FdD Notebook - 1/1/25

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Bonjour, dear reader, and happy New Year!

We had a sweet Christmas celebration at home this year, just the family, just the way we like it. In the days since we’ve spent a good amount of time on bikes, playing Legos (the boys mostly), painting and crafting (the girls mostly), and all of the kids have been having fun with the piano keyboard that the grandparents sent. Fortunately I was able to find the adapter that you need to plug in headphones!

Yesterday evening we went out to try out Titus’ telescope. There’s a field near the mountain, Sainte Victoire, a bit above the dam Barrage de Bimont, and we hoped it would be a nice dark spot for stargazing. The kids of course thought it was great going for a walk in the dark, although in the end the sky did not cooperate (contrary to the weather app). We ended up with plenty of darkness with all the heavenly host covered by a big cloud! So, we ended up singing Christmas carols in the open air, and the expedition was pronounced a success by all.

Reflections in progress

Sticking up for the Church

I heard someone make a passing reference this week to the need for the Church to call itself into question and repent. It sounds very natural; we're used to this way of talking, and it comes across as wise and humble. We don't pretend to be perfect - we too are sinners and we admit that we have deeply hurt others through our behavior.

And it’s true. That is to say, it's true that Christians remain (for the time being) sinners who need to repent every day. Still, it bothers me a little bit how easily this kind of talk gets tossed around. Whatever happened to the glory and beauty of the Bride of Christ? Are we really following the apostles pattern in how we talk about the assembly of the redeemed?

so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. Eph 3:10

if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth. 1 Ti 3:15

25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. Eph 5:25-27

Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; 8 it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. Rv 19.7-8

Of course, the biblical authors also speak of the churches' faults (e.g. 1 Cor., Rev. 2-3), but my impression is that they see the Church first and foremost as a glorious reality, a people transformed by God's grace, the body of Christ, the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. It is in the Church that God demonstrates his wisdom, power, grace and love to the world. She is not yet without spot or wrinkle, but these faults are not part of her essential nature. We ought to remember that the Church is somebody else’s bride, and it would be appropriate for us to be afraid to find it too easy to talk bad about her. I definitely have to own my own sins, and it's important for us to be aware of the failures of our local community, but when we talk about “the Church” with a capital C, I'd like to suggest that this is a reality that needs to be respected out of fear for the God who sanctifies her through the blood of his own Son.

It’s a reflection in progress - your feedback would be very welcome...

Seen on Twitter

Bible translation and the word ‘jewish’

A Muslim friend sent me a link to a post on X (since deleted) which tried to make the case that the use of the word “Jew” in the Bible is a mistranslation. The argumentation left quite a bit to be desired (perhaps why it was deleted?), but maybe we could profit by asking what Greek and Hebrew words that are translated as “Jew” in English and what is the sense of these words.

The poster on X pointed out that the Greek word used in the New Testament is Ιουδαιος (Ioudaios), and their proposed translation was Judean rather than Jewish. That is, they were proposing that we should see this as geographic term rather than an ethnic term. A Ιουδαιος would then be a person from the province of Judea, not a descendant of Jacob.

It doesn’t actually require any knowledge of biblical languages to see the fatal problem for this theory. A simple search for the word “Jew” in the New Testament (Ιουδαιος if you want to be precise and you know how) will show that the word is consistently used as a term for a people group that is defined by common descent and not by a shared territory. First of all, there are Jews in Galilee (Jn 6) which is not part of Judea. Not only that, but Ιουδαιοι are found living in every city in the Mediterranean basin in the book of Acts. These people are not from Judea, but they do meet in a synagogue, practice the law of Moses, and count Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as their forefathers. And when we come to the epistles, Ιουδαιος is consistently used in opposition with Greek or Gentile. For example:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Ga 3.28)

Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. (Ro 3.1-2)

For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Co 1.23-24)

After looking through the New Testament, we need to go back and take a look at the Old. No Greek word study is complete without seeing how the word is used in the Septuagint (abbr. LXX), the Greek translation of the Old Testament made in the centuries leading up to Christ’s birth. There, we find the word Ιουδαιος systematically translating the Hebrew word יְהוּדִי (yehudi), which is simply the adjective form of the name Judah. It’s essentially Judah-ish, or Judean. Depending on the context, the ESV translates this term as Judean or Jew/Jewish:

So how does Judean, that is, “of the tribe of Judah” become Jewish, replacing the term Israelite? The answer is that in the time leading up to the exile, Israel and Judah were two separate kingdoms. Israelites were those from the northern kingdom, and Judeans those from the southern kingdom (with Jerusalem for its capital and David’s heir for king). The northern kingdom went into exile long before the southern kingdom, and the majority of those descendants of Jacob who maintained their identity through the exile were from the tribe of Judah. Since most of them were Judeans, the term Judean came to be applied to all of them. This is the usage in the book of Esther where Mordecai of the tribe of Benjamin (2:5) is called a יְהוּדִי which is translated Ιουδαιος in the Septuagint and Jew in the ESV. Likewise, when we come to the New Testament, the priests (from the tribe of Levi) are Jews, and so is Paul (from the tribe of Benjamin).

In short, the use of the word Jew in English bibles is not a mistranslation, and as a general rule, if anybody says that practically every version of the Bible in English is wrong about a translation issue, you can safely ignore that person in good conscience.

From the archives

Reading

The Bible

In 2023 I read my Nouvelle Édition de Genève and in 2024 I picked the King James Version. This year my plan is to read in French again, la Bible du Semeur. This time next week I should have finished Proverbs 1-7 and Genesis 1-16.

As for biblical languages, this week is a Hebrew week for me. I meant to finish Genesis last year, but I’m still in chapter 42 in the meeting between Joseph and his brothers.

Other books

Here at the end of 2024 I finally got around to reading (audio book) A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. I enjoyed it more than I expected actually. As a kid, I always hated the films, but Dickens’ prose is delightful. The book seems to me to be fine example of romanticism: the sum of virtue (which Scrooge lacks and must learn) is pretty much reduced to having the right sentiments. There are nods in the direction of Christianity, but the religion of the book is entirely horizontal. Still, the last chapter is an admirable depiction of the joy that comes from being freed from avarice.

I’m also working through The Glory of Christ by John Owens which I highly recommend, and there’s a lot on my shelf yet to dive into.

Space

You might have seen in the news that the Parker Space Probe survived its closest approach to the sun. I really enjoyed this video about the probe by Smarter Every Day :

That’s all, thanks for reading!

²⁴ Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, ²⁵ to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

Jude 24-25