geoff@pmafire.UUCP (Geoff Allen) (10/05/89)
In article <Oct.2.20.13.39.1989.10381@athos.rutgers.edu> bnr-fos!bmers58!davem@watmath.waterloo.edu (Dave Mielke) writes: > >This is regarding 1 Corinthians 7:1 which says "Now concerning the >things whereof ye wrote unto me: {It is} good for a man not to touch a >woman.". > >I believe that He is telling us ... that it is good >for a man not to touch any woman at all unless she is his wife. >... The NIV's it is good >for a man not to marry is not only unScriptural, after all God Himself >caused Adam to marry, but also entirely removes the principle that this >verse declares. But what about the rest of I Cor. 7? Let's not forget the context. Paul explicitly states several times that he believes that it *is* good for a man not to marry. (cf. 7:7,8,17,20,26,32-35) He also says that it is good to marry. The point is that you should do whichever God has called you to do. >One who guided his life by the NIV's version of this >piece of divine advice would easily convince himself that things like >extra-marital dancing and even fondling are acceptable before God. I don't see how this follows at all. If you follow the NIV's translation, then you'd believe that it is good for a man not to marry -- that's all. There are plenty of other verses in the Bible that tell us not to fondle someone else's wife. Again, let's keep it in Biblical context. I don't think anyone who does that will come up with your interpretation of the NIV's wording. >God, >on the other hand, wants us to know that the only place for any form of >intimacy between a man and a woman, and the only place for even those >things which may tempt one toward such intimacy, i.e. physical contact, >is only within the marriage relationship itself. Absolutely, but I don't think that I Cor. 7:1 is the place to prove it. One final note: The dictionary in the back of my Greek New Testament (UBS Third Edition), says that `hapto,' the word in question, ^=omega means `touch' (among other things). However, it also says that `gunaikos me haptesthai' (the wording in I Cor. 7:1) means `not to ^=eta marry.' I'm not a Greek scholar, nor do I claim to be, so I can't vouch for the trustworthiness of the definition the UBS gives. But I do find it interesting in light of this little `controversy.' Are we dealing with a Greek idiom here? -- Geoff Allen \ Since we live by the Spirit, {uunet,bigtex}!pmafire!geoff \ let us keep in step with the Spirit. ucdavis!egg-id!pmafire!geoff \ -- Gal. 5:25 (NIV) p.s. Is there an accepted way to transliterate Greek into ASCII? Most of the letters are easy (e.g. alpha=`a' beta=`b' gamma=`g' etc.), but what about letters like omega & eta, since `o' makes more sense for omicron and `e' makes more sense for epsilon? [Note that this is a dictionary intended specifically for use with the NT. I'd be willing to bet that that note was put there specifically to help people interpret this passage. Not that this means it is valueless. But there is a scholarly disagreement on the meaning of this Greek phrase. Unless something has been recently discovered that settles it once and for all, I'd be reluctant to take that dictionary entry as a final answer. (If there were such a final solution, you'd think that one of the commentaries I checked would say something about it.) --clh]
davem@watmath.waterloo.edu (Dave Mielke) (10/08/89)
[I have appended together two postings from Dave on the same subject. --clh] In article <Oct.4.23.36.14.1989.3780@athos.rutgers.edu> geoff@pmafire.UUCP (Geoff Allen) writes: >-- ... There are plenty of other verses in the Bible that tell >us not to fondle someone else's wife. Again, let's keep it in Biblical >context. I don't think anyone who does that will come up with your >interpretation of the NIV's wording. Please permit me to clarify myself even further. I believe this passage is telling a man that it is good for him not to touch any woman whatsoever if she is not his wife. This would include not only physical contact with someone else's wife, but also physical contact with any other woman whom we are not married to. It would even include our present girlfriends, fiances, etc. To water this meaning out of the verse is doing a major injustice to God's teachings. Before immediately jumping to the conclusion that I am wrong, be sure that your reasoning is not being obscured by either your own desires or the social norms of this present evil world. It is God, and not they, whom we must obey. The watering down of God's actual intentions is a major tool of Satan which many fall for. In article <Oct.4.23.17.09.1989.3679@athos.rutgers.edu> hall@vice.ico.tek.com (Hal Lillywhite) writes: >I think we should pay more attention to something the moderator >mentioned about this verse, namely the first phrase "Now concerning >the things whereof you wrote unto me..." > >We have the interesting situation here that we have Paul's response >to something the Corinthians wrote to him - that is we have the >answer but we don't have the question. One question (which the >moderator mentioned) is: Is the second phrase (It is good for a man >not to touch a woman) part of the question, or part of Paul's >response? I'm inclined to believe it is part of the question but I >would not be surprised if I were proven wrong. I would suggest that 1 Corinthians 7:2 completely clarifies 1 Corinthians 7:1. Taken together, they say "Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: {It is} good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, {to avoid} fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.". The fact that verse 2 starts with the word "nevertheless" means that the statement that it is good for a man not to touch a woman is part of the answer. The fact that the solution to the problem, i.e. "to avoid fornication", is to marry. This indicates that he is discussing the relationship between two people who are eligible to marry one another. It is, therefore, not discussing either a married man or a married woman. If I am unmarried then it is not acceptable before God for me to touch any woman, even one who is unmarried, and even one whom I wish to have more intimate relations with and who desires the same of me. If I am married then the only woman whom I may touch is my own wife. Let us not permit our sinful physical desires contort God's commandments. Dave Mielke, 613-726-0014 856 Grenon Avenue Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K2B 6G3 [I am posting these as is, because attempts to reach Dave asking for a minor revision kept bouncing at an intermediate site. However in the future, I'd appreciate it if authors would avoid the implication that people with which they disagree are doing so because of a desire to continue sinning. --clh]
davem@watmath.waterloo.edu (Dave Mielke) (10/11/89)
In article <Oct.7.19.23.07.1989.27548@athos.rutgers.edu> bnr-fos!bmers58!davem@watmath.waterloo.edu (Dave Mielke) writes: (actually our moderator thoughtfully appended) >[I am posting these as is, because attempts to reach Dave asking for a >minor revision kept bouncing at an intermediate site. However in the >future, I'd appreciate it if authors would avoid the implication that >people with which they disagree are doing so because of a desire to >continue sinning. --clh] You are, of course, quite correct. That does look like what I was inplying, but it is really not what I meant. I intentionally made these accusations in the first person in an attempt to show that it is a weakness that we are all guilty of. We are all equally subject to the drawing power of not only all the sinful temptations which we are surrounded by in this world but also by our own sinful, fleshly desires. Watering down of the full force of the teachings that are contained in the Scriptures due to our tendancy to want to justify what we are doing need not be a conscious effort; we may be doing it at a more difficult to detect level in our thought processes. I am including myself in the list of those to whom these accusations apply. It is a fact of life in this world that we had better all be on guard against. If anyone notices me ever falling prey to this flaw then I would urge him to let me know. I am hereby giving our moderator permission to post such things at any time if they are accusations of any declaration that I have made pertaining to the Word of God because truth must prevail. I would rather be corrected then continue declaring something that is untruthful. I thank you all in advance for any such corrections. I also apologize for any incorrect inferrences that my rather forceful statement may have caused. Dave Mielke, 613-726-0014 856 Grenon Avenue Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K2B 6G3
geoff@pmafire.UUCP (Geoff Allen) (10/13/89)
I'm posting in reference to the `controversy' over I Corinthians 7:1. Specifically, the question concerns how it should be translated. I'm still trying to understand Dave Miekle's objection to the NIV translation "it is good for a man not to marry." He seems to believe that this translation is watering down God's truth and will leave us worse off at fighting our physical temptations. (Correct me if I'm wrong, Dave.) I'll preface my comments by saying that I'm not a Greek scholar, so I don't really have the ability to comment on whether the NIV's translation is `correct.' This issue seems to me to go beyond `which translation is right.' I don't consider any translation to be definitive. I do not claim that the NIV is even necessarily correct in its translation of this verse. It's definitely in the minority. I'm just trying to understand Dave's objection to this translation. In article <Oct.11.04.48.38.1989.15625@athos.rutgers.edu> bnr-fos!bmers58!davem@watmath.waterloo.edu (Dave Mielke) writes: > >We are all equally subject to the >drawing power of not only all the sinful temptations which we are >surrounded by in this world but also by our own sinful, fleshly >desires. Watering down of the full force of the teachings that are >contained in the Scriptures due to our tendancy to want to justify what >we are doing need not be a conscious effort; I really don't understand what you're getting at. Do you mean that if I accept the NIV's translation of I Cor 7:1, that I am somehow more likely to fall into adultery? This really makes no sense. If I look elsewhere in the Bible, I see that Jesus says that I'm sinning if I even look lustfully and a woman who's not my wife (Matt. 5:28). This is *much* more restrictive than your interpretation of the traditional translation of I Cor. 7:1. God is most concerned with my attitude. Whether I touch or not is not as important as my attitude. (Of course, if I'm off doing things with other women that I should only do with my wife, my attitude is certainly in need of adjustment.) I could never touch another woman for the rest of my life and still be an adulterer. Basically, I don't see the point in arguing over I Cor. 7:1, when we have Matt 5:28, which is both more straightforward and more restrictive. -- Geoff Allen \ Since we live by the Spirit, {uunet,bigtex}!pmafire!geoff \ let us keep in step with the Spirit. ucdavis!egg-id!pmafire!geoff \ -- Gal. 5:25 (NIV)
davem@watmath.waterloo.edu (Dave Mielke) (10/16/89)
In article <Oct.13.03.00.42.1989.27188@athos.rutgers.edu> geoff@pmafire.UUCP (Geoff Allen) writes: >Basically, I don't see the point in arguing over I Cor. 7:1, when we >have Matt 5:28, which is both more straightforward and more restrictive. Your reply illustrates that I suspect I have still not been understood correctly. I'll try once more. 1 Corinthians 7:1 is the clearest passage in the Bible with respect to acceptable conduct between a man and a woman who are not married. Other similar passages do not clearly indicate that they also refer to two unmarried people. People in modern cultures, even those who fervently proffess Christianity, tend to involve themselves in extremely erotically stimulating behaviour with those whom they are either dating or engaed to. I am well aware that there are many other passages in the Bible which state that this ought not to be done, however this particular Scripture is the clearest. It categorically states that there ought not to be so much as even the slightest degree of touching between unmarried people. This standard of premarital conduct is sadly lacking in our world today. Translations like that used in the NIV even remove it from the Scriptures. We must remember why this particular discussion began in the first place. I had raised this verse as an example of why we ought to use the most reliable translation that we can find. The NIV translators apparently traded away a word-for-word translation in favour of trying to help us understand what God meant. In doing so they have lost many difficult to see yet extremely important messages from Him. This is because they would only have included those messages which they could see. They either forgot that the Scriptures are a revealed truth or assumed that God had revealed all of it to them. Readers of translations such as the NIV, which did not adhere as strictly as possible to a word-for-word translation, must realize that the verses they are reading are tainted with a higher degree of man's sinful nature than would otherwise be the case. Surely an all knowledgeable and all wise God does not need us sinful human beings to clarify what He says. Surely His Holy Spirit does not require the rephrasing of His Words by us sinful human beings in order to bring people to salvation. We ought to leave His Word in tact and just simply trust that He will bring its full power to bear on whomsoever He pleases. Any attempt to change His Words makes them become the words of men and cease being the Word of God. 2 Peter 1:20 warns "Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.". Dave Mielke, 613-726-0014 856 Grenon Avenue Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K2B 6G3