand him, he would be in the camp that says ‘Total Depravity does not mean that every thought and every deed of humanity is completely and utterly evil; it means that no thought or deed of humanity is without some element of evil – there is always some element of the corruption of sin present in all we do”.
Quoting R C Sproul on youtube [who’s a Calvinist] who seems to have a similar view to how I understand Waltke:
Now what total depravity does not mean in the Reformed tradition is what we call utter depravity. Utter depravity. We often use the term total as a synonym for utter or for completely. And so, the notion of total depravity conjures up the idea that every human being is as bad as that person could possibly be. … And so the idea of total of total depravity doesn't mean that every human being is as wicked as they could possibly be, but rather it means that the fall is so serious that it affects the whole person. Our fallenness that captures and grips our human nature affects our bodies; that's why we become ill and we die. It affects our minds and our thinking. We still have the capacity to think, but the Bible speaks about the way in which the mind has become darkened and weakened. The will of man is no longer in its pristine state of moral power that the will, according to the New Testament, is now in bondage. We are enslaved to the evil impulses and desires of our hearts. And so, the mind, the will, the spirit, the whole person has been infected by the power of sin. … [Contrasting with the idea that humanity is ‘basically good’, he says:] The Reformed view says that the fall extends, penetrates to the core.
There is still much that can be critiqued in this viewpoint, but it is not saying that all humans are completely depraved, in every single thought and action.
In spite of the fact that Bruce Waltke is Calvinist and does affirm the doctrine of Total Depravity, I think he would echo the words of C.S. Lewis at the start of chapter 16 in Perelandra:
‘The small one from Thulcandra [planet Earth] is already here,’ said the second voice.
‘Look on him, beloved, and love him,’ said the first. ‘He is indeed but breathing dust and a careless touch would unmake him. And in his best thoughts there are such things mingled as, if we thought them, out light would perish. But he is in the body of Maleldil [God] and his sins are forgiven. …’
Anyway, if you have read all this thank you 😊.
The term is over: the holidays have begun.
The dream is ended: this is the morning
@davidd I think this was partly what you were getting at, wasn’t it@waggawerewolf27(I.e that I was mistaken on this point)?
Maybe partly, when I wasn't really arguing from any theological point of view, but because it was always my job to be informed & unbiased.
By the time I left school I wanted to be a librarian when I thought librarians were much nicer than teachers, especially the one we had for third class at boarding school, who said I was too naughty to be allowed to go to that school library, and when she said that I was too untidy to be an air hostess, another job that I thought I might like, & when neither job was in the girls' career book back in the cottage sitting room bookcase.
Therefore, once I completed my Leaving certificate, I was employed as a library assistant, then went part time to Sydney Technical College, earning a Certificate of Librarianship at the end of 1969, under my maiden name, and forgot to amend my name on it once I got married in 1971. Changes in the library world suggested that I would need a supporting undergraduate degree with this qualification to continue to be recognised as a librarian, after 1994. So, I undertook an undergraduate Bachelor of Arts degree through distance education through UNE in Armidale, with a double major in Ancient History and the French language, with minors in psychology and Beginner's German, completion of which entitled me to study at graduate level, totally finishing my studies in 2002.
This is the basis for my point of view. I was taught the importance of looking up information if I don't understand anything, such as Wikipedia or Encyclopaedia Britannica, or other sites like the Biblical Archaeology site that I have linked to. And in my history studies to use prime sources in preference to secondary sources. Particularly as the Bible's most significant departure from the received theology in the Canaanite world was its monotheism. There is internal evidence that though Exodus & especially the Book of Deuteronomy were written by the time the King of Judah, Josiah, got to read the latter, at the beginning of his reign in 640 BCE, and that obviously the Levites and Priests would be able to keep records and chronicles from as far back as King David (2 Samuel chapter 6), that even the Torah (or Pentateuch) likely wasn't compiled in its entirety until either during the Babylonian Captivity, or after the return of the Hebrews to Judah, permitted by Cyrus the Mede ( 550-530 BCE aka the Great), led by Nehemiah & the Prophet Ezra, who has been said to be the author of Genesis, as well as the main compiler of the Torah, when they built the second temple in Jerusalem. I've included a picture of Cyrus' edict in Akkadian cuneiform though the Judahite exiles under Ezra & Nehemiah plus King David's own administration, would have been able to use the alphabetic Hebrew script.
In this case a prime source would have to be the Old Testament, itself, especially the New Testament, originally compiled in the Greek Language in both Orthodox and Catholic churches (The Septuagint). Whilst the KJV Old Testament was translated direct from the Hebrew Tanach (or Holy Scriptures) of which my family somehow had a Harkavy (N.Y.) 1952 translation, which I found when my mother passed away in 1986. And I can well understand that if Mesha, the Moabite king, who put up that second stele, that we saw in the Louvre, had disapproved of the House of Omri & Ahab whom he had eventually defeated, he wasn't alone, when the Prophet Elijah clearly fell foul of Ahab and his wife, Jezebel (1 Kings 16:31). And when I learned a bit about these Phoenicians of Tyre & Sidon, and their trade empire, I also learned that Jezebel wasn't just any "Sidonese woman", but the daughter of the Sidonese priest king, it would explain her fervour to promote polytheist Baal worship amongst not only fellow Canaanites but Israelites as well.
I know that the Methodist Church was founded by the Wesley brothers, & that John had some sort of beef with the Church of England (to which I belong), whilst his brother Charles' hymns are sung interdenominationally. The Presbyterians are famous for John Knox, a no doubt cranky sort of Scot, for finding bishops repugnant, as well as John Knox's famous disapproval of a "monstrous regiment of women". He'd be turning in his grave when yesterday we learned that for the first time in history, we Anglicans have a new female Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally, to be the spiritual head of the Church of England in that position. Queen Elizabeth as defender of the faith was the temporal Head of the Church of England & as Defender of the Faith, a title once given by the Pope to Henry VIII, & which he resumed with Parliamentary permission in 1544.
Due to custody & access reasons my mother sent me to the Seventh Day Adventists to go to Sabbath school, & that is where I got my interest in biblical archaeology from, though the Seventh Day Adventists promote vegetarianism, & that sat badly for me, when at home we were served rissoles, sausages, savoury mince etc., just like the boarding school's regular meat & three veg routine , and when I didn't dare tell my father on Sunday access visits where my mother had sent me for religious instruction.
By the way, how would you define Seventh Day Adventists when I don't think they are Arminian or whatever that is? They are quite okay people, and it annoyed me intensely, when after the infamous 1981 Lindy Chamberlain affair, where people said a lot of slanderous nonsense about her, in favour of dingoes, which I wouldn't let pass, if I could get away with it. Yes, they believed in a final judgement, and lots of apocalyptic predictions.
The Cyrus Cylinder, which is attributed to the Edict of Cyrus, on display at the British Museum.
@waggawerewolf27 My mother worked under a Seventh Day Adventist for many years and they are a fascinating group of people. They consistently have some of the longest lifespans of anybody in the world because of their promotion of clean living (no smoking, focus on good diet and exercise). They discouraged smoking before modern science knew how bad it actually was.
I have some disagreements with them. I simply don't believe Ellen White was a prophetess, and I disagree with their insistence on a strict seventh day creation, for instance.
So, after the discussion earlier in the week, it occurred to me that I had never followed up and learnt anything about the Canaanite languages. The first thing to report is the obvious confession that there is no one ‘Canaanite language’ (I.E., my understanding in previous posts was completely wrong). The Canaanite language group is a group of Semitic languages that include Edomite, Moabite, Phoenician, Ammonite and Hebrew.
True. I didn't know those exact details, as I've never studied that particular historical period or any of those languages other than Hebrew, but it stands to reason. And that supports the argument that there's nothing either intrinsically pure about Hebrew, or intrinsically impure about any of the related languages.
(As a side note, when it comes to survival of ancient texts, in so many cases we have only a small — sometimes extremely small — selection of extant texts, which for that very reason can't necessarily be taken as representative of the entire culture that existed at the time those texts were written. If the only surviving texts we had in Latin, for example, were bawdy jokes or descriptions of graphic violence, we could conclude from those that the culture that produced them must have been very debased and degraded. But we'd be missing out on the huge wealth of law, history, poetry, philosophy, theology, mythology and so on that were written in Latin over many centuries, all of which give a very different picture. And the further back we go in history, the fewer examples of surviving texts we have in any language. Which is why good historians try not to jump to overly broad conclusions about whole cultures from the surviving texts we do have.)
And another confession – the quotation I selected was rather poorly chosen. I thought the quotation would reflect the idea that God can take something broken and make something very good out of it. (In relation to the question, “Could Calorman ever be good?” – we see in our world, that God can overcome human evil and restore us).
Just to clarify, I wasn't arguing against the idea that that God can take something broken and make something very good out of it. The original disagreement here hinged on what we were talking about in the discussion thread about whether Charn, as well as Calormen, would have had an eternal version in Aslan's country. And the point there was (without going over it all again) that Lewis's vision of heaven isn't one in which the remaining good bits of a broken world are taken and transformed into something better, but one in which the real and original worlds have "always existed and always will exist", no matter how corrupted their mortal "shadow" counterparts became.
As for Calvinism versus Arminianism, I don't follow either of them and haven't ever studied either of them in detail, so I can't and won't attempt to pick apart the differences between them or argue the merits of one over the other.
I don't often go into the details of my own faith on here, as I'm aware it will be different from a lot of other people's and I've no interest in debating, let alone in trying to convert anyone. But as a few others here have talked about where they're coming from theologically, I may as well share a little too. I'm a Christian Scientist. Which means, among various other things, that I don't believe in original sin (nor in the story of Adam and Eve as historically factual); I worship one God, not a trinity of three persons in one God; I acknowledge and follow Jesus the Christ as the unique and divinely conceived Son of God and Saviour of humankind, but not as God Himself; and I understand that, God being infinite and universal and Love itself, all people will ultimately come to know Him through Christ and be saved.
Obviously that is not the same as mainstream Christianity, and if anyone is wondering how I can be so devoted to the Chronicles of Narnia when I don't agree with so much of the theology of the largely mainstream Anglican who wrote them... well, the best way I can put it is that the essentials ring true for me, and always have, even where I don't always concur with the exact details.
(Aslan, for example, is to me a sort of combination of God and Jesus in lion form; mind you, it possibly helps that there's no properly set out concept of the Trinity in the Chronicles. And as I know I mentioned in another thread, Lewis's idea of heaven as the place where the real, perfect, original things have always existed, of which we only see "shadows" at most on this earth, is strikingly similar to Christian Science's teaching. I very much doubt Lewis knew anything about the latter, though — even though there's a Christian Science church in Oxford, coincidentally just up the road from the Eagle and Child pub! — and I suspect he would have found it too different from regular Christianity for him to be interested in it even if he had heard of it. But again, that doesn't bother me.)
As I said, I'm not sharing these things with any intention of starting a debate or trying to persuade anyone to agree with me, just giving something of my own perspective, while we're talking theology here.
"Now you are a lioness," said Aslan. "And now all Narnia will be renewed."
(Prince Caspian)
As for Calvinism versus Arminianism, I don't follow either of them and haven't ever studied either of them in detail, so I can't and won't attempt to pick apart the differences between them or argue the merits of one over the other.
I don't often go into the details of my own faith on here, as I'm aware it will be different from a lot of other people's and I've no interest in debating, let alone in trying to convert anyone. But as a few others here have talked about where they're coming from theologically, I may as well share a little too.
Understood - and I respect that. Thank you for sharing. 🙂
By the way, how would you define Seventh Day Adventists when I don't think they are Arminian or whatever that is?
I know very little about the Seventh Day Adventists, so I suspect you would know better than I do.
A family that I know has one member who is a Seventh Day Adventist, while the rest of the family are not. There was conflict in that family due to differing biblical ethics, with both sides attempting to impose their own ethics on those who do not share them. The other family members have explained to me their understanding of Seventh Day Adventist beliefs, but due to the conflict, I strongly suspect their presentation is highly caricatured / straw-manned. Because I know it is such a sore point, I have never discussed with the family member about their Seventh Day Adventist beliefs (as I would rather talk to them about subjects in which they feel comfortable, rather than potentially making them feel persecuted).
I did some quick google searches to see what things Seventh Day Adventists say on these matters. It did seem to point to a consistent view on these questions. However, I am out of my depth and I really do not know enough for it to be wise or helpful to comment on the public internet. (If you really want to know my impression, we can discuss on private messages - with the caveat that I am not remotely an expert on Seventh Day Adventist theology or practice.)
The term is over: the holidays have begun.
The dream is ended: this is the morning
@starlit They discouraged smoking before modern science knew how bad it actually was.
Yes, that was very true, & the Seventh Day Adventists, with their ideas about health, run one of the best hospitals in Sydney as a result. But these sorts of differences with the rest of the community tended to make them stick out a bit more, socially, I think, especially when I was at a government high school, when teenagers (well, some, anyway ) have been known to mimic their elders, and to experiment with smoking and with alcohol to look grown-up, despite the age limits at the time. The Seventh Day Adventists, whose very name points to their insistence on observing the Sabbath (Sabato in Italian, Sábado in Spanish) strictly on the seventh day, in contrast with the majority of Christians who celebrate the Sabbath on Sunday, called in some languages The Lord's Day, even in Scottish Gaelic ("Didomhnaich", Domenico-Italian, or Domingo-Spanish)
As a lifelong asthmatic, I found it hard to avoid smokers & smoking even at work, where in some places, fellow employees would congregate in the "corridors of power", to have a pow-wow during their "smoko" breaks at morning tea or at lunch. The trouble is with smoking there were so many who died of lung cancer, of COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder) or with heart problems. I prepared a 10-minute chat, to inform my respiratory diseases support group about how smoking became so popular over the 20th century. Although smoking has been around in various forms since Sir Walter Raleigh was executed by James I in 1618, by the beginning of the 20th century, cigarettes had become mass produced, and thus became a cheaper, and easily obtained way of smoking. An Online WW1 encyclopaedia confirmed what my grandmother told me, that even the Salvation Army handed out these cigarettes, in a war where Mustard gas was also used on the Western Front. It seems that due to some chemical in tobacco, smoking has a relaxing effect which helped shaken soldiers cope with a traumatic situation. I remember that one grand uncle who fought in France or Belgium, always smoked heavily, & passed away with lung cancer, yet, in the post-war years I was aware of people who even thought that smoking cigarettes was actually healthy.
I found an economist’s article to explain how cigarettes were bartered as currency in World War 2 prison camps where inmates were issued with Red Cross rations, or facilitated other wartime transactions by barter, and Wikipedia relates how the firm, Philip Morris' highly successful Marlboro Man advertising campaign, brought lawsuits from five of its advertising actors, all of whom suffered from either lung cancer or COPD. Actors in Hollywood were also seen smoking in films, lampooned in the two satirical Flying High movies, with even blow-up balloon pilots sharing cigarettes in the cockpit, to suggest the association with romance, glamour, luxury & being the life of the party.
Remember Yul Brynner, who played King Mongkut, in the film The King and I, with Deborah Kerr, who played Anna Leonowen's role, as the author of the book Anna and the King, the teacher who instructed his children? Yul Brynner (July 11, 1920 – October 10, 1985) who played also in Western & other movies, said on his deathbed, "Just don't smoke".
@starlit...and I disagree with their insistence on a strict seventh day creation, for instance.
I've mentioned here that I had access to an English translation of the Hebrew Holy Scriptures, so I compared the first chapter of Genesis between this translation, with two other bibles, the Good News Bible my husband was presented with when he was naturalised at the local City Council chambers, plus the NIV version we use at church. I found that they were almost identical, and, especially the Hebrew bible, was set out with a short chorus at the end of each day: Evening passed and morning came. And that was the sixth day. (5th day, 4th day, 3rd day, 2nd day & 1st day). And when someone here wished there were more hours in a day, I wondered how we arrived at 24 hours in a day. And then I found an ABC article: Why there are 24 hours in a day. In it, I found that both the Egyptians and the Ancient Babylonians, maybe Nebuchadnezzar's Chaldeans, were responsible for that selection. Dr Nicholas Lomb, the then curator of the Sydney Observatory, explained how, possibly with Hebrew slave help, the Babylonians came to that conclusion. He said:
The subdivision of hours and minutes into 60 comes from the ancient Babylonians who had a predilection for using numbers to the base 60. For example, III II (using slightly different strokes) meant three times 60 plus two or 182.
"We have retained from the Babylonians not only hours and minutes divided into 60, but also their division of a circle into 360 parts or degrees," says Lomb.
"What we have not retained is their division of a day into 360 parts called 'ush' that each equalled four of minutes in our time system."
Lomb says it's likely that the Babylonians were interested in 360 because that was their estimate for the number of days in a year. Their adoption of a base 60 system was probably allowed them to make complex calculations using fractions.
And it occurred to me that though this whole chapter could well be called the Song of Creation, the really important bit was God resting on the Sabbath, the Seventh Day, and that the whole chapter was to illustrate that humanity should follow God's example. This chapter doesn't say HOW God made the word, only that He did it. Like Him, we should remember the fourth of the Ten Commandments: Six days shall you labour (at your ordinary work) and rest on the Sabbath. (Exodus 20, verse 9) In other words, time management was what this chapter was about. And why Jesus Christ said that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath (Mark 2, verse 27).
Thank you for reading this far, since I've said quite a lot.
I feel really bad about this because I worded it badly (and given how much was said in response), but what I actually meant was that I disagree with the dogmatic view of young earth creationism, which I do not hold to.
@starlit ....but what I actually meant was that I disagree with the dogmatic view of young earth creationism, which I do not hold to.
Yes, I agree with you. As I was explaining, a people, like the Hebrews, with traditional songs, litanies and chants who had been enslaved twice, once by the Egyptians then after 586 BCE, by the very Babylonians who were credited for measuring what a day would be in seconds, minutes & hours & even years, would be far more concerned with how to manage the days allotted to them to complete the work they were expected to do, than to scientifically detail just how the earth was made. And slaves, whose time was often not their own to enjoy, would be the very people who would definitely appreciate one day off work in a week, to smell the roses, & contemplate God's creation, something 19th century early scientists like Charles Darwin, did at their own well-heeled leisure. I linked the online article I consulted to the name of the highly qualified man whom I knew could give a creditable answer to my question: Why do we have 24 hours in a day, when that is not at all the same for every planet in the Solar System.
I found a book with creation myths in the library where I worked, but, unlike that book, I would never call the Biblical account, in particular Genesis 1, just another creation myth to justify atheism, nor do I accept that science is necessarily wrong, when Genesis 1, according to what I remember hearing about Jewish liturgy, is usually chanted anyway, and eerily follows the same order of the evolution of the planet and of life on it as it is told in many science shows.