"The single most effective way to study the Bible in our digital age"

James Michael-Smith of  the Disciple Dojo, is a great Bible teacher..be sure to  click below and try out what he calls:
 

"The single most effective way I know of to study the Bible in our digital age"

Women are upset that the Bible includes women??

Full article

Argggg.. don't get me started on this magazine, or the translation wars (see TNIV posts below, if interested..

Luke 11: not "be shameless in prayer," but "God is shameless, so pray!"

On the "friend at midnight" parable in Luke 11:

  ....The next phrase carries all the weight of the story.  The neighbor will rise because of his anaideia.  Two mysteries must be solved.  First, who does "his" refer to--the neighbor or the host?  Traditional interpretations point to the surprised host--but the Greek text is ambiguous.  Second, what is the meaning of anaideia? This is undoubtedly what motivates someone in the story to act.

Notice how the NIV interprets the passage for us:  "I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man's boldness,  he will surely get up and give him as much as he needs."  The NIV inserts the words "the man's" to point to the host as the subject of "his."  The TNIV barely improves this by inserting the word "your"...but this is not in  the original text either.  Furthermore, the NIV translates anaideia  as "boldness"--the host is bold in his request--as the key to gaining needed bread...(Fortunately the TNIV provides a footnote that straightens this out).  Many scholars today believe that "his" does not refer to the host but to the neighbor in bed...

...Added to this...traditional translators have said that anaideia   means "shameless" or "persistent" (hence "bold") and that it is the virtue belonging to the surprised host.  But this sense of the word only comes much later than the first century.  In Greek,  anaideia       (or its adjective   aidos   ) means "shame" and the prefix   an  negates it.  Thus   anaideia   means "shameless" or "without shame."

In the Middle Eastern cultural context shame is the very thing you sought  to avoid with all your life.  Honor--the absence of shame--was the attribute for which you wished to be known.....Therefore we might easily say that someone in the story is a person in whom there is no shame, someone of honor, someone who recognizes and protects his good name.

Now suddenly Jesus' story takes on new meaning. "Yet because of his lack of shame he will rise and give him..."  The parable is focused entirely on the neighbor in bed!...Let's attempt a paraphrase: 

I tell you, the sleeping neighbor will not get up and give his friend the bread because they are friends.  The neighbor will get up and give fresh bread because he is a man of honor--a man who will not bring shame to himself or his village

Suddenly Jesus' story takes on a new theme.  Fresh bread for a surprise visitor will come through the door not because of the nature of the request or the relationship with the neighbor.  This confident request is anchored to the honor of the neighbor in bed...

In Jesus' view,  prayer (as requests from God) may be made confidently not because of who we are--but because of who he is..

Our confidence that this is the correct interpretation is if we keep reading Luke 11:9-13.  Jesus is still explaining his view about prayer.


Jesus encourages us to ask, seek and knock because these requests will be met by a God who is good.  pp 38-40,   Gary M. Burge, Jesus, The Middle Eastern Storyteller

Note: be sure to read the whole chapter of the book here, as this is only one way he enlightens the parable

Christian, you are a NOT a 'new creation!' / Bonus: Dave's Top Ten list of "misundertaken" Scriptures

How many times have you heard it?:

               "If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation"

Or worse, we often hear:
                                  "Christians are new creations"

And don't get me started on the King James Version:

                                                 
                    "if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature "  (:


From the black lagoon?



It's all based on misleading translation of the original Greek of 2 Cor 5:17 , which literally says:

ωστε ει τις εν χριστω καινη κτισις τα αρχαια παρηλθεν:

                  "If anyone is in Christ,
                 new creation!"



Of course the TNIV nailed it.....and of course it was banned:

              "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ,
                the new creation has come"
(The new 2011 NIV:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ,the new creation has come:^[a] The old has gone, the new is here!  (footnote: Or Christ, that person is a new creation.)

How about:

      "Since (even) one person is  (already) in Christ, the  NEW CREATION has  (already) arrived"

That helps restore the thought.

The New Creation-- God's heavenly realm and  cosmic "kingdom come," which has already started coming-- is a bit bigger than me.

And it is NOT me...

 "New Creation" has a lot more to do with Revelation's "new heavens and new earth" in all its glory than this  individual little creature from the black lagoon getting saved.

Paul also never uses the noun “creation” (ktisis) to refer to an individual person (see Rom 1:2, 25; 8:19–22, 39), and the concept of a new creation appears prominently in Jewish apocalyptic texts that picture the new age as inaugurating something far more sweeping than individual transformation—a new heaven and a new earth. The translation “there is a new creation” would mean that the new creation does not merely involve the personal transformation of individuals but encompasses the eschatological act of recreating humans and nature in Christ. It would also include the new community, which has done away with the artificial barriers of circumcision and uncircumcision (Gal 6:15–16; see Eph 2:14–16) as part of this new creation.
(David E. Garland, 2 Corinthians, The New American Commentary, 286-87)  link

Ralph Martin:

Paul is talking of a “new act of creation,” not an individual’s renovation as a proselyte or a forgiven sinner in the Day of Atonement service. There is even an ontological dimension to Paul’s thought.. suggesting that with Christ’s coming a new chapter in cosmic relations to God opened and reversed the catastrophic effect of Adam’s fall which began the old creation (Kümmel, 205). To conclude: en Christo, kaine ktisis in this context relates to the new eschatological situation which has emerged from Christ’s advent .
-Ralph P. Martin, 2 Corinthians, Word Biblical Commentary, 152)link

Sure, in a wonderful way, in microcosm, my status as a recreated truster of Jesus mirrors the New Creation.
But I'm just a little critter/creature.

Of  course, it might also be a case of BOTH/AND...

 I was glad to find this just now from Richard Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics:

The apocalyptic scope of 2 Corinthians 5 was obscured by older translations that rendered the crucial phrase in verse 17 as “he is a new creation” (RSV) or — worse yet — “he is a new creature” (KJV). Such translations seriously distort Paul’s meaning by making it appear that he is describing only the personal transformation of the individual through conversion experience. The sentence in Greek, however, lacks both subject and verb; a very literal translation might treat the words “new creation” as an exclamatory interjection: “If anyone is in Christ — new creation!”

The NRSV has rectified matters by rendering the passage, “If anyone is in Christ there is a new creation.” Paul is not merely talking about an individual’s subjective experience of renewal through conversion; rather, for Paul, “creation” refers to the whole create order (Rom. 8:18–25). He is proclaiming the apocalyptic message that through the cross God has nullified the kosmos of sin and death and brought a new kosmos into being. That is why Paul can describe himself and his readers as those “on whom the ends of the ages has met” (1 Cor. 10:11). The old age is passing away (cf. 1 Cor. 7:31b), the new age has appeared in Christ, and the church stands at the juncture between them.  link, p. 20

The Wikipedia article on New Creation also makes room for both.

Vernard Eller, in his amazing  chapter 8  of "War and Peace" ("Noting The Absence of What Wasn't There"..read it here) helpfully bases his comments on the delightful translation of the NEB:

Becoming a Christian eschatologist does not mean being lifted out of this world into some  transcendent realm...Paul stated our idea rather precisely: "When anyone is united to Christ, there is a new world; the old order has gone, and a new order has already begin (2 Cor 5.17).  Obviously, Paul does not mean..that, at the moment one accepts Christ, he is transported from this world to another one...but..The old secular, flatlander interpretation is gone; and the new, true eschatological significance has already begun  (p. 200)

The NEB has  since been replaced with the REB , which reads:

                                "For anyone united to Christ, there is a new creation.."

Nice!  (and see helpful comments by John Howard Yoder here)

How about N.T. Wright, 43:30  mark to 47  min. mark here:


-

Of course, this is all  a classic case of misleading translation coupled with Verse-itis
How many know the verse under discussion starts with a "Therefore.."?
So we are called to discern the context and what the "therefore" is
                                                                                     there for.
Do check it out.
--

PS:  Note: this "new creation" principle carries over into a lesser-known, not on any bumper sticker, verse:

"Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything;
             what counts is the new creation'  (Galatians 6:15, NIV)


Great translation score there. Some translations style the above as "what counts is A new creation"   Uh, no.


An intriguing parallel reminds us of what the New Creation life, here in the midst of the old creation,  is to be known by:




"Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything;
             The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love."
                                                           (Galatians 5:6)

Related:

• Why Greek Matters (Part 2) – When Does the New Creation Begin? (2 Corinthians 5:17)
• NT Wright: explosive new creation
• Great Commission and New Creation Reloaded ...
• posts on NT Wright on "the new creation"
• “he is a new creation” or “there is a new creation?"

If this lil' ol' Bible study has messed up your day, how about nine more?

constitute a Top Ten list  
 of 

"misundertaken" Scriptures:

• little evangelical kids singing R-rated lyrics in Sunday School: "and his banner over me is love"
• I am in sin if I "avoid the appearance of evil"
• Why Would Jesus Puke?: let's be hot AND cold, as Jesus wants
• "Temple Tantrums For All Nations"
• don't seek first the Kingdom
• The "Lord's Prayer" does NOT say "daily bread ...
• God will ALWAYS give you more than you can handle
•  of course Christians will be left behind
• "fear him who has authority to throw you into hell" : Who's "him"?
•  

Okay, I can't  
stop..let's make it a Top 16:

11)I assume you know that I can't do all things through Christ.

12)Don't get me started on Jeremiah 29:11..

or

     13) the individual Christian wearing spiritual armor

      or
               14)the "fruitS of the Spirit"
                 
                    or

  15)Jesus being literally forsaken by God because
 "God can't look at us, he can                      only look at Jesus..."

                                              or 
                                                            16) "Christians are sinners, not saints"

oy!

NIV 2011

Changes to the NIV 2011-- excerpt below..full document here

Awesome!

What Was Decided About Inclusive Language?

Nowhere in the updated NIV® (nor in the TNIV®, nor in any of the committee discussions leading up to either version) is there even the remotest hint of any inclusive language for God. The revisions solely surround inclusive language for mankind.

All previous Bible translation efforts have been hampered by the lack of accurate, statistically significant data on the state of spoken and written English at a given time in its history. Beyond appealing to traditional style guides, all that translators and stylists have been able to do is rely on their own experiences and others' anecdotal evidence, resulting in arguments such as, "I never see anybody writing such-and-such," or "I always hear such-and-such," or "Sometimes I read one thing but other times something else."

As part of the review of gender language promised at the September 2009 update announcement, the committee sought to remove some of this subjectivity by enlisting the help of experts. The committee initiated a relationship with Collins Dictionaries to use the Collins Bank of English, one of the world's foremost English language research tools, to conduct a major new study of changes in gender language. The Bank of English is a database of more than 4.4 billion words drawn from text publications and spoken word recordings from all over the world.

Working with some of the world's leading experts in computational linguistics and using cutting-edge techniques developed specifically for this project, the committee gained an authoritative, and hitherto unavailable, perspective on the contemporary use of gender language — including terms for the human race and subgroups of the human race, pronoun selections following various words and phrases, the use of "man" as a singular generic and the use of "father(s)" and "forefather(s)" as compared to ancestor(s). The project tracked usage and acceptability for each word and phrase over a twenty-year period and also analyzed similarities and differences across different forms of English: for example, UK English, US English, written English, spoken English, and even the English used in a wide variety of evangelical books, sermons and internet sites.

Research of this type is just one tool in the hands of translators, and, of course, it has no bearing on the challenge of preserving transparency to the original text. But hearing God's Word the way it was written is only one part of the NIV®'s overall mission. If readers are to understand it in the way it was meant, translators need to express the unchanging truths of the Bible in forms of language that modern English speakers find natural and easy to comprehend. And this is where a tool like the Bank of English comes into its own.

The most significant findings that influenced decision making for the updated NIV® were:

• The gender-neutral pronoun "they" ("them"/"their") is by far the most common way that English-language speakers and writers today refer back to singular antecedents such as"whoever," "anyone," "somebody," "a person," "no one," and the like.Even in Evangelical sermons and books, where the generic "he," "him" and "his" are preserved more frequently than in other forms of communication, instances of what grammarians are increasingly calling the "singular they" ("them" or "their") appear three times more frequently than generic masculine forms. In other words, most English speakers today express themselves in sentences like these: "No one who rooted for the Chicago Cubs to be in a World Series in the last sixty years got their wish. They were disappointed time and time again," or "The person who eats too many hot dogs in too short a period of time is likely to become sick totheir stomach." It is interesting to observe that this development is a throwback to a usage of English that existed prior to the solidification of the generic "he" as the only "proper" usage during the nineteenth century in Victorian England. Even the KJV occasionally used expressions like ". . .let each esteem other better than themselves" (Philippians 2:3). For that matter, so did the Greek New Testament! In James 2:15-16, the Greek for "a brother or sister" (adelphos ē adelphē) is followed by plural verbs and predicate adjectives and referred back to with autois ("them").
• English speakers around the world are using a variety of terms to refer to men and women together and for the human race collectively. Plural words such as "people," "human beings," and "humans" are very widely used. When it comes to terms that focus on humans in a collective sense, "man," "mankind," "humanity," and "the human race" are all being used.
• Forefather" has all but disappeared from the English language as a generic term, being replaced by "ancestor." Even in Evangelical sermons and writings, "ancestor" is more than twice as common as "forefather." In the light of these and other findings, the committee adopted a set of guidelines to be applied during the NIV® update process in cases where the original Greek and Hebrew texts clearly indicate an intended application to mixed groups of men and women and not just to individual men (or women) or groups of men (or women). None of these principles was applied inflexibly. How a specific usage sounded in a given context or how that context made it likely to be read was always taken into consideration. But, in general, much more often than not:
• Using plurals instead of singulars to deal with generic forms was avoided. Except for some instances where all alternatives proved awkward or potentially misleading, singular nouns or substantive participles in the biblical languages were translated with singular nouns or noun equivalents in English ("The one who. . . ," "the person who. . . ," "whoever. . . ," and the like).
• Using second person forms instead of third person forms to deal with generics was avoided. In other words, the translation does not read, "You who have this-or-that should do such-and-such," to avoid saying "He who has this-or-that should do such-and-such." The exception to this rule was when a second person form was already present in the immediate context and it would be poor English style not to preserve it throughout. For example, addressing a mixed-gender audience, we would say, "If any of you has your car on campus, may I get a ride home?" rather than "If any of you has his (or their) car on campus, may I get a ride home?"
• Singular "they," "them" and "their" forms were widely used to communicate the generic significance of pronouns and their equivalents when a singular form had already been used for the antecedent. For example, "Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them" (Mark 4:25); "How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them. . .?" (Hebrews 10:29); or "Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check" (James 3:2b). At the same time, recognizing the diversity in modern English, a generic "he" was occasionally retained: "If I have rejoiced at my enemy's misfortune or gloated over the trouble that came to him. . ." (Job 31:29).
• "People" and "humans" (and "human beings") were widely used for Greek and Hebrew masculine forms referring to both men and women. A variety of words—"humanity,""human race," "man," "mankind"—were used to refer to human beings collectively. As we noted above, modern English uses a variety of terms to refer to human beings collectively; and the committee decided to imitate that diversity in the translation, determining which expression fit best in each specific context. In making the decision whether to use "man" or "mankind," the committee often preferred the latter for the sake of clarity. "Man" can meaneither "the human race" or "an individual (male) human being," and when a follow-up pronoun is required, the pronoun must be "he," creating the potential for misunderstanding. "Mankind," on the other hand, can only mean humanity as a whole, and the follow-up pronoun can be an inclusive "they." Nevertheless, the updated NIV® often uses "man," particularly in memorable and/or proverbial phrases: for example, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27). Examples of texts that now have "mankind" where they didn't before include: "Let us make mankind in our image" (Genesis 1:26a); "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12); and "For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5).
• "Ancestors" was regularly preferred to "forefathers" unless a specific, limited reference to the patriarchs or to another all-male group is intended.
• "Brothers and sisters" was frequently used to translate adelphoi in the New Testament, especially in the vocative, when it was clear that both genders were in view. This decision reflects the consensus view among scholars (and with basis in the dictionaries) that plural adelphoi refers to both men and women equally. Footnotes now often appear, explaining that "the Greek word for ‘brothers and sisters' (adelphoi) refers to believers, both men and women, as part of God's family.", "believers" were retained from the TNIV® where "brothers and sisters" became too awkward, many were replaced by "brothers and sisters" to retain the familial connotations of adelphoi.
• While the Greek word anēr ("man" or "person") was frequently translated with masculine forms in English, it is clear in several contexts that the word refers to men and women equally (an option endorsed by major dictionaries of the Greek NT). The parallelism between James 1:7 and 8 suggests that anthrōpos and anēr are synonyms; hence, "That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do." In Acts, expressions addressing mixed-gender audiences such as "Fellow Israelites" (for andres Israēlitai) accurately capture the sense of the Greek. In Acts 17:22 andres Athēnaioi cannot be rendered, "Fellow Athenians," because Paul was not from Athens. But "people of Athens" works well, especially since verse 34 shows that at least one woman, Damaris, was among those explicitly addressed. As we have said, none of these principles was implemented rigidly without sensitivity to the context and cadence of individual verses. How clusters of words sounded when read aloud, what meaning the immediate context of any given passage contributed to a translational debate and what would communicate the original author's intentions most clearly were always taken into account.

What Happened to Some of the Most Famous Texts on Gender Roles?

Almost nothing has changed in the translation of the majority of these texts from the 1984 NIV® to the updated NIV®. But the careful reader will notice a few differences. Most notable perhaps are:

• Romans 16:1-2 now reads, "I commend to you our sister, Phoebe, a deacon [diakonos] of the church in Cenchreae. I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of his people and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been the benefactor [prostatis] of many people, including me." Complementarian and egalitarian scholars alike are increasingly agreeing that diakonos here means "deacon" (not just "servant," though "servant" is provided as an alternative in the footnote; see also the New Living Translation [NLT] and the New Revised Standard Version [NRSV]) and that prostatis means a patron or benefactor (as in the English Standard Version [ESV] and the Holman Christian Standard Bible [HCSB]), not just someone who was a "great help" in some unspecified way. But, because different churches use labels for offices or leadership roles in so many, sometimes conflicting, senses, a footnote now explains that "deacon refers to a Christian designated to serve with the overseers/elders of the church in a variety of ways."
• 1 Corinthians 11:10 now reads, "It is for this reason that a woman ought to have authority over her own head." The expression "a sign of" before "authority" in the 1984 NIV® did not correspond to anything explicitly in the Greek and is increasingly recognized as an inadequate rendition of this verse. Whether Paul wanted the women in Corinth to wear an external head covering while praying or prophesying, or simply to have long hair, or maybe even to wear a partial face veil, the point is they should be able to control what they do or do not have on their heads.
• 1 Timothy 2:12 now reads, "I do not permit a woman to teach or assume authority over a man." Much debate has surrounded the rare Greek word authentein, translated in the 1984NIV® as "exercise authority." The KJV reflected what some have argued was in some contexts a more negative sense for the word: "usurp authority." "Assume authority" is a particularly nice English rendering because it leaves the question open, as it must be unless we discover new, more conclusive evidence. The exercise of authority that Paul was forbidding was one that women inappropriately assumed, but whether that referred to all forms of authority over men in church or only certain forms in certain contexts is up to the individual interpreter to decide. Footnotes to verses 11 and 12 also inform the reader thatanēr and gunē here could mean "husband" and "wife" rather than "man" and "woman."
• 1 Timothy 3:11 now reads, "In the same way, the women are to be worthy of respect, not malicious talkers but temperate and trustworthy in everything." A footnote adds, "Possibly deacons' wives or women who are deacons." The Greek root word is gunē, which most commonly means simply a "woman." From the context, it is possible that these women were either deacons' wives or women deacons, but neither can be demonstrated from the word alone. The old American Standard Version (ASV), the New American Standard Bible (NASB), the New American Bible (NAB) and the New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) all adopt this translation as well. full document here

your body is not the temple/don't worry about God's will for your life

I have long reminded folks who have heard that their individual body is the  temple of the Holy Spirit (therefore, don't smoke,  have sex outside of marriage, commit suicide etc) that  1 Corinthians 3 actually says 

¹⁶ Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?¹⁷ If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.  NIV

Here , the body of Christ as a corporate entity is the temple.  It doesn't say that we (or our bodies) are individual temples (templettes, lol).  "You yourselves" (ustedes) together as one are the  corporate one body/temple.  (See A Crash of Rhinos...a Committee of Buzzards).

Then I admit and that later in the same letter (ch 6), Paul  suggests that your (individual) human body i a  (not "the") temple:

¹⁹ Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; ²⁰ you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

So:
Chapter 3: Together, corporately, we are the temple .
Chapter 6: Individually, a person's body is a temple.

But Shane Hipps presents even this second passage as all about the corporate interpretation, as is the first:

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.1 Corinthians 6:19-20
For my entire Christian life, I had understood this passage as a call to personal purity ad individual morality. I was taught that if I was ever tempted to drink, get a tattoo, or smoke, this verse could serve as a cocked and ready defense. While I am grateful it warded off certain temptations, Paul is not talking about individual purity. He is talking about the church. 

Every time Paul says ‘you’ in this passage it is plural, yet every time he says ‘body’ it is singular. He is speaking to a corporate group about their shared body - the church. The churchi s the temple of the Holy Spirit, not me personally. Paul is emphasizing that the Spirit dwells in the corporate body. Our individual purity still matters, and the Bible still teaches that the Spirit dwells in us personally, but this passage is actually concerned with the church community as a whole.[Paul assumes that our faith journey is bound up and rooted in a larger community of people who serve together, not individually, as God’s medium. This means the church does not exist only for us, we exist for it - each an essential part in the incarnated body of Jesus in the world]

The true significance of this is well understood by a former seminary professor of mine.  A Christian friend of his  who was not a churchgoer approached him because this friend was struggling with a particular passage in Paul's epistles.  This friend was intent on figuring out exactly what Paul was saying and what it meant for my life.  After he laid out his dilemma, my professor responded by saying, "Don't worry about it."  "What do you mean?" his friend replied.  My professor explained, "You don't have to worry about it.  It's not written to you; it was written for the church, and you're not part of a church, so you don't have to worry about it."  His friend was a bit startled.  My professor told me this man and his family joined a church soon after that conversation.

Whatever you think of my professor's tactics, the point he made is an important one.  We need to read Scripture through a lens that is not just personal but also corporate.  Instead of asking, "What does this passage say to me?"  we might ask "What does this passage call our community to become?"  When we begin to see the images in Scripture as corporate rather than individual, we can develop a more complete understanding of the true essence of the church and gain clarity on God's chosen medium.-Shane Hipps, The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture: How Media Shapes Faith, the Gospel, and Church  pp. 96-97.  Read it in context here. Note: this book was reworked as  Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith.
There the bracketed section above appears, and a different story is told  at the end. Read that here."    176-177.

And note this:

In checking this Scripture on Bible Gateway, I see that the ch 6 passage in the 1984 version of the NIV (which Hipps used) reads:

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; ²⁰ you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

But the 2011 version reads:

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; ²⁰ you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.

Compare the two in helpful parallel chart here. 

Hmm, translators.  What's up with this backsliding?   Hipps is correct that "you" is singular and "body" is plural.  It actually looks like they may have been following the interim translation, the banned TNIV.  In Shane Hipps' language, this is Windows, not Mac ecclesiology ( "Hidden Power," p 1`46ff. "The 'Mac' approach to church rethinks its theological operating system, 'PC' approach attempts to add to its theology methods that appear innovative perpetuating consumerism," as Kurt Willems helpfully summarizes) .  May be time for a translation temple tantrum.

SBL Greek New Testament includes a footnote:

¹⁹ ἢ οὐκ οἴδατε ὅτι τὸ σῶμα ὑμῶν ναὸς τοῦ ἐν ὑμῖν ἁγίου πνεύματός ἐστιν, οὗ ἔχετε ἀπὸ θεοῦ; καὶ οὐκ ἐστὲ ἑαυτῶν, ²⁰ ἠγοράσθητε γὰρ τιμῆς· δοξάσατε δὴ τὸν θεὸν ἐν τῷ σώματι ^[a]ὑμῶν.Footnotes:

1. ΠΡΟΣ ΚΟΡΙΝΘΙΟΥΣ Α΄ 6:20 ὑμῶνWH Treg NIV ] + καὶ ἐν τῷ πνεύματι ὑμῶν ἅτινά ἐστιν τοῦ θεοῦ RP  LINK

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Related

women who proclaim

I am a cheerleader for women in ministry.
I also cheer leaders who are, and are for,  women in ministry.

Yes that includes "ordained" women pastors.

Never mind (for now) that debates over whether "ordination" as we usually know it is even in the Bible (it isn't)..

...and  whether the Bible ever even suggests that the norm is each local church is lead by a pastor   (it doesn't.  For a good time, see this and this)..

I love what Jeff Dodson (mayor/pastor/prophet dude) said:
"I finally looked up 'some' [in Ephesians 4, 'God gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be  pastors and teachers'] and found that "some"  means "men and women.'"!"

So Jeff and I cheerlead for "some" women pastors. (:

(Don't ask me right now about Melissa Scott)

Some posts of mine on that issue are here and here.

Some discussion of Scriptures often used against women pastors are here .

It is tempting to fall into the trap of those on the other side of the issue, and find some prooftexts.

They are  not there.

Instead, the entire stream and narrative of Scripture affirms women in leadership as basic assumption, not as argument.

Paul mentions, in passing, Junia as "outstanding among the other apostles."
Yes, I know some debate that translation, but research it yourself;  see especially Scot McKnight's E-book, linked from  my post,"Junia's sex change:female apostles lost in translation"), and  Suzanne McCarthy's series of posts).  Tony Campolo goes as far as to say that translators intentionally mistranslated the name masculine!

The following  Scripture is also not a prooftext (partly because the context is not preaching as the NT knows it) though some will be tempted to use it that way.

It's better to add it to the mix as a surprising affirmation that is often overlooked and underappreciated 

for an interesting reason:

In some Bibles, it's not there!

Here you go:

Psalm 68:11 - New International Version:

"The Lord announces the word, and the women who proclaim it are a mighty throng"

I heard that head-scratching.

Didn't know that was in the Bible, did you?

In some Bibles, it's actually not.  It becomes something like:

"The Lord announces the word, and those [ or 'the company'] who proclaim it are a mighty throng"

In fact, in the first version of the NIV (1983) the verse said nothing about women.

But in the 2011 update;  thank God (literally), women are there.

(To follow the unnecessarily controversial changes from NIV to TNIV to NIV, see this , this , this and this.).

See where your favorite translation lands below, and ask if there may have been any bias

(Interesting, though,  that the ESV and the Holman Christian Standard Bible, two translations by a team most likely NOT in favor if women's ordination, both translate "women." It just seems the most reasonable and faithful translation):

 "company" "or "those":

 King James Version, New King James Version, Revised Standard Version, New Revised Standard Version,  New Living Translation (1st ed),  Today's NIV, and New International Version (1983

"women":

New American Standard  Version,   New Living  Translation(2nd ed), American  Standard  Version, English Standard Version,  English Revised Version , Good News Bible,  The Holy Bible: An American Translation (Beck),   Amplified Bible, Young's Literal Translation, Moffat’s translation, and God’s Word to the Nations, New Interbational Version 2011

 

Well...which is it: company" or women"

The immediate answer is "yes."

It's a both/and.

It's a fiuzzy set.

Its a "marker trick."

It could be translated either way.

But the best...and I maintain, final...answer is:

It shouldn't be translated either way,

Context and grammar (and grandpa!) make it clear that women are to be highlighted here.

One article:

         The literal rendering of Ps. 68:11 (68:12 in Hebrew): “The Lord gives the Word. The ones   

[or women] bearing the tidings are a great host [host=male].”

The translation is difficult. It all hinges on one Hebrew word, תורשבמה (hamevasroth), a feminine plural participle, thus “women” is not an inappropriate translation. But the participle is followed by the noun אבצ (tsava), which is masculine, and means “host” or “company” or “army.”

Here the best translation of the Hebrew participle itself is “the women bearing the tidings.” ..It affirms..the privilege and duty of the priesthood of all believers, including men and women, to proclaim the Good News of the Gospel and the marvelous deeds of the Lord to one another and to their neighbors. In the context of Psalm 68, this is exactly what is happening in Israel: “God shall arise, his enemies shall be scattered; and those who hate him shall flee before him!” (Ps. 68:1; ESV). It is precisely this news that the women are proclaiming. The Lord is victorious over His enemies. While the men are away with the army, the women are proclaiming the news of the victory (v. 11) and dividing the spoil (v. 12).-http://crucetectum.blogspot.com/2006/08/psalm-6811.html

But check this, an even stronger case:

As with many other languages (including Greek), Hebrew masculine plural verbs can have subjects that are exclusively male, or they may be male and female; typically, only context can tell. However, when a feminine plural is used, women are exclusively in view. Sadly, the feminine plural participle mebasarot (“to proclaim good news”) in Psalm 68:11 has often been translated in a way that obscures the gender of the ones proclaiming:  -http://www.joshhunt.com/mail446.htm

Soooo..

I would add this Scripture to the impressive catalog of Scriptures that can't be taken in isolation/eisegesis, but taken together evidence that women are meant to be included in every level of leadership.


Ever noticed that in the most conservative churches who make a big deal about "women keeping silent in church"...who teaches kids Sunday School?

Even in the broader culture, we don't have enough women leaders?

They might be making radical moves like this.or this.

Stuff we men can be too manly..or chicken to do and say.

 We wouldn't waste time asking dumb questions like  "I'm a guy. Is it wrong for me to listen to Beth Moore?" or doing some things like  demanding  "Sex At Least Once a Day"

Sigh..


Finally, for any women pastors/leaders still reading, two words:


Thank you.


And I would love to hear a few words (or far more) from you ( you can get started here).

It's long overdue.