Latest Biblical Thoughts and Findings
(working text)
Ephesians
First chapter: contains key comparison of gods way of dealing with mankind,
including the sending of his son with the way the christians at Ephesus
are to deal with their life and that of their children and relations.
(lots more to be added)
Matthew 12
Note how radical Jesus talks about family relations has not having priority over
someone's life and faith, and how he links that with a person leaving
father and mother and clinging to their relation, where it should be noted that
the word meaning or implying marriage is not used here.
I've started to think about various passages as being indicative of abusive
relationships instead of rather random examples.
James
It seems inevitable when the greek of james 1 is consulted directly, as
demonstrated in some of my other pages, and the works and the images used
are taken from the contemporary greek and imagery present in greek
literature, that our translation completely misses the most obvious rendering
of what it at least also is talking about, the coming together of man and woman,
outside the traditional boundaries for the intended audience, jewish people with
a lot of focus on bethrotal, dowries and mariage, who were in line with what we
read in Acts stimulated to break down the walls of partition (as it is called
by Paul) with the gentiles, and to make clear what relationships are about and
how to deal with them.
Looking at James 2 this subject is elaborated on, and when simply taking the greek
for what it would mean if it were any other greek poet or writer (except for some
clear judaisms in the imagery and the choice of language), there are some profound
statements made about the same subject.
Revelation
The marriage of the lamb indeed means marriage (gamos).
the city adorned as a bride (Jerusalem at the end of Rev.) is refered to as
numphos, which is not primarily bride, and has interesting othermeanings
(see below).
Thoughts on various words and the concepts they represent
partenos
the greek partenos has a very misconstrued meaning for (church) political reasons
only. It is said to mean virgin, in the sense of someone without sexual experience, or
with her hymen intact, or something to that extend in many translations and exegetical
works, of course heavily influenced by the vast amount of early and contemporary
roman catholic thoughs on the subject.
Lately I've been doing some reading (I don't have the book references here, but
I just browsed a public library index in the classical greek section, I'll dig up the
book titles and authors, of which one I remember as a collection of articles
including one of Peter Brown (Princeton)), which revealed quite unmistakingly that
that interpretation is not only wrong, it is impossible to seriously defend on a
scientific basis. One example to make this clear is that there is a derived
words (I think it was partenoia) that actually means: the child of a partenos.
Many types of relations involving partenos and sexuality
The main idea is that the greek were fairly loose in their sexual moral, similarly as
they dealt with their religion; not as a strictly enforced set of rules, but rather
different types and examples that are applied or clung to as appropriate.
Moichos
This one bugged me, and still isn't as solidly clear to me yet as the other words
I've looked at, probably for similar reasons as mentioned above.
The translation usually amounts to 'adultary', which in my mind had a fairly accurately
defined meaning: sex outside marriage. And Jesus words as translated in the
sermon on the mount seemed to sharpen that notion almost to the impossible by
making me think every beneign or attracted look between a woman and a man
outside marriage falls under the same category and would therefore have to be
condemned. Looking at the greek here is illuminating: Jesus says that the people
he refers to make every look at a woman into an adulterous thought in the
real sense of the word, considering James explanation, and by considering that
Jesus when he talks about marriage and devorce clealy distinguishes between
a relational or sexual act and making (poiontes actively making, 'creating',
'forming') someone an adulterer because of that.
It seems that in line with James and the way of thinking at that time the
looking at a woman for that audience had as its main purpose possession,
of her but especially of what she could represent: heritage (dowries), (family)
names, positions, etc., and that because of that type of thinking the one who looks
has thoughts that amount exactly to the true meaning of adultery.
My recent (unfinished) greek lexicon readings give an impression of moichos as
being related the fine imposed on people involved in exactly that which jesus seems
to mean, and could also be related to the stealing (instead of openly and concededly
having) of virginity, as a qoute talks about 'being caught in adultery with the blood still
on his hands'. Will look more into that.
nymph
A nymph as a lower rank goddes, associated with hepling babies to be born, springs,
woods, etc. Also a range of other meanings, of which a relatively small portion is
related to marriage.