In 68 years of being a Christian and reader of the Bible, I did not know "Sanā is the condition of loving something or someone less than they are owed. And it is the condition the Bible most consistently names as the problem in our relationship to the poor."
Virginia, your sixty-eight years of faithful reading are exactly the audience this project is written for — and your response is precisely why the śānēʼ insight matters so much. The English translations have flattened a word with genuine depth, and most of us have been working with the flattened version our entire lives.
One small correction I owe you and every reader: I had the transliteration slightly off in the original post. The precise form is śānēʼ (Strong's H8130) rather than sanā — same word, same meaning, same argument, but accuracy matters when we are making claims about the text. I have corrected it in the post. The insight stands exactly as you received it.
Thank you for reading so carefully and for saying so. This conversation is why the Substack exists.
In 68 years of being a Christian and reader of the Bible, I did not know "Sanā is the condition of loving something or someone less than they are owed. And it is the condition the Bible most consistently names as the problem in our relationship to the poor."
Virginia, your sixty-eight years of faithful reading are exactly the audience this project is written for — and your response is precisely why the śānēʼ insight matters so much. The English translations have flattened a word with genuine depth, and most of us have been working with the flattened version our entire lives.
One small correction I owe you and every reader: I had the transliteration slightly off in the original post. The precise form is śānēʼ (Strong's H8130) rather than sanā — same word, same meaning, same argument, but accuracy matters when we are making claims about the text. I have corrected it in the post. The insight stands exactly as you received it.
Thank you for reading so carefully and for saying so. This conversation is why the Substack exists.
I am enjoying learning from your various researched posts.