Culturally Biblical
5 March 2008 - 29 אדר א' 5768 by Huw
Over at BoingBoing, Cory Doctorow posts a link to his latest Locus column, Put Not Your Faith in Ebook Readers. I’m sure it’s a good article, but it was the title that caught my attention, as it might for more than a few of my readers.
Its style comes, jointly, from three common sources: the Coverdale, BCP and King James translations of the Psalms all render Psalm 146:3 as “Put not your trust in princes”, “Faith” being the same word as “Trust” or even “loyalty”, at least in the Biblical mind. (Historically, Coverdale comes first. But let’s allow for other denominations in the sourcing.) A google on the phrase “put not your faith” turns up over 5,000 hits. “Put not your trust” turns up another 27,000.
I wonder how many of the users of the style know they are quoting Bible. Would that more of us would heed the full, anarchistic advice of the Psalmist…
Would that more of us would heed the full, anarchistic advice of the Psalmist
I agree with the sentiment, but quibble with your characterization of the Psalmist as “anarchistic”. He’s not cautioning against respecting princes as princes, nor suggesting that being a prince is in itself dishonorable nor that there ought to be no princes. That would indeed be “anarchistic.”
Rather, he is cautioning against relying on princes specifically for salvation, and contrasting that with reliance on the Lord for salvation. He writes:
Put not your trust in princes, nor in the sons of men, in whom there is no salvation.
His breath shall go forth and he shall return to his earth; in that day all his thoughts shall perish.
Blessed is he whose helper is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God.
Now, the Psalmist probably understood “salvation” in a more down-to-earth and less “theological” sense than we Christians do; but still the sort of trust he is talking about is the ultimate and utter reliance upon God that we call “faith” in the theological sense — not the common expectation that those in authority will more or less do their jobs.
Granted in all points.
But as we back down (on the left, at least) to that less theological (and I would say into a more Biblical) understanding of “salvation” a good few of us (on the left and right) still seem to depend on princes for that.