Roger Mills scripsit:
> but who should a banker worship? who should a bus-driver honor?
The Catholic Church faces a variant of this problem in finding patron saints
for various modern things, and has some excellent creative solutions.
A bit of semantic explication on some of the commandments:
> 5. "Honour your father and mother."
> )Bçuraka inde-amayeti yuno pakrakaveleti
> Give respect mother-father-dat.-your (and) all your ancestors
"Honor" here really means "support".
> 6. "Do not kill"
> Yanda pakran ka )Bçin liya
> Do not kill-violently person-acc. other
The correct semantics of this one is "Do not commit murder". Had the
prohibition been on killing rather than murdering, the King James translators
would have written "Do not slay." It does include non-violent murder such as
murder by poison (seemingly the original sense of "murder").
> 9. "Do not bear false witness against your neighbour"
> Yanda hengut ...or: yanda kota trakundri )Bç
> Do not lie ...or: do not speak untruths
This is not a prohibition on all lies, but specifically on perjury: swearing
a false oath, whether publicly or privately.
--
John Cowan www.ccil.org/~cowan www.reutershealth.com jcowan@reutershealth.com
All "isms" should be "wasms". --Abbie