Monday, July 29, 2024

Jason A. Staples on Faith/Justice/Church

  

(2) “Fidelity” and “Trust”: I will also default to translating the Greek word πιστις (pistis) as “fidelity” rather than “faith” and the verbal form πιστευω (pisteuō) as “trust” rather than “believe” or “have faith.” Each of these options better approximates the relational nauances of Paul’s language than the more traditional English “faith” and “believe,” which over time have come to be read as little more than cognitive assent by modern English readers. That “fidelity” derives from Latin fides, a chief virtue familiar to Paul’s Roman audience is an additional benefit, as it nods to layers of nuance likely implicit in Paul’s use of pist-language as he attempts to represent covenantally based Jewish concepts for a Greek-speaking audience in the Roman Empire. (Jason A. Staples, Paul and the Resurrection of Israel: Jews, Former Gentiles, Israelites [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024], 29-30)

 

 

(3) Justice language is central throughout Romans, and many passages involve wordplay using multiple forms of dik- stems (e.g., δικαιοω, δικαιιος, δικαιωμα, δικαιοσυνη, αδικος) that is difficult or impossible to reproduce in English translations, which tend to render the verb with “justify” and the nouns with cognates of “righteous.” Others have tried to rectify this problem in various ways, perhaps most notably E. P. Sanders’ neologism “to righteous” as a verbal form in place of the traditional “to justify.” I have chosen to go the opposite direction, as I suspect modern English readers are more likely to interpret “righteous” as a term of religious piety rather than ethics, while I am persuaded that Paul’s dik-language is rooted in ethical and relational/covenantal contexts better represented by the English concept of “justice,” which involves doing what is right and performing one’s social relational, or customary obligations. The Yiddish word “mensch” also gets fairly close to the idea of a δικαιος person as used by Paul, and I must confess to being tempted to translate Paul’s dik-language with cognates of mensch, resulting in “menschify,” “menschification,” and “menschness.” But since there would be just as foreign to most English readers as the Greek terms themselves, I have resigned myself to using cognates of “justice” for words deriving from the dik-root in Greek.

 

I will therefore default to “justness” or “justice” rather than “righteous” for the term δικαιοσυνη (dikaiosunē) and “just” for the noun δικαιος (dikaios), though at times I will use the word pair “righteous/just.” For the verb δικαιοω (dikaioō), I will default to “justify,” which is like the Greek word in that it can represent being “made just,” “declared just,” or “vindicated.” The neuter noun δικαιωμα (dikaiōma), a word meaning “just things” or “things of justice” deserves special attention since this word frequently appears in the Septuagint as a way of referring to the “statues” or “ordinances” given to Israel by God, specifically the requirements of justice. Because of its specialized use and the distinctive way Pal uses this term to refer to the Torah’s love command(s), my translations of this term will be contextually driven, though I will call attention to where this specific term underlies my translation in those places. (Jason A. Staples, Paul and the Resurrection of Israel: Jews, Former Gentiles, Israelites [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024], 30-31)

 

(5) Ekklēsia (Greek εκκλησια): This word is typically translated “church” in most versions of the New Testament, misleadingly implying a specialized meaning distinct to Christian gatherings. But this word is widely used outside Christian contexts to mean “assembly,” and in the Septuagint (LXX; the Greek translation of the Tanakh/Hebrew Bible), it is the most common translation of the Hebrew קהל (qāhāl), referring to the assembled people of Israel. In that context, membership in all the “assembly of YHWH” (e.g., Deut 23:4, 9 [ET 3, 8]) amounts to something akin to citizenship within Israel. I will therefore leave ekklēsia untranslated as a reminder that for Paul this term refers not to a separate “gentile church” but rather to elect eschatological Israel united by the pneuma of Israel’s messiah and participating in the promised new covenant. (Jason A. Staples, Paul and the Resurrection of Israel: Jews, Former Gentiles, Israelites [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024], 32)

 

 

  

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