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* It is a plain fact, inexplicably beyond the knowledge of any professional Bible translator or commentator, that the long-enduring grammatical norms of Ancient Greek, from Classical (Morwood 2001:162) through Koine (Blass Debrunner 1975:365), often require dependence on the context of a written clause to determine whether it is a question or a declaration, because the text of the clause is unmarked, lacking a question word, altered word order, or punctuation. This norm is well attested in the New Testament itself: there are at least 22 examples of unmarked clauses that popular modern translations have interpreted as questions (Matthew 3:14; 8:7; 11:3; 15:16; 20:22; 27:11; Mark 14:61; 15:2; Luke 7:19, 20; 9:54; 22:48; John 18:33, 34; Acts 22:27; 25:9; Romans 3:9, 29; 1 Corinthians 7:27; 2 Corinthians 11:22, 23; Galatians 1:10). Cited: Morwood, James, 2001, Oxford Grammar of Classical Greek, Oxford University Press; Blass, Friedrich, and Debrunner, Albert, 1975, Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, University of Chicago Press.
Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant,
and the houses without man,
and the land be utterly desolate,
and the Lord have removed men far away,
and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land.
But yet in it shall be a tenth,
... so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof.
Isaiah 6:11-13, KJV
And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: for this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear. "
Matthew 13:10-16, KJV
Who is the human who is fearing the Lord?
He will furnish law for him, in a way that He selected.
The soul of his will lodge among good things,
and the seed of his will inherit land.
The Lord will strengthen them fearing Him,
[and the name of the Lord, them fearing Him,]
and His covenant He will make known to them.
Psalm 25:12-14, CFB
If you would love Me, the commandments of Mine you will keep*, and I will ask the Father and another helper He will grant to you, so that with you, into the aeon, It will be, the Spirit of the truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees It nor knows It. You know It, because beside you It abides and in** you It will be.
John 14:15-17, CFB
*The Greek verb can be read also as an imperative, "keep!"
**Or, "among".
16 Wash! Become clean! Take away the iniquities of your lives from before My eyes! Cease from your iniquities!
17 Learn to do good! Seek out judgement!
Rescue the injured! Be judges for the fatherless! Do justice for the widow!
18 And come here and let us reason! says the Lord:
So if the sins of yours would be like crimson, I shall whiten them like snow? And if they would be like scarlet, I shall whiten them like wool?
19 Then, if you are willing and you hearken to me, you will eat the good of the land.
20 But if you are not willing and you do not hearken to me, a sword will devour you.
For the mouth of the Lord spoke these things.
Daniel 2:26
Is it so you are able to make known to me the dream ...?
ha ’i: ta: ik ka:hel lə ho:w ḏa: ‘u: ta ni: telma:’ (Aramaic)
duné:se:i de:lô:saí moi tò hórama; (Ancient Greek*)
The clause is marked in Aramaic by ha as a question but is unmarked in Ancient Greek. Much later, editors have added punctuation to manuscript copies.
* This is a phonetic transcription of the Ancient-Greek text of the online Rahlfs/Hanhart 2006 edition of the Septuagint.
Luke 9:54
Lord, You want we tell fire to come down from the Heaven...?
Kúrie, tʰéleis eípo:men pûr katabê:nai apò toû ouranoû...;
Luke 10:40
Lord, not it matters to You that the sister of mine alone me leaves
Kúrie, ou mélei soi hóti he: adelfé: mou móne:n me katéleipen
to serve?
diakoneîn;
Luke 11:29
It asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it... (NRSV)
se:meîon ze:teî kaì se:meîon ou dotʰé:setai auté:…. (NA28)
Luke 13:26-27
Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate before You and drank, and in the streets of ours you taught!’
And He will say to you, 'I do not know where you are from....'
kaì ereî légo:n humîn ouk oîda pótʰen esté (NA28)
Luke 13:34
Jerusalem! Jerusalem who killed the prophets and stoned them sent to her! How often I wanted to gather together the children of yours, that way a hen gathers the brood of her own under the wings,
and you were not willing.
kaì ouk e:tʰelé:sate. (NA28)
Luke 20:19
Both the scribes and the chief priests sought to put the hands on Him in the selfsame hour,
and they feared the people
kaì efobé:tʰe:san tòn laón (NA28)
Psalm 106:15
wa- jitten la-hem she’elatam (Masoretic text from BHS)
And He gave to them their request,
wa- jeshalach razon be-nafsham.
[a1] and sent wasting/disease into their souls
[a2] and sent fullness into their souls
(i) Jesus ironically lists possible explanations for what people went out to see in the wilderness where John the Baptist was: “A reed shaken by the wind? … A person clothed in soft garments?” (Matthew 11:7-8, Luke 7:24-25).
(ii) Another example of irony in Jesus’s speech (Luke 7:31-34) may suffice to clarify the pattern throughout, consistent with Isaiah 1:18, namely the articulation of the absurdity of an opposing argument or position (comparable to the reductio ad absurdum form of argumentation).
“He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much” (Luke 16.10a, NKJV).
“He who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much” (Luke 16.10b, NKJV).
“Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?” (Luke 16.11, NKJV).
“And if you have not been faithful in what is another man’s, who will give you what is your own?” (Luke 16.12, NKJV).
“No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other” (Luke 16.13a, NKJV).
“You cannot serve God and mammon” (Luke 16.13b, NKJV).
1. Practising falsehood leads to eternal condemnation (Revelation 21:8, 22:15).
2. Leading other people into sin (e.g. fraud, lying, stealing) is prohibited, on pain of eternal condemnation (Matthew 18:6-9, Mark 9:42-48, Luke 17:1-2).
3. Good conduct toward even unjust masters is required of Christian bondservants (Ephesians 6:5-8, Colossians 3:22-25).
4. People cannot “welcome” other people into the eternal dwellings. It is God who judges and then welcomes (or not). Entry into eternal life or condemnation is not decided by a vote, and certainly not a vote by people who have conspired to defraud, lie and steal. This fact is so plain in Israelite and Christian teaching that the irony of Jesus’s statement is surely to be obvious.
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NOTES
* SCIENTIFICALLY JUSTIFIABLE
How should we define scientific?
The practice of science focuses on producing reliable knowledge. Science is required to produce knowledge so dependable that it can be used in applications involving high costs and risks: for example engineering, medicine or pastoring. Science itself depends on its own knowledge, because new research builds on old research, in a steadily accumulating process of more and more knowledge enabling greater and greater understanding of phenomena.
How science produces reliable knowledge is widely debated. However, the reliability requirement inescapably implies one necessary aspect of a scientific method: it must allow a knowledge-claim to be tested by others to check how reliable that claim is. Only after a claim of new knowledge has been tested widely by many different people is it reasonable to consider it reliable enough to be used in an application.
2-part core requirement for a scientific method
A transparent attempt to falsify a claim of new knowledge is the core requirement for a scientific method. Transparency is necessary so others can review and repeat the attempt. The attempt to falsify is necessary because if a claim is of a type there is no way to falsify, then it cannot be distinguished from imagination.
Transparency is provided by fully disclosing all the elements of the scientific investigation. Here we propose that a knowledge claim should be disclosed as a conclusion drawn from 5 types of premises:
(1) Presuppositional*
(2) Evidentiary
(3) Logical
(4) Archival
(5) Reflexive / Bias-correcting
Falsification
How can a claim about the intended meaning of an ancient text be falsified? Two ways are:
(1) It leads to an inconsistency in its explanation of the ancient text.
(2) It is contradicted by reliable facts about the text or the world.
Summary
A scientifically justifiable translation involves two parts:
(I) A fully disclosed claim about what a text can have been intended to mean.
(II) A fully disclosed attempt to falsify the claim.
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*The first 4 types are proposed in Hugh G. Gauch Jr, Scientific Method in Brief, Cambridge University Press, 2012. We propose 5th type on the grounds of arguments made in Mats Alvesson and Kaj Sköldberg, Reflexive methodology—New vistas for qualitative research, 2nd edn, SAGE, 2009.
* ETHICALLY JUSTIFIABLE
How should we define ethical?
Among many competing definitions, the New-Testament definition of moral goodness is to care for others as Christ cared for others (Luke 9:23; John 15:12-14; Romans 8:17; 1 John 4:17). The Christ Care Principle of ethics can be summarised as: Act to maximise all others' quality of life over an unknown timespan.
Who are "all others"? All others can be defined consistently with the TNK and NT as all possibly sentient beings: human (1 Timothy 2:4), angelic (Hebrews 1:6), non-human animal (Proverbs 12:10), and non-animal (Psalm 98:8, Isaiah 55:12). This definition of ethical entails that something is ethically justifiable if it does not suppress all others' quality of life over an unknown timespan.
Summary
An ethically justifiable translation includes four claims of non-suppression of others' quality of life over an unknown timespan:
(1) Humans
(2) Angels
(3) Non-human animals
(4) Non-animals
What is a cooperative meaning?
The concept of a cooperative meaning comes from a branch of Language Sciences (or Linguistics) called Pragmatics. The groundwork of Pragmatics was provided by a philosopher named H.P. (Paul) Grice who worked in Oxford (UK) then Berkeley (US). His main question was, "How do speakers use language to mean things?"
To answer that question, Grice noted useful distinctions among phenomena related to meaning. One distinction is natural meaning versus non-natural meaning. Natural meaning has nothing to do with the intention of a speaker and everything to do with how natural phenomena (e.g. gravity, soundwaves, etc.) relate to each other. In (1) and (2) we see examples of natural meaning:
(1) "I feel a pulse! That means her heart is beating!"
(2) "The absence of light from that part of the Universe means a black hole is there."
In contrast, non-natural meaning has everything to do with the intentions of a speaker. Grice defined non-natural meaning as meaning that a speaker intends to communicate to an addressee together with the addressee's recognition that the meaning was intended.
Grice's definition* of non-natural meaning is precise:
A speaker "S", who produces an utterance, non-naturally means a proposition "P" to an addressee "A" if, and only if, "S" intends
(i) "A" to think "P"
(ii) "A" to recognise that "S" intended (i), and
(iii) "A's" recognition of the speaker's intending (i) to be the primary reason for the addressee to think "P".
Intended meaning that is recognised-as-intended is the focus, therefore, for trying to answer Grice's (and Pragmatic's) main question.
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* Grice gives a detailed explanation of the definition in "Utterer's Meaning and Intentions", chapter 5 of his Studies in the Way of Words, Harvard University Press, 1989, pp. 86-116.
Syntax (the study of signs’ relations to each other)
Semantics (the study of signs’ relation to what they describe)
Pragmatics (the study of signs’ relations to their users; i.e. how users use signs to mean things)
NA28: Novum Testamentum Graece, 28th revised edition, Edited by Barbara Aland and others, © 2012 Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.
KJV: Scripture quotations from The Authorized (King James) Version. Rights in the Authorized Version in the United Kingdom are vested in the Crown. Reproduced by permission of the Crown’s patentee, Cambridge University Press.
NKJV: Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
NRSV: New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.