On 27th July, I watched this very short clip in which a woman somewhere
in the UK gets asked about the two British politicians currently vying
for the premiership. The clip bears the logo of
. Of course, this very short interview
could have been staged but, for my part, I would contend that what she
says is likely to be shared by huge numbers of people across Europe,
North America, Australia, New Zeland, etc [I shall let you guess what
the common denominator is].
The word
pharmakeia almost out of context?
Yesterday,
after having checked the exacting wording of Matthew
7: 15-20 in ancient Greek (Codex
Vaticanus, 1242
and 1243),
in Latin (
Codex
Amiatinus) as well as in the earliest translation into
English (
Egerton
MS 618, f.4v), I remembered that I also had to check the
(ancient) meaning of the Greek word
pharmakeia (drug;
sorcery/witchcraft; poison), in particular its occurrence in
Revelation 18:23:
For your
merchants
were the most
important people of
the earth,
ὅτι
οἱ
ἔμποροί
ἦσαν οἱ
μεγιστᾶνες
τῆς γῆς
because with your
sorcery
they
deceived
all the
nations.
ὅτι
ἐν τῇ
φαρμακείᾳ σου
ἐπλανήθησαν
πάντα τὰ
ἔθνη
Sources: the English translation is to be found on pages 1281 and 1282
of
The Lexham English Bible; the Greek text is from
https://sacred-texts.com/bib/poly/rev018.htm.
[
Revelation starts at
https://digi.vatlib.it/pub/digit/MSS_Vat.gr.1209/iiif/Vat.gr.1209_1527_pa_1523.jp2/full/1156,/0/native.jpg;
table of contents:
https://digi.vatlib.it/mss/detail/Vat.gr.1209;
however, I have not looked up the passage as I do
not
read koine Greek very well...
]
Interestingly, the first translations into English (the so-called
Wycliffite
Bibles) went
for
two of the above meanings, namely poison
(venom) and witchcraft.
[
venemous:
first
line, fifth word]
So as to dispel any doubt about
pharmakeia being used in
such a negative fashion in the New Testament (NT), simply check
Rev. 9:21
pharmakon
magic
Rev. 21:8
pharmakois
sorcerer
Rev. 21:15
pharmakoi
sorcerer
Galatians 5:20
pharmakeia
sorcerery
using an interlinear version of the NT (e.g.
The Lexham English
Bible. English-Greek Reverse Interlinear New Testament (with
Strong’s Greek-English Glossary), by W. Hall Harris III,
Michael W. Holmes, Rick Brannan ) or an online equivalent, e.g.
https://www.abarim-publications.com/Interlinear-New-Testament/index.html
https://scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/Greek_Index.htm
http://www.textusreceptusbibles.com/Interlinear
or a Greek-English-Latin bible:
https://sacred-texts.com/bib/poly/.
Now, I shall let you guess why I quoted
Revelation 18:23. Maybe it is because I believe
that these lines bear some resemblance to what is going on in today’s
world – although I need to repeat that
religious
texts should, ideally, be quoted with their immediate context being
provided [
https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Revelation-Chapter-18/]
too.
Links
https://www.etymonline.com/word/pharmacy
https://archive.org/details/StrongsGreekAndHebrewDictionaries1890/StrongGreekDictionary/
Lausanne, the above was posted on the
twenty-ninth day of the seventh month of the year two
thousand and twenty-two.
An appropriate symbol for hell?
A recent
diatribe of a vlog uploaded on to the Internet by a Canadian
independent journalist (Josh Sigurdson, of World Alternative
Media) shot in front of a central banking institution in
Basle, Switzerland, reminded me of a famous quote of C.S. Lewis
unfortunately shortened as follows: ‘The greatest evils in the world will not be carried out by men with
guns, but by men in suits sitting behind desks’. The real
quote comes from the second preface the Christian author and
Oxford-based scholar C.S. Lewis wrote for the 1961
edition of The
Screwtape Letters and should read as follows: ‘I like bats much better than bureaucrats. I live in the Managerial
Age, in a world of ‘Admin’. The greatest evil is
not now done in those sordid ‘dens of crime’ that Dickens
loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and
labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is
conceived and ordered (moved, seconded,
carried, and minuted) in clean,
carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices,
by quiet men with white
collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do
not need to raise their voice. Hence, naturally
enough, my
symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police
state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern.’
I have nothing to add to Lewis’s famous quote about
where he believes the greatest evil can be found except that there
are several institutions, here in Switzerland, which, I think, fit
the above description. I shall let you guess the names of these
institutions. Hint: they are based in Geneva.
[Click on
the picture with the right button of your mouse, then on ‘picture-in-picture’ in the
menu and finally place
your cursor on the picture at the bottom of the screen to
display the ‘Play’ icon [i.e. the white arrow pointing
towards the right] to start the clip, which will thus play
in ‘picture-in-picture’ mode.
Lausanne, the above was posted on the twenty-eighth day of the
seventh month of the year two thousand and twenty-two.