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Monday, 09 November 2009
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where i've been
Hello world...
I really don't have time or energy for xanga anymore. I don't have time or energy for my little boy or husband anymore. I am worn down with this double pregnancy and sam being sick for a month off and on and a teething 11 month old and getting a double bacterial infection that landed me in the ER and trying to keep up with random responsibilities and get ready for babies. BabieS. Yikes.
If you haven't had twins it is nearly impossible to explain how draining this is. Pregnancy is a good start, but with twins it really IS twice as hard, twice as painful and twice as irritating.
I am only up this late because I got randomly hungry, which is a good thing. I've been sick and losing weight. And now I am done with my soupa avgolemeno and I am going to bed. I don't even have energy to blog more than this or reply to facebook messages.
Really looking forward to about 8 weeks from now when the kids will be about 6 weeks old....
Friday, 16 October 2009
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out. of. it.
Hello xanga world...
I have been extremely out of it for the past three-ish weeks. For starters I have been sick for three weeks with a nasty flu-ish-cold-ish thing that I never went to the dr. for so I have no idea what it was. :P I am still coughing but feeling much better. I am back to my normal pregnancy self, as evidenced by the fact that I am up at 1:30am.
Can i just say i have the best husband in the world? Even if he makes me cry when he forces me to relax and not do the dishes or the laundry or move heavy objects. Yeah, I just can't sit still. I am normally pretty anally organized (or want to be!) and it gets worse when I am nesting. And nesting is worse with two. UGH!
At least I have been feeling better (read: more energy, less nerve pain so I can actually walk, less rib pain, less back pain etc) as far as the pregnancy goes. That's a good thing because I have probably SIX STINKIN WEEKS LEFT.
I've been busy worrying my husband that I'm a heretic, trying to keep up with friends even when I am basically in isolation, attempting to still play with Jericho, working hard core on student missions stuff and trying to keep life in general plus two dr appointments a week organized. Ugh. I'm so out of it I forgot I'm supposed to schedule Rico with a cardiologist for his heart murmur-thingy.
Yeah, I have a baby with a peripheral heart murmur who just MAY have had h1n1 when we were all sick and I didn't take him to the dr. Send social services after me. The poor kid got well in a couple days and was happy and content and never had a problem - he handled everything way better than I did. :)
Speaking of my baby... I'm pretty sure he says Hi now and waves. He RUNS everywhere all over the house and gets into everything. Good thing we are really relaxed about that stuff. We only have to keep him away from a few cupboards and the water cooler. :P I could seriously not have a better, happier kid. He just motors around, talking to himself, reading books and playing with his toys and watching the occasional baby einstein or tv show with me. That's the only time he slows down enough to snuggle, and I like it.
I'm supposed to lead Seminettes study time in a couple weeks. We're reading Having a Mary Heart in a Martha world. I'm so not qualified. So I'm guessing this will go a lot like it usually goes when I say something at seminettes. I say something personable and just admit that I fail and everyone looks down uncomfortably and there is general annoyed and ashamed silence.... and then someone changes the subject. :P Last time I almost said... "That's like sex! Sometimes you don't want to do it at first, but afterwards you're definitely glad you did..."
Yeah. That would've been the wrong thing to say in a room full of future and current pastor's wives... :P
And I have to say that God is amazing. He is really taking care of us in dozens of little ways and even more big ways. I swear that I couldn't imagine how on earth we were going to make it through this time emotionally, physically, spiritually and financially. God is providing in every way. I love watching it happen, although sometimes I have trust issues. It's not easy - trying to live on a $15/week grocery budget isn't my favorite thing. Knowing that I can NOT buy a single thing for my twins is tough sometimes, especially when people ask "Are you buying cribs? What are you doing with the nursery?" I am sooo grateful for people who have given clothes and cribs and bedding and blankets and boppys and carseats and snowsuits and hats and so much else.
And it's soooo tough for me emotionally to accept help. I'm so grateful and appreciative of everyone who has offered to give of their time and energy and bring us food and help watch Jericho and... wow. I just want to do everything myself! :P
Yeah, definitely not qualified to lead the Mary/Martha study. But whatever.
That is my life right now I guess. Random and busy and I'm exhausted. But God is good and He is working in me, helping me learn to trust..
Not sure I like it. :)
Sunday, 04 October 2009
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Inerrant and infallible - the translation issue... :)
Like I said in my last post, I used to think anyone who doubted that every single word in the Bible had been translated accurately (by anyone I mean any christian) was a heretic. I mean, c'mon, God is big enough to make the Bible exactly accurate, right?
That's true. He could, if He wanted to.
But somehow I think that He didn't. Do I believe that the original texts (of which we have none) were word for word what God wanted written down? Sure. Why not? No one sees them, no one knows for sure... but why not?
Some people have ventured to say that if we HAD the original texts there would be problems with people making idols out of them and worshipping the "ORIGINAL TEXTS" instead of worshiping God. I can see that. Some people worship the Bible the way it is now. Some people worship certain versions. Some people put more emphasis on what the Bible says than on Jesus, or the way He lived or... fill in the blank.
Anyway, since we're heading to the mission field (of sorts...) we have a ton of friends who are/will be missionaries and many who are working in translation. Ohhh translation.
Here are two common problems that are argued over and over again.
When Jesus says "I am the bread of life..." do you just leave the passage as it is if the people you are translating for NEVER eat bread? Do you change it to rice, or something else appropriate? The word bread would be meaningless to them, and yet if you change the Word of God, is it not the Word anymore? Is every other word except "rice" then inspired? How far is too far?
Jesus said "I am the Good Shepherd... blah blah blah sheep." what do you do in a culture that may have never or rarely ever heard of sheep? Maybe they raise pigs. Do you just insert PIG where sheep used to be and Jesus now says "I am the good pig-herder?" Don't laugh. :) It's serious. :) Well, this one is a little more serious anyway, because of the picture of us as SHEEP. Pigs are smart animals, resourceful and do well on their own. Part of the point of this being about sheep (I believe, anyway) is that sheep are dumb. They follow each other around til they die. They can't live without a shepherd. Soooo do you end up having to explain sheep to every person in this culture? Or do you just go with pig or something else comparable?
I used to assume that when translators translated the Bible they just found the closest word and voila! Boom, it was done. There is so much more to it than that. Even if they go back to the "original" greek and "original" hebrew (which, let me recap, is not from any "original" documents at all) they still have to deal with trying to fit a book full of cultural references into another culture. Those issues haven't just started, either - they have been going on since the very first translation.
In conclusion... I'm not trying to say that the Bible is a book FULL of errors and we need to disregard everything that it says. I'm not saying that the main message of the Bible is an any way negated by a few (or more) translational or cultural or whatever errors or misinterpretations. I'm not even saying that what the Bible says to be true is negated by the totally fallible and error filled way we (as a fallible and error filled people) tend to use it and apply it and read it.
There are plenty of christians, though, who get up on some crazy high about some obscure passage of scripture and insist that everyone who is a reallly trulllly honest-to-goodness christian had better obey OR ELSE they aren't one...
This needs to be something that is, at the very least, considered.
God is all powerful. Man is totally fallible. And God's Book? A few man-made errors don't make it any less of God's book. I think they just remind us not to take OURSELVES so seriously and not to take our own interpretations of scripture as... well... scripture.
Monday, 28 September 2009
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inerrant and infallible 1.5 ...
I got SUCH great comments on my last post that I want to write more about this... but right now even more than that I want to complain about how awful it is being pregnant with twins AND sick. With paperwork from the insurance company, projects for Seminettes (don't laugh!) and Student Missions due and an unbelievable amount of housework that I am just. too. tired. to. think. about.
But, honestly, I don't even have energy to really complain either.
So. I have read all the comments and I will respond. Eventually. :)
Sunday, 27 September 2009
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inerrant and infallible
Today my husband disabused me of something that I had grown up believing was one of the tenets of the church affiliation I attended.
I had seen so many times my pastor holding up his english (NIV, NASB, NKJ, whatever) bible and proclaiming loudly and earnestly that every word in it was true, every bit of it was accurate and - the refrain went - inerrant and infallible and some other i word that I just can't remember.
No one in my young life thought to explain that to me any further than "it is God's word and every word has been preserved and translated correctly for the past 2,000 years." That was, I firmly believed until today, something that everyone I knew believed and something that was taught by my church.
In the past year or so, Sam has been learning Greek and has just started Hebrew. In his greek studies he is finding that there are an insane amount of random things to learn. One group of words is even called "The amorphous group of words that are in a different category than the 34 (or so) preceding this one." Basically the things he learns is "This word means... fill in the blank with three random or related words." Next he learns "This word can have only THIS ending... UNLESS it has another ending." After that, the rules just get more and more complex, nebulous and... well... amorphous.
Every time we talk about greek or I help him with his homework I get more and more frustrated. I'm thinking WHY on earth have I been told my whole life that every word has been translated accurately? I'm sorry, but there is JUST NO WAY TO KNOW THAT. People are human. When there are three different words that mean six of the same words with a few extra words thrown in.... OH! Of course that must mean... fill in the blank.
Oh, and Hebrew? The MORE poetic of the languages? Even. Worse.
Then I started thinking about the "inerrancy and infallibility" of the Bible and I wondered how that worked with every group who disagreed claiming that their Bible was the one inerrant and it said *insert "proof" for controversial belief here.*
So now not only are the inerrant and infallible crowd claiming that the Bible was never ever mistranslated once - not one word - but they are also claiming THEIR OWN infallibility and inerrancy in the reading and interpreting of scripture!
So today in frustration at this crap I've been told forever by seemingly everyone, I asked Sam what on earth they teach in seminary about it.
Apparently, this thing everyone has been telling me isn't even the official stance. Apparently they go more along the lines of "When God first breathed His word into and through men it was without error and blah blah blah blah blah."
Oh.
Okay.
I don't understand why that was never explained to me? Was it just because I had other things on my mind and didn't really care? I'm still working out what I think about this new revelation of what they are teaching my man in seminary...
But I am sure of one thing: This. Needs. To. Be. Explained. Better.
Or even once in a while.
rachelserine
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- Name: rachel
- Birthday: 9/3/1985
- Gender: Female
- Member Since: 7/7/2004
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