Thursday, July 10, 2008

Naughty Words of the Bible

I learned something interesting recently ...

While Paul might have warned against using offensive language, he was not above breaking his own advice to get the point across. In Philemon 3:8 he says "For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ..."

"Rubbish" is a very "cleaned up" translation for skubala, the Greek term for shit. He could have gone with ther more acceptable, and ceretainly more "Christian" term, perikatharmata (that which is scraped off) used in 1 Corinthians 4:13. Instead, he went with the more vulgar word, for effect. As a writer, and as a person who once in while lets a colorful word out, I get it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Damn, that is very interesting. I don't feel so guilty now for those "slips".

BruceandBarbara said...

You know, you learn something new every day! Thanks for the Bible study, Em!