Bag of maggots
No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. (Matthew 6:24)
Some not very well connected thoughts:
This is the New Revised Standard Version translation. Other English translations throw in a “he” (e.g., “he will be devoted …”) where one is not required by the underlying Greek. Surely, women cannot serve two masters either, although, perhaps, they are asked to even more frequently than men are, or, perhaps, ask themselves if they can serve three, or four, or more masters at once. (You might be able to tell that I’ve been reading and thinking about gender in scripture translation lately. I submit for your perusal one link about the English Standard Version by Susanne McCarthy).
I also very much like its translation of “mammon” (μαμωνᾶς) as “wealth,” although one might prefer “Wealth.” I wonder if there would be license to translate it as “Greed” (as in Gordon Gekko’s “Greed is good” credo).
Jorg Haughk von JuchsenJörg Haughk von Jüchsen, who is quoted in the The Anabaptist Bible passage for today, focuses on the stupidity of trying to serve a master other than God; it is like “picking up a penny and letting 100,000 guilders fall to the ground.” He compares our fleshly desires to a “bag of maggots,” with “its love and desire for the creaturely.” You can tell he is writing in a different time.
Will,
Great post (and Suzanne’s, which you link to, isn’t her only helpful post recently on the gendered English pronoun translations of Greek).
On “mammon” – it’s fascinating that Matthew would transliterate (not translate into Greek) that spoken word as μαμωνᾷ using Greek letters. If Matthew is also the writer of the Gospel According to the Hebrews, then he does something similar there. He (or whoever the author was) uses Hebrew letters (not Greek) to transliterate the word and its sounds as ממון.
And Douglas Hamp, in sifting through the Hebrew and Aramaic of Jesus, makes a pretty compelling argument that Jesus’s (perhaps Matthew’s) word that we call “mamon” is really Hebrew:
http://www.ccsom.org/languageofjesus/Mammon.htm
J. K. Gayle
June 24, 2009 at 10:28 am
Thanks for the note about other posts by Suzanne McCarthy. I lacked the time to track these down earlier today.
Will Fitzgerald
June 24, 2009 at 5:44 pm
von Juchsen’s “bag of maggots” is not too different from C. S. Lewis’s “mud pies in a slum.” The wonderful Lewis uses that in his sermon (reprinted as) “The Weight of Glory.”
(Denny Burke has little excerpt of that on his blog. I’m giving the link just to take the opportunity to say that Lewis is not, as Burke suggests with a rhetorical question, like Aristotle – nor does the wonderful literary scholar share that logician’s ethics. Aristotle hated the literary poets; Lewis loves those “pagans.” Too bad Burke didn’t pay much attention to what Lewis says about Greek and Greek learning in his sermon. Here’s the link:
http://www.dennyburk.com/?p=501)
J. K. Gayle
June 24, 2009 at 10:47 am
I think you might be the only other person who might care, but I also lacked the time to write the name out with diacritics: It’s Jörg Haughk von Jüchsen.
Will Fitzgerald
June 24, 2009 at 5:45 pm
And I’d be an ingrate if I didn’t say that “The Weight of Glory” is one of the best essays I have ever read; I read it quite early in my life as a Christian. Rereading it just now, I think I understand a little more of “glory” than I did in my teens or early twenties. I feel even more like a “half-hearted creature” picking up von Jüchsen’s penny.
Will Fitzgerald
June 24, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Personally, I like the term “Bag of Maggots” referring to our fleshly desires.
Being raised on a dairy farm, I know how fast maggots can consume a dead animal. Did you know that maggots can consume a 1500# cow in as little as one week! Not a pretty picture…….
Reviewing the last couple of sip of scriptures centering on “you can’t serve two masters” I had to think, What maggots are eating away at me? Idols, Impatiences, wealth(money issues) and today 6/25 sip centers on people pleasers, and I’m sure there are more. Witch one or how many effect my life. Will I get hug up on the Gender thing in scripture?, not likely. I see that as one of Satins tools (another nasty maggot) to distract us from what the focus of the scripture’s true meaning.
We are all God’s children, Woman or Man, Black or white, short or tall, ……………………
Read your Bible, Listen to the Holy Spirit, There is no maggots in that advise.
Scott Yoder
June 25, 2009 at 8:21 am