From: Jim West (jwest@highland.net)
Date: Wed Dec 01 1999 - 14:08:33 EST
At 01:03 PM 12/1/99 -0500, you wrote:
> The reason I'm interested in GENNAW just now is because 1 Clement
>quotes Ps. 2:7 (or, at least, quotes the quotation of Ps. 2:7 in Heb. 1).
>Why *not* translate it: "You are my son, today I have given you birth"?
>Is it only because we know that God is a man instead of a woman, and so
>can't give birth? Seems like the logic of that could be pushed in lots of
>directions (e.g., the pressure points: "know," "man," "and so"). But are
>there other reasons?
i dont think it has anything to do with gender (since God, male or female or
neuter, doesn't really father, give birth, or anything of the sort). It is
a metaphor. For folk to understand what Clement (and Hebrews, and Ps) mean
we have to use terminology with which they are familiar. Begat is old and
senseless for most. "Mothered" would be silly. "Fathered" is clear,
concise, to the point, and easily understood. "Generated" sounds like a
bloody science fiction story. There is, in short, nothing wrong with the
dread politically incorrect terminology of patriarchal society- because
people understand it!
Jim
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Jim West, ThD
jwest@highland.net
http://web.infoave.net/~jwest
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