Comma-tary Vol. 2: Proof-punct

Confession:  I came into this world burdened with an abiding concern for the comma.         

In college, I read a newspaper article critiquing the campus dating scene.  I agreed with the student’s assessment when she quoted the apostle Paul: 

“We would not have you, ignorant brethren.”   

It was clever, that shift of comma. 

The translation of this Bible verse usually places the comma after ignorant.  The King James version of I Thessalonians 4:13 reads, “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep…”   The student journalist had tidied the awkward usage of infinitive, as well. 

In required Essential Christianity courses, students at my school learned about the perils of proof-text, the practice of ripping portions of Bible verses out of context in order to support a particular point. 

Here, the author had engaged in an ironic bit of proof-punctuation.  I realized this was actually a fair move, and very funny, though it might not hold up to close academic scrutiny. 

Earliest New Testament manuscripts were copied with scriptuo continua, with letters run together.  No spaces to separate letters or words.  No capitals, no punctuation.   Bart Ehrman illustrates this with godisnowhere.  This could read “God is now here” or “God is no where.”  Which?

Spaces, commas, periods, paragraphs.  All Bible readings and translations (every one!) make interpretational decisions about these things.  Context is intended to be the compass for translational decisions.  In a large classroom in the old barracks that housed the Biblical Studies department was a sign printed on tractor-fed computer paper.  The five-foot banner over the doorway shouted, CONTEXT. 

The idea of a migrating comma intrigued me.  How could a creative shift of punctuation change meaning?  (Were other funny proof-puncts to be found?)  How much punctuation in our modern Biblical translations is controversial, or not clarified by context? 

And what about section breaks?  Some of these impacted interpretation considerably.  Did the sentence in Ephesians 5:21 go with the paragraph before, or after it?  Was Luke 8:2-3 one sentence, or two? 

Could something as small as a shift in a comma or carriage return change a doctrine?

Could a migrating comma shift the world?         

 

Full Comma-tary Series:

Comma-tary Vol 1:  The Oxford Comma

Comma-tary Vol 2:  Proof-punct 

Comma-tary Vol 3:  Stillspeaking

Comma-tary Vol 4:  Blinker Pen

Passion

I’ve lost far too much sleep watching the Olympics this week.  Phelps, Liukin, Torres, Misty May, Yang Wei, Coventry—the headliners, but every athlete in Beijing has devoted an inordinate chunk of life and sacrifice to training.  What drives a person to pursue the shot put (all that chalk on the neck), or synchronized diving?  I decline to participate in any activity, sport or otherwise, that requires a Brazilian wax. 

But perhaps I am the last person who should speak about the eccentricities of passion.  I waited 2 long weeks for titles to arrive from Amazon:  Eastern Pilgrims—the travels of three ladies (published in 1870), Books and Readers in the Early Church, How the Codex was Found.  Guardians of Letters.  Arcane books for an eccentric passion.  Yes, they’re fairly riveting.

Not sure why I’m gripped by the interests I have.  Who can explain why someone feels an inexplicable pull towards 400 meter backstroke or headstone transcription…Nascar, 18^th-century furniture, LP album covers, hot-wire chemical vapor deposition? 

Or, in my case, parallelism in Hebrew poetry, or the issue of parablepsis among ancient scribes?  Are my Scotch ancestors to blame for this?  Maybe all those canned green beans from my childhood.