variegated expatiations

In Matthew 22:23ff, Jesus reveals to the Sadducees that there is no marriage in the resurrection. Specifically, he says in verse 30:

ἐν γὰρ τῇ ἀναστάσει οὔτε γαμοῦσιν οὔτε γαμίζονται, ἀλλ᾿ ὡς ἄγγελοι ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ εἰσιν.

For at the time of the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven.

Now although this resolves the problem raised in the passage by the Sadducees, it does raise some questions, in particular, why is there no marriage and what does it mean?

It seems that any answer to this question must ultimately return to the function of marriage itself, and for this we must travel to Gen 2:18–25. In this passage, the woman is created in answer to the second of two problems identified in creation (the first problem is identified in Gen 2:5), and in response to the rather startling observation by God that something is “not good.” That is, the woman, and (in the context) marriage, are the answer to the man’s isolation. With her, in the covenantal relationship of marriage, he is no longer alone, he has his עזר כנגדו (ʿēzer kĕnegdô, ‘heler suitable for him’).

So, in marriage, the man finds the answer to the problem of being alone. Why is this no longer a problem at the resurrection? There are at least a three possibilities:

1. Following David Clines,¹ who identifies the help the woman provides the man as being purely related to childbearing and so the ability to fulfil the blessing of Gen 1:28, we would have to conclude that at the resurrection this command is seen as fulfilled—the earth/land is then filled and, with its inhabitants enjoying eternal life, the population need not grow any further, and so there is no need for procreation and ultimately marriage.
2. Alternatively, and in the context of Genesis 2 I think preferably, the main problem with being alone is not the inability to perform some tasks but, instead, being out of relationship with others, i.e. being alone is in itself problematic. If this is the case, the absence of marriage points to a situation where the particular “aloneness” described in Genesis 2 has been resolved via other means. Perhaps Jesus’ envisages a degree of intimacy and openness in all human relationships at the resurrection that ultimately fulfils the ideal of marriage and fully solves the problem of “aloneness.”
3. Another option is that resurrected people are not gendered, i.e. there will be no male and female, and so no marriage. Whether this is likely to be the idea behind Jesus’ comment would depend on whether angels were thought to be without gender. Now all angels I can think of that are mentioned in the Bible are grammatically male, but this is far from decisive since it may be that they are simply not marked for gender. OTOH, if Gen 6:1-6 refers to angels cohabitating with humans (which is far from certain) then it would suggest that angels were thought to be gendered. Some examination of first-century angelology would be needed to clarify this further.

Of course these explanations are not mutually exclusive, they may be true in some combination (they may also both be wrong). There may also be other possible reasons for the absence of marriage in the resurrection.

What we can say, however, is that if Gen 1:28 reflects a divine purpose, then perhaps that purpose is fulfilled at the resurrection,². So if the earth is full and there is no more death, is procreation necessary. If it is not, then that aspect of marriage is no longer required (although I think Gen 2 makes it clear that marriage is more than this). So it could be argued that neither gender nor marriage is needed at the resurrection and hence this explains the situation Jesus describes.

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1. See David Clines, “What Does Eve Do to Help?” which can be read online here. I should point out that I do not follow David Clines at this point—I think Genesis 2 in the context of the OT makes it clear that the problem identified with the man’s “aloneness” is not confined to his inability to fill the earth.

2. Although there may be no such necessity: I see no requirement that the resurrection needs to mark the end to any further development or advancement in the divine plan for creation. It may simply mark the end of this phase.

Prompted by this discussion at Better Bibles Blog, I think there is one important side to the debate which is often overlooked.

First some brief background. I’ve always been somewhat fond of versions which render יהוה by Yahweh or something similar, partly because it makes better sense in many places to actually use a name when translating a name, partly because often using a title (i.e. “Lord”) interrupts the fluency of the text, and partly because, well, because I like to see little glimpses of Hebrew shining through into the translation.

Having said that, however, it is worth noting that there is a case for translating the name יהוה with the English “Lord.” The basis for the case is found in the NT, because whenever the NT quotes an OT text which includes God’s name it translates it as κυριος, ‘Lord’.

Now if that were all there was to it then I don’t think there’d be a strong case here. But wait, there’s more! The NT also consistently describes Jesus as κυριος, and so suddenly there is an important relationship established in the ambiguity of this designation for Jesus which the authors of the NT appear to self-consciously exploit.

A prime example is Matt 3:3′s use of Isa 40:3. First, here is what the MT for Isaiah says:

‏קול קורא
במדבר פנו דרך יהוה
‏ישרו בערבה מסלה לאלהינו

The LXX renders this thus:

φωνὴ βοῶντος
ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ ἑτοιμάσατε τὴν ὁδὸν κυρίου
εὐθείας ποιεῖτε τὰς τρίβους τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν

You can clearly see the transition from יהוה to κυριος which leads us to Matt 3:3

φωνὴ βοῶντος ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ·
ἑτοιμάσατε τὴν ὁδὸν κυρίου,
εὐθείας ποιεῖτε τὰς τρίβους αὐτοῦ.

So Isaiah makes clear reference to preparing the way for Yahweh to come. But what is in Matthew’s mind? Throughout his gospel Jesus is referred to as κυριος. So here we have some ambiguity—who are the preparations for? Are they for Jesus or for Yahweh himself? Reading on it becomes clear that John is anticipating the arrival of the Messiah.

The resolution to this apparent paradox lies, of course, in the divinity of Jesus, for the NT writers seem to apply both senses of κυριος to him.

So the danger in moving away from translating יהוה by ‘Lord’ in the NT is that the English reader loses this connection. As is inevitably the case when faced with such choices in translation, each choice has pros and cons and no choice will make everyone happy. Nonetheless, this particular translation choice has both biblical justification as well as theological significance, and so there is no a-priori case to dismiss the validity of the use of ‘Lord’ in English translations of the tetragrammaton.

There have been a few reviews of The End of Wisdom to date, and so I’m going to take this opportunity to make a few comments about them (to see some of them you can click on the book to the right to go to Eisenbraun’s page which includes some extacts).

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First, a couple of comments about the review by Marianne Dacy NDS in the Australian Biblical Review. The review has one particularly puzzling comment:

Martin Shields, whose background as an artist is reflected in the book’s attractive presentation…

What is puzzling is that I was unaware that I had a background as an artist! I’m not sure where that idea has come from, perhaps a misdirected Google search?

The only other comment I have relates to the concluding paragraph where the reviewer clearly holds to a Persian date and thinks the evidence conclusive. Now I’ve told Ian Young and expect him to have words with her about this, after all he argues quite convincingly that biblical texts cannot be dated linguistically (see Hebrew Studies 46 [2005] 341–51)! And as I explain in the book, I don’t think that identifying a date for Ecclesiastes will ultimately have a strong bearing on its interpretation.

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Second, a couple of comments on the very brief review by John Jarick in JSOT 31.5 (2007) 157–158. The substantive portion of Jarick’s review is as follows:

It seems that the book as a whole—not just the epilogue—has been designed by the epilogist to hoist Qoheleth with his own petard, to expose the sages as empty men who cannot understand the world and cannot offer conclusive advice on how we should live. The book possesses the ‘specific overarching purpose of deterring prospective students of speculative wisdom from embracing the wisdom movement and pointing them to their religious heritage, which offered a way out of the senseless and futile world of the sages’ (p. 239). One wonders if that really was the purpose of Ecclesiastes, a work that has in fact won so many fans for ‘the wisdom movement’ over the years, or whether it is rather the purpose of S.’s book… But one can be confident that many readers of Ecclesiastes will find more wisdom in Qoheleth’s words than S. does.

I have a number of problems with Jarick’s take on the book. First, by referring to “speculative wisdom” I clearly distinguish the target of Qohelet’s ire from wisdom more broadly conceived and more specifically manifest in Proverbs, Sirach, and elsewhere. Rather, I went to some lengths to show that there is a form of wisdom which is consistently decried within the pages of the OT/HB, wisdom that even the other wisdom literature debunks. Take, for example, Job, which goes to great lengths to counter the retributive foundations of the traditional wisdom exemplified in the arguments of Job’s friends.

The point is, of course, to note that criticising one manifestation of wisdom does not equate to rejecting all wisdom. The epilogist extolls the wisdom of Qohelet precisely because he called a spade a spade: there are limits to human wisdom, and indeed Qohelet failed to find answers to all the questions he asked and then had to be content with recommending that we enjoy what we can in life because he can offer no more unequivocal advice about how to achieve positive outcomes in life. If the greatest of all sages failed in this task, what hope do others have?

Second, Jarick’s final sentence ultimately highlights the very methodological problem many readers bring to biblical texts (of all genres) which I sought to redress in the book: we read the text through our lens, a lens which invariably affects our appreciation of the meaning of the text and inevitably results in some degree of domestication of the text. And our lens differs from that of the author and his (chances are very slim it was a ‘her’ I’m afraid) original audience. The reading proposed in the book is an attempt to suggest how such a difference in perspective might bear on the meaning we take from the text. Modern readers relate to the doubts of Qohelet, but do they reflect the mindset of all readers at all times? I think the later history of the wisdom movement as revealed in Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon highlights the significance of this gap between us and them.

It’s been too long since the last installment in this series, partly due to holidays, partly due to internet problems, and partly due to being too busy, but here come the next two days of Genesis 1 at last.

Then God said, “Let the waters under the sky be collected to one place so that dry ground appears.” And it was so. Then God named the dry ground “land” and he named the collected waters “seas.” God recognised that it was good.

Then God said, “Let the land sprout plants: crops¹ and fruit-trees producing varieties of fruit containing its seed.” And it was so. So the land produced plants—varieties of crops and varieties of trees bearing fruit containing its seed. God recognised that it was good, and there was evening and then morning, a third day.

Then God said, “Let there be lights on² the barrier of the sky to separate between the day and the night, and let them mark the times for days and years, and let them be lights on the barrier of the sky to shed light on the land.” And it was so.

God made the two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. God placed them on the barrier of the sky to shine on the land, to govern³ the day and the night, and to separate between the light and the darkness. And God recognised that it was good. And there was evening and then morning, a fourth day.

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1. The expression עשב מזריע זרע is usually rendered “seed-bearing plants.” This raises the question: why the qualification about seeds, are there any plants which do not bear seeds? I suspect something more specific is on view here, and that is that the plants on view are crops and that the expression focuses on the ‘sowing’ aspect of the verb זרע. By extension, the reference to ‘fruit-trees’ probably focuses specifically on those cultivated for food. Furthermore, verses 29–30 specifically identify these plants as being for human consumption but also draw a distinction from other plants (כל ירק עשב) which are for animals. Cultivated crops are certainly in view later in Gen 2:5.

2. Note HALOT on the use of the preposition ב says “5. in association with high objects ב means upon: בחרב 1K 8₉, בסוסים Is 66₂₀.” So also in subsequent uses of ב here in reference to the placement of lights on the barrier.

3. “Govern” is fairly neutral in Australian English, although I’m concerned a little over its connotations in US English where you actually have governors (or a “governator” in California), so the term may be less suitable in that context.

Debates over types of translation of the Bible are typically dominated by discussions of the relative merits of either “literal” (or formal equivalent) translation verses dynamic equivalent wherein the primary goal is the transfer of meaning from the source to the target. While there is a place for both types of translation, I personally think that literal translations have a rather limited place, serving best those with some grasp of the underlying languages and the way they operate, but without the fluency to be able to rely on them alone. Otherwise they can be used in conjunction with a good dynamic equivalent translation in order to highlight possible intertextual links, linguistic parallels, or formal features of the original text. For those unfamiliar with the original languages, however, I would not recommend using a “literal” translation alone because it can obscure as much as it reveals.

These are, however, not the only two options. With the growing awareness of the distance between modern western readers of the Bible and the original context of the text’s composition comes a growing awareness of the manner in which most translations of either type allow the reader to domesticate the text by permitting the reader to impose upon the text their own cultural ideals and norms simply because the translations employ concepts sufficiently vague to allow them such freedom. The problem has been highlighted by Lawrence Venuti, who wrote,

By producing the illusion of transparency, a fluent translation masquerades as true semantic equivalence when it in fact inscribes the foreign text with a partial interpretation, partial to English-language values, reducing if not simply excluding the very difference that translation is called on to convey.¹

Now it might be tempting to think that a formal equivalence translation overcomes the problem by reflecting more closely the structure of the original together with a more wooden approach resulting in a text which doesn’t sit comfortably as contemporary English. Unfortunately that is not the case, for although a FE translation can highlight the fact that the text is unlike “normal” English literature, in practice they rarely highlight the nature of the foreignness of the original text. Indeed, I suspect it is easier to produce a foreignising translation of a biblical text in what appears to be good contemporary English than it is in the less natural English which results from FE methodologies, simply because it is possible to highlight the semantic difference more precisely when the meaning can be more directly conveyed to the reader.

Now of all the texts in the Bible to which a foreignising translation may usefully be applied, it is perhaps the cosmological passages which stand to gain the most, for there are some of the greatest differences in worldview between the modern and ancient audience, and there, too, do we find that modern readers are most readily both willing and able to impose their own perspective upon the text with the resultant domestication of the text and loss of its original significance. My foreignising translation aims to use contemporary English grammar and syntax, but preserve or highlight alien aspects of the text in such a way that the reader cannot easily ignore the differences but is forced to see them.

With that background, my translation shall appear in the next post!

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1. Lawrence Venuti, The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation (London: Routledge, 1995) 21.