Justified - printing perfection

Our family had a printing business in the early second half of the 20th Century.  My husband was a compositor, the one who set up the type for printing.  In the early days of the business, before there was a linotype amongst our machinery, each individual letter or grammar point, full point, question mark, etc. was picked out of a case of type and put into a setting stick to form lines of type.

A full page was placed in a form which held it all together.  These lines of type had to be "justified" so that the lines were all the same length.  Now all the pieces of type were not the same width - a full-point was skinny, a capital "M" was wide.

 

Richard Evans, hand compositor at James Wilkes Ltd, at work in 1953. Image from the Wolverhampton History & Heritage website (http://www.localhistory.scit.wlv.ac.uk/)

 Sometimes the compositor had to put in small pieces of lead between the words to spread the line; even a piece of card could be enough. That "justifying" could amount to a lot of work for the compositor.  He was very proud of his job when it was finished.  He had put a lot of work into making it as perfect as he could.

And of course, the compositor would know the correct place to split a long word with a hyphen to carry over to the next line.

 

A composing stick loaded with metal movable type, held over a lower case with larger boxes for more common minuscule letters: the upper case holds capital letters. Photo by Wilhei. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Handsatz.jpg#/media/File:Handsatz.jpg

There were many "cases of type" to "pick" from because of all the type sizes and fonts. Sometimes a "wrong font" letter got put in. The compositor would run some ink over his page of type and print a copy for "reading" for mistakes. My husband was remarkably accurate in his work.

The reader may like to read about the Printing Art in the book Mary Baker Eddy and Her Books by William Dana Orcutt*.  In particular he recounts his search for the perfect book which resulted in a family bible-sized Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mrs. Eddy's seminal/major work.

Oh yes!  All those pieces of type had to be "dissed" -- distributed back into the boxes.  That is when the "wrong font" letter could have gone astray.

Joyce Voysey

Ed. * This interesting book is available in Christian Science Reading Rooms. See https://booksthatchangelives.org.au/books-publications/biographies-of-mary-baker-eddy/

 Ed. Joyce has pointed out to me that yesterday’s post incorrectly noted that it was in a justified format. Of course it was not. It was merely left-aligned. For type to be justified, it has to line up on both the left and the right-hand sides. Thus, for this post to be justified, I have simply high-lighted and clicked the “justify” icon on Word and presto, it’s done (Done, that is, following several perplexing un-justified passages that needed persuading into the justified format!) This is rather different from the laborious and skilled expertise carried out by trained compositors like my Dad.

Lining up

We have discovered that Paul employs the term "justification" quite a lot. The original Greek word is (in English) dikaioo (dik-ah-yo'-o).

Here is an example from Romans chapter 5 verse 1 from the New International Version:

"Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." 

In printing, to justify one's text is to have it line up. In English, it is usual to justify the text to the left, as we see in this blog post.  

Joyce may be able to enlighten us on the way this was achieved prior to the advent of typewriters and computers. Does anyone have any clues?

Julie Swannell

Believing instead of achieving

Paul was a contemporary of Jesus. His letters were written prior to the writing of the Gospels, and Romans was his final letter, written circa 57AD - roughly twenty years following the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus (probably 33AD). But in the Bible's canon, the Gospels (written between 66-110AD, with Mark being the first) precede the letters of Paul. Furthermore, Romans is the first of Paul's letters to appear in the canon. Romans is also the longest and most complex and it denotes the culmination of his life-work as an apostle of Jesus Christ. The explanation seems to be that the order of the letters was selected according to their length. Thus lengthy Romans is first; brief Philemon is last. 

Paul employs contrasting concepts to convey his message. For instance in Romans 2: 7-10, he contrasts patient continuance in well-doing and obedience to truth with contentiousness, unrighteousness, indignation, wrath, tribulation, and anguish. The former behaviour begets glory, honour, peace, immortality, and eternal life. The latter reaps tribulation and anguish. It makes no difference whether the subject is Jew or Gentile. Paul's main point is that no one should judge another, because from a human point of view (Paul writes: "I speak as a man" Romans 3: 5), we all fall short. 

The question then is: Is being obedient to the Jewish "law" (or dogma) what is required of us? Mary Baker Eddy is clear on this point: "Ritualism and dogma lead to self-righteousness and bigotry, which freeze out the spiritual element. Pharisaism killeth; Spirit giveth Life." (Retrospection and Introspection, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 65:6–8)

Let's examine Romans 3: 28, the famous passage about justification by faith, so important to sixteenth century reformer Martin Luther. Note that according to Strong's concordance, the word translated "justification" in the King James Version means to regard as innocent, just or righteous.

KJV Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

CEV We see that people are acceptable to God because they have faith, and not because they obey the Law.

ERV I mean we are made right with God through faith, not through what we have done to follow the law. This is what we believe.

JB Phillips takes the argument up a notch: 

PHILLIPS What happens now to human pride of achievement? There is no more room for it. Why, because failure to keep the Law has killed it? Not at all, but because the whole matter is now on a different plane—believing instead of achieving. We see now that a man is justified before God by the fact of his faith in God’s appointed Saviour and not by what he has managed to achieve under the Law.

John's message gives a helpful perspective: "For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John 1:17).

Paul was a wonderful student of Jesus Christ. Just as Jesus acknowledged the place of law of Moses, so Paul does not dismiss it. However, he has learned that the law on its own can become a source of authority and pride. He recommends a less strident approach, one that embraces grace - possibly the subject of another blog post.

Julie Swannell

Paul's letter speaks our language today

On Tuesday morning (13.9.22), after one daughter and I had read the Christian Science Lesson-Sermon together, we read Romans chapter 1 aloud together (by phone). Later in the day, another daughter and I read the first 4 chapters in a similar fashion. This was in preparation for a Madelon Maupin (BibleRoads) Bible class to be held on Wednesday.

This is a fine way to bring the sense of the message more clearly. My main impression of these chapters was that they are so relevant in praying about present day conditions in t he world.

I was somewhat startled at Paul’s reference to homosexuality (hedonism). And I noted that if we see such behaviour as abhorrent about man, we are sinning as well. If we see a sinner, we are sinning. God does not see a sinner. She (God) says, “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17).  We have to see the man of God’s creating.*

(Note: I had an idea that I had read that those verses had been added by church authorities at some future time, and were not from Paul, but I have found no verification of that.)

Another point raised was the law and righteousness (i.e. the Ten Commandments and circumcision). In Abraham’s day. the Ten Commandments had not yet been recorded by Moses. And it this was a time when there was no circumcision. Was God’s law not in operation then? Was Abraham righteous before he was circumcised? Was Moses righteous before receiving the Commandments?

Righteousness or rightness and self-righteousness make for a good study.

I found this helpful from BYU Religious Studies Centre

When Abraham was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him to establish a covenant with him. The Lord promised that Abraham would be “a father of many nations” (Genesis 17:4), that the Lord would give unto him “the land wherein [he was] a stranger” (Genesis 17:8), and that his “children [would] be known among all nations” (Joseph Smith Translation, Genesis 17:9). As a token of this covenant, the Lord commanded, “Every man child among you shall be circumcised. And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you” (Genesis 17:10–11). Abraham was further commanded that whenever a male child was born in his extended household, the child should be circumcised when eight days old (Genesis 17:12). On the day he was commanded, Abraham took all the males of his household and circumcised the flesh of their foreskin. Abraham himself was also circumcised as a token of the covenant that God made with him (Genesis 17:23–26). 

The Old Testament was written in Aramaic and Hebrew; the new in Greek.  

A Bible Gateway blog by Andy Rau offers some background:

What parts of the Bible were written in Aramaic?

Ancient Aramaic originated among the Arameans in northern Syria and became widely used under the Assyrians. A few passages in the Old Testament were written in Aramaic (Genesis 31:47; Ezra 4:8-6:18, 7:12-26; Jeremiah 10:11).

Some have compared the relationship between Hebrew and Aramaic to that between modern Spanish and Portuguese: they’re distinct languages, but sufficiently closely related that a reader of one can understand much of the other. Aramaic was very popular in the ancient world and was commonly spoken in Jesus’ time.

...Many people assume that the New Testament was written in Hebrew as well, but by the time the gospels were being written, many Jews didn’t even speak Hebrew anymore. Rome had conquered Greece, and the influence of Greek culture had saturated the empire. What’s interesting about Biblical Greek is that it didn’t use a high-class or complicated style; it was written in koine (common Greek), a language that could be understood by almost anyone, educated or not.

So Paul's letter was written in Greek.

Joyce Voysey

*Ed. See Romans 2, which begins:  But if you think that leaves you on the high ground where you can point your finger at others, think again. Every time you criticize someone, you condemn yourself. The Message by Eugene Petersen

 

Paul - a man with scant leisure

Here is a little something.

One of my favourite reference books is the old Dummelow Commentary on the Bible. I find he gives 11 pages of introduction to the book of Romans.

Interlude here: The frontispiece of Dummelow explains it:

A commentary on The Holy Bible

by various writers

Edited by

The Rev. J.R. Dummelow M.A.

Queen’s College, Cambridge

Complete in one volume

with general articles

Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.

New York

I think that makes him English, being at Cambridge University, England. First printing of the book 1908.

Hear this from the ‘b’ portion of his The Epistle as a whole:

Style. On page 857

Like St. Paul’s other letters it was dictated to an amanuensis (16.22), a fact which helps to explain the irregularities of the language and the thought as it flowed on in a rushing broken torrent from the passionate soul of the Apostle.

It continues,

The tentmaker and the organiser of the Churches had scant leisure to polish his sentences and ponder his phrases. It may be that his hand was nimbler with the needle than the pen. His style is a mirror of himself. Not the letter, but the spirit; not the seen and the superficial, but the unseen and the underlying; not the part, but the whole; not the nice details of argument, but the broad sweep of truth, is his concern. Doubtless these dictated letters preserve for us, even better than his reported speeches in the book of Acts, the form and manner of his preaching, as well as the vehemence of its intellectual, moral, and spiritual power.

The thing about reading about Paul’s conversion is the immediate evidence that he “got it” that Jesus was the embodiment of the Christ, Truth, of which the Old Testament has a “silver thread” throughout. He was intimately familiar with the whole of the Old Testament. That instant recognition can be a source of wonder to the student, who lacks that familiarity. Dummelow says, “The stricken conscience of the Hebrew under law is healed by the hope of Israel realised in Jesus Christ.”

A thought came here, “Do people not wish to accept Christian Science as the saving Truth because it requires repentance?”

Joyce Voysey

Faith?

trust

belief

confidence

conviction

credence

reliance

dependence

optimism

hopefulness

hope

What does it mean to have faith?

Paul's letter to the Romans references the father of monotheism, faithful Abraham. Chapter four of that book includes robust reasoning on the contested subject of faith. Here are some passages, translated from the Greek by Eugene Petersen in The Message. 

One might want to slow down when reading Romans! It's not a breezy hello, how are you sort of letter: 

Trusting God

4 1-3 So how do we fit what we know of Abraham, our first father in the faith, into this new way of looking at things? If Abraham, by what he did for God, got God to approve him, he could certainly have taken credit for it. But the story we’re given is a God-story, not an Abraham-story. What we read in Scripture is, “Abraham entered into what God was doing for him, and that was the turning point. He trusted God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own.”

4-5 If you’re a hard worker and do a good job, you deserve your pay; we don’t call your wages a gift. But if you see that the job is too big for you, that it’s something only God can do, and you trust him to do it—you could never do it for yourself no matter how hard and long you worked—well, that trusting-him-to-do-it is what gets you set right with God, by God. Sheer gift.

17-18 (part) When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn’t do but on what God said he would do. 

Here's an excerpt from Thomas Leishman's essay on Romans in The Christian Science Journal dated August 1976--

...the Greek noun "faith" has such meanings as faithfulness, trust, confidence, or belief. Sometimes translators render "faith" as "a conviction of the truth" (of something). The reader himself must decide how he is to translate "justified by faith"; but one rendering might be: "we are made righteous by conviction of the truth."

To illustrate righteousness of faith, Romans 4 turns to Abraham. Quoting the Greek version of Gen.15:6, Paul cites Abraham's faith in God, which was counted (that is "credited") to him as righteousness. Thus for Paul, only through divine grace received through faith, not through merit of personal deeds, is salvation found.

These were surely big lessons for the Christians in Rome to digest. They continue to hold our attention today.

Julie Swannell

 

Colossal Paul

 In his Introduction to Romans in The Message, Eugene Peterson observes that despite most people in the world today having at least some knowledge of Christ Jesus, at the time Paul wrote his letter to the fledgling church in Rome, few other Romans would have been aware of Jesus current or future impact.

Peterson writes: 

"...when this letter arrived in Rome, hardly anyone read it, certainly no one of influence. There was much to read in Rome--imperial decrees, exquisite poetry, finely crafted moral philosophy--and much of it was world-class, And yet in no time, as such things go, this letter left all those other writings in the dust. Paul's letter to the Romans has had a far larger impact on its readers than the volumes of all those Roman writers put together."

He continues:

"The letter to the Romans is a piece of exuberant and passionate thinking."

And that exuberance and passion drive Paul's every word and deed. For instance, chapter 1 verse 16: "It's news I'm most proud to proclaim, this extraordinary Message of God's powerful plan to rescue everyone who trusts him, starting with Jews and then right on to everyone else!" (The Message).

Mary Baker Eddy called Paul a colossal character. She writes: 

"Great only as good, because fashioned divinely, were those unpretentious yet colossal characters, Paul and Jesus" (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 360:6–8).

We look forward to getting to know more over the next 12 weeks as we dive into Paul's great letter.

Julie Swannell