Mnemosyne/Mnemododo- Crazy Name, Wonderful App

It has been a long time since I wrote a blog post; almost ten months, to be exact.  I have wanted to post more, but life has been extremely busy.  When family, seminary, ministry, and eating are considered, this blog has fallen down the priority list.  That said, I enjoy writing, and since I am tired after an outstanding weekend class on shepherding taught by Chris Florence and do not feel like doing schoolwork while I wait for the first Union game of the new season to kickoff (#DOOP), I am going to tell you about a great program with a ridiculous name: Mnemosyne.

The name is not really all that ridiculous.  Μνημοσυνη was the Greek goddess of memory, so a flashcard program designed to help one remember all of those Greek, Hebrew (and French) words seems an apt namesake for such a program.  I was made aware of this program during finals in the Fall, and it has not disappointed.

So what is Mnemosyne?  It is a powerful spaced repetition program.  There are two sides to this program: the first for your desktop/laptop computer, and the optional (but worthy) second part for your Android mobile device (named Mnemododo). The "cards" are very powerful, and can incorporate sound, multiple "sides," colors, and images.  Don't feel like typing in hundreds of Greek and Hebrew cards?  Not a problem.  You can easily import card sets from sites like quizlet.com or cram.com.  Personally, I suggest the sets made by "tpyles" for both Greek (based on Trenchard down to 20 occurrences) and Hebrew (down to 50 occurrences).  Start with the most common words, and load more as you work your way down.

Each card has stats kept for that specific card.  Once your cards are set up, you rate how difficult the card was for you to remember on a scale of 0-1 for unlearned cards and 2-5 for review cards.  Five means the card was too easy, four was just about right, three or two mean it was either too difficult or you missed the card.  Mnemosyne, based on each card's specific data, will keep track of the best time for each card to show up again.  Sometimes it may be a day or two, others will not show up for some time (some of my cards are next scheduled to show up in 120 days).  This means that you are not wasting time reviewing words that you know well.

The kicker for me, though, was the mobile app.  If you have an Android smartphone and have been frustrated by little square boxes for many accented Greek or pointed Hebrew characters, Mnemosyne has you covered.  Through a plug-in called Gogorender (I didn't make up the names), the program turns the card text from your computer into images that your phone can render.  It is a brilliant little solution.  You can load several days worth of cards onto your phone (7 is suggested), and in just a few minutes each day, you can get back all of the Greek and Hebrew vocab you have forgotten since your exegesis class.

This is a great little program, and the website for the program has a ton of great information.  As an added bonus, the app developer is outstanding.  I had a few glitches getting things running on my phone, and he responded to questions through the Google Play (what's with these names?) within a day.  I highly recommend this program.

"Cor meum tibi offero, Domine, prompte et sincere." 

"Woman" in Luke 13.12 and God's Long Nose

This morning as I was eating breakfast, I read an article about the use of "woman" in Luke 13:12: "When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, 'Woman, you are freed from your disability.'" The article was written in response to a blog post by Bill Mounce (author of Basics of Biblical Greek) who claimed that "woman" was essentially untranslatable into English in this case.  The response claimed that it should just be translated "literally" and the reader should be left to her own means (study Bibles, commentaries, sermons, etc.) to determine the meaning of γύναι (gunai) in its original context.  While "woman" as a vocative in English seems, at best, an unkind form of address today, is it so far culturally removed that translating it as such does more harm than good?


This discussion, I'm sure, may make some nervous.  If it says "woman" why not translate it "woman?"  To do otherwise would seem to conceal what the Bible actually says.  But that is not how translation works.  Take, for example, Exodus 34:6.  Here are a few translations:


NIV: And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, "The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness


ESV: The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,


NASB: Then the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth;


KJV: And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,


NET: The LORD passed by before him and proclaimed: "The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, and abounding in loyal love and faithfulness,


I doubt that anyone would claim that these translations are being unfaithful by translating the highlighted phrase as "slow to anger" or "longsuffering," but that is not what the Hebrew says.  In Hebrew we learn that God has a long nose.  Translated in a woodenly literal fashion, these versions would say that God is "long of nose."  In Hebrew, one is angry when they are "red of face," so if one has a long nose it takes a long time for that redness to travel to ones face.  Thus, it is used to indicate that one is patient. 

I don't think that we have been done a disservice when the translators have taken this Hebrew idiom and translated it in a way that we can easily understand on a surface reading.  Of course, it could be left as is and we could see the footnotes, study Bibles, commentaries or so forth, but the above translations are actually more faithful as they translate the meaning, not the words, of this phrase.  To do otherwise would make this famous and important passage unintelligible for the English reader.


There are many similar examples.  One of my personal favorites is the storm in the book of Jonah which was "walking and storming" (Jon 1.11, 13- most translations render it as "growing worse" or other similar phrases).  The question that Mounce asks, then, is not a worrisome or strange question.  He simply asks if translating  γύναι (gunai) as "woman" places unnecessary barriers to understanding in our culture.  If translators are not asking these questions, it would be cause for concern.


I'm not convinced that Mounce is correct, and I'm not sure leaving it untranslated or translating it as "friend" is helpful (Mounce says as much himself).  Nor is this passage and the possible misunderstanding as critical as that in Exodus 34.6.  What it does show, though, is that pastors and vocational students of the Bible should be making an effort to study and use the original languages.  If we don't change the way we render "woman" our pastors must be able to answer the questions that arise from it's use.  Secondly, it should also give us some appreciation for the difficult task of translating.  We must appreciate that it is neither straightforward nor easy.  It's not an exact science in which each word has a precise corollary in the target language.  Our translators are not just translating from one language to another, but from one culture to another as well.  This takes outstanding sensitivity, care, and erudition.  Praise God for the many faithful students of His Word who have the skill and ability to make the Bible accessible in many different languages.

"Cor meum tibi offero, Domine, prompte et sincere."