Sr. Vassa: There's no ontological impediment to priestesses
Is the male-only priesthood a discipline or essential to the nature of being a priest? Sr. Vassa (again unflinchingly taking up a contentious topic by climbing up the ladder to the highest platform and then jumping into the deep end head first) dives right in and says there is no reason beyond personal preference to not have female clergy. You know, when people ask me about women in priesthood, they say, 'Sister, why can't women be priests?' And I say, 'Women CAN be priests. We don't WANT them to be priests.' Because you see, God can do anything, and the Church, by divine authority, uh, can do anything, but, the Church doesn't want to - and that's a legitimate reason. What I don't like is when we TRY to pretend that there are other reasons for this, because it's legitimate not to want something, and there are reasons not to want this - right? - but, we shouldn't pretent that there's some... reason, that, for example, the maleness...
The word "daddy" itself is intended as a term that denotes tenderness and fondness. It is a family term of perichoresis, rather than a "domus" term that pertains to the domineering paterfamilias.
ReplyDeleteSo "daddy" turns out to be the best translation for the theological context, as "abba" is susceptible of both the formal and informal lexical meanings.
So the issue here (aside from the warning not to base theology on the TDNT, or the Aramaic version of same) is not so much the meaning of "abba" as it is the meaning of "daddy." Is it just too sentimental or familiar for one's tastes?
Twee is the word that comes to mind. :)
DeleteThat is unfortunate. I understand that the word has degenerated into cutesy-ness. But we cannot always let popular connotations determine the lexical meaning of a term, can't we? Like, for instance, denoting "catholic" as "universal," or "bad."
DeleteIn linguistic terms, 'daddy' is way more marked than 'father'. In Aramaic, 'aba' is the unmarked word for 'father', and so 'daddy' is a pretty silly mistranslation.
DeleteI don't get the point the OP is trying to make. Seems a distinction without a difference.
ReplyDeleteSo what word would a two-year old child in first-century Palestine have used to address his or her father? If the word was "Abba," then that means "Daddy" is at least to some extent a legitimate translation of the term, no matter how pedantic the Aramaic-as-a-second-language speakers want to be about it.
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