Archbishop Mark Coleridge on new ESV Bible

UPDATE: New Lectionary & ESV:

Some official clarification Given the time we have devoted recently to the proposed new Lectionary based on the English Standard Version (ESV) of the Bible, including a brief comparison of an ESV sample text with other translations, and given the lively and interesting comments it has elicited, I made so bold as to email directly to the Most Reverend Mark Coleridge, the Archbishop of Canberra-Goulburn and Chairman of the International Commission for the Preparation of an English Language Lectionary (ICPEL), seeking some authoritative clarification on some of the questions raised in our discussions. With admirable speed for a busy diocesan bishop, he very kindly sent a concise but richly informative reply which answers the questions I asked him, and also one I failed to ask him! Apart from chopping the head and the tail of the email which were brief and directed to me, I shall quote him in full: … In answer to your questions, the facts are these. The ESV was chosen over the RSV because the ESV, in its 7% modification of the RSV, seeks to incorporate the fruit of more recent biblical scholarship, i.e. since the publication of the RSV. In other words, the RSV is out-of-date. We were looking for a more up-to-date version of the RSV; and when the NRSV proved impossible, we chose the ESV. Unlike the copyright holders of the NRSV, the copyright holders of the ESV have shown themselves quite open to the kind of changes we would need or want to make for Catholic lectionary purposes; and the copyright arrangements for the project are now in place. What will appear in the lectionary will be a modified form of the ESV. This may in time look to the production of a Catholic edition of the ESV, though that is not decided. I know too little of the permission given to the English ordinariate, but I doubt that it will have an effect on the lectionary we are producing. That would depend on the Holy See. It is very hard to say when the ESV lectionary will be ready for publication. We have all but finished work on the first volume (Sundays and Solemnities), and it may be that the first volume will appear before the others. But it depends on how quickly the bishops of the five Conferences get back to us within the process of consultation. Many of them are keen to have a new lectionary as soon as possible, so it may be that we will have the entire new lectionary by 2014… +Mark So the rationale behind the choice of the ESV is made clear. The ESV is a revision of the Revised Standard Version (RSV) that takes into account the latest insights of biblical scholarship and textual criticism, and only 7% of the RSV is actually revised in the process. Moreover, using the NRSV (New RSV) was not a viable option due to the copyright holders not being open to the Church making the necessary modifications to the text for our use. The ESV’s copyright holders are amenable to our need to edit texts for the purposes of the Lectionary, and to bring certain passages into line with Catholic tradition. Answering a question I wished I had asked (but didn’t!), given comments made by Theophrastus in another post here, it is conceivable that a full-blown, standalone Catholic edition of the ESV could be produced, though no decision has been made on that. As suggested yesterday, given the international, large-scale diffusion of the Catholic Lectionary, a Catholic ESV should be a viable proposition, at least economically. This would address the concerns raised over not having a Bible edition that matched the the texts of the Lectionary. Archbishop Coleridge also kindly gave us some sort of ballpark figure for when the Lectionary might be implemented, given the variables of the time needed to revise the texts and for the necessary episcopal consultation process: 2014. This is sooner than I had expected, and is very heartening. Given that these processes often take longer than first envisaged, perhaps 2015 might be a safer bet, but still that is much sooner than I had expected. 2014 would be just wonderful, even if it were only the first volume. The Archbishop’s reply has addressed the major questions and concerns so far raised here, and filled in a few gaps as well. The speed and informativeness of his reply has left me feeling even more encouraged about the proposed new Lectionary. One gets the feeling that ICPEL is getting on with the task without fuss, and with a strong sense of service to the Church. The fact that ICPEL has a relatively low profile rather supports the intuition that its members are more interested in the work than in publicity. May God prosper their work, that it might bear much fruit to God’s glory.

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Taken from: http://hughosb.wordpress.com/2012/03/12/update-new-lectionary-esv-some-official-clarification/

The Nephilim and the Pyramid of the Apocalypse



A query from France:

Dear Damien,

Do you know “The Nephilim and the Pyramid of the Apocalypse” by Patrick Heron (Kensington Publishing Corp., 2004).? It offers many interesting views on mythologies and Egypt.

I read it because I am writing an article on “the days of Noah” (Mt24:36-38 or Lc17:26) . Transhumanism looks terribly similar, if not much worse, to the deeds of the Nephilim before and after the Flood.

So I am just curious to know if you, perchance, have any opinion on this author and his theses.

I wish you a holy and merry Christmas !

 

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Damien Mackey replies:

 

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I once went to a lecture where it was even suggested that the Egyptians may originally have come from the Moon.

As I see it, the Nephilim came into being when the originally good Sethite line (the children of God) began to mingle with the corrupt Cain-ites. Their progeny were the Nephilim hybrids.
This was all pre-Flood (c. 2300 BC), of course, well before the Pyramids of Giza were built.

There were also giants after the Flood. Children of Ham, perhaps. Some think that Naamah was Noah's second wife, a Cain-ite, and that Ham procreated with her - the cursed Caanan being the outcome.

Surely the giants are archaeologically available to us still in the Neanderthal 'brutes', who could nonetheless be highly intelligent and capable of great deeds.

In any case, none of this has anything to do with fallen angels copulating with earth women, I believe. That is a ridiculous notion.

Almost a millennium later than the Flood, when Moses was young, the Hebrew slaves (amongst others) were the labour for the pyramids to be built (according to Josephus). This was Egypt's 4th dynasty.
Khufu, in my opinion, was the father of the Egyptian foster-mother of Moses, Merris (= Meresankh). Chephren (Greek Chenephres), Khufu's successor, was the husband of Merris.

The Hebrews did far more than that, they also laboured in mighty agricultural and irrigation works.
Obviously the overseers of all this labour were highly skilled men. But they were not non-humans, or demi-gods, or even UFO people.

Have a very happy and blessed Christmas yourself.
Damien M.

Textbook History Out of Kilter With Era of King Solomon By 500 Years



Dr. John Bimson’s important article, “Hatshepsut and the Queen of Sheba: A Critique of Velikovsky’s Identification and an Alternative View” (C and C Review, Vol. VIII, 1986), exposed as untenable, in the eyes of many revisionists, Velikovsky’s identification of Hatshepsut with the biblical Queen of Sheba. This was due to a series of strong arguments against Velikovsky’s reconstruction – some of these being irrefutable. Amongst the most telling of Bimson’s points were those that pertained to the famous Punt expedition, that Velikovsky had attempted to identify with the biblical visit by the Queen of the South to King Solomon in Jerusalem. Not only was Hatshepsut no longer a queen by the time of the Punt expedition – {she was actually in her Year 9 as pharaoh (king)} – but it appears from the Deir el-Bahri inscriptions that she did not actually accompany the Egyptian expedition to the land of Punt. The biblical queen, on the other hand, had most definitely visited King Solomon at Jerusalem in person.    

What Bimson still shared with Velikovsky (at least in 1986), however, was the conviction that Hatshepsut was contemporaneous with the (approximate) era of King Solomon. Revisionists do not necessarily take that view anymore. And therein lies a problem. Because Hatshepsut, as queen, is still the outstanding candidate for the biblical “Queen of Sheba (of the South)”, given the testimony of Josephus that the biblical queen had ruled Egypt and Ethiopia, and given the likeness of her throne name, Maat-ka-re (Makera) to the queen’s legendary name, Makeda.

Bimson scrapped Hatshepsut as a candidate, but failed to provide any other contemporaneous woman ruler to represent this famous queen to whom both the Old and New Testaments attest. The same comment applies to Patrick Clarke in his more recent criticism of Velikovsky on the subject: ‘Why Pharaoh Hatshepsut is not to be equated to the Queen of Sheba’ (Journal of Creation, 24/2, August 2010, pp. 62-68).

And the same applies again to those whose new chronologies do not align the early (undivided) monarchy of Israel with the early 18^th dynasty of Egypt: a downward time shift of about 500 years. Now I don’t know if Eric [Aitchison] has himself come up with any candidate for the celebrated biblical queen, but I presume that he, with his “Damien likes moving things by 500 years but my preference remains at 630 years”, cannot possibly accommodate Hatshepsut in this his singular rearrangement of time.

With Hatshepsut gone, then Thutmose III as the biblical “King Shishak of Egypt” must also go. Patrick Clarke, for instance, has rejected this equation in his ‘Was Thutmose III the biblical Shishak? – Claims of the ‘Jerusalem’ bas-relief at Karnak investigated’ (Journal of Creation, 25/1, April 2011, pp. 48-56). Two important pillars of the revision thus toppled. But, again, what is the alternative? So far, Clarke has not provided any candidate of his own. And, as for those who would prefer Ramesses II ‘the Great’ as “Shishak”, well they are running into the formidable problem as pointed out by Dale Murphie: “Critique of David Rohl’s A Test Of Time (SIS C&C Review, Oct 1997:1), with Ramesses II having the powerful king Asa of Judah (in all his strength) sandwiched right between himself and his Hittite ally, Hattusilis.

Damien F. Mackey.

Was Balamon in the Book of Judith the Baal Hamon in Song of Songs?

Taken from: http://bible.ucg.org/bible-commentary/Song-of-Solomon/(4-Days)-The-nature-of-love,-reminiscences-and-anticipation/default.aspx

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Continuing in Song 8:11-12, we note that these two verses clearly go together (each mentioning Solomon, vineyard, thousand and fruit), though there is dispute as to who is speaking and what is truly being portrayed. Solomon, we are told in verse 11, had a vineyard in Baal Hamon, a name otherwise unknown. In verse 12, Solomon is addressed and mention is made of "my own vineyard." How are we to take these verses?literally or figuratively? And why are they here? As with verses 8-10, this segment that follows seems at first glance to come out of the blue. Yet considering the reflection we have already noted?and the symmetry between this closing section of the Song (8:5-14) and the opening section (1:1?2:7), it is natural and appropriate to look for more of the same.

Solomon, we should note, is mentioned twice here (8:11-12) and also twice in the opening section (1:1, 5)?both these positions being exactly opposite to three mentions of his name in the central section of the Song concerning the apparent wedding procession (3:7, 9, 11). The word translated "keepers" or "those who tend" (8:11-12), thus appearing twice here in this segment, occurs elsewhere in the Song only in the opening section?in that case also appearing two times together as "keeper" and "kept" (1:6). This former instance is part of the segment that also mentions Solomon (1:5-6). Furthermore, it should be recognized that the word "vineyards" and then "my own vineyard" at the end of 1:6 parallels the two mentions of "vineyard" in 8:11 and "my own vineyard" in 8:12. On top of this, we should observe that 1:6 is also the verse that mentioned the Shulamite's brothers assigning her work?parallel to their authority over her we have already noted in 8:8-9. All of this very strongly indicates that 8:8-12 should all be taken together?as parallel to 1:5-6.

This can help us to understand what is going on in 8:11-12. In 1:6, the girl was sent by her brothers to work in the sun in literal vineyards?and this prevented her from devoting as much energies as she would have liked to her own personal vineyard, a figurative reference to her own person (her appearance being at issue here). This gives us good reason to see the vineyard of 8:11 literally and the personal vineyard of verse 12 as a figurative reference to the speaker's person. Indeed the vineyard of verse 11, in this parallel, would seem to be one that the girl was sent to work in?followed by reference to her own person in the vineyard of verse 12. However, the related wording between verses 11 and 12 indicate that the vineyard in verse 11 is to be understood figuratively on some level, as we will see. Thus it may be that a literal situation in verse 11 is being used in a symbolic manner.

A literal interpretation of the vineyard in verse 11 most naturally implies a literal interpretation of Solomon here as well. It does not follow that a poor shepherd or even an average citizen would have a great vineyard leased to keepers who were to bring a return of 1,000 silver coins for the fruit sold. The lord of this vineyard would be a wealthy individual, and King Solomon makes a great deal of sense in that light. Solomon is the likely author of Ecclesiastes, and the writer of that book lists among his great works the planting of vineyards and the making of gardens and orchards with pools and all kinds of fruit trees (2:4-7). That Israelite kings had a penchant for possessing vineyards is also evident in the story of Ahab's desire for Naboth's vineyard in 1 Kings 21. We may also note David's appointment of officials to oversee vineyards and wine production, evidently to supply state needs (1 Chronicles 27:27). Solomon's administration was surely no different in this. So it may well be (putting the whole story together in Song 1:5-6 and 8:8-12) that the king placed one of his vineyards into the care of the Shulamite's brothers and that they delegated some responsibilities to her.

In this scenario, Baal Hamon in verse 11 would be a literal place?though it is probably also a figurative reference. On the literal side, we should note that even though "Baal-hamon" is not specifically attested to elsewhere, there are other geographic names in Scripture beginning with Baal?for example, Baal-hermon, Baal-meon, Baal-peor, Baal-perazim, Baal-hazor. Some see a resemblance to a place mentioned in the Apocrypha, which is written in Greek: "As pointed out by a number of commentators, Judith 8:3 mentions a place called Balamon, possibly a Greek equivalent to Baal-hamon, which is near Dothan. In this regard, it is interesting that the Septuagint translates the Song of Songs' reference as Beelamon" (New International Commentary on the Old Testament, p. 219, note on Song 8:11). This is the same as "Khirbet Balama, modern Ibleam...about a mile south-west of Janin [in the northern West Bank]....

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