παις (servant/slave; cf. Luke 7:7) in A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint

  

παῖς, παιδός   N3M/F 126-184-39-47-74=470

 

Gn 9,25.26.27; 12,16; 14,15

 

child (in relation to parents) Prv 29,15; slave, servant Gn 9,25; courtier, attendant 1 Sm 22,17; servant (of humans in relation to God) Is 41,8; girl, young lady Gn 24,28; girl, slave, maid Ru 2,6; παῖδες children Prv 4,1

 

ἐκ παιδός from childhood, from youth Gn 46,34

 

Gn 26,18 οἱ παῖδες the servants-עבדי (Sam. Pent.) for MT בימי in the days of; Gn 47,21 εἰς παῖδας for servants-ל/עבדים for MT ל/ערים into the cities; Jos 7,7 διεβίβασεν ὁ παῖς σου your servant brought over-עבדך העביר for MT העביר העברת you surely brought over; Jer 47 (40),9 τῶν παίδων of the servants of-מעבדי for MT מ/עבוד from serving, see also 2 Kgs 25,24; Prv 1,4 παιδὶ δὲ νέῳ but to a young child, but to a little child double transl. of MT נער young man (“παις, παιδος,” in A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, comp. Johan Lust, Erik Eynikel, and Katrin Hauspie [rev. ed.; Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft: Stuttgart, 2003], Logos Bible Software edition)

 

Robert Alter on Psalm 110:3

  

from the womb of dawn. The second of the two nouns here in the Masoretic Text, mishḥar, is doubtful in meaning. The translation follows the Septuagint in reading mireḥem shaḥar, “from the womb of dawn.” A scribe may have inadvertently repeated the mem at the end of reḥem and at the beginning of shaḥar as well (an instance of dittography). The image is evidently of an army sallying forth at daybreak.

 

yours is the dew of your youth. This somewhat mystifying phrase might refer to the fresh energy of a young king. Many manuscripts read “I gave you birth” instead of “your youth” (a difference only of vocalization), but this scarcely improves matters because the idea of giving birth to the king like (?) dew is puzzling. (Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible, 3 vols. [New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2019], 3:265)

 

Kondrad Schmid and Jens Schröter on Deuteronomy 32:7-9 and Psalm 82

On Deut 32:7-9:

 

Although the biblical text uses the phrasing “sons of Israel” instead of “sons of God,” the version using “God” is confirmed both by one of the Dead Sea Scrolls fragment (4QDeut^j) and by the Septuagint. The current reading with “sons of Israel,” is almost certainly the result of an orthodox correction that was meant to erase the polytheistic undertones of the passage. In what was probably the original version, with “sons of God,” the passage represents the position that God established the different peoples according to the number of minor deities, and that only the nation of Israel (expressed in the metonymic formulation “Jacob”) is assigned directly to him as the highest God. Yet in religious-historical terms, the title “the Most High,” which here refers to YHWH, evokes associations with the supreme god El, to whom this title was originally applied. This passage thus retains a gentle reminder of the fact that YHWH was not always the supreme deity. (Kondrad Schmid and Jens Schröter, The Making of the Bible: From the First Fragments to Sacred Scripture [trans. Peter Lewis; Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2021], 117)

 

On Psa 82:

 

A similar text can be found in Psalm 82, which forms part of the so-called Elohistic Psalter (Psalms 42-82). In this section of the book of Psalms, the tetragrammaton YHWH has been replaced almost entirely by the Hebrew term Elohim (“God”); thus it is reasonable to assume that Psalms 82 originally made reference to YHWH. This text, too, has a monotheistic profile: YHWH is the only God, and the other gods must perish. It is played out within a conceptual world that is still polytheistic, however, in an imaginary courtroom scene in which YHWH, as the prosecutor, declares that the other gods are the sons of the “Most High”:

 

God [YHWH] stands in the divine assembly, in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:
“How long will you judge unjustly and favor the wicked? Selah.
Do justice for the lowly and the orphaned, for the destitute and needy provide equity. . . .
I have spoken: ‘You are gods and all of your sons of the Most High.’
However: Like a human you will die and like the princes you will fall.”
Arise, God [YHWH], judge the earth, for you have an inheritance in all peoples. (Psalm 82:1-3, 5-8)

 

Psalm 82 can no longer be dated to the pre-exile period, though it does appear to have retained some suggestions of early forms of Judaism. The psalm formulates its monotheistic program within the context of a polytheistic language game. (Kondrad Schmid and Jens Schröter, The Making of the Bible: From the First Fragments to Sacred Scripture [trans. Peter Lewis; Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2021], 117-18)

 

James R. White on 1 Kings 7:23 and the Value of Pi

  

The circumference of thirty cubits (LXX: “thirty-three” may be a dittography) is an approximation, pi (3.14+) being unknown. (Mordechai Cogan, I Kings: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AYB 10; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008], 264)

 

The following is from James R. White’s Answers to Catholic Claims (1990). While reading this, I realized that White (and other Protestant apologists for inerrancy) would use one set of standards for the accuracy of the Bible and that of the Book of Mormon (this would be a “go-to” proof of the Book of Mormon being false if such appeared in that text and not the Bible):

 

We see, then, that the Scriptures themselves claim a divine origin. We can also give an answer to the question, does the claim of inspiration necessarily carry with it the conclusion of an "inerrant" text? When one recognizes that Paul teaches that the Scriptures themselves have their origin in God, then the inerrancy of the text is as certain as the inerrancy of God Himself. A "God- breathed" text must be an inerrant text if God is God at all. Scripture, if it finds its origin and basis in God, must partake of those attributes of God that would be relevant to it- in this case, the consistency of God demands the consistency of Scripture, the truth of God demands the truth (and hence the accuracy) of Scripture. Yet, we must be careful to define what we mean by "inerrant." Acceptance of the Biblical claim to inerrancy (as seen in the Biblical claim of inspiration) does not entail as a result a system of interpretation that is characterized by absurd literality. The most common tactic used to ridicule and deride inerrancy is to apply some unreasonable standard of literality to a particular text of Scripture and say, "see, if you read that literally, it is in error! Therefore, no inerrancy ... " Inerrancy exists right alongside of the recognition of the style of the writer, the kind of writing (whether didactic, poetic, apocalyptic, etc.), the historical context, and all those elements that go into solid historical-grammatical interpretation of Scripture. Scholars who accept the Word of God's claims for itself are well aware of the proper limits placed upon "inerrancy" by the text itself. One example should suffice.

 

In 1 Kings 7:23 we read of the making of the "cast metal sea" for the temple in Jerusalem. This large circular bowl is described as follows in Scripture: "Now he made the cast sea ten cubits from edge to edge, round in form, and its height was five cubits, and it was thirty cubits around." Hence, the Bible says the object was ten cubits across, and 30 cubits around. A quick check of the math indicates one of two things: either it was not perfectly round (which is a possibility) or, much more likely, the writer was not attempting modem mathematical precision, for if it were exactly ten cubits across, it would be 31.41592654 cubits in circumference. Or, if it were exactly 30 cubits in circumference, it would be 9.549296585 cubits in diameter. Either way, the description given in the text would not be exactly correct. In fact, one could even say that the figures just given are not exactly correct, because the value of pi was only taken out to a certain point: pi is a non-repeating number. Hence, theoretically, one could say that it is impossible to say exactly what the circumference of anything really is. Of course, this level of literality is absurd on the face of it. The text is not in error, for it is not attempting to define with mathematical precision the exact value of pi, nor the exact measurements of the metal sea in the Temple. The text is accurate in what it is attempting to communicate, and we are given the proper bounds of "correctness" by the language and style of the text itself. To attempt to disprove inerrancy with passages such as this is a useless task, as the doctrine itself does not indicate that, given the divine origin of the text, every statement is going to adhere to some external definition of "accuracy". The text will define its own limitations and parameters. (James R. White, Answers to Catholic Claims: A Discussion of Biblical Authority [Southbridge, Mass.: Crowne Publications, 1990], 26-27)

 

One is reminded of the following scene from The Simpsons (way back when it was funny):

Christopher R. Mooney on Augustine’s Theology and Warfield’s Popular False Dichotomy

  

BAPTISM AND THE MOMENT OF JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH

 

Augustine's overwhelming emphasis on faith, grace, and charity in his exegesis of Paul's soteriology is in striking contrast to the more overtly baptismal soteriology of Tertullian and Cyprian - as well as Ambrose. This can lead to a sense of tension between Augustine's ecclesiology and his theology of grace, as if the latter could be liberated from sacramental and ecclesial mediation. The nineteenth-century Calvinist scholar Benjamin Warfield found this tension to be irreconcilable and counted its resolution in favor of the absolute primacy of grace over all ecclesiastical mediation to be the Reformation's Augustinian triumph: "the Reformation, inwardly considered, was just the ultimate triumph of Augustine's doctrine of grace over Augustine's doctrine of the Church."6 But Augustine's reflections on the relationship between faith and grace are unintelligible except as reflections on the tradition and concrete practices of the North African Church: the one who is worthy to receive the grace of the Holy Spirit by faith in Augustine's Pauline commentaries is none other than the catechumen who approaches the sacrament with sincere faith in Lent and receives grace at Easter. There are not two accounts of grace, as if one were divine and invisible and another were sacramental and visible. Augustine's theology of justification by faith is not meant to provide a replacement account of God's grace in place of the catechumen's reception of the Holy Spirit in baptism; it is meant to further illuminate the spiritual reality of that event. In light of this, it is to baptism that we first turn, in order to call to mind the concrete ecclesial practices through which Augustine interpreted Paul. (Christopher R. Mooney, Augustine’s Theology of Justification by Faith [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2026], 68)

 

Perla Fuscaldo on Locus 1016 from Tell al-Dab'a

  

The pottery assemblage from Locus 1016 indicates local ceramic production, mostly vessels of Egyptian tradition and some of Middle Bronze Age II B-C origin. These were probably made of Egyptianized Canaanites during the last years of the Hyksos rule in Avaris, and reused at the beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty. The appearance of new shapes and fabrics, and the more frequent use of a slightly improved tall-stemmed wheel show the ceramic changes produced in Avaris in the transitional period at the end of the Fifteenth Dynasty and the beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty.

 

The execration pits preserved the skeletons or parts of the skeletons of defeated enemies. The pit with the three skills represents sacrificed enemies, local or foreigners, buried in connection with the construction of new buildings after the occupation of Avaris by Ahmose, as part of an execration ritual to purify the area in the recently conquered Hyksos palace district. I think that the pit, Locus 1016, with the two skeletons and the large amount of pottery, could have had the same meaning, figurines of the enemies were usually used as substitutes for the real body of these enemies, with their names and the so-called execration texts, written on them, as well as on pottery vessels. In the execration ritual these figurines and the vessels with the names of the enemies were broken, with the aim of destroying the person named.

 

In the Middle Kingdom fortress at Mirgissa, figurines and jars were found in situ inside two pits. On three stone statuettes representing prisoners buried in sandy soil, and on a large amount of broken pottery placed in a pit, “execration texts” were written. In another pit a human skull was found. At Mirgissa not only human figurines and broken pottery but also human remains were buried, which means that an actual human sacrifice could have been made during this execration ritual.

 

The two execration pits at Tell al-Dab’a are similar to those found at Mirgissa. The execration pit, Locus 1055, with the three human skulls is similar to the Mirgissa pit containing a human skull. The execration pit, Locus 1016, with the two human skeletons and the broken pottery, could be similar to those with three limestone figurines embedded in sand, and to the pit with the inscribed broken pottery.

 

The special feature of the execration pit, Locus 1016 at Tell al-Dab’a, is that the figurines with the name of the defeated enemies were substituted with the sacrifices of two defeated enemies, the non-inscribed pottery probably broken on them, and their bodies covered with it and with fragments of different stones and objects, as if they had been stoned (even though there is no evidence of injuries). If this happened, we do not know why the Egyptians sacrificed enemies in Avaris instead of using substitute figurines as usual. This ritual of the destruction of pottery and the actual execution of prisoners, as happened with the rebels, could have been an execration ritual performed as part of the ceremonies for the celebration of the conquest of the city and for the construction of new buildings. (Perla Fuscaldo, “Tell al-Dab’a: Two Execration Pits and a Foundation Deposit,” in Egyptology at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century: Proceedings of the Eighth International Congress of Egyptologists Cairo, 2000, ed. Zahi Hawass, 3 vols. [Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2003], 1:187-88)

 

J. -A. Bühner on servant/slave (παις; cf. Luke 7:7) in Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament

  

1. The word παῖς is found 24 times in the NT, but only in the writings of Luke (Gospel and Acts) and Matthew. It is a collective term for all members of a household subordinate to the master of the house and can have the corresponding meanings: In Matt 2:16; 17:18 par. Luke 2:43; Acts 20:12 παῖς designates a young boy, one younger than an adolescent; in Luke 8:51, 54 a young girl is intended; Matt 21:15 groups children under pl. παῖδες. In typical fashion Matt 8:6–13 par. Luke 7:2–10 / John 4:46–53 interchanges παῖς with δοῦλος, υἱος and παιδίον. While Matthew consistently uses παῖς, boy / child (of the centurion, cf. on the background Derrett 174f.), Luke interprets the παῖς as a δοῦλος in order to express the nonfamilial relation between the one who commands and the one who obeys; John emphasizes υἱός as a generic term: It should be kept in mind that in Palestine the servant belonged to the family and the “son of the household” did not have to be a natural-born son (cf. Lohmeyer 3). In Luke 12:45 παῖς and παιδίσκαι refer to male and female household servants; Luke 15:26 appears not to distinguish between παῖς and δοῦλος, although here, too, belonging to the οἶκος is fundamental to the distinction between παῖς and μίσθιος. In Matt 14:2 Herod expresses his opinion of Jesus to his παῖδες (“members of the court / counselors,” i.e., his “cabinet”; cf. the ‘aḇḏey hammeleḵ / παῖδες τοῦ βασιλέως in 2 Sam 11:24; 15:15; cf. Riesener 150–59). (J. -A. Bühner, “παῖς, παιδός, ὁ (ἡ) pais servant; child,” in Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Horst Robert Balz and Gerhard Schneider, 3 vols. [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1992], 3:5-6)