Cross dressing to get out of war - Deuteronomy 22:5

I've been marking this week, and the set passage includes a verse which people often laugh about because it's so weird. It's the (in)famous prohibition against cross-dressing, which is normally translated as follows:

A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the LORD your God detests anyone who does this. (NIV11)

It's a pretty straightforward verse, two parallel clauses followed by an explanation:

A     A woman must not wear men's clothing
A`    and a man must not wear women's clothing
B            for the LORD your God detests anyone who does this.

But when we dig into the Hebrew there are a couple of extra features which are obscured by the translation:

1. The word order in the first two clauses is (1) prohibition, (2) man, (3) woman. The only real difference is the placement of the word for clothing (which are different, see below), which in A comes between (1) and (2), and in A` comes between (2) and (3). 
2. The word for clothing is different. In A the word is כלי, which is elsewhere translated vessel/cup or weapon or article. In A` the word is an unremarkable word for clothing/garment.
3. The word for man, in contrast with the usual word for woman or wife, אשׁה ('ishsha), is not, as we might expect, אישׁ ('ish) or even the broader אדם ('adam), but גבר (gever), a word which often has militaristic connotations - "warrior" works well in lots of contexts.
4. The word for getting dressed is only there in A`, it's just the verb "to be" in A. 

All this suggests to me that perhaps it's not (just) a command against cross-dressing, although that wouldn't be massively out of place in the Pentateuch, especially when you consider other commands against gender confusion (note that in a few verses the command will be against unnaturally mixing seed, animals and fabric). But additionally, I think that there's a very real possibility that preparations for war are on the horizon, as they are about to cross over to take the promised land by force. Rather than a man's clothing, it could be the armour or weaponry of a (male) warrior. As such, the verse could reasonably translated to prohibit women from fighting in the place of men, and to warn men against escaping by cross-dressing:

A     The equipment of a man shall not be upon a woman,
A'     and a man shall not dress [in] garments of a woman
B            For an abomination [against] Yhwh your God [are] all these deeds.

Mulan, then, would be in trouble, and while Mrs Doubtfire might not be the explicit target, trying to get out of wartime duties by cross-dressing is an abomination to Yhwh.

Duane Christensen (WBC) notes that these chapters are focussed around "four central issues: warfare, marriage, social ethics, and humanitarian commands." (2002; p466) This verse then could be not so much about marriage as it is about warfare, shaping Israel to be a nation who are prepared to fight for the land to which Yhwh has brought them.

The Seven Sayings and the Stations of the Cross

I've been doing a bit of research (mainly using Wiki and the Bible!) on two things associated with Good Friday: the Stations of the Cross, and the Seven Words of Jesus. I'm fairly familiar with the Seven Words, or sayings of Jesus from the cross. They are (mostly) biblical, and come from the four Gospels: 3 Luke, 3 John, 1 Matthew//Mark. I say mainly because the first, "Father forgive them, for they don't understand what they're doing," (Lk 23:34) is not thought to be original to the Gospel, but a later addition.

The Seven Words are the seven statements or questions Jesus speaks from the cross, and between them they express different aspects of what being crucified meant for Jesus, and by extension, suggest for us how we are to respond to or understand the crucifixion. Here are the Seven Words, from the NIV:

Luke 23.34 “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
Luke 23.43 “Truly I tell you, today you will be  with me in paradise.”
John 19.26-27 “Woman, here is  your son,” “Here is your mother.”
Matt 27.46//Mark 15.34 “Eli, Eli [Mark has Eloi Eloi], lema sabachthani?”
John 19.28  “I am thirsty.”
John 19.30  “It is  finished.”
Luke 23.46  “Father, into your  hands I commit my spirit.”

The order is supposed to be chronological and tell a bit of a story as they look outwards, then upwards in despair, but then resolving to trust. They address or are about different figures: the guards, the rebel, John and Mary, and then, with the last four, God. With the first of the final four we have a bit of the Aramaic translation of Psalm 22. Instead of Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani, the Hebrew would have 'azavthani. The next two are just one word each: dipso and tetelestai.

The Stations of the Cross on the other hand do not have anywhere near the same pedigree. The story I heard was Constantine's mother Helena was dispatched to Jerusalem to find some material evidence supporting Christianity. She managed to find the cross - the other two of the rebels either side of Jesus were ruled out by not being able to heal a sick man, but when laid on the True Cross^TM, he was healed. I'm sure there's enough pieces of the True Cross^TM to build Noah's Ark. She also snaffled the Titulus (the sign above Jesus' head), which, according to a definitely true documentary I saw, is in a church somewhere in Italy. But the other thing she did was go for a walk on the via Delarosa and give a running commentary on what she imagined Jesus' journey to the cross to have been like. "I reckon Jesus fell over there," "That looks like the place Simon of Cyrene would have subbed in," and so on. It's totally made up, so it may be true, but that would be chance rather than due to research. 

The list was originally seven, was then expanded to double that size, and was then renewed by Pope John Paul II, and okayed by Pope Benedict XVI. Three of the original seven are biblical, leaving four fanciful ones. Of the additional seven only one is made up, and even then probably to take the tally to the magical 14. When the list was updated in the 20th Century, seven of the original were kept, and the whole list is biblical. 

Here is the old list of fourteen, with the bold ones the ancient seven, and the biblical ones in italics. Three of the non-biblical ones are Jesus tripping. so maybe Helena saw some trip hazards, or maybe she tripped over and before people could have a go at her she said "well if Jesus tripped over, you shouldn't laugh at me." I don't know. I also don't know who Veronica is. 

1. Jesus is condemned to death
2. Jesus carries His cross
3. Jesus falls for the first time
4. Jesus meets His mother, Mary
5. Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus carry the cross
6. Veronica wipes the face of Jesus
7. Jesus falls for the second time
8. Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem
9. Jesus falls for the third time
10. Jesus is stripped of His clothes
11. Jesus is nailed to the cross
12. Jesus dies on the cross
13. Jesus is taken down from the cross
14. Jesus is placed in the tomb

Thankfully JP II thought the list could do with a sprucing up, leaving us the following list. I've put the seven which he kept from the earlier fourteen in bold. As I said above, all fourteen are biblical.

1. Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane;
2. Jesus is betrayed by Judas and arrested;
3. Jesus is condemned by the Sanhedrin;4. Jesus is denied by Peter;
5. Jesus is judged by Pilate;
6. Jesus is scourged and crowned with thorns;
7. Jesus takes up his cross;
8. Jesus is helped by Simon of Cyrene to carry his cross;
9. Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem;
10. Jesus is crucified;  
11. Jesus promises his kingdom to the repentant thief;
12. Jesus entrusts Mary and John to each other;   
13. Jesus dies on the cross; and
14. Jesus is laid in the tomb.

Finally, it is interesting to note where the Seven Sayings and the Stations of the Cross coincide. At station 10 Jesus speaks his first word; at 11 the second, and the third at 12. The remaining four are all said while dying on the cross - station 13. 

What do we do with all this? It is worth reflecting that these two ritualised things - the sayings and the stations - are a mixture of all four Gospels, of history, theology and myth. They are all meaningful for billions around the world, as they help us understand and memorialise this most central event in Christian history, theology and ritual. I obviously think the stations of the cross (at least the ancient versions) are pretty funny in how they came about, but that is not to deny the significance of remembering Jesus' death in that way. Indeed, it is in our nature and speaks to our physicality, to remember things in this way, as Christians have done for the last 1990 years or so, and will continue to do until Jesus returns.

Translating Psalm 6

The structure of this psalm in terms of the relationship of the cola to each other is quite difficult to establish. Here's my attempt. The bold is just to help see the parallel elements, whether bold or not. 8b is the most confusing element, but after reflection, it could be reusing "my eye" from 8a, and linking its condition to the adversaries in 8b-9a.

Anyway, it's not pretty (I've tried to maintain the word order where possible), but it's powerful nonetheless. The solitary colon in 4b is extra stark when the parallelism between 3d and 4a is seen. 

One thing we didn't discuss was v11, which is an ABBA structure, around the inclusio of בושׁ (to be ashamed) in 11a,d. The verse reuses בהל (to be terrified) from 4a, as well as שׁוב (to return/turn back) from v5 (interesting that שׁוב and בושׁ are mirror images of each other!). v11 also provides the third synonym for adversaries, with "those hostile to me" (8b), "doers of iniquity" (9a), and "my enemies" (11). 

1 For the director, with strings, on the eight.

A David psalm.

2 Yhwh, do not, in your anger, rebuke me.

and do not, in your wrath, discipline me.

3 Be gracious to me, Yhwh,

for feeble am I.

Heal me, Yhwh,

for dismayed are my bones.

4 And my soul is terrified greatly,

and you—Yhwh—how long?

5 Return, Yhwh,

rescue my soul,

save me

because of your steadfast love.

6 For none among the dead remembers you,

in Sheol who praises you?

7 I am weary with my groans;

I flood all the night my bed,

with my tears my couch I soak.

8 Wasting away from grief is my eye,

[my eye] has shriveled, because of all those hostile to me.

9 Away from me—all doers of iniquity,

for Yhwh hears my weeping,

10 Yhwh hears my supplication,

Yhwh my prayer accepts.

11 They will be ashamed,

and they’ll be terrified greatly, all my enemies,

they will turn back

and be put to shame immediately.