{"id":14149,"date":"2013-04-23T09:04:55","date_gmt":"2013-04-23T13:04:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=14149"},"modified":"2013-04-23T09:04:55","modified_gmt":"2013-04-23T13:04:55","slug":"in-the-biblical-sense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/04\/in-the-biblical-sense.html","title":{"rendered":"In the Biblical Sense"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

As someone who teaches Bible, this cartoon Hemant Mehta recently shared<\/a> made me laugh:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

It is funny that, through a series of twists and turns in the history of language, a reference to something being \u201cBiblical\u201d can turn it into sexual innuendo. This actually illustrates an important point about how languages work, a point often missed by some who read, interpret, and use the Bible. The term \u201cBiblical\u201d might have a particular dictionary definition, but its nuances, and the connotations it gives to a sentence, could vary, even when the phrases are very similar. Think for instance of a sermon in which the preacher said that \u201cThe Biblical sense of 'faith' includes trust and faithfulness,\u201d and then if the cartoon above had said \u201cI had faith in her\u2026in the Biblical sense.\u201d Someone in the distant future interpreting the two would have to be intimately acquainted with the language and culture to get the difference between the two. You might say that they would have to know the English language and culture of the 21st century in the Biblical sense <\/em>in order to get the joke.<\/p>\n

The very notion that there is one \u201cBiblical sense\u201d of a word is itself indicative of widespread popular misperceptions about how languages work \u2013 or at least, how Biblical languages work, since few make this mistake with respect to their own native language. The sense of the word \u201cknow\u201d in the Bible \u2013 the word whose appearance in the phrase \u201cknow in the Biblical sense\u201d is in the background to the cartoon \u2013 varies in relation to our possible renderings in English. It less often refers to sex than to knowing in ways closer to the normal English meaning of that word. And so one can say, somewhat ironically, that not all knowing in the Bible is knowing \u201cin the Biblical sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

But this is just a Biblical scholar making an academic point about a cartoon which should perhaps not be overthought, but simply read and enjoyed\u2026in the Biblical sense.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As someone who teaches Bible, this cartoon Hemant Mehta recently shared made me laugh: It is funny that, through a series of twists and turns in the history of language, a reference to something being \u201cBiblical\u201d can turn it into sexual innuendo. This actually illustrates an important point about how languages work, a point often […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,42],"tags":[871,1140,1148,1625,3644,3686,4485,4528,5076,5209,6257,6344,6346,11139,11147],"class_list":["post-14149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-humor","tag-atheist","tag-bible","tag-biblical","tag-cartoon","tag-friendly","tag-funny","tag-hebrew-languages","tag-hemant-mehta","tag-in-the-biblical-sense","tag-innuendo","tag-know","tag-language","tag-languages","tag-sex","tag-sexual"],"yoast_head":"\nIn the Biblical Sense<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"As someone who teaches Bible, this cartoon Hemant Mehta recently shared made me laugh: It is funny that, through a series of twists and turns in the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/04\/in-the-biblical-sense.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In the Biblical Sense\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As someone who teaches Bible, this cartoon Hemant Mehta recently shared made me laugh: It is funny that, through a series of twists and turns in the\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/04\/in-the-biblical-sense.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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