Murmuring Grumblers

This post links to RAnn's Sunday Snippets 

We are not grumbling

When we cover Exodus in Wednesday Sunday School, I emphasize to the kids how the Israelites whine to Moses about anything that isn't to their liking. For example in Numbers 11, they are tired of eating manna: "the children of Israel also wept again, and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick. But now our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all beside this manna before our eyes." Waaah!

They complain so much that Moses tells God, "I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me. And if thou deal thus with me, kill me, I pray thee, out of hand, if I have found favour in thy sight; and let me not see my wretchedness." That's right, just kill me now. (Priests probably never have such sentiments; modern flocks are much more docile.)

"Whine" is my word; it's more fun than complain, gripe or grumble. But Exodus in the KJV uses none of those words: it says "murmur," or more clearly, "murmur against."  I'm not fond of using murmur in the sense of grumbling: to me, murmur is to speak quietly in love, the very opposite of grumbling. Too bad for me. Murmur is a Romance (not that kind of romance) word which English gets from Latin through French; in St. Jerome's Latin Vulgate, the word for Israelite grumbling is murmurare. Oh well, I lose this one.  

 Murmur is probably imitative of some natural rhythmic sound, mur-mur-mur... a creek? Likewise, babble imitates the ba-ba-bla-bla of babies or foreigners, and descends from Greek barbaros through Latin babbulus. And the coo-cooing of doves is expressed in Greek by the verb gogguzo / γογγύζω, which means-  murmur. In both Old (LXX) and New Testaments, gogguzo is the Greek word for grumble, murmur. A Greek noun for murmur is mourmourisma/ μουρμούρισμα, but it doesn't show up in the Bible. Still nice to know. Now I wonder where the Romans got murmurare from...I can't imagine.

The murmur business matters in class because I use murmuring to connect two scenes: the Israelites' desert murmurings against Moses right before the manna bread miracle; and the murmurings against Jesus when he hints at a future bread miracle. That is, Exodus doesn't speak about symbolic "bread from heaven," and neither does Jesus. In both instances the people murmur their obstinacy.

Exodus 16: "And the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness: And the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger. Then said the LORD unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you."

Exodus 16 in the KJV says murmur eight times, including this packed sentence: "And Moses said...the LORD heareth your murmurings which ye murmur against him: your murmurings are not against us, but against the LORD."

Then in John 6: "Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'/   "I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst./  The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, "I am the bread which came down from heaven." They said, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, 'I have come down from heaven'?" Jesus answered them, "Do not murmur among yourselves./  For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed."/ Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at it, said to them, "Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of man ascending where he was before?"

In Exodus, people murmur; God provides miracle water. People murmur; God provides miracle bread. People murmur; God provides miracle flesh. In John, people want another bread miracle; instead of working a miracle, Jesus makes an odd prophecy about bread. They murmur about that; Jesus says to stop murmuring, and expands the prophecy to bread and flesh. People murmur some more; people argue; people leave.

Remember, the Old Testament was translated into Greek about 200 years before the first Gospels were written. Writers of the New Testament would surely know how a given Greek word was (or wasn't) used in the O.T. before using it (or not) in the New. So John's author says gogguzo / γογγύζω / murmur when people get cranky as Jesus prophesies his own bread/ flesh miracle through the manna miracle, which also followed "murmuring."

But the writer didn't have to say murmur. He could've used other Greek N.T. verbs such as mempsimoiros / μεμψίμοιρος / complain (Jude 1:16: "These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts..."), but didn't. He used the one word that makes a clear connection to the critical Old Testament antecedents. In fact, he takes every opportunity to say murmur, as though he were trying to make the connection as obvious as possible.

In class, murmur just doesn't register with 6th graders, so I say grumble, which is an accepted translation of goggyzo.The thing is, to say grumble is to take a step away from goggyzo's literal, imitative murmuring sound of doves' goo-goo. My consolation is that there are only 5 other people on the planet besides me who are interested, only 2 of them care, and none of them are in 6th grade Wednesday Sunday School. So grumble it is.

But it's worth checking a few translations, isn't it. Hello...isn't it? Sure it is.

The Douay-Rheims and the King James say murmur in both Exodus and John, and everywhere else; but never say grumble at all, even to translate synonymous Greek verbs, which I will not list here. You're welcome. In this instance the D-R and KJV are utterly consistent and simple. Ditto Jerome's Vulgate: unsurprisingly it always uses murmurare. The RSV says murmur in both passages, but may say grumble elsewhere. I can live with that; to an extent, it tends to make the use of murmur more distinctive. Good ol' RSV. The NIV, which I usually object to, says grumble all the time and never says murmur. Weirdly enough, for once I prefer the NIV's translation for the kids- and probably for most adults. Stranger yet, the NAB, which is the Bishops' Official Catholic Bible, says the Israelites grumbled in the desert, and the Jews murmured in Galilee. As my mother-in-law says: oh dear. To me that obscures a connection that's pretty clear in Greek, and in every other translation I've looked at. And not just a connection, but a Catholic connection. Why wouldn't the approved Catholic Bible be all over this?

Dunno....everybody else is whether they intend to be or not.

Fine Art 5, Res Ipsa 8, Pitchers 6: Christmas unParty

This post links to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

This bit comes from the last class of the year. The kids knew we would not have a party, but 11 of 12 came anyway. Every year I tell the kids that they are too old to have a party when there is serious learning to be done, and they always seem to respond positively to that. There were brownies, pizza, and sugarfizz, so they were more rambunctious and less focused than usual; but we still had class.

1. To kick off our Nativity lesson we started with this wordless handout:

I wanted to use this in the 2010 class, but forgot to ask for copies of the picture. I got a couple of the girls to play the parts, but the picture would've been better. This year's discussion digresses due to good questions, which is fine. It's a rare class in which we cover every single thing, but that's because I agree with Joe Paprocki: overplan your lessons.

There's also a great backstory to this artwork.

2. Next we cover the Visitation:

Right before baby John leaps in the womb, I hold my two rubber fetuses on Mary & Elizabeth's tummies. At the right moment, fetus John goes nuts.

3. Next is the Nativity through the Holy Innocents. I read Isaiah's Nativity prophecies one at a time, and the kids tell me what to draw based on each one.

2011 Nativity

2010 Nativity

BTW, when I listen to my class recordings (or anything else) and want to keep my eyes entertained while I listen, I often play Bubble Town. Straight-up is OK, but I think the Ball version is better.

Fine Art Handout 4: Isenheim Annunciation

 This post links to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

Tanja Cilia's image-laden post on the Annuciation got me thinking about my favorite Annunciation (ok, one of my favorites), the one that's part of the Isenheim Altarpiece by Mattias Grünewald:

I couldn't remember the artist; I get Annunciations confused all the time. Fortunately, My Wife the Art History Professor could listen to my vague description and say, "No, that's not Van Eyck. I think you want the left-hand panel of the second configuration of Grünewald's Isenheim Altarpiece." Umm...yes! "I'll send you a link to a good jpeg." OK, thanks! (Thank ya Jesus for my wife.)

I have to digress already. Recently in class we were discussing Gabriel's visit to Zechariah, and learned that the Greek word angel/ ἄγγελος simply means messenger, as does the Hebrew word malak/ מלאך (whence the name Malachi). For example in Numbers, when "Moses sent messengers from Kadesh unto the king of Edom," the messengers are malachim. To distinguish a heavenly messenger from the run-of-the-mill sort, the Hebrew Old Testament will say messenger of the LORD, יהוה מלאך, malak YHWH, as in "the angel of the LORD called unto Abraham"; or messenger of God, מלאך אלהים, malak Elohim, as in "the angel of God called to Hagar." In the Greek New Testament (and Greek Septuagint O.T.) we read ἄγγελος κύριος, aggelos kyrios, angel of the Lord (you know, kyrios as in Kyrie eleison).

The kids must understand that angel just means messenger. Then when we get to words such as evangelist and evangelium, they'll know that angels don't have anything directly to do with those words.

To further digress, when LORD is all caps it refers to YHWH. By using LORD in English we avoid pronouncing or writing God's name.

So we were sorting out messenger/ angel, and one of the kids says, "What about Mercury? I dunno- what about him? Well, he's a messenger. Yeah, a mythological messenger, so? He has wings, too. Yeah he does... I bet he was called an angel too! Was that your point? Yes. Genius at work, yes, he's a winged messenger, an angel like Gabriel. Except that Mercury...isn't...real! Yes."

In Tanja's article she points out that as in Grünewald's painting, Gabriel may carry a staff to indicate he's a messenger. Like so:

Oops, that's Mercury. Huh...wings...staff...even his staff has wings...he'd make a mighty robust Gabriel.

And there are other 6th-grade-understandable symbols in this Annuciation:

Above the green curtain temple veil hovers an ethereal dove, ready to overshadow Mary with God's creative energy. And what's that around the dove? A cloud? Yes...what cloud? No guesses? It's the [on the board] S-H-E-K-  Shekhinah! Yes, the Glory Cloud which overshadowed...the Meeting Tent! Yes, and the Meeting Tent covered...the Ark! Yes- so Mary is like...the Ark! Right, so we call her the Ark of the New Covenant. Yes, what? That looks like a church not a temple. Well, were there any churches when Mary was a young woman? No. But there will be, so think of it as both temple and church. The curtains temple veils themselves are pulled back so we can see clearly all the way to the back. What would you expect to see in the Temple when the curtains are pulled back? The Ark! Yes! And do y'all see the Old Covenant Ark? Is it that box? Yes, I think so. Now in a church you'd expect to see a Tabernacle back there... do you see one? Umm...no. Why isn't there one?  'Cause Jesus isn't born yet! Yes! Now tell me about Mary's book. It's the Bible. Yes...or at least the Old Testament, which would reasonably rest on the...Old Ark? Yes. When Mary was alive was there a New Testament? No! Why not? All the stuff hadn't happened yet! Yes! Y'all are so smart. Now show me the Old Ark again...uh-huh. And the New Ark...yep. They're side by side, right under the curtain rod. Which one is leaving the building? They're not moving they're just sitting there. OK, but which Ark has probably been in the temple-church a long time? The Old one. Yes but now it's almost out. Which way is Mary going? In the church! Yes, why? Because she has Jesus in her now. Yes. The stuff in the New Ark is replacing the stuff in the Old Ark.

Say Mary, whatcha reading? Why, Ah'm perusin' this li'l ol' book a Isaiah as pawt a my mohnin' devowtions. Well, that's a long book. Oh, Ah'm jus' readin' Chaptuh sehvun, vuhse fowtteen in the Vuhl-gait: "...ecce virgo concipiet, et pariet filium, et vocabitur nomen ejus Emmanuel." Yeah, that is Latin in the painting...Mary, can you translate? Awl-riyte, "...behowld, a vuhgin will conceive an' beah a sun; an' his nayme shall be cawled Ehmmanuwell." Umm, Mary do you realize that any second now that prophecy..."

Annunciations often show Mary reading Isaiah 7:14, the very prophecy she's about to fulfill. But none of these symbols is the one that makes Grünewald's Annunciation a favorite. It's the one in the upper left hand corner...up there...oops, I accidentally cropped it off from that top image. Here you go:


   

"Who is that old fork-bearded turban'd guy with another book? A book painted in....Hebrew. Why is he hovering up there in the corner? No guesses? Whose prophecy was Mary reading? Umm...Isaiah's? So? That's Isaiah? Yes, that's Isaiah, and he's reading in his own Old Testament the same 7:14 passage as Mary, but in Hebrew. Isaiah can't read Latin like Mary can...or something. Apparently God's let him out of Sheol long enough to see his prophecy be fulfilled."

Kids love to learn by figuring out pictures like this one. In this case, through our discussions of the Old Testament they already know bits about the temple, the veil, the Ark, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Isaiah, and his prophecies. Prior to this year, they learned the Annuciation story, Gabriel, the Hail Mary, etc. Those accumulations allow them to analyze an Annunciation pretty much on their own with minimal guidance on my part.

Greenville Ephrathah

This post links to RAnn's Sunday Snippets 

I moved to Greenville, SC from alluvial Houma, Louisiana in 1965 when I was 8 years old. Greenville was a hilly Baptist textile town, with disturbingly orange dirt. The local college was fenced-in Bob Jones University, the very Buckle of the Bible Belt. There were only two Catholic churches: St. Mary's downtown, and Holy Rosary (now Our Lady of the Rosary) near the closed Donaldson Air Force Base. Virtually all the Catholics were Yankees, and their faith and accents made them stranger than Martians to the locals. I remember my own culture shock: how can you have a parade without people on the floats throwing necklaces and candy to everybody? Do you just stand there and look at it?

But the Catholic minority has been putting down roots in the hard Piedmont clay for a few generations now. And like a transplanted grapevine, the Church has been shaped by the bracing Fundamentalist/ Evangelical terroir (I just wanted to say "terroir") of the Upstate. Among other distinctives, local Catholicism tends toward Scriptural literacy, an evangelistic readiness to explain the faith, and an appreciation for the Bible-believers' assumption that religion matters- and not just privately, but publicly.

In the last decade or so, this Upstate Catholicism has acquired...what, a momentum? a gravity? that continues to develop. I'm not gonna name names, but my wife and I think of all the people we know who weren't Catholic, and are now; people who were already Catholic, and decided to move here; and people who aren't Catholic, but are being drawn into the Catholic orbit. My parish has about 40 people in RCIA who'll enter the Church on Easter Vigil. And we wonder at this confluence. Is just by accident? Is it for some purpose? And it isn't just one church, but a coalescence that extends across parishes, and even rites. Nor is it primarily driven by the pastors. They play a critical leadership role, but the laity are self-motivating.

Our house nickname for this phenomenon is Greenville-Ephrathah, by which we mean that little nowhere Upstate South Carolina may be unknowingly preparing for an as-yet-unspecified role in some mysterious process. I'm uncomfortable thinking about it too explicitly- maybe it's supposed to be an inchoate (I just wanted to say "inchoate") je ne sais quoi (uh-huh) for the time being, and patience is required. It's scary, but in a good way. I've even been reluctant to make a peep about it here, but in the last year the energy has palpably increased.

Thus far there's been no reason for anything but optimism. But I'm reminded of the Catholic novel Morte d'Urban, in which great promise is ultimately dissipated. And if this swell of faith is indeed real and part of a larger plan, then Satan is sure to try to derail it. So my motivation for blabbing this on the net is that if something bad does happen here (I have no idea what, except it wouldn't be the usual), nobody should be discouraged, no-one should lose heart. If bad comes, it doesn't have to be the end; rather, through renewed faith & works it'll turn out to have been just an obstacle that was overcome.

And meanwhile, it's an interesting time to be Catholic in the Upstate.



But thou, O Greenville Ephrathah, though thou be little among the thousands of America, yet out of thee shall...shall what? what?

Le Mot Juste 2

This post links to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

Can you read this? Me neither!

My Wife the Energizer Bunny put on a Post-Vespers Christmas dinner party last night. I would post the menu but don't want to hear wailing & gnashing of teeth in the darkness. Anyway, late in the evening (not that late) I was talking with a couple of former Protestant clergymen* about how the Bible becomes mo' betta when viewed through a Catholic lens. Because it's Advent, we were discussing how examples of overshadowing in the Old Testament (O.T.) provide a more comprehensive view of Mary when they're understood simultaneously with Luke's line, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you." As in Luke's case, the word "overshadow" is explicitly used in verses such as this detail of the Ark of the Covenant: "The cherubim shall spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, their faces one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubim be." The Hebrew word translated as overshadow is sakhakh (סכך), which is more often translated as cover. Deciding whether to say cover or overshadow in English can depend on the Greek words used in the Septuagint translation.

By the way, in Greek will overshadow is episkiazo (ἐπισκιάζω). Epi means over, and skiazo is, umm...I forgot. Anyway, skiazo and shadow share a common Indo-European root, and over a few millennia differ only a bit more than skirt and shirt, or shin and skin differ over a few centuries. And in the Vulgate, to overshadow is obumbrare. The Latin stem for shadow, umbra, is also found in umbrella, and sombrero.

Besides sakhakh, there are other Hebrew words that indicate the concepts of covering/ protecting/ selecting/ possessing/ separating/ dedicating, but they aren't necessarily translated by overshadow. For example, in the book of Ruth, Ruth tells Boaz, "I am Ruth, your maidservant; spread your skirt over your maidservant, for you are next of kin." (Thus Boaz would show intent to marry Ruth). Likewise, in 1Kings, Elijah "passed by [Elisha] and cast his mantle upon him," showing his selection and protection of Elisha, his intended successor. Ruth is an endearing story, but I've never used it in Catechism class because there is not enough time to treat every interesting thing in the Bible. We do act out the Elisha bit and refer to it later on at the Annunciation.

Kids like things to be clear and simple (kind of like adults now that I think about it). So in class when I read "the power of the Most High will overshadow you" from Luke, I like to review supporting verses which also use the word overshadow. A Greek translation of the Bible will say to overshadow or to shadow in more verses than I can use in 6th grade, but English isn't too reliable in this respect. Different English Bibles will use the word overshadow in different verses, and only a few times; although I expect that they all use it with regard to the Annunciation and the Transfiguration. Otherwise it's hit and miss in English. So if I read a verse in class from my NAB in English which doesn't say "overshadow" (but Greek does), I say "overshadow" to keep it consistent for the kids.

Up until this year the word overshadow comes up in these cases:

The Ark overshadowed by the cherub's wings.

The Ark overshadowed by the Glory Cloud, God's Presence.

Psalm 91: "He will overshadow you with his shoulders: and under his wings you shall trust," which dovetails well with the overshadowing cherubs' wings.

Mary overshadowed by the Holy Spirit.

The Transfiguration: "He was still speaking, when lo, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him."

And the concept expressed by overshadowing is treated in an Elijah-covers-Elisha skit. And maybe someday (time permitting) we'll do the Ruth bit, too.

That's plenty of overshadowing for 6th grade. But last night after the party I was rechecking instances of epi-skazein/ over-shadow, and noticed this:

"...they even carried out the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and pallets, that as Peter came by at least his shadow might fall on some of them." To which you say, "Close, but no banana- that's not quite the same as overshadowing." You're right, it's not. But that verse in Greek reads: ὥστε καὶ εἰς τὰς πλατείας ἐκφέρειν τοὺς ἀσθενεῖς καὶ τιθέναι ἐπὶ κλιναρίων καὶ κραβάττων, ἵνα ἐρχομένου Πέτρου κἂν ἡ σκιὰ ἐπισκιάσει τινὶ αὐτῶν. I can't read all that either, but look at this bit: σκιὰ ἐπι-σκιάσει. That's skia epi-skiasei, [the] shadow [might] over-shadow. So when Luke wrote Acts, he was careful to say overshadow, just as he did in his Gospel....could it possibly matter? Since 1999 I've been connecting this bit of Acts to sacraments (God's power may flow through physical media), but have never connected it to overshadowing until now. I have to assume that recent translators decided "shadow....overshadow" was too clunky for readers of the word-rich English language. Well, I disagree: without the right words, one can't make the right connections.

Now I'm curious about which Bibles do say shadow-overshadow:

Latin Vulgate? Yes: "Petro saltim umbra illius obumbraret quemquam eorum."

Martin Luther's Bibel? Yes: "sein Schatten ihrer etliche überschattete."

Douai-Rheims? Yes: "his shadow at the least might overshadow any of them."

KJV? Yes: "the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them."

Revised Standard Version- Catholic Edition? No: "his shadow might fall on some of them." Ya done me wrong, RSV-CE!

Catholic NAB? No: "his shadow might fall on one or another of them."

NIV? No: "Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by."


If St. Luke were alive today he'd be rolling over in his grave.
Traduttore, traditore.

* One of the former Protestant clergy posts here on the same conversation.

Res Ipsa Loquitur 7

Excerpt from the December 7, 2011 class, mostly a review of the Old Testament in about 10 minutes.

Once we get past Solomon, the rest of the O.T. is summarized as the oppressed Jews praying for a Messiah, and the prophets who anticipate that Messiah.

Usually 10 or 11 kids are in class (roll is 12), but only 6 kids came this Wednesday, so the volume of participation is about half of normal. They still held up their end pretty well.

This post is linked to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

Pitchers 5: Sinless Stuff

Part of the board during our 12/7/11 Immaculate Conception discussion, a subtopic in the lesson on the first chapter of Luke

1. The Holy Spirit overshadows Mary, Ark of the New Covenant, as the Shekhinah overshadowed the Ark of the Old Covenant. That dot in Mary's womb is newly-conceived Jesus, made from one of Mary's eggs and the divine overshadowing.

2. The dot grows into a more recognizable baby. This life-size Jesus in the womb shows his complete physical connection to, and dependence on, his mom. Jesus gets all his oxygen and food from Mary's body. If Mary was a sinner, how would that sinful stuff stay out of Jesus? How could a sinful Ark be a suitable home for a sinless person?

3. Mary even as a little girl already has in her the egg that will become Jesus. Would it make sense for Jesus to be conceived using a sinner's egg? How could Jesus be made of sinful stuff? Would God want to get the sin out of the egg before it was used to make Jesus? Wouldn't it be more straightforward to have Mary be saved from sin when she was conceived in her mom? That way Mary's tummy would be a pure place for Jesus to grow, and her egg would be a source of sinless stuff for Jesus' body to grow from.

4. Who perfectly atoned for our sins? Jesus. Yes. And the Church teaches that Mary was spared from Original Sin by Jesus' atonement before she was born. But Mary was born first! Yeah, so? So how could Jesus die for her sins? He would be too late!  Well, look at this:

Twist & turn Highway 178 perceived from the road itself, versus from a hot-air balloon

Remember, God stands outside of time. Time is something He created, so he doesn't see things one after the other like we do. It's like Highway 178 from Pickens to Rosman- it may take 20 minutes to experience the road in your car. But daughter, if you were up above the road in this balloon, how long would you need to see the whole road? I could see it all at once! Yes. You'd need no time at all. God sees everything all at once, too. So for God to let Jesus' atonement work "ahead of time" for Mary would be no big deal.

 This post is linked to RAnn's Sunday Snippets