Category Archives: Writing

From the biography of poet & actor Rob Lacey:

Rob had commissioned Rachel Taylor-Beales to work her way through the entire Bible systematically, noting the general style of literature for every chapter and verse. The result was: 51% story, 29% poetry, 20% exposition. This became one of Rob’s favourite facts. A huge 80% of the Bible was made up of narratives, plots, characters, lyrics, metaphorical musings, meditations and fun. How could such a wonderful collection of sixty-six books be rendered so culturally dull?

Lacey, Sandra & Steve Stickley, People Like Us: Life with Rob Lacey, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010, pp. 207-208.

“So here’s something odd,” he said, the thin, crisp page crinkling between his thumb and forefinger as he flipped back and forth.

She said nothing, but waited for him to continue.

“All through, right?, God’s been looking at it and saying it was good.”

“….. mmm…..?” she said, tilting her head.

“But then there’s something God looks at and it’s not good.”

“….. right …. the snake and apple, obviously,” she said, not quite impatiently.

“No — that’s the thing — before that,” he said, “before they disobeyed, before everything went wrong…. Like: while everything was still perfect, something wasn’t good.”

“What?” she asked, despite herself.

“It is not good for man to be alone,” he read.

She looked pointedly around at the dorm room he shared with Adrian, wrinkled her nose, then chuckled. “Well, duh…” was all she said.

“No, but think about it. God created, it’s good, then he improved on that. There was a point when Eden was good, but not perfect. Maybe would have continued improving and improving.”

Her nose wrinkled again, perplexed this time, “By adding more and more sexes of people, that’d be weird.”

He laughed, “Maybe just more and more women for Adam,” he said, then, “No, I’m kidding, who knows how, but maybe…”

“So heaven, too?” she wondered “Is it like heaven is perfect, and everyone sees that it’s good, but then 10 billion years into it, God will snap his fingers and say ‘y’know what this needs?’ and add cushions or something?”

He smiled and shrugged, “Who knows,” he said.

After a pause he continued, “Maybe it’s too simple to think that what happens is that we’ll ‘return to Eden’ or ‘go back to what we were originally intended to be.’ Maybe it’s going to be better than that.”

She nodded and said, “Ok.” Then, “What are we doing for dinner?”

He laughed out loud then, and put on his James Earl Jones voice, “You humans!”

This story is full of tricky things! The father of the demon-possessed boy famously says “I do believe. Help my unbelief.” That’s a good translation: the first pisteuw is a verb, the second, the negation, is a noun. And it’s a wonderful declaration of the human condition: we don’t always want God, but we want to want God.

Again, though, I’ve run into difficulties because of my prior decision to translate pisteuw as trust rather than faith or belief. I still think it’s a good decision, it just isn’t the easiest to work with. English has no word for untrust: both mistrust and distrust are actively negative, unlike unbelief, which just indicates a lack.

But in any case, “help my unbelief” strikes me as intolerably awkward English. “Help my lack of trust” is slightly less odd, but still not good. I’m resorting to something like paraphrase here:

Jesus: “Everything is doable for the one who trusts.”

The man: “I have trust and I don’t have trust; help me.”

It’s recognisably English, but I’ve sacrificed the verb-noun contrast, and the object of the help as the unbelief rather than me. And yet it does highlight the profound internal deadlock between trusting and not trusting and the need for God to break that deadlock.

The most elegant Greek passages are sometimes the hardest to translate. I’ve been chewing over Mark 9:22-23 this morning. It is an absolutely fascinating story and just full of implications. A guy tells Jesus that the disciples couldn’t cast some demon out of his son, and he says to Jesus, “If you can do anything, please have pity on us and help us.”

Jesus, who acts pretty miffed with the whole situation then answers back “If I can??” And then the Greek has a four-word sentence that I seem to need at least twice as many to begin to translate: panta dunata tw pisteuonti. The traditional translation is very much along the lines of the RSV’s “all things are possible to him who believes” which is 8 words. The panta does easily translate to all things … which is marginally better than everything since panta is all, not every (insofar as those are distinguishable from each other). The verb to be is missing / understood in the Greek sentence, which is not unusual. To translate dunata as possible, however, misses a shade of meaning. I’d want capability in there. In context, the dispute has been that the disciples don’t have the power or strength to do the business (v. 18; the word there is not dunamis/power, but a form of the word for strength). Here in 23, the word is related to power and the dative construction that follows (to him who believes) confirms that the things are possible not because of the things themselves but because of the person attempting them. The point is, I think, not that everything is possible to the believer, as if the things are in themselves possible and belief helps you see that, but rather, when you’re equipped with faith, everything becomes doable.

Ah ha! “Doable” is a word that really fits the implied narrator — the Mark I’m reconstructing — it’s a word I can imagine him loving.

Now the second part. “to the one who believes” is standard, but I’ve made a decision overall to use trust for pisteuw rather than belief. The point is faith, and I think throughout most of the New Testament, the relationality of faith is more the issue than intellectual or doctrinal faith.

This has left me with this translation: “All things are doable, for the one who trusts”. Nine English words for four in Greek. I may yet switch to Everything because All things sounds unnatural.

As well as the translation, of course, I’m hugely conflicted about the interpretation. This healing was not doable for the disciples and it’s not unlike Jesus to question and criticise the faith of the disciples. And yet, if he meant it as criticism why the singular “to the one who trusts” and why the definite article instead of simple dative and a three-word reply? Is the tw meant to parallel the panta? See? It isn’t “All things are possible to all who trust” or “to trusters”. This passage thus seems to me to perhaps relate into an old chestnut argument about whether we are saved by faith in Jesus or by the faith of Jesus.

John the Baptist, John the Baptiser, John the Dunker, John the Drencher, John the Immerser, John the Immersionist, John the Soak, John the Water Guy, John the Wetter, John the Soaker, John the Washer, John the Wash, Washing John, Washday Johnny, Ol’ Wet John, John the Saturator, John the Saturationist, Immersion John, Immersion Johnny, Johnny the Soak, ‘Down ya Go’ John, ‘Hold your breath’ John, John the blblblub. *sigh*

I’m still chipping away at my paraphrase of Mark’s Gospel and thought of a great embellishment that … well … it’s not really part of the text, so even though I love it, I won’t be able to put it in the text or perform it…. It’s in chapter five, and comes in the next to last paragraph of the story, which would then make the very end of the story come to life in a new way:

Mark 5:35-43 with embellishment