Ship of Fools: Help thou my unbelief

Thread: Help thou my unbelief Board: Kerygmania / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

In Mark 9:24 after the Transfiguation, Christ heals a possessed boy. In the Authorized Version in a wonderful and paradoxical phrase (and one to me deeply encouraging) the father responds to Christ’s saying “I believe; help thou mine unbelief”.

https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=unbelief&version=AKJV&resultspp=25

Some recent translations play down the paradox, “help my lack of faith” or “help me where faith falls short”.* What is the word in Greek translated “unbelief”? It is an unusual English word.

*I’m sure I’ve come across this somewhere.

PS I'm no great enthusiast for the use of archaic translations usually.

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

The Greek word is απιστια. The initial α is a negative prefix. The root πιστ occurs in the word which is translated as 'believe'.

It seems to me that 'unbelief' is a perfectly reasonable translation.

Apparently the word is not otherwise found anywhere.

Moo

Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :

VenBede

There is a good website called Greek Bible and it gives the world as ἀπιστίᾳ. This is a compound noun and its etymology is ἀ πιστίᾳ with πίστις -εως -ἡ being greek for "faith". There appears to be in the sentence a change from I believe (verb) to unbelief(noun)

Jengie

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

I think it's quite possible the father made up the word on the spot. He needed a contradiction for 'belief' so he coined 'unbelief'.

This kind of thing is quite common in all languages.

Moo

Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :

Well, he probably did not use ἀπιστία, after all, he was likely to be talking Aramaic and it is a Greek word. Using Google scholar I get the following noun
"כְּפִירָה" - heresy, apostasy, unbelief, denial, disbelief, agnosticism

There are rather more options for "lacking faith".

Jengie

Posted by Mamacita (# 3659) on :

Like you, venbede, I've always found this statement encouraging.

I think "unbelief" is a perfectly fine word here, and I like it even more if it IS made up (and if he made it up in Aramaic as well, so much the better). The man, as I see it, was teetering on the border between his preconceptions and what he sees right in front of him. If that powerful moment left him grasping for the right word to express himself, that makes him only the more real to me.

[ 28. February 2017, 03:21: Message edited by: Mamacita ]

Posted by ThunderBunk (# 15579) on :

Putting my literary translator's hat on, this looks like a very literary, and therefore very Greek, figure to me. Potentially even poetic - the parallelism between belief and unbelief. I am seriously sceptical that it had an existence before its appearance in the Greek text, though the encounter as a whole may well have an Aramaic original encounter behind it.

Posted by Gramps49 (# 16378) on :

The enemy of faith is not doubt, it is certitude.

Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :

Playing further, I looked at the interlinear Peshitta. The translation of unbelief is two words that are translated "lack of my faith". Looking at the words and afaict (given I cannot read Aramaic) there may be at least partial parallelism.

Jengie

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