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Theological Table-Talk
By George S. Hendry

UNDERSTANDEST THOU WHAT THOU READEST?

While Bible commentaries of the conventional pattern continue to pour forth in an apparently never-ending stream, two books which stand apart from the usual pattern may attract special attention. One of them is concerned with the words of the Bible-to be precise, the words that have been used in successive English versions of the Bible; the other presents a survey of the contents of the Bible. One takes a microscopic approach to the Bible, the other a telescopic; or, in terms of the familiar analogy, one of them studies the trees in the forest, and even the bark on the trees, the other studies the forest as a whole.

The Bible Word Book has been compiled by Ronald Bridges, who died in 1959, and Luther A. Weigle, Dean Emeritus of Yale Divinity School, who played a leading part in the making of the Revised Standard Version (Thomas Nelson & Sons). It contains articles on 827 words and phrases of the King James Version, which have either dropped out of the language, or which have so changed their meanings as to be more or less unintelligible to the reader of today. Those who are interested in the curious histories of words will find a mine of fascinating information in the book. To take an example at random, how many readers of the KJV realize that when the Psalmist said of his enemies, "They have set gins for me" (Ps. 140: 5), he meant they were trying to ensnare him, but not by undermining his sobriety, and that the word is a contraction of engine, which originally meant ingenuity? It is curious to observe how, as they change their meanings, some words advance in dignity (like "person," which once meant a mask and now means the wearer of one), others decline (like "cunning," which once meant skillful and now means sly); some broaden out (like "stranger," which once meant foreigner and now means any one unknown), others contract

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(like "lust," which once meant any kind of desire and is now restricted to sexual desire); some grow strong (like "persuade," which once meant to argue and now means to convince by argument), others grow weak (like "naughty," which once meant being in league with the power of nothingness and is now used only of children when they misbehave); and some exchange meanings (like "let" and prevent").

A peculiar problem is presented by certain words which have in effect lost their meanings, but which survive, like ghosts, by taking possession of other meanings. One such is the word "meek," which, though still part of the language, is rarely used and is probably obsolescent. The Bible Word Book does not comment on it, probably because it is used in the RSV. But it is evident that the Revisers were not too sure about it; for in Paul's statement of the nine-fold fruit of the Spirit in Gal. 5: 22 "meekness" has been replaced by "gentleness" (a word of which much the same might be said), though it is retained in the third beatitude, despite the fact that the Greek word is the same. It is very hard for the modern reader to recover the Biblical meaning of meekness, perhaps because the quality to which it refers is so rarely to be found in the modern world.

The information in The Bible Word Book has been carefully checked, but occasionally the reader is left on a hook. Those to whom it comes as a surprise to learn that the "mess of pottage," for which Esau sold his birthright, is not found in the KJV will doubtless wonder where it does come from, and it seems strange that the book does not relieve their natural curiosity by telling them that it comes from the Geneva Bible of 1560.

The other book is called Ground Plan of the Bible. It is written by Otto Weber of Göttingen, translated by Harold Knight and published by the Westminster Press. It belongs to a type of Biblical literature that is more common in Germany than in the English-speaking world. It is not commentary in the conventional sense, and it is not Biblical theology; it is what the Germans call Bibel-kunde. Bible knowledge would be the nearest English equivalent; but if that suggests a knowledge of the contents of the Bible of the kind that might enable a student to pass an examination or even to win big money on a quiz program, this is not quite what is meant. The jacket puts it this way: "The approach is at once historical,

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theological and critical, and the various parts of the canon are presented as one coherent and continuous whole, so that the student, reading the book consecutively, will gain an excellent over-all purview of the sacred text as a possible preliminary to more intensive, specialized studies." Professor Weber is a practiced hand at Bibel-kunde. The book is an abridgement of an earlier and larger work which has been widely used in Germany and has gone through numerous editions. It will be a valuable aid, both to the general reader who needs some one to guide him through the forest of the Bible, and to the student, who is sometimes unable to see the forest for the trees.

Mention may also be made here of a forthcoming publication which will be of unusual interest to all students and lovers of the Bible. The Oxford and Cambridge University Presses have announced that the new translation of the Bible into current English will begin to appear next year, which will be the 350th anniversary of the publication of the Authorised or King James Version. The New Testament, the first part to be completed, will be issued in March. Work continues on the Old Testament and the Apocrypha, and these will appear in due course.

The New English Bible, which is to be its official designation, differs from the RSV, the ASV, and even from the KJV, in that it has been definitely conceived as a new translation and not as a revision of any previous translation. It was undertaken with the object of providing English readers, whether familiar with the Bible or not, with a faithful rendering of the best available texts into the current speech of our own time, and a rendering which would harvest the gains of recent Biblical scholarship. The translation is the work of a committee composed of officially appointed representatives of all the major denominations and Bible societies in Great Britain and it is expected to receive some kind of official recognition.

O HOLY SIMPLICITY!

It is an old complaint that men are cheated of the gospel of Christ because preachers, and especially theologians, insist on clothing it in language which is unintelligible to ordinary people. This complaint, which was first made against the Apostle Paul (2 Pet. 3:

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16), was renewed recently by Bishop Hanns Lilje of Hanover in a speech at Union Theological Seminary in New York. According to the report in the New York Times, the Bishop told his audience, "The Christian Church seems to have lost . . . the capacity to speak about its beliefs in a manner which should convey the impression of something real and alive. The language of the theologians seems to have become so artificial, so self-centered and so remote from real life that one can only dream of the times when theology took the lead in the universities and was the most formative influence in the intellectual life of Western nations." In an address to a student group at Princeton University Bishop Lilje referred again to the language barrier which is set up between the church and the world, and he declared that if a man cannot present his message in clear and simple language, it is an indication either that he himself does not clearly understand what he is talking about or that he does not fully believe it.

Many will feel that the Bishop has touched a sore spot here. Undoubtedly, theologians need to be checked from time to time and told to watch their language. In fairness, however, it should be noted that they are not the only offenders. In an age of increasing specialization there is a tendency for each area of human interest to establish its position by developing a specialty of its own, and one way of doing this is by the development of a technical language which is unintelligible to all who are not experts in the field. It is difficult to see how this could be avoided in many cases. No one would question the integrity of an atomic physicist or the importance of what he is doing, because he is unable to present the results of his researches in clear and simple terms that every one can understand. And the technical language of the stock market does not appear to act as a deterrent to those who are looking for a profitable investment.

This is not to say that Bishop Lilje's complaint is without foundation. It could be argued that theology is not a technical specialty, that it deals with matters which are of concern to all men, and therefore that it ought to be able to speak in language which is generally intelligible. If theology fails to make itself understood, the failure may be due to the trend toward specialization and the desire to establish theology as an enclave for experts, or, on a lower level, it may be due to a confusion of complexity with profundity, as if the

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polysyllable were necessarily more meaningful than the monosyllable. Peacock makes one of his characters in Nightmare Abbey say, "It is the vulgar error of the reading public that an unusual collocation of words, involving a juxtaposition of antiperistatical ideas, immediately suggests the notion of hyperoxysophistical paradoxology." This error, which may be described (in simple language) as the practice of obfuscation by gratuitous polysyllabification, is notoriously rife in the fields of journalism and politics, where it culminates in the development of "journalese" and "gobbledygook." Nothing better has been written on this than the chapter on jargon in Quiller-Couch's On the Art of Writing. If theologians would read and reread this chapter from time to time, it might save them from some of the more obvious pitfalls. To cite one example, when the beautiful saying of Jesus, "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit" (Jn. 12: 24), is turned into "the profound observation that the disintegration of the seed, as a separate entity, is essential to its fructification," it is doubtful if there has been any gain in clarity, and certain that there is none in beauty. This example is taken from one of the most eminent New Testament scholars now living, not because it is characteristic of his writing (which is usually of a crystalline clarity), but only to show that this kind of lapse is an occupational hazard from which no one is immune-and if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?

Simple language is certainly an ideal which all who speak and write in the service of the Christian faith should keep always before them. But it can hardly be imposed as a law, or employed as a test, in the manner suggested by Bishop Lilje. To do so would be to put shackles on thought, which strains at the limits of language. All the great thinkers of mankind have had to break through the language barrier, as it existed in their time, and to create a new language, or a new vocabulary, to be the vehicle of their thought. This is conspicuously true in philosophy-from Heraclitus to Heidegger; and the linguistic analyst who wants to make Heidegger stand in a corner and wear a dunce's cap merely displays his own provincialism. No doubt the contemporary preoccupation with language in the philosophical schools is a timely and salutary piece of house-cleaning; and theologians have certainly something to learn from it. But the cleaning must come to an end one day, if the house is to be lived in.

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Advocates of simplicity often appeal to the example of Jesus, of whom it is written that "the common people heard him gladly" (Mk. 12: 37). They forget that Jesus also used language which his disciples found hard to understand (Mk. 9: 32, Lk. 18: 34, Jn. 12: 16) and which drove many of them away (Jn. 6: 60-66).

And to cite a contemporary example, the language of Paul Tillich is not exactly easy (as the "Glossary of Tillich Terms" in the April issue of THEOLOGY TODAY bears witness); yet it does not constitute a barrier to the communication of his thought. The plea for simplicity can become an excuse for mental stagnation. Those who would stay alive mentally must be prepared to endure linguistic growing pains.

WHO IS THE RICH MAN THAT SHALL BE SAVED?

The wall of separation between Church and state is not too thick to prevent voices from penetrating it, but it is thick enough to make it difficult for them to be heard without static and distortion. When the voice of the state is heard on the Church side of the wall, it is heard by ecclesiastical ears and it is apt to be construed in ecclesiastical terms; and when the voice of the Church is heard on the state side of the wall, it is heard by political ears and is apt to be construed in political terms. The situation is further complicated by the fact that the voice of the Church and the voice of the state are abstractions; the voices that are actually heard are the voices of members of different Church bodies and of members of different political parties. And the possibility of intelligent conversation between them is bedeviled from the outset by the fact that when churchmen differ among themselves, this is called religious liberty and is highly esteemed, but when politicians differ among themselves, this is called political partisanship and is regarded as something mean and unworthy. The nadir of stultification is reached when churchmen in conversation among themselves on their own side of the wall ascribe their differences, not to religious freedom, but to veiled or overt political partisanship. A striking example of this occurred at a recent meeting of United Presbyterian Men, when a speaker sought to discredit the social pronouncements of the denomination because they "frequently coincide with Communist objectives." And a national sensation was caused by the discovery that an Air Force

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manual alleged that the National Council of Churches had been infiltrated by Communist sympathisers and that even the Revised Standard Version of the Bible had in some mysterious way been made a vehicle of the gospel according to Marx.

This attitude is fraught with danger to the very freedom which makes it possible; for freedom cannot long survive in an atmosphere in which we brand those who exercise their freedom to disagree with us as agents of some nefarious conspiracy. A more immediate danger lies in the fact that it prevents an intelligent and effective approach to the problems which face the country and which are of concern to all the people, politicians and churchmen alike. Political partisanships, like religious differences, have usually been formed with reference to some issue that lies in the past, but the problems that lie in the future cannot necessarily be forced into these molds. Just as military men are constantly having to learn that the next war will not be fought with the weapons of the last, so we have all to recognize that the problems of the future may not be susceptible of solution in terms of our traditional political partisanships and religious positions-as if the future were a door for which it was simply a matter of finding the key with the appropriate label, Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, capitalist or socialist, neo-orthodox or neo-evangelical. Such keys are more likely to jam the lock than to open it.

One of these problems, which is already being debated, concerns the use of our national wealth. We have become an "affluent society"; but the question is being asked whether there is not an unhealthy disproportion between the public and private sectors of the economy. Are we devoting too much of our resources to private consumption and too little to public services? Are we spending too much on bigger and better tailfins, and not enough on bigger and better schools?

It is not proposed to debate this very large question here, but simply to urge the desirability of seeking some preliminary understanding as to the conditions under which the debate should be conducted and as to who is entitled to be heard. The participants thus far have been mainly economists, and since the question is, on the face of it, economic, they have an obvious right to be heard. But it is equally obvious that the economists alone cannot solve it, not only for the reason that they also enjoy the freedom to differ

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among themselves and they exercise that right just as freely as other members of the community, but because the question has clearly political dimensions, since it affects the people as a whole and the responsibility for any decision rests on the government. The question goes even deeper, however; it has a philosophical dimension, as economists and politicians themselves recognize, since it concerns our "sense of national purpose" and "the goals of American life" (to cite phrases which have been introduced into the debate). What has not been so clearly recognized is that the question has ultimately a religious dimension, and religious leaders are entitled to present a religious perspective on it. Unfortunately, in the confused atmosphere of public discussion, they are likely, if they do so, to be accused of economic or political partisanship, of seeking to advance the cause of capitalism or socialism or communism or some other ism under the guise of religion, or simply of "meddling" in matters with which they have no concern. But the use of wealth has been from the beginning a matter of religious concern. Jesus had a great deal to say on the subject, and what is probably the earliest essay in Christian ethics was devoted to it-the reference is to a short work by Clement of Alexandria, written about the beginning of the third century, the title of which stands at the head of this section. The question is as pertinent to rich nations and rich governments as it is to rich men. And in any case, we are the government.

It would be a great gain if this debate could be conducted in a spirit of mutual respect by all who have a concern with the problem and a contribution to offer toward its solution. The wall of separation was surely not intended as a Chinese wall to preclude all communication between those on opposite sides, but rather as a garden wall between neighbors on which they might lean and engage in friendly conversation on matters of common concern.

MAN LOST

What promises to be a highly interesting and significant series of volumes has begun to appear under the title "Religious Perspectives" (Harper & Brothers). The general editor is Ruth Nanda Anshen, who is assisted by an editorial board containing such distinguished names as Auden, Barth, D'Arcy, Dawson, Radhakrishnam, Suzuki,

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and Tillich. In a statement prefixed to the first volume the Editor describes the meaning and purpose of the series as "a quest for the rediscovery of man," and she goes on to express the hope that "the rediscovery of man will point the way to the rediscovery of God."

The theme, which is not a new one, has a peculiar relevance to the present time. There is probably no other time in history at which the human predicament has been so widely and so acutely experienced in the form of loss of self, or loss of identity. "Modern man has lost his image" was the telling phrase used by Berdyaev in the 1920's, and the point has been expressed in a variety of ways since then. Whether the loss of self is bound up with the loss of God is a question on which views are sharply divided. In the nineteenth century Nietzsche advanced the shocking proposition that the death of God was the indispensable condition for the rediscovery, or recovery, of man, and he has been followed by some of the leading existentialists of the twentieth century. Others would regard existentialism merely as a desperate rearguard action against the advancing loss of self, which is to their eyes the inevitable consequence of the loss of God. This group would probably include Christopher Dawson, the distinguished Roman Catholic layman, who is currently guest professor of Roman Catholic Theological Studies at Harvard University, and who has contributed the first volume to Religious Perspectives under the title, The Historic Reality of Christian Culture: A Way to the Renewal of Human Life. The way of renewal proposed by Mr. Dawson is a recovery of Christian culture, which would "overcome the schism between religion and culture which began in the age of the Renaissance and Reformation and was completed by the Enlightenment and the Revolution." But despite Mr. Dawson's urbane advocacy, this way is not likely to appeal to many who stand on this side of the schism and who may well doubt whether it could be overcome (in the sense intended by Mr. Dawson) without a reversal of the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the Revolution.

An interesting approach to the same problem in a different kind of milieu is presented in a series of articles now appearing in The Village Voice the lively weekly newspaper of Greenwich Village. The series is entitled "Notes to the Underground," through the reason for this is not clear. One would have thought of Greenwich Village more as a place where the underground comes above ground,

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At all events Greenwich Village is a visible testimony to the concern for man's identity, which is threatened by an all-devouring conformity. The quest for identity through studied non-conformity finds its most conspicuous expression in the Beatniks, who adopt a distinctive style of dress, facial plumage, and hygiene-the last named, it may be noted, was a device by which some medieval ascetics sought beatitude. By a coincidence, the first article in this series also comes from Harvard; the writer is Dr. Samuel H. Miller, Dean of the Harvard Divinity School. The article, which is entitled "Post-Christian Man," is almost wholly diagnostic. The predicament of post-Christian man, who is appearing in increasing numbers in Western civilization, is, as Dr. Miller analyzes it, that he finds himself in a one-level world, where there are no degrees of importance, that he seeks to establish his identity by asserting and extending his dominion over the world, that in so doing he externalizes the self and ends in losing both the self and the world. "Such a self exhausts itself on the wheel of the world and finally drops into its own mystical vacuity." As symptoms of this trend Dr. Miller points to the new passion for Zen and the search for nothingness.

Dr. Miller has no easy solution to offer. He does not share the belief of his Harvard colleague that the way to the recovery of man is to be sought in the renewal of an antique pattern of culture. Rather he suggests that we may be living at one of those junctures between two worlds, one dead and one struggling to be born, and that it is not ready made answers, but certain qualities, like seriousness and discrimination, that we need most for "threading our way through this age of substance and shadow."