Jeremy Thompson Catholic PhD in Biblical Languages, Programmer, Runner

Here is a sermon I preached at the First Presbyterian Church in Hammond back around March.  There is a bit of a gaff because I didn’t really know the order of service for a Presbyterian Church very well.  I’ll do better next time though:

Sermon 03/20

We’ve all heard about Jospeh’s coat of many colors, right?  Well, it looks like you may need to throw that fond childhood memory out.  Today’s lectionary reading is from Genesis 37.  Here are a few translations in comparison with regard to “Joseph’s coat of many colors” (translation comparisons on this site are done in BibleWorks 8 using Parallels):

Israel loved Joseph best of all his sons, for he was the child of his old age; and he had made him a long tunic. (Gen 37:3 NAB)

Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons, because he was the son of his old age; and he made him a varicolored tunic. (Gen 37:3 NASB)

Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons because he was a son born to him late in life, and he made a special tunic for him. (Gen 37:3 NET)

Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other children because Joseph had been born to him in his old age. So one day Jacob had a special gift made for Joseph– a beautiful robe. (Gen 37:3 NLT)

Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he had made him a long robe with sleeves. (Gen 37:3 NRS)

I don’t know a lot about this particular translation issue, nor do I think it makes enough difference to me in terms of overall understanding to go search out an answer.  I just wanted to tear away from you your childhood belief in Joseph’s coat of many colors.  At any rate, it seems like translators simply do not know what this word translated “long,” “varicolored,” “special,” or “beautiful” actually means.  In fact, the Lexham interlinear (LOGOS – for which my supervising professor is the editor) simply lists the word as “uncertain meaning.”  Lexicons seem to lean toward “long.”

So, are you going to still teach children about Joseph’s coat of many colors?  Probably.  But, just know inwardly that you may be lying to children ;-).

I’ve been reading The Art of Strategy by Dixit and Nalebuff mainly because I have a side interest in Game Theory.  I just think it’s fascinating, especially some of the examples from the field of study.  Anyway, I’m reading along and then they discuss in a very short manner Genesis 2.  The context  is a discussion of the concept of threat making.  Their understanding of Genesis 2 is very oversimplified, but it’s interesting to see how people in the popular arena deal with passages from the Bible.  Their overall conclusion is (obviously applied to Game Theory) that in Genesis 2 God fails to make a credible threat.  The threat would have been “too costly” for him to follow through on (nevermind the fact that this is a story).

If you want to check out what they say, you can read the section in question for free over at Google Books.  It’s on pages 201 & 202.

Related:

Brooke Lester on Genesis 1:1

Murray Newman – Free Introduction to Genesis

Free Book on Genesis by Gary Rendsburg

Long weekends have slowed down my blogging a bit over the last couple of weeks.  But, I’m going to get a couple of posts out today (I hope).  First, I wanted to point my readers to a helpful post by Brooke Lester on Genesis 1:1.  He deals with one of the important translation issues that one finds there, which I have previously used to discuss the importance of those readers who do not know Hebrew comparing translations.  Check out what Brooke has to say.

Related:

Genesis 1.1 and the Importance of Comparing Translations

Psalm 1.1 – Translation Comparison

Isaiah 41 – An Interesting Translation Issue

An Ancient of Days or The Ancient of Days: Does it Really Matter?

I recently posted about Mark Smith’s book Memoirs of God, and in the relation to that post, Jim West recommended that I read Smith’s newest offering The Priestly Vision of Genesis 1.  I have not had time to tackle that text yet, but Joseph Kelly gives a fairly thorough review of it HERE.  Check it out if you’re interested.  I plan to read the book, but it probably will not be until at least after the first of next year.

Victor Hamilton’s commentary on Genesis is in two volumes and is in the NICOT (New International Commentary on the Old Testament) series.  One of my favorite things about this series is the easy to use sections text critical notes, though those are not generally available as a part of this free limited preview.  Hamilton’s volume on Genesis 1-17 contains much introductory information for the book as a whole.  The introductory section of this commentary is available for free from Google Books – HERE.

Westermann’s three volume commentary on Genesis is one of the best that I have ever used personally, though I have had to do so through libraries.  Google Books has the introductions to two of these commentaries for free in limited preview.  It is only for the first two volumes, but the introductions are fairly extensive.  Read the introductions HERE (Genesis 1-11) and HERE (Genesis 12-36).

Franz Delitzsch’s commentary on Genesis is out of copyright and has been put online for free at Archive.org.  There is a lot of good stuff on this site, but there is also a lot to weed through.  Delitzsch’s commentary on Genesis is in two volumes with Volume 1 HERE and Volume 2 HERE.  This will be one of the better free commentaries on Genesis that you can download as a whole.

HERE is a link to Von Rad’s commentary on Genesis at Google Books.  The commentary is in the Old Testament library series.  The entire introduction of the commentary is available in the limited preview format.  The entire commentary is not available, but the introduction might be valuable to you either for personal use or to decide whether or not to purchase the text.

HERE is a link to a free copy of the Creation story from the Bible Experience audio Bible.  The Bible Experience has a cast of celebrity readers and is currently one of the best selling audio Bibles available.  It is made available through Audible.com.