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Friday, November 5, 2010

more rabbit trails…

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1.  Toy Story 3 – we watched this tonight.  It was fun to see all our favorite characters again (Toy Story was Jordan’s favorite movie when he was little).  I am not sure that the 3rd one is for little kids.  It is a bit dark.  - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0435761/

2.  Bible trivia – where did the chapters and verses come from? - http://www.biblegateway.com/blog/?p=369

3.  There is a new NIV translation - http://www.daveblackonline.com/blog.htm -

Friday, November 5

9:40 AM Out of curiosity I decided I'd hop over to the new NIV and see what it did with John 21:5. I was surprised to see the following:

He called out to them, "Friends, haven't you any fish?"

Oddly, there is no footnote indicating that the Greek has "children" instead of the NIV's "friends."

Odd indeed. Of course, Greek words have several different meanings, and between two languages the sets of meaning never completely correspond. But in no case does the range of meaning of Greek paidia seem to encompass the idea of "friends" (which in Greek would, of course, be philoi).

So what is going on here? Perhaps the translators want to avoid making Jesus use pejorative or insulting language. We do this in English when we substitute "government" for "regime" (the latter being pejorative). Or perhaps the issue is one of language etiquette. At the bottom of our language etiquette scale in English we find sequences like the following, spoken in an unmistakably contemptuous tone:

Hey there, kid (boy, punk) – what do you think you're doing?

And so the issue of appropriateness is raised. But could Jesus have meant to use language that was, say, a little edgy? On the one hand, He hardly ever uses "children" to address His disciples. And on the other, it seems clear that He wanted to get their attention – and apparently He succeeded. Or is "children" a term of endearment (as suggested by BDAG)? In the end we may never know why Jesus chose paidia over philoi. Don Carson suggests (in his John commentary) that paidia may mean nothing more than "lads" (following British usage). He translates the expression, “Lads, haven’t you caught anything?” In the ISV we have "Children, you don't have any fish do you?" – an attempt to bring out the force of the Greek adverb me, which implies a negative answer. Either way, I hardly see how one can avoid the pejoration (or sarcasm, or attention-getting language, or endearing term) that Jesus intended here. A simple note in the NIV (Lit. children) would have sufficed. But as it stands now, the NIV (old and new editions) is clearly wrong.

What do you think about the new NIV? You can read it here.

 

4.  Making your home a haven using personal filters - http://smallnotebook.org/2010/11/04/creating-a-haven-using-personal-filters/

5.  100 useful YouTube channels for educators - http://www.onlinecollegecourses.com/2010/10/20/100-incredibly-useful-youtube-channels-for-teachers/

6.  http://www.studyinbrown.com/writing/2010/10/13/a-song-almost-heard.html

What my friend needed to know is that her troubles are not the marks of failure, but of Christ-following.  Christ’s love leads us into places that no one else wants to go, where the stench and the mess and the heartache push out the well-dressed and the well-behaved.   She and her family have been invited into the mysterious blessing:  to suffer with the reality of sin just as Christ suffered.  To those on the outside it carries the taint of scandal - because this kind of love suffers alongside the liar, the abuser, the thief on the cross.  It brings the foul-mouthed, rule-breaking, rage-riddled, impulse-driven, broken-hearted, least of these, right into our homes.  This love works and tries and believes when everyone else has given up and slipped back into something more comfortable.  It aches and bleeds, it is misunderstood and rejected and lonely.

And if we will surrender to it, this love teaches us to sing and to rejoice as the blessed of God.

 

7.  “Above all, you must live as citizens of heaven, conducting yourselves in a manner worthy of the Good News about Christ. Then, whether I come and see you again or only hear about you, I will know that you are standing together with one spirit and one purpose, fighting together for the faith, which is the Good News. Don’t be intimidated in any way by your enemies. This will be a sign to them that they are going to be destroyed, but that you are going to be saved, even by God himself. For you have been given not only the privilege of trusting in Christ but also the privilege of suffering for him.”  Phil. 1:27-29

 

8.    asking questions???

 

9.  Open Theology??? - http://www.beyondtheboxpodcast.com/2010/11/embracing-an-open-future/

For many conservative Christians, the notion of a God who might actually leave some details of the future up to us is a frightening prospect.  Wouldn’t this logically mean that God is not in control? Couldn’t a God who doesn’t know the future possibly be defeated?

In this episode, Ray and Steve pick up on a months-old idea submission from Chip who asked about open theology.  Thinking out loud about the concept, they discuss questions related to a God who not only may not dictate every detail of the future, but who actually might change his mind based on the decisions and actions of humans.

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