The Floppy Hat

You may notice that The Floppy Hat has sporadic moments of downtime this weekend. That will be because I am updating the underlying software (Wordpress) which we use four the site. If all goes well, we’ll see very little downtime–you probably won’t even notice–and we’ll be back on our merry way in no time. However, I have enough experience with computers and web applications to know that very rarely does all go well.

Wish us luck.

There have been a number of posts over the past several weeks with which I have wanted to interact. Various distractions of kept me from fulfilling this desire, however. At this point, since some of the trails are a bit cold, it seems best to lump several of these posts into a single post of my own with brief comments.

Hebrew Prepositions
Several of us had a bit of fun discussing Hebrew prepositions, how they work, and how they ought to be translated over at Daniel and Tonya’s blog. See here and here for the gist of the discussion. As Mandy pointed out in one of the comment threads, this is an excellent example of why one really ought to learn Hebrew.

Pastors and PhD
I have mentioned this topic before, but Doug Mangum brought it up again. His second post was interacting with a post by Brian (of συνεσταύρωμαι). I agree with both Doug and Brian, having more clergy with PhDs would be a wonderful thing. However, at least within conservative Evangelical circles, I’m not entirely convinced that churches are ready for this. I would love to see more pastors with PhDs, but I would also love to see professors who spend time in their local congregations not only teaching Sunday school, but teaching some kind of “course” on the Bible generally, or their specialization in particular (ie, ritual studies, wisdom literature, former prophets, Psalms, Hebrew poetry, Hebrew narrative, etc, etc, etc). Such professors might find that lay people are more interested in esoteric topics than one might expect.

Inerrancy
Art Boulet has a long running series on the topic of inerrancy. This series is well worth reading, the most recent of them can be found here. A listing of the entire series can be had here. There isn’t much more that needs saying in regards to this, other than that I think Art is right on target.

Peter Enns has also been blogging on this topic in a series of posts in which in responds to Bruce Waltke. Each post in the series is helpful and informative. The most recent may be found here. Other posts in the series are easily found on Dr. Enns’ blog.

What follows is the remainder of my text criticism for this passage. Then we can move on to more exciting topics. (Don’t tell Calvin I said that!) Seriously, this is probably the most in depth text crit I’ve done as of yet in my academic career, and it was, admittedly, pretty interesting. The issues that brought me the most glee were pondering over the emendation possibilities in the first line and, of course, axing the fourth line in verse 19. Also, it was fun to see how the versions dealt with a hapax (below), as well as deciding whether to emend the final two words in the passage. Now, without further ado…

Verse 20

פרים
     The LXX adds κοιλας αυτων. This is likely merely an attempt to make more clear the meaning of פרים, rather than reflective of a different Hebrew text. The Targums also follow the LXX reading, most likely for the same reason.

עללי טפחים
     The second word is a hapax legomenon. The translations of the two word phrase in the versions are very different from one another, indicating that there was some lack of clarity as to the meaning of the word (and thus phrase). The LXX has what some have regarded as a “double translation.” The first translation reads somewhat nonsensical: “a cook made a gleaning,” and is then followed by a more clear statement, but lacking words to translate in the Hebrew text, “will the children who suckle the breast be slain?” Most likely, rather than reflecting a phrase that has fallen out of the Hebrew text, the second translation is an attempt by a later copyist to clarify the first, and both refer to the עללי טפחים. The verb φονευθησονται may be an attempt to understand טפח with the root תבח, or it could be another double translation of the Hebrew יהרג in the third line.¹ The Syriac reads, “dashed in pieces,” the Targum, “infants wrapped in swaddling clothes,” and the Vulgate, “hand-breadth.” The variety of translations is enough to suggest that the issue is not a corruption, but difficulty translating the hapax.

Verse 21

לארץ חוצות
     The LXX has εις την εξοδον, “in the way out,” in some versions and εις γην εξοδων, “in the earth of the ways out,” in others. This is likely a corruption within the LXX, the latter being the more original translation and the former being an error.

נער וזקן
     Both the Targum and Syriac pluralize these two words, but the meaning remains the same either way. The LXX agrees with the MT in number and so the singular has been maintained here.

נפלו בחרב
     The LXX versions read almost unanimously, “are carried in captivity, by the sword and by hunger you killed…” The Syriac and Targum agree generally with the MT, and the additions or mistranslations in the LXX are probably an example of corruption within the LXX somewhere along the line.²

Verse 22

תקרא
     The LXX translates both as a second person singular and a third person singular in varying manuscripts. This is once again inner-Greek corruption and there is no further evidence of a corruption among the other versions.

מועד
     The Hebrew root most likely means “terror,” but the LXX translates as “sojourning.” Both the Syriac and Vulgate offer translations that have something to do with fear, and the LXX translation is most likely reflective of a different understanding of the root of the Hebrew word.

טפחתי
     Another hapax occurs here, טפחתי, which comes from the same root, טפח, which caused problems earlier. Again the LXX misunderstands the root and translates as επεκρατησα, “rule over,” possibly itself a corruption of an original επεκροτησα, understood from the Aramaic טפח, “clap.”³ Either way, the translation makes no sense in context, so the MT version has been retained.

איבי כלם
     The LXX translates as “all my enemies.” This is an incorrect reading of the ambiguous consonantal text איבי כלם, which the Masoretes have pointed differently. The other versions agree with the MT except that the Syriac and Targum pluralize the noun and have a matching plural verb. Given the plural εχθρους, along with the evidence of a plural noun and verb in the Syriac and Targums, it is tempting to emend the text here. However, the MT has been retained for contextual reasons.⁴

Calvin has been bugging me to post more, and since I have a series of ready-made posts in my exegesis paper from the spring, I really have no excuse. As much as I’d love to jump to the topics that most interest me, I should probably start where I actually started in my paper: textual criticism.

For my fully reconstructed text, you may refer to this post.

My text criticism for this passage was pretty long, so I’m going to split it up into two posts. One caveat: this is from a paper I submitted for a class, so it’s in a more formal style than I usually employ when blogging. Enjoy!

Verse 18

צעק לבם
     The first two words are puzzling. The difficulty lies in determining to whom the 3mp pronoun on לב refers. Normally, one would look to the immediately preceding context. However, the most recent 3mp antecedent would be the איב or צר of verses 16-17, which unfortunately lacks sense in the context of 18-22. Many therefore choose to emend the text in some fashion, since there does not appear to be another obvious referent. Those who choose to emend these two words agree almost across the board that צעק should be emended to צעקי, changing the verb to a 2fs imperative from a 3ms perfect, on analogy to the two other 2fs imperatives in lines 2 and 3 of verse 18. Various proposals¹ have then been suggested on how to deal with לבם. However, the versions agree in every instance with the MT reading. Due to the lack of alternate textual evidence, the MT reading has been followed here.²

חומת
     There is some question of sense with this word as well. Many commentators choose to emend in various ways in conjunction with the final two words of the line (18c-c). The main difficulty appears to lie in an assumption that it would be nonsensical for the poet to address a wall.³ Some LXX manuscripts translate this word in the plural, Τειχη, rather than singular, which could be taken as evidence of some type of corruption.⁴ However, the majority of the evidence, including the Syriac and Aramaic versions, lies on the side of the MT, therefore the singular has been maintained here.

בת ציון
     The Greek equivalent of בת is missing in the earlier LXX manuscripts. While some have attempted to devise convoluted proposals as to how to how this is part of the corruption of חומת, a more simple explanation seems likely. Given that both חומת and בת end with ת, the lack of θυγατρος could be explained easily by haplography via homoeoteleuton. Either a Hebrew manuscript had experienced haplography prior to the Greek translation, or the word was in the Hebrew manuscript, and the LXX translator skipped over the word in his translation. It seems over the top to try and reconstruct a way that בת could have found its way into the text, where it was not originally, through a series of labyrinthine corruptions, simply because one has trouble understanding what could be meant by the address to the חומת

אל תדם בת עינך
     The LXX understands בת here as a vocative rather than as the head noun in a construct relationship with עינך. This is not a consonantal variant but either a misunderstanding of the Hebrew idiom בת עינך, or merely an interpretational choice, since the consonantal text is ambiguous.

Verse 19

בלילה
     The consonantal MT reads בליל. The final ה has been restored here, to match the Masoretic vocalization.

אשמרות
     Early LXX manuscripts read φυλακης σου, a singular noun with a second person singular possessive pronoun, versus the Hebrew plural noun lacking a possessive suffix. This most likely does not reflect a different Hebrew text but a stylistic choice on the part of the translator.⁵

< העטופים ברעב בראש כל חוצות >
     This line is most likely not original and has been removed. Verse 19 is a four-line stanza in the MT. This is the only four-line stanza in chapter two; the rest have three lines. On its own, this would not be enough of a reason to delete the final line, since there is no evidence among the versions as to a textual corruption. To delete a line on this basis alone seems to presuppose a greater understanding of Hebrew poetry than perhaps we really have.⁶ However, on a closer analysis of the structure of the stanza (as opposed to a cursory survey of how many lines each stanza has), this line sticks out rather pointedly, and doesn’t seem to fit the rest of the context of the verse. The content seems to serve no poetic function, is unnecessary to the meaning of the passage, and does nothing to move along the poetry, nor does it fit with the previous three parallel lines. It has the feel of a targumizing expansion, a line added to explain a little bit more about the עולל from the third line in the stanza. Of course, without textual variants one cannot be certain, but a side must be chosen one way or the other. Here, the decision has been made to cut the line from the reconstruction.

Mandy and I have joined that illustrious group of bloggers known as the Top 10. Our jump of 34 places was no doubt due to a heavy increase in the number of posts for June. We’ll see if we can continue the pace through July. Over the coming month you can look forward to additional posts on Job, Proverbs and Lamentations (Mandy promises!). Furthermore, expect some interaction with various topics that have been spinning around the Biblioblogosphere. If one of us is feeling exceptionally adventurous, Daniel and Tonya may even get their wish and receive a post that has something to do with Biblical Greek (to which Mandy responds, πτυω).

Most importantly, we want to take this moment to thank all of our readers. Without you, we wouldn’t even be in the Top 50. Thanks for taking the time to read our ramblings.

You may have noticed that, over the past week, we have been posting somewhat less often than in recent days. This is primarily because Mandy and I are both in the middle of a Summer course on the Gospel of John. We don’t intend to fall off the face of the planet, but the number of updates on our blog will be limited for the next two to three weeks.

In the meantime, might I suggest you point your browser to some of the excellent blogs on the sidebar under Blogroll.

It has occurred to me that, for those not well versed in Hebrew, an English translation of Job 5.2-7 may be helpful in following the posts I have been making. To that end I provide a rough translation here. For the reconstructed Hebrew text from which this translation has been made, go here. The raised numbers refer to footnotes; they are not verse numbers. I apologize, in advance, for the rather lengthy explanatory notes. If nothing else the notes prove that all translation is interpretation. As always, comments are welcome.

Job 5.2-7
Surely¹ anger slays the fool²
and envy kills the simple³

As for me,⁴ I have seen the fool taking root
but suddenly his abode was consumed!

His children⁵ are far from deliverance
⁶They are crushed in the gate
There is not a rescuer

What they harvested the hungry will eat
Their wealth the starving will take
The thirsty will pursue⁷ their possessions

For sorrow⁸ does not come from the dust
and trouble does not sprout from the ground

Rather,⁹ humanity¹⁰ gives birth to trouble
as the sons of Resheph¹¹ fly high.

Bryan supplied several good reasons for pastors to learn Hebrew in the form of verses from Hosea. For those who are regular readers of this blog it should come as no surprise that I think pastors ought to know Hebrew and Greek, and know them well. I also think that laity ought to learn the original languages as a matter of course. I think someone’s religious experience can only benefit from learning the original languages.

So, since Bryan was nice enough to provide some reasons for learning Hebrew, I thought I might provide an example as well. The Hebrew Bible is filled with various word plays. These commonly occur in the poetic sections of the canon, though they are not uncommon in the prose sections as well. In particular I direct your attention to 1 Samuel 6.5 which reads:

ועשיתם צלמי עפליכם וצלמי עצבריכם המשחיתם את־הארץ ונתתם לאלהי ישראל כבוד אולי יקל את־ידו מעליכם ומעל אלהיכם ומעל ארצכם

English: You shall make images of your tumors and images of your rats, the ones destroying the land. Also you shall give glory to the God of Israel, perhaps he will lighten his hand from upon you and from upon your gods and from upon your land.

Some background to this verse is necessary. The Ark of the Covenant had recently been lost to the Philistines. The circumstances surrounding that event, although interesting, have no direct bearing on the point of this post. Suffice it to say that the Philistines got more than they bargained for. First they put the Ark in Dagon’s temple. Apparently YHVH didn’t like sharing a house because within a couple days Dagon’s idol had been pretty well demolished. After this, the Ark gets passed around the Philistine cities, and wherever it is the Philistines are afflicted with tumors (and…uh…rats?). As you might imagine it doesn’t take them long to figure out they want nothing to do with Israel’s God, and so they ask their religious leaders what they ought to do. Verse five, above, is part of the instructions which they are given.

The really fun bit is a wordplay that simply doesn’t come through in English. The Philistines are told to give glory (כבוד) to the God of Israel. The idea being that if they do so, maybe YHVH will “lighten (יקל) his hand.” In other words, maybe YHVH will stop afflicting them. The fun thing here is that the basic meaning of כבוד has to do with being heavy. The juxtaposition of the two words creates a subtle, or perhaps not so subtle, wordplay. The Philistines ought to make God heavy, and perhaps he will lighten his hand.¹

One would never notice the wordplay in an English translation since our word “glory” has no relation to our word “heavy.” Limiting oneself to reading the Bible in English ensures that one will never be exposed to the plethora of brilliant literary features within the text. Learning Biblical Hebrew is an activity in which all serious students of the Bible ought to be engaged.

Proverbs 1.8-19, otherwise known as the First Instruction, opens the series of “my son” poems which dominate the first nine chapters of Proverbs. The specific verses I reference in the title (11-18) contain several instances of double entendre.¹ In this post I will discuss how I think the double entendre within these verses was meant to play out. One should be warned, however, that these thoughts are really only tentative and preliminary. I’ve made two other posts on Proverbs recently, here and here.

I think that the double entendres within the first Instruction in Proverbs 1-9 are meant to be read a certain way on the first reading, and meant to reveal their alternative reading once one has completed the poem for the first time. I will illustrate this below.

The First Reading:
Verse 11

אם־יאמרו לכה אתנו נארבה לדם נצפנה לנקי חנם

English: “If they say, ‘Come with us! Let us lie in wait for blood/Let us ambush the innocent without reason”

Verse 11 is not one of the verses I feel contain a double entendre. Rather, it is one of two unambiguous verses which frame the inner section of the poem. If you refer back to this post you will see that I view verses 11-18 as a large protasis-apodosis (=”if-then” statement). The framing verses on either end are unambiguous, and I think this is important. In the case of verse 11, the meaning is clear: the sinners intend to shed the blood of innocent people.

Verse 12

נבלעם כשאול חיים ותמימים כיורדי בור

English: “Let us swallow them alive like Sheol/whole, like those who go down to the pit”

Verse 12 does contain a double entendre, in my opinion. The first time one reads the verse, the meaning appears clear: the sinners intend to swallow people alive, just like Sheol.² The second part of the verse is simple parallelism, they will swallow the innocent whole. The innocent people will be like those who go down to the pit.

Verse 16

כי רגליהם לרע ירוצו וימהרו לשפך דם

English: “For their feet run to evil/they make haste to shed blood”

This is the most apparent, and in some ways most striking, of the ambiguities in this section of Proverbs. During the initial reading the sense of the verse appears to be clear: the father warns the son that he should avoid the sinners’ path because they “make haste to spill blood” (ie, they kill people). The sinners run to evil, and that evil is–presumably, the shedding of blood.

Verse 18

והם לדמם יארבו יצפנו לנפשתם

English: “These people lie in wait for their own blood/they set an ambush for their own life”

Once the reader arrives at the end of the poem, the verses mentioned above take on a different meaning. Only at the end is the alternative reading revealed unambiguously. In fact, verse 11, with its unambiguous declaration concerning the sinners ensures that the reader will read the poem in a certain way. Once one arrives at verse 18, however, everything is seen in a different light. The sinners lie in wait for their own blood! Each of the verses mentioned above can now be seen in a different light. Interestingly, verse 18 borrows the vocabulary of verse 11. In both verses the sinners “lie in wait.”

The Second Reading:
Verse 12
This verse is the most difficult in which to see the alternative reading. It is here, however. The first stitch says plainly “let us swallow them, as Sheol, alive!” or in easier English, “let us swallow them alive, like Sheol.” The issue is not with the initial stitch, but rather with the second “and whole, like the ones going down to the pit.” During the first read-through of the poem verse 11 has already prepped the reader in how to understand this. However, during a second reading something doesn’t sit right. The issue is visible, even in translation. In the first stitch the sinners want to be “like Sheol.” The innocent are swallowed “alive.” The second stitch lacks a verb, and so the verb from the first stitch does double duty. This is a normal occurrence in poetry. So, the second stitch means “let us swallow them whole, like the ones going down to the pit.” This too is obvious even in translation, even on the initial reading. The question, of course, is to what is “like the ones going down to the pit” parallel? The answer is clear, it is parallel to “like Sheol.” In other words, the sinners declare that they themselves will go down to the pit.³

Verse 16
One way of understanding the Hebrew word רע in the first stitch (translated “evil”) is “trouble.” In other words, one might read the first stitch as “their feet rush to trouble,” (ie, they get themselves into trouble). As Waltke has written, “in 1:16 it [רע] can denote either moral evil or calamity.”⁴ This is not the most eye-popping double-meaning in the verse, but it is certainly interesting to note. The second stitch presents the most striking ambiguity, as well as the most easily recognized. On the first reading the meaning seems obvious, the sinners make haste to spill the blood of the innocent. Once one has read verse 18, however, things shift slightly and one realizes that the verse may easily be read to mean that the sinners make haste to shed their own blood.

I’ve been tagged by Adam, and so has Mandy–so presumably she will also post on this topic. I find these types of memes somewhat fascinating since its interesting to see how people have been influence and shaped in various ways. The idea is that you have to either share your top five most influential books or the top five scholars that had the most immediate and lasting influence on how you read the Bible.

1. Inspiration and Incarnation by Peter Enns. This book, hands down, has been one of the biggest influences in my study of the Hebrew Bible. Enns put in writing much of what I was already thinking regarding critical Biblical scholarship and the Hebrew Bible. In this way I was able to maintain my Christian faith (albeit in a different form from what it once was) and still deal in an intellectually honest manner with the vast amounts of scholarship on the Hebrew Bible. This is a book I recommend to everyone who wants to study the Hebrew Bible.

2. The Psalms and the Life of Faith by Walter Brueggemann, edited by Patrick Miller. If Enns’ book shaped the way I deal with critical Biblical scholarship, this book shaped the way in which I appropriate the plethora of lament literature within the Bible. This book is a collect of Brueggemann’s essays on the Psalms. The most important of these, in my opinion, is “The Costly Loss of Lament.” That essay influenced how I communicate with God to a very large extent.

3. Biblical Hebrew by Kittel, Hoffer and Wright. This is the book from which I learned Biblical Hebrew. Although my love of Hebrew is due in no small part to my undergrad Hebrew professor, it is also due to Kittel’s excellent text. I really can’t recommend her approach enough. The book isn’t perfect, by any means, but is much closer to perfect than any other first year grammar I’ve had the opportunity to look at. If not for this book, I probably would not be an aspiring scholar of the Hebrew Bible.

4. Proverbs 1-9 Anchor Bible; by Michael V. Fox. This commentary is a large part of the reason that I love the Wisdom Literature of the Hebrew Bible. Adam has already said most of what needs to be said about this book, so I will simply quote him:

Fox is a master interpreter and his work has greatly influenced my understanding of this book (which is also my favorite biblical book [well, his not mine–I prefer Job). Fox’s book is the first title I pick up when I am beginning to study a particular passage in Proverbs 1-9 (outside of my BHS).

5. Genesis 1-11 by Claus Westermann. This was one of the first critical commentaries I read. As such, it was my introduction to how various higher critical theories worked out in practice. Aside from being a solid commentary on Genesis and helping me see what it meant to interact with the Bible critically, it was also fun to read and I learned–and still learn–a ton from it.

I won’t tag anyone, since A) many of those I’m most interested in hearing about have already been tagged and B) Mandy still has to go. I’ll give her a few suggestions for who to tag.