Excuses, Excuses, Excuses

I'm a bad poster. I get busy and run out of time to write--or for that matter time to read to feed my writing. Hope y'all will forgive the sporadic nature of my writing.

LXX-2

Howdy from cold South Texas!

There are two new English translations of the Septuagint available. The first is NETS--The New English Translation of the Septuagint published by Oxford press and available since 2007. The other is the Orthodox Study Bible published by Thomas Nelson/Conciliar Press this year--2008.

The first--Nets--is a serious critical scholarly work intended not so much for liturgical/devotional use as in depth textual study for those who do not read Greek. The second--The Orthodox Study Bible (OSB)--IS intended for devotional liturgical use.

I have not owned either long enough to have a serious appraisal of their merits or lack thereof. But as in any new translation of Biblical texts they both are no doubt worth looking at--particularly since there hasn't really been a serious LXX translation since Brenton's in 1851.

So, in spite of my lack of complete information, I commend both to you.

"May God Bless us everyone!"

AT

LXX--Part 1

Hi Y'all!

I recently began a serious study of the Septuagint. This study arose out of my serious LONG TERM interest in Church History and particularly Christianity in it's Eastern Orthodox expressions.

Just a preview of what I've learned--or in some cases relearned:
1. Jewish Hebrew canon--the one found in Jewish as well as Protestant Bibles--arose from the Jews trying to distance themselves from what had become the "official" Christian version--the Septuagint.
2. Most of the OT quotes in the NT are from the Septuagint.
3. The Septuagint is significantly different in certain places from the Hebrew--particularly in Jeremiah which is shorter and arranged differently.

What does all this mean? Could the LXX (Septuagint) be "more" Christian than the Hebrew?

I don't know at this point, however, the discoveries do point to something CS Lewis said in Mere Christianity:

"When you try to explain the Christian doctrine as it is really held by an instructed adult, they will complain that you are making their heads turn round and that it is all too complicated and that if there really were a God they are sure that he would have made "religion" simple…as if "religion" were something God invented, and not His statement to us of certain quite unalterable facts about His own nature. Besides being complicated, reality in my experience, is usually odd. It is not neat, not obvious, not what you would expect…Reality, in fact is usually something you could not have guessed. That is one of the reasons I believe in Christianity.

Things are often not as simple as some would have us to believe.

See you again--hopefully soon!
AT

HI!

I'm still around and pondering the connection between modern Christianity and the traditions of the ancients--however thinking does not translate into visible text that others can read.

I've also been experiementing with Ubuntu Linux as an alternative OS for my PC. There is a lot about it I like. My problem is that virtually everything I run is WINDOWS based and so I am limited in my ability to work in the Ubuntu computing environment--all that to offer MORE excuse as to why I haven't been posting lately.

Hope to have a few new things to say soon.

AT

Tradition, tradition or No Tradition at All?

How does one who hails from a group—Baptist—that vehemently opposes the idea of any legitimate "tradition," integrate the ancient teachings of the Church fathers that are loaded with discussions and endorsements of tradition into his understanding of the faith?

The first truth we must come to grips with in integrating ancient faith with our own, is that whether we like it or not, there is a distinctly Baptist Tradition. Sunday School, Discipleship Training, our convention organized denomination, the very arrangement of the interiors of our Churches—placement of pulpit, pews etc—are not based on anything specifically mentioned in the Bible. These things are largely determined by tradition based on pragmatic considerations. This tradition also influences how we interpret and apply the Scripture to ourselves, our Churches and our society. It even determines which texts we choose to ignore, downplay or blatantly misinterpret. And like the Catholic definition below, we too have Big "T" and Little "t" tradition. And like our Catholic friends many have trouble understanding which is which.

The following definition from Our Sunday Visitor's Catholic Encyclopedia is a good overview of what tradition is:

"The word [tradition] comes from the Latin meaning, "handing over." In the religious sense, it is the teachings and practices handed down, whether in oral or written form, separately from, but not independently of, Scripture. Tradition is divided into two areas: (1) Scripture, the essential doctrines of the Church, the major writings and teachings of the Fathers, the liturgical life of the Church, and the living and lived faith of the whole Church down through the centuries; (2) customs, institutions, practices which express the Christian Faith."

From a more Baptist perspective—i.e. denying the reality of "Baptist" Tradition—the following definition is a far cry from the Catholic one above. I heard this one a long time ago—I don't remember from whom—and it goes like this: "Tradition is what's left after a move of the Holy Ghost." I have also heard a variation of it that says: "A denomination is what's left after a move of the Holy Ghost." In both, the point is clear. God does not work through organized systems of thought and belief or through institutional structures. God is so wild and free—so the line of reasoning goes—that He only works among those who are open to wildest gyrations of what they perceive to be the presence of His Spirit.

See the contrast? The Catholic definition sees tradition as a good thing that helps the Church and the believer stay on the same page with the Lord. The second definition sees tradition as a negative force that, rather than enabling obedience to God, actively hinders and discourages such obedience. Folks who view tradition from this vantage point often referred to it as "dead tradition" or the "traditions of men"—the salient point being that ALL tradition is useless and hurtful to the believer's growth in grace because it quenches the Holy Spirit.

So where the first definition conceives of Tradition as an aid to understanding, enriching and implementing the faith once for all delivered to the saints. The second conceives of it as something to be destroyed or abandoned every time the Holy Spirit stops "moving" where you are and moves on somewhere else. This last understanding is much more in line with the average Baptist understanding—unless of course you are talking about a tradition that some Church member prefers.

Next, I think that one must distinguish between Little "t" and Big "T" tradition—this echoes a point that my friend the Welshman(n) made the other day, and one our friend, G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), can help us understand better: The difference between Big "T" and Little "t" tradition:

"A fad or heresy is the exaltation of something which even if true, is secondary or temporary in its nature against those things which are essential and eternal, those things which always prove themselves true in the long run. In short, it is the setting up of the mood against the mind.

Chesterton tells us a truth about Little "t" tradition—it is always about secondary matters, while Big "T" Tradition is about the eternal, and because Little "t" is about the secondary and derivative, it is the most prone to perversion into fads and heresies by those it is supposed to serve. To see it in its worst form think of "The Prayer of Jabez," "What Would Jesus Do?" etc—silly fads one and all.

RANT: One of the things that has always annoyed me about being a Baptist is the unending flood of heretical fads that keep washing over the gunwales. That is why I find the Fathers and ancient Church Christianity so interesting and possibly so very helpful—a way to replace the faddish with the eternal.

Having established these two truths, we must determine which version of primary and secondary tradition is the most faithful to Scripture, the Church's origin and historical context and her mission. Or, perhaps we need to hybridize—create a new standard based on both traditions, or a combination other legitimate Christian traditions.

My considered opinion is "I don't know"—at least not yet and not at this point. Part of this is probably my obvious conflict of interest, while the rest is sincere lack of information. But, that being the case, I will still keep on thinking, you can too.

Finally Found My Username and Password

What does one say after NOT blogging for over a year? Not much except that I couldn't remember my user name or password to get started again--and that I found them just this morning while setting up my Franklin Planner for July 2007-June 2008. Of course, based on my past poor performance this doesn't guarantee you will actually get to read any more stuff. But at least now I don't have a lame excuse anymore to NOT share my scintillating intellectual life with the rest of the world.

End Times? Yikes!

I have been considering the strengths and weaknesses of preterist/amillennialsim vs historical pre-millennialism.

The early Church Fathers were not entirely, but mostly, agreed that pre-millennialism was the way to go. That view fell out of favor after Augustine's tour de force advocacy of the amillennial position.

I don't know exactly what I think yet.

Historical pre-mil is more literally faithful to the text, but could it be that amil is more faithful to what the text MEANS.

Again I don't know--yet.