Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!bcm!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Richard A. O'Keefe) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Moral reasoning (was Re: draft of Identity Task Force statement) Message-ID: Date: 11 Feb 91 02:37:46 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Comp Sci, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia Lines: 90 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article , hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick) writes: > I was under the impression that the RSV was considered a pretty > reasonable English-language translation. I find: > Gal. 5:19-21: > Eph. 5:3-5: > I Cor. 6:15-20: > > So Paul condemns in God's name "immorality", "impurity", > "licentiousness", "covetousness", and "filthiness." Okay. > But he never actually comes right out and tells us what > exactly we are to consider immoral, impure, licentious, > covetous, and filthy. This is rather like saying "Mr Plod the policeman told me always to stop at a red light. But he never actually came right out and told me what exactly I am to consider red, or a light." Paul was not writing in a vacuum. He was a member of a culture with a long tradition of ethical monotheism. While Paul attacked Jewish ritual, he seems to have accepted Jewish ethics as valid. It would be surprising if Paul meant by "porneia" and the like anything seriously different from what his fellow Pharisees were calling "z'nus". When Jesus spoke against (whatever it was that was translated as "porneia") He apparently didn't give His hearers a lengthy definition of what it meant, so presumably He was appealing to the idea His hearers already had of what counted as porneia/z'nus. (It has been observed that Jesus' recorded sayings suggest that He was steeped in the Targums and expected His hearers to be familiar with them.) Paul's teaching, like Jesus', must be interpreted against the background of the Tanach, including Deuteronomy. > Perhaps my translation is not a > fair one, or maybe my concordance weak, but I really feel > that we are left to our own understanding (fortified as > always through prayer and study) when it comes to what > Paul is actually telling us not to do or not to do. Mr Plod the policeman didn't leave you to your own understanding when he told you to stop at red lights. Mr Plod expected you to understand him in *HIS* context. The attitude "we don't have an ISO standard for the words Paul uses, so they mean what *I* say they mean" is dangerous. Mohammed prayed. Joseph Smith prayed. To be sure, we have to *apply* the meanings of Paul (or any other writer) in our own context, but that's another question. I have actually written to the translators of the Revised English Bible on this particular point. They _don't_ use the magnificently vague "immorality", so I asked them how they understood "porneia" in the relevant passages. I've not received a reply yet. > [The Greek word is "porneia". There's some debate about how specific > its meaning is. It seems to be used with a range of meanings from > adultery to licentious sex. RSV and TEV have opted for a general > reading, translating it as "immorality". NRSV has gone to the more > specific "fornication". Whether that's a good translation depends > partly upon what you think the English word means. If you think it's > a technical term meaning precisely all sex outside of marriage, that > probably implies a bit more precision than is really there. --clh] It's broader than that. In many passages of the NT, "porneia" is a metaphor for idolatry/false worship (especially in the Revelation). This usage is copied directly from Jewish usage. I checked about a dozen modern English dictionaries, and the consensus definition was "fornication = voluntary sexual intercourse between unmarried adults". But of course any word has metaphorical extensions. "porneia" is certainly *wider* in scope than that, even when referring to sexual behaviour. One point to note is that many cultures have a notion of marriage "by usage" (the term "common-law husband/wife" reminds us that the notion existed in European culture) and Jewish culture was one of them. Paul might well have considered a couple living together, not as fornicators, but as _married_ (and married just as permanently as any other couple). Somebody wrote: > ! In general I tried to show how the real issue is love, not a literal > ! interpretation of a translation of a letter written by Paul. Unfortunately, if "immorality" is magnificently vague, "love" is SUPREMELY vague. I "love" : ice cream, the music of Monteverdi, Prolog, Scheme, Kierkegaard, my parents, Jeanene, hot showers, ... C.S.Lewis's little book "The Four Loves" missed several ones out. I don't know if Americans ever watch Dame Edna, but `she' (Barry Humphries) often says extremely critical things, adding "I mean that in a very loving way". Real people are like that too. If the real issue is love, does that mean affection, or benevolence, or solidarity, or charity, or what? It's time we had a moratorium on the L-word. -- The Marxists have merely _interpreted_ Marxism in various ways; the point, however, is to _change_ it. -- R. Hochhuth.