Word for Word

The words in any given language for “word,” and their definition, gives a clue to the orientation of the culture behind the language. In English, we have only one. In biblical studies, we see the Greek offers two commonly used terms: rhema and logos. The second (logos) we are quite familiar with, as it forms a root with many of our words. It comes to us as the term for the basic intellectual grasp of an idea. It implies something which is or can be written down. The first (rhema) bears the connotation a live performance, something you are hearing right now. Thus, we think in terms of written word or spoken word.

But the Bible does not carry with it the cultural foundation for such a distinction. In the original Hebrew, there is only one term: dabar. Other Hebrew words get translated into English as “word,” but that does not change the basic and radical departure between the two cultures. The Hebrew word emphasizes spoken communication. Indeed, many have said Hebrew was not meant to be written in the first place.

There is a good fundamental reason for that. Clear and meaningful communication requires context. In Hebrew and related tongues, context is everything. There are but some 800 root words in Hebrew, and while there are combinations and conjugations, the whole point is those words are all about verbal communication as a live performance. This is what makes Hebrew Scripture so difficult at times to translate. The Hebrew people suffered a massive shift in cultural and intellectual assumptions when their scholars embraced Hellenism a few centuries before Christ. To this day, their scholars insist this was a good thing. Most Gentile scholars agree. I’m among a tiny minority who decry the shift, and decry the defense even more.

I take the position God Himself does not approve of the shift, that something in what Jesus taught reflects that. His debates with the leadership of His nation are often sensible only if you realize He calls them back to the ancient Hebrew epistemology. That intellectual foundation is the one laid by God upon which to build His revelation of Himself. Moving out of that ancient territory offers no advantage, but a severe hindrance.

In my life I’ve had many opportunities for public speaking. I’ve also written an awful lot of stuff. No one is surprised when we discover there is quite a difference in the impact between the two forms of communication, even covering the same material. Why do so many writers get asked to lecture on their writing? It’s because it makes a big difference in understanding the writing. I freely admit I am less talented in speaking; my writing is far better (however good it may be). I am not a polished speaker. Yet, I know from personal experience my spoken presentations have far more impact.

Despite the differences in various learner styles — visual, auditory, kinesthetic, etc. — the point remains we learn the most from someone personally present sharing some experience. That’s because a personal presentation strikes just about the whole range of perception, and when artfully done, is much harder to forget. But our Western cultural heritage has done all it can to destroy our ability to sit still for such a presentation.

We have been conditioned to demand high speed, high efficiency transfer of data and impressions, all of which serve to isolate us from each other. In the Hebrew culture, you do not learn facts from a presentation; you absorb the person giving it. That is, if someone wants to recount an event for which you weren’t present to witness, you don’t get the facts. You get the impression it made on the person who is telling it. You would naturally realize this and place what you received in context. You would consider the source. Not because you expect to filter them out and get at the real objective truth, because there is no such thing. Rather, you translate their impressions through your own filters and decode it into your own impression. That’s good enough. You weren’t there, and it didn’t change you, but it will change those who were there, and you have to live with them.

Reality, such as it may be perceived, is not about knowing it in the raw, but how it affects your life. You need to know, more than anything else, what to expect from your fellow humans. From them you learn something about the non-human world you experience, but you can test most of that by direct observation. People are a totally different game. There is no objective reality about people, because they, of all the creatures you encounter, are burdened with a moral responsibility.

Everything in the universe is infused with a morally guided response to the morality of our actions. This whole business of revelation from God is not about knowing some objective reality, but knowing a moral character, the personality of the Creator. Facts are just tools for choosing a moral response to the context. Thus, the Hebrew culture posits “word” as a revelation, an expression of some personal character. You can suffer some serious misunderstanding of that divine character — I know I still struggle with it — but to refuse the moral burden is wrong regardless of the facts. It won’t matter if you do what is objectively appropriate as discerned by the weight of scientific observation and testing; it remains wrong when you approach the question from the wrong angle.

We have a very long way to go, a vast territory to cross, before we are in a position to face the moral obligations inherent in the tangible universe in which we exist.