Second-class African-Americans?

Due to the title of this blog, it attracts a fair amount of visitors who are searching for racially-themed websites. While this is inadvertent, it can nonetheless lead to some interesting insights. Today, however, the White Man will take on a racial topic, with what will be, for many readers, an unexpected twist.

The White Man is an African-American.

Now, in the interests of full disclosure, let it be known that the White Man traces his ancestry back to hundreds of first-generation Americans, all of whom arrived directly or indirectly from Europe between 1620 and 1870. So he is not an African-American in the classical sense.

Neither, it appears, are millions of first generation American immigrants from Africa.

In this article, the author, himself a Minnesotan of African origin, quotes a Minnesota government official referring to AIDS-infected residents of Minnesota who originate from specific African countries as "Africans." Not "African-Americans." In another article, she differentiates between "African-American men," "African-born residents," and "young gay men" (presumably white) who are at risk for AIDS.

So, it appears that African-born African-Americans are of a different class than the others. Which is the superior class is not clear--except that when it comes to AIDS, being born in Africa is definitely considered to be a risk factor by the Minnesota Department of Health.

But how does this affect the White Man? He wasn't born in Africa.

But one does not have to be born in Africa to be considered an African. Just ask the Minnesota Department of Health.

OK, so maybe I'm not really an African-American. Just an African who was born in America.

That, and being born ex-gay, should keep me from being at risk for the AIDS virus.

Unfortunately for the Minnesota Department of Health, neither of those categories are options on their forms.

Neither do they appear to have any clue, as The White Man does, as to the real reason why AIDS is so prevalent among peoples of African origin (hint: it has nothing to do with race).

The White Man's sons and the sons of Athaliah

The White man has sons who are also brothers in the Lord and fellow seekers in the way of truth. When he offered to them the three options mentioned in his previous post, they pointed out a fourth possibility, which he offers here for his readers' consideration.

By the way, I find it interesting that an official of the Zondervan Corporation saw fit to read the aforementioned post bright and early on the very day after it hit cypberspace. For a website that typically only gets a few dozen hits a week, this is significant.

This, again, is how the NIV & TNIV have consistently rendered 2 Chronicles 24:7--

"Now the sons of that wicked woman Athaliah had broken into the temple of God and had used even its sacred objects for the Baals."

Here again is a literal gloss of the Hebrew Masoretic Text:

"For Athaliahu The-Wicked, her-sons have-breached the-house of-the-Elohim, and-also all-the-sacred-things of-the-house-of YHWH they-have-made for-Baals."

But:

"For Athaliah taught wickedly, and had broken up the house of the LORD; and also given all the dedicated things that were in the house of the LORD for the worship of the idols."

Thus reads Lamsa's translation of the Syriac Peshitta. Another version which renders the hapax mirsha'ath more as a verb rather than an appositive is the Septuagint, which reads literally:

"For Gotholia was the lawless, and the sons of her dismantled the house of the God; moreover, the sacred-things of house of Lord they offered to the Baalim."

My sons suggested that another meaning of 'son,' as found, for instance, in the phrase 'son of a house' in Gen. 15:3 and Eccl. 2:7, is simply 'servant.' Thus "the sons of Athaliah" could just as well be translated "Athaliah's henchmen." Looking at some of the more paraphrasitic versions, however, we see:

The Message
"You can see how bad things are—wicked Queen Athaliah and her sons let The Temple of God go to ruin and took all its sacred artifacts for use in Baal worship."

The New Living Translation:
"Over the years the followers of wicked Athaliah had broken into the Temple of God, and they had used all the dedicated things from the Temple of the Lord to worship the images of Baal."

Actually, I think I like this one the best. 'Followers' means 'disciples' and how better to translate the 'sons of the prophets' in the books of the Kings than 'disciples of the prophets?'

I also like the textual emendation implied in Darby's version:
"For the wicked Athaliah [and] her sons had devastated the house of God; and also all the hallowed things of the house of Jehovah had they employed for the Baals. "

One final irony:
I earlier missed the fact that an earlier publication of the Zondervan Corporation, the NIrV, had actually translated the verse the very way I suggested for the TNIV, or very close to it:

"The children of that evil woman Athaliah had broken into God's temple. They had used even its sacred objects for the gods that were named after Baal. "

Even more ironically, neither this, nor the Darby version, were any improvement on a translation done the century prior to the OKJV:

"For wicked Athaliah,& her children brake vp the house of God : and all the things that were dedicate for the house of the Lord, did thei bestowe vpon Baalím." -The Geneva Bible, 1560

In this we see the influence of the Latin version, as shown in the Douay-Rheims Bible:

"For that wicked woman Athalia, and her children have destroyed the house of God, and adorned the temple of Baal with all the things that had been dedicated in the temple of the Lord."

The TNIV and the sons of Athaliah

I had not intended to revisit the subject of the TNIV yet another time, but alas, in a study of a rather well-known story in Second Chronicles, I found myself wondering as to the true interpretation of an obscure verse and turned in desperation to the TNIV sages to see what they would advise.

I give the passage in three translations: OKJV, ONASB, and ONIV.

2 Chronicles 24:7

"For the sonnes of Athaliah that wicked woman, had broken vp the house of God, and also all the dedicate things of the house of the LORD, did they bestow vpon Baalim."

"For the sons of the wicked Athaliah had broken into the house of God and even used the holy things of the house of the LORD for the Baals."

"Now the sons of that wicked woman Athaliah had broken into the temple of God and had used even its sacred objects for the Baals."

For comparison, here is a literal gloss:

"For Athaliahu The-Wicked female, her-sons have-breached the-house of-the-Elohim, and-also all-the-sacrosant-things of-the-house-of YHWH they-have-had for-Baals."

Now in the latest revisions of these three, the NKJV, RNASB, and TNIV:

"For the sons of Athaliah, that wicked woman, had broken into the house of God, and had also presented all the dedicated things of the house of the LORD to the Baals."

"For the sons of the wicked Athaliah had broken into the house of God and even used the holy things of the house of the LORD for the Baals."

"Now the sons of that wicked woman Athaliah had broken into the temple of God and had used even its sacred objects for the Baals."

We see, first of all, that the NASB and NIV made no changes at all when they revised. This despite the fact that the NASB, famous for its literalness, had added a word to the Hebrew original--a word also inserted by the NIV, famous for its verbal looseness. Other than the NIV's insertion (along with the KJV) of 'woman' to show the feminine form of the word translated 'wicked,' the two read pretty much the same, in contrast to the KJV.

But the most perplexing thing is this: no version is any help to us in identifying these "sons of Athaliah." Earlier in 21:17 we read that all the sons and wives of King Jehoram were taken captive by a Palestinian/Arab confederacy in fulfillment of Elijah's written prophecy. In fact, 22:1 indicates that they were all killed. Only Ahaziah (TNIV) was excepted, although it is obvious from the near context that Athaliah also remained behind: one exception to each class.

Now here TNIV faces a problem. They love to translate 'brothers' as 'brothers and sisters' in the New Testament, but only once there do they ever translate 'sons' as 'sons and daughters'--in Hebrews 2:10, which they render "in bringing many sons and daughters to glory." Fact is, the phrase 'sons and daughters' already occurs dozens of places in the Bible, this being the only place as found in the TNIV where it is not an OT verse or an OT quotation in the NT. And throughout the OT, the TNIV seems very restrained in keeping the mentions of 'daughters' down to where they are actually found in the Hebrew. Even more to our point, in three other places in 2 Chronicles, 'sons and daughters' are specifically mentioned as being taken captive. So it was clear, even to the gender-equality-minded editors of the TNIV, that only sons were being originally referenced in 21:17.

But how about in 24:7? Is there any indication that it was only Athaliah's sons, and not her daughters, who looted the temple? Might not she have had some daughters as equally wicked as she, equally as zealous for Baal? And might she have spared these girls, that they might carry on her dynasty, when she killed all her surviving male descendants?

The Bible, in whatever version we might choose, is not clear. It says that Athaliah killed all the royal heirs--but later specifies that she killed the sons of the king--Joash, of course, being inadvertently excepted. So given the exceptions we've seen so far in this story, it's quite possible that she saved out one or even all of her unmarried daughters, they (and their future descendants) not being legal heirs of the king, and her married daughters being no longer under her control.

On far flimsier grounds than we have here, the TNIV has changed 'Men, brethren' to 'Brothers and Sisters' in Acts 1:16. So why does it not read 'the sons and daughters of that wicked woman Athaliah' in 2 Chronicles 24:7?

As for what actually happened, there are only three possibilities (if we accept the Word as written):

1) Ahaziah and at least one of his sons looted the temple;
2) Ahaziah and at least one of his sisters looted the temple, subsequent to the deportation and murder of all their brothers;
3) Prior to the Palestinian/Arab confederacy looting the temple, it was looted by the sons (and, we suppose, possibly the daughters) of Jehoram and his head wife Athaliah. This is the only possibility where 'sons and daughters' could be a historically accurate translation.

Option (3), however, turns out to be the least likely solution historically. Why would the Chronicler even mention the degradation of the temple unless it were a recent event, carried out since the reign of Jehoram?

Option (2), while in keeping with TNIV translation policy, still seemed so unlikely that the TNIV editors rejected it.

So we are left with Option (1). How likely is this possibility? Well, let's look at some numbers.

Jehoram was 32 when he began to reign, and he killed off all his brothers to make his dynasty sure (a rather unnecessary step, given the Davidic covenant). Ahaziah, his youngest and only surviving son, was 22 eight years later (according to the versional manuscripts followed by the TNIV), which was the year his son Joash was born. So Joash was born about the time his father was 22 and his grandfather 40. Thus if any desecration of the temple by Ahaziah and any of his sons was to have occurred, those sons must have been mere toddlers; six years old at the absolute maximum. I think we can also dismiss this option on historical grounds.

Yikes--three unlikely options. I have to say at this point that the only one I can't dismiss on historical grounds is the very option the TNIV should have been most eager to pick. Let's go back and look at it again, from the same historical perspective.

When Jehoahaz was 38, following the deportation of all wives and sons save one each, he became sick in the bowels. During this time of incapacity, it's likely that his feminist wife exerted her authority more and more, in anticipation that she may somehow be able to seize the reins of power after his death. Trashing out the temple with the kids she still had living at home fits this scenario very well; perhaps this was a part of grooming a daughter to follow her on the throne, and Azariah, totally oblivious to the plans his mother may have already had to murder his sons, joined in the fun.

For this scenario to be possible, the Confederation must have left behind at least one daughter of Athaliah--although, given the nature of secular warfare, they would have surely raped them first. In the grim aftermath of this raid, with his father writhing in agony and his brothers all dead, Ahaziah joined his mother and surviving full sisters in completing the looting the Confederacy had begun, so as to leave the temple desolate by the time he died only a year after his father. There it sat, gutted, until his only surviving son Joash began the restoration process some thirty years later.

This is the only likely scenario, and it involves both genders of Athaliah's offspring.

To conclude: In 2 chronicles 24:7, I am forced by historical reality to recommend that the TNIV follow its usual gender despecification plan and render 'sons' as, at the very least, 'offspring.'

"Now the offspring of that wicked woman Athaliah had broken into the temple of God and had used even its sacred objects for the Baals."

Remember the 2000 Election?

For your reading entertainment, here are some hit songs from the 2000 election:


THE PALM BEACH POKEY

You put your stylus in,
You pull your stylus out,
You put your stylus in,
And you punch Buchanan out.
You do the Palm Beach Pokey
And you turn the count around,
That's what it's all about!

You put the Gore votes in,
You pull the Bush votes out,
You put the Gore votes in,
And you do another count.
You do the Palm Beach Pokey
And you turn the count around,
That's what it's all about!

You bring your lawyers in,
You drag the whole thing out,
You bring your lawyers in,
And you put it all in doubt.
You do the Palm Beach Pokey
And you turn the count around,
That's what it's all about!

You let your doctors spin,
You let the pundits spout,
You let your doctors spin,
And your people whine and pout.
You do the Palm Beach Pokey
And you turn the count around,
That's what it's all about!

You do the Palm Beach Pokey,
You do the Palm Beach Pokey,
You do the Palm Beach Pokey,
That's what it's all about!

Charlie Henrickson, copyright 2000


HOW THE GORE-INCH STOLE FLORIDA

Can we count them with our nose?
Can we count them with our toes?
Should we count them where we stand?
Should we count them all by hand?
If I do not like the count,
I will simply throw it out!
I will not let this vote count stand
I don't like it, AL GORE I am!

Can we change these numbers here?
Can we change them, calm my fear?
What do you mean that Bush has won?
This is not fair, this is not fun!
Let's count them upside down this time
Let's count until the state is mine!
I will not let this vote count stand!
I don't like it, AL GORE I am!

I'm really ticked, I'm in a snit!
You have not heard the last of it!
I'll count the ballots one by one
And hold each one up to the sun!
I'll count, recount, and count some more!
You'll grow to hate this little chore
But I won't, can't let this vote count stand!
I don't like it, AL GORE I am!

I won't leave town, I'm staying here!
I've glued my desk chair to my rear!
Tipper, Hillary, Bubba too,
All telling me that I should sue!
We find th'Electoral College vile!
Recount the votes until I smile!
We do not want this vote to stand!
I don't like it, AL GORE I am!

How shall we count this ballot box?
Let's count it standing in our socks!
Shall we count this one in a tree?
And who shall count it, you or me?
We cannot, cannot count enough!
We must not stop, we must be tough!
I do not want this vote to stand!
I don't like it, AL GORE I am!

What's that? What are you trying to say?
You think the current count should stay?
You do not like my counting schemes?
They make you tense, give you bad dreams?
Foolish folk, you're wrong--you'll see!
Your only care should be for me!
I will not let this vote count stand!
I don't like it, AL GORE I am!

--Anonymous, revised 2008

STILL UNPRESIDENTED

Chorus: Tell me Dan Rather, I've wanted to know
Ever since my vote was sent.
I voted for Bush, 3 minutes ago, and I still don't know who's President.

Tell me Dan Rather, I want to know,
If you don't, then I'll go ask my Dad.
I know about birds, and I know about bees,
But WHAT is a "pregnant chad?"

Chorus: Tell me Dan Rather, I've wanted to know
Ever since my vote was sent.
I voted for Bush, 3 whole hours ago, and I still don't know who's President.

The Army, the Navy, the Air Force, Marines,
All voted a new Chief to Hail.
But none of their votes could be counted at all
If they sent them by Armed Forces Mail.

Chorus: Tell me Dan Rather, I've wanted to know
Ever since my vote was sent.
I voted for Bush, 3 long days ago, and I still don't know who's President.

With the way that things just keep on getting dragged out,
I'm Bushed, and increasingly bored.
But in this election, there's been so much bull,
I'm afraid that we all will get Gored!

Chorus: Tell me Dan Rather, I've wanted to know
Ever since my vote was sent.
I voted for Bush, a whole 3 weeks ago, and I still don't know who's President!

--W. Landow, copyright 2000

They're sending tanks after our children!

In a nation that increasingly finds guns and their use to be generically disturbing--the same nation where a future Supreme Court Chief Justice brought a loaded rifle to school every day in case he saw something to shoot along the way--I find it generically alarming that bigger and bigger weapons are being brought to bear in child custody disputes. Check out this photo of an armoured personnel carrier sent to enforce the removal of all the children from the Yearning for Zion Ranch near San Angelo, Texas.

The children and their mothers have been in custody for eleven days. Their crime? Residing at the same address where child abuse had been alleged to occur. This is a repeat of what happened in Island Pond, Vermont, back in 1982 when 112 children were taken in a pre-dawn raid from the community known as the Northeast Kingdom Community Church. Only back then, there were no tanks. No machine guns. No hovering helicopters. And the children were back in their parents' arms within the day, the judge finding no cause for their removal. An official was overheard to say that if he'd known Judge Mahady was going to hear their case, he'd never have scheduled the raid when he did.

They certainly had all their ducks in a row this time.

How times have changed.