The Hebrew word for parable/proverb/allegory ( mashal ) is first used Numbers 23-24 for the “parables” of Balaam. The word is used seven times in that passage, and the verb associated with it in every case is nasa , “lift up” or “carry.” A proverb is a burden borne; a parable is a banner run up the pole. A parable brings secret things into full public view. nasa mashal is the combination in Isaiah 14:4: “lift up this parable against... Read more
Isaiah predicts a day of judgment against Babel (13:6, 9, 13; cf. 13:22)l but that same day will be rest for the people of God (14:3). When Yahweh judges Babel, Israel will enjoy Sabbath ( shabat , “cease,” is used twice in v. 4); they will be Noahs, resting ( noach , 14:3) after the flood. What are they resting from? 14:3 has three min phrases that describe the triple affliction “from” which Yahweh delivers them. First “sorrow” ( otzeb... Read more
Pickstock still: Plato notes the sensory associations of various arts. Painting renders the visual, music the sound. But language is synaesthetic. A word or combination of words combines the senses, and engenders thought and so, Plato says, gets to the “essence” iof a things that is invisible outside this synaesthetic medium. Read more
Pickstock points to this passage on the Cratylus, where Socrates connects heroes with desire through an etymological connection with Eros: “All of them sprang either from the love of a God for a mortal woman, or of a mortal man for a Goddess; think of the word in the old Attic, and you will see better that the name heros is only a slight alteration of Eros, from whom the heroes sprang: either this is the meaning, or, if not... Read more
Pickstock, same article, arguing that the linguistic turn requires Cratylism: “If the signifier is arbitrary, then the stable element of language is excarnated and language is reduced to thought after all, because its essence consists in a series of abstract relations, combined according to a set of rules. Physical words become in consequence no more than instrumental conveniences without any lure of particularity. Meanings and signifiers still require physical codes because we are embodied creatures, but only in a sense... Read more
Pickstock again, same article. She examines Socrates’ use of etymologies, and argues that this is not a crude effort to take words back to some fixed starting point. Rather, Socrates “analyzes words by supplementing, removing, exchanging or bending letters or syllables according to sometimes whimsical rules of phonetic resonance and crude punning.” Far from seeking a final foothold, Socrates etymologies seem designed to show that there is no such foothold in language. She denies that the etymologies are part of... Read more
In an article on the Cratylus in the current issue of Modern Theology , Catherine Pickstock asks whether Socrates/Plato is/are Cratylists, whether they believe that words are linked, perhaps onomatopoetically, to the things they signify, or if they argue for a purely conventional understanding of the relation of sign and thing. Along the way, Pickstock discusses two arguments that would seem to make the linguistic turn (which she characterizes as the “semi-materialist” view that we cannot think without language) and... Read more
A student, Kaleb Trotter, points out numerically significant lists and structures in Philippians. Paul, for instance, lists seven bases for his confidence in flesh (3:4-6). Paul is a full, sevenfold Israelite, as he says, a Hebrew of Hebrews. Yet he gives up that fullness for the sake of Christ, imitating Jesus (ch. 2) who did not seize glory but emptied Himself for His people in His death. In chapter 4, Paul exhorts the Philippians to devote their minds to what... Read more
A student’s (Tyler Abens) paper on the theme of imitation in Paul begins with a description of experiments comparing how children learn to how monkey’s learn. The experiment indicates that, contrary to the monkey-see, monkey-do mythology, humans learn by imitation and monkeys do not. Because of this, humans don’t need to reinvent things over and over again. They can just do what earlier humans have done. Because humans imitate, they develop and progress. Monkeys have no eschatology. We learn by... Read more
A student, Maggie Church, notes the parallel between the situation in Philemon – a runaway slave returning to his master – and the story of the prodigal son. If we plug in NT Wright’s interpretation of that parable, we get a deeper insight into the theology of Philemon. According to Wright, the Prodigal son is the story of Israel, exiled but now returning,. with the elder brother standing in for the surly scribes and Pharisees. The incident with Onesimus and... Read more
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