Fearing God

[Fish and Bread]

I have to admit, one of the aspects of the bible that has troubled me is the idea of God wanting us to fear him. That's always been something I've had difficulty putting together with the Christian concept of a God who is love. After all, do we want the people we love to fear us? Respect us, yes. Think highly of us, yes. Listen to us when we have something important to tell them, yes. But fear? Not in my experience.

So, it was a pleasant surprise to read this today, as I was catching up on reading some e-mail devotionals on a mailing list I'm subscribed to: "In actuality the word in Hebrew for fear is yare’, which can mean to be afraid, but it also means to have a reverence for or an awe for someone.". That puts a whole new spin on things and fits in a lot better with the way I perceive God. :)

My question is, not knowing Hebrew myself, is the gentleman who wrote the sentence I quoted correct? Is "to have reverence for or an awe for someone" an accurate translation of the Hebrew word frequently translated as "fears"?

John

[cenimo]

Yes, the word that fear is translated from (as in Proverbs, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge) means to revere.

Similarly, in the pasage about hating one's family to love the Lord, the word that we use hate for in English actually meant to love less than.

[alban]

That is how i've always understood it. A definition i read a while ago was 'a reverential awe', so the guy you read seems to be correct.

[Aymn27]

That is how i've always understood it. A definition i read a while ago was 'a reverential awe', so the guy you read seems to be correct.
yep, that's what I've heard of also...sorta like an awe at the mightiness of the Creator...

[Fish and Bread]

So why can't we get a biblical translation that reflects this sort of thing? The more I learn about the real meanings of biblical terms, the more it bothers me that things are so often mistranslated, because it can make a major difference in terms of the way we perceive God. Fear means reverent awe, sin means missing the mark, in some places the word homosexual is better said to be translated as male prostitute, and so on. These are things that, if widely known, would bring a lot of folks much closer to God. In some senses, the way most bibles translate things has become a stumbling block for a lot of people and has encouraged a lot of unscriptural teaching by well meaning folks who think they're teaching what the scripture says (but are actually teaching a mistranslation). The NRSV cleans up a lot of the inaccuracies and is the best I've seen out there in doing so, but even that translation leaves a bit to be desired.

John

[alban]

Though i'm not particularly old i must admit that at times i can be a bit of a fuddy duddy, and here i must disagree with you. I just don't understand this constant desire to dilute the English language - i've lost track of the ammount of words where the american pronuncation has just obliberated the correct pronunciation eg. valet (this isn't a dig by the way, just a momentary venting ;) ) I believe a similar thing is true here. Why should translators of the bible constantly pander to the lowest reading age in translating the bible? If someone wants a bible with simple words then there are plenty available. I'm of the opinion that the bible is one of the most sacred things in our possession- let's at least honour God by translating it to the best of our ability making full use of our glorious language.

[ethereal hope]

I'm with alban (I think ;) ). I've always understood "fear" as awe, but there's a definite undertone throughout the Bible that if you don't hold God in reverence, you're going to be afraid in the old-fashioned sense of the word, too.

Not to mention, Jesus himself used "fear" in the normal (scary) sense: .."Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." matt 10:28. The mention of destroying souls in hell makes that "fear" feel like something more than reverence, I think. (Although the general tone of the passage isn't threatening, but uplifting.)

Anyway, if people are going to stumble on the word "fear", what are they going to do when they read Jesus' parables mentioning eternal judgement? There's really no avoiding the fear aspect in relating the Gospel.

(But that's really no big deal. Most people are afraid of stuff, like death, monsters, crime, taxes, erectile dysfunction, etc. The Bible just tells them what they should really be afraid of and why.)

[discipline]

Somehow "fear" seems like a good word to me. When I had my conversion experience, there was a lot of fear there. I remember one of C.S. Lewis's book titles: That Hideous Strength. The power of God is so amazing, that it is completely humbling, even moreso than the pictures taken by the Hubble telescope. When my conversion experience happened, I realized just how small and feeble I was in comparison with my God.

The great part is that Jesus came to us, and he is approachable and loving.

Tim.

[ContraMundum]

Though i'm not particularly old i must admit that at times i can be a bit of a fuddy duddy, and here i must disagree with you. I just don't understand this constant desire to dilute the English language - i've lost track of the ammount of words where the american pronuncation has just obliberated the correct pronunciation eg. valet (this isn't a dig by the way, just a momentary venting ;) ) I believe a similar thing is true here. Why should translators of the bible constantly pander to the lowest reading age in translating the bible? If someone wants a bible with simple words then there are plenty available. I'm of the opinion that the bible is one of the most sacred things in our possession- let's at least honour God by translating it to the best of our ability making full use of our glorious language.

I agree with you. The Church has it's own language too. We should try to learn it and pass it on.

[SirTimothy]

I agree. In fact, we debated it at my confirmation class. It's one of these irritating KJV hangovers, where we're using a word that meant something different 400 years ago...

Timothy

[Inside Edge]

Not to mention, Jesus himself used "fear" in the normal (scary) sense: .."Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." matt 10:28. The mention of destroying souls in hell makes that "fear" feel like something more than reverence, I think. (Although the general tone of the passage isn't threatening, but uplifting.)

But this only highlights Fish and bread's point. My first question is: is the original-language word used in the passage you quoted the same one as in, say, an old-testament passage in which F&B pointed out in the OP>

If not, then we have a translation issue to be considered. If yes, then the next question is: does/did that original word which we now translate as "fear" connote a different meaning in different contexts?

I'm of the opinion that the bible is one of the most sacred things in our possession- let's at least honour God by translating it to the best of our ability making full use of our glorious language.
Who isn't of this opinion? Does the word "fear" accurately represent the meaning of the original, non-english word? Does "fear" (in English) have clear, multiple meanings under different circumstances? If it did in the past, and does not anymore, then do we have other words in the English language better suited to properly translate a given text?

It's been my experience that the English Language, on the whole, is pretty archaic compared to many others on the planet (like the latin-evolved ones, for example). That is, we have a higher instance of using the same word for different meanings; we have fewer conjugations and don't posess the gender specifications that exist in many other languages. We may well indeed be doing a disservice to God by not evolving our translations as our language evolves. By that I simply mean, if we now have newer words, conjugations, syntax - whatever - that better describe a given alternate text, then it's not necessarily a bad idea to do so.