Religious Quest Discussion Question

RELS1325 – Religious Quest

Rev. Paul Hudec, PhD, MAPS

Week 5 Lecture on Literalism

One of this week’s topics is religion and morality and considering last week’s work on evil, our work with Ethics, the formal discipline of right and wrong should be insightful. There is another thread that invites us to consider how we (Christians) read the Bible and to address issues connected with literalism and fundamentalism in interpretation.

Yesterday, the prayer group was sharing readings and the genealogy of Jesus on His father’s side specifically, who was Joseph’s father. One would think this is not a central issue of faith so all thought that it would be an easy thing to discover by just checking the Gospels and that would be it. Each of the Gospels were selected (by different people). The Gospel of John did not include that point. The Gospel of Mark did not have anything either. The Gospel of Matthew had part of one sentence (Mt. 1:16) indicating the Jacob was the father of Joseph. Still, no discussion on this point. Things changed when the Gospel of Luke was shared and Heli is the father of Joseph (Lk. 3:23) and the entire genealogy afterwards. (One could then compare this list with those who lived prior to Jesus and contained from Genesis and other books. Are these lists the same?)

What happens when a point that is usually considered a fact is not the same in two or more places?

Is this a contradiction? What does this then imply or how does one come to a conclusion?

What are the principles that are present in terms of providing a framework for Biblical interpretation and determination of its meaning then and now today?

Linguistics

First, let’s define this term.

“Linguistics is the scientific study of language,[1] and involves an analysis of language form, language meaning, and language in context.[2] The earliest activities in the documentation and description of language have been attributed to the 6th century BC Indian grammarian Pāṇini,[3] [4] who wrote a formal description of the Sanskrit language in his Aṣṭādhyāyī.[5] “

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics

When we speak to each other, there is a richness that goes far beyond the literal and this short part of this week’s lecture is hardly able to scratch the surface (notice this is the first example and I don’t mean that you physically begin itching or scratching the top layer of something!). When you hear someone use that phrase you don’t think of the top layer of something but know that this phrase means something totally other. Also, consider the Italian phrase: Ha il braccino corto. If you use a computer translator that might present the following English phrase: He has a short arm which is different from the arms and tentacles as depicted below and avoiding all of the medical conditions on the Internet. The meaning is “He’s stingy.”

Then there’s the phrase “Ha il braccino corto?” The literal translation is “She threw you the package?” but should be translated and understood as: “She stood you up?”

Remember, this is contemporary Italian and English in the 21st century as compared with the language that Jesus spoke was Aramaic. “It is generally agreed by historians that Jesus and his disciples primarily spoke Aramaic (Jewish Palestinian Aramaic), the common language of Judea in the first century AD, most likely a Galilean dialect distinguishable from that of Jerusalem.[1] The villages of Nazareth and Capernaum in Galilee, where Jesus spent most of his time, were Aramaic-speaking communities.[2] It is also likely that Jesus knew enough Koine Greek to converse with those not native to Palestine, and it is also possible that Jesus knew some Hebrew for religious purposes.[3] [4] [5]” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_of_Jesus Think of the differences that time (20 centuries), cultures, military-political setting, stark contrast in technological differences, religious beliefs (He was Jewish in the ancient world) and uninformed that the world was not the center of the universe and was spherical and that science, real science would not be ‘invented’ for more than fifteen centuries, etc., etc. By the way, the current civil war in Syria and the utter destructive actions in the Middle East due to the Iraq War and ISIS, etc. Aramaic may disappear as a spoken language.

Does this say something about linguistics and reading the Bible?