Atonement = At-one-ment?

[Thinking]

In other languages, can the word for atonement be broken up into "at-one-ment" or is this just something clever that was discovered for the English language?

[smac97]

Different languages have different emphases of the concept.

In Chinese, the term is 贖罪 (Shúzuì).  The first character means, generally, "redemption," and the second character refers to "crime" or "sin."  So the Chinese word speaks of "redemption {from} sin."

Thanks,

-Smac

[Kevin Christensen]

From Eugene England, "Shakespeare and the At-Onement of Jesus Christ"

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I have discovered that one barrier to accepting Christ's love is that we pronounce the word "atonement" in a way that encourages a misleading emphasis on payment. The word actually descends from the thirteenth century phrase at one, which was based on the old verb to one, meaning to make one or reconcile.  In the sixteenth century William Tyndale brought the phrase at onement into the English Bible and theology, even calling Christ the at-one-maker.  Shakespeare gives the proper meaning in Richard III: "Aye, madam, he desires to make atonement / Between the Duke of Gloucester and your brothers" (1,3.36-37). It was only later that the meaning focused to atonement as payment when the new verb atone developed out of this concept but with a meaning that expressed the growing emphasis of a majority of English theologians on Christ's payment or expiation." (England, Why the Church is as True as the Gospel, page 32.) 

Nibley also discusses some of the history and translation issues in "The Meaning of Atonement" in Approaching Zion, where he describes at-one-ment as a good Old English 'denoting both a state of being "at-one" with each another and the process by which that end is achieved."   He describes how the newer translations prefer "reconciliation" and says that "reconciliation is a very good word for atonement there, since it means literally to be seated again with someone (re-consilio)--so that atonement is to be reunited with God"  (Nibley, 556).  He further discusses how the imagery of atonement is the embrace: "I am encircled about eternally in the arms of his love" (2 Nephi 1:15, quoted in Nibley, 559).  Barker's "Atonement: Rite of Healing" essay uses much the same imagery and considers that the meaning of the Hebrew word must be interpreted in the ritual context and place of atonement, that temple.

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I return now to Mary Douglas’ article: she notes that what is unusual about biblical purity laws is that they do not serve to set members of the congregation apart from one another.  The rituals are for keeping the community together.  ‘The more closely we look at the biblical rules of sacred contagion, the more strongly marked appears the difference between the Bible system and other systems of contagious impurity.  We cannot avoid asking why the priests defined laws of purity that did not make parts of the congregation separate from or defined as higher or lower than the rest’23  This implies that the role of the priest/the LORD was to hold hid people together; this would have been done by the priest absorbing the effects of sin and repairing the covenant bonds.  

http://www.margaretbarker.com/Papers/Atonement.pdf

Also from Barker, 

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These three extracts, from Deuteronomy, the Assumption of Moses and the Melchizedek Text are mutually consistent, and show that the heavenly high priest was the LORD who came from his holy place on the Day of Atonement in order to save his people from the power of the fallen angels, to punish their enemies and to kpr the land.  I suggest, in the light of this, that kpr has to mean restore, recreate or heal.   

All of this has turned me away from economic or punative metaphors about the at-one-ment. 

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

 

[manol]

1 hour ago, Thinking said:

In other languages, can the word for atonement be broken up into "at-one-ment" or is this just something clever that was discovered for the English language?

My understanding is that in English, the breakdown into "at-one-ment" is deliberate:

"The word comes (in the early 16th century, denoting unity or reconciliation, especially between God and man), from at one + the suffix -ment, influenced by medieval Latin adunamentum ‘unity’, and earlier onement from an obsolete verb one ‘to unite’."   From this page:    https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095432363

[Pyreaux]

The Hebrew word for “atone” which is “kippur (H#3722)”, is actually very common and ordinary in its meaning. A religious meaning only comes from using it in a religious context. Generally, it means “to cover”, but more specifically in a purpose to “recover” or “make good” a torn or broken covering. To atone is to either fix, patch or replace some type of existing covering that has ruptured, usually due to rot or piercing. A normal context for atonement involves repairing something that normally has a covering to it, for example: completely replacing a torn drum's covering, stitching a rip in clothing or sowing a patch into a torn tent.

However, one can giving it other contexts that range in meaning, from “repair a hole” or to “cure a sickness”. In the context of the “atone” with “oil”, atone then means using oil to “smear (and thus cover)”, and to “atone” with “blood” of the Everlasting Covenant, means “to smear blood” with the idea to repair something that breached the covenant. So, the phrase “atoning for sins” does not mean to “cover sin”, in the sense you are attempting to cover, “to hide”, sins from God, rather it is to mend or replace something that has ruptured, due to sin. Sin, the violation of a law of a covenant, ruptures that covenant; you broke it.

Only “blood” can atone, or fix, a ruptured Covenant. A typical covenant is known as an agreement between any two parties, in this case between God and a man, and one of a covenant's main features, other than the terms of the covenant, is the agreed consequence of breaking the oath of the covenant. When one swears the oath of a covenant, the most common sort of oath sworn in in the Bible is called a “blood oath”, a statement or gesture, indicating they’d rather die than break the oath (Jeremiah 54:18-19). Blood was believed to be one's “life” (Leviticus 17:14), that means the offering of blood is the “life” you promised as recompense for violating the terms of a covenant you swore your life upon. 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Pyreaux

[mfbukowski]

7 hours ago, Kevin Christensen said:

All of this has turned me away from economic or punative metaphors about the at-one-ment. 

 

I agree- and if we English speakers happen to get a break in explaining a biblical concept, it's just a payback for all the times English has messed us up!

[webbles]

In Portuguese, the word is "expiação" which has the same root as the English "expiation".

[MiserereNobis]

7 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

I agree- and if we English speakers happen to get a break in explaining a biblical concept, it's just a payback for all the times English has messed us up!

Latin, dude, always go back to Latin 😂

 

[mfbukowski]

4 hours ago, MiserereNobis said:

Latin, dude, always go back to Latin 😂

 

Yeah, even it was written Greek or Hebrew. 

Since it's the only ancient language I studied fo 2 whole years in Catholic High School, trying to translate Gallic Wars.

Ah, those Augustian Fathers!

But Latin is so easy.

Just remember that:

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" The formula for the pluperfect active subjunctive is the perfect active infinitive, plus personal endings. (3) Perfect and pluperfect passive subjunctive forms are created by replacing the indicative sum and eram with their subjunctive counterparts, sim and essem."

Clear as a bell!  😲

 

Edited December 22, 2023 by mfbukowski

[filovirus]

Spanish is "Expiacion". Dictionary defines the English equivalent word expiation as: the act of making amends or reparation for guilt or wrongdoing; atonement.

But no, there is no play on words in the Spanish version.

Edited December 22, 2023 by filovirus

[mfbukowski]

55 minutes ago, filovirus said:

Spanish is "Expiacion". Dictionary defines the English equivalent word expiation as: the act of making amends or reparation for guilt or wrongdoing; atonement.

But no, there is no play on words in the Spanish version.

Yes. I was also trying to figure out that post

[halconero]

Probably "εξιλέωση" in Greek, or "kat-al-lag-ay." No translation is perfect, but reconciliation is probably the best one. Literally though it means to restored to state of harmony, which itself is a unique and beautiful idea that harmony with God is the default state of humanity.

In general, the Orthodox and Eastern Catholics do conceive of the atonement (or "reconciliation") as the restoration of this harmonious state vis-a-vis Christ as the New Adam. You can read about it more in recapitulation theory, but the gist is that Christ came into the world to triumph in all the areas where Adam fell, thus restoring humanity to the Edenic state.

[pogi]

On 12/21/2023 at 12:43 PM, Kevin Christensen said:

All of this has turned me away from economic or punative metaphors about the at-one-ment. 

In Tagalog, the word for atonement is pagbabayad-sala, which means payment for guilt/sin.   It would be harder for a Filipino to turn away from the economic metaphor without creating new language for it.