the heart as it is | courage • grief • beauty

It has been pretty much a month and a half since I’ve made a post like this. I have been keeping track of things that I have been learning or have been reminded of, it’s been difficult finding time to consolidate all these thoughts. Nevertheless, here they all are:

Things I have been learning about Yahweh:

• One thing I have been exposing myself to more is the Septuagint vs Masoretic translations of the Bible. In short, the Septuagint is the older translation – with records back to the 2nd century, and its original language was Greek, translated from the original ancient Hebrew. The Masoretic text was written around the 9th century, and originally written in Hebrew. I’ve always heard about the Septuagint, but it seemed so distant and foreign to me. Now that I know that (1) Orthodox Christianity uses Septuagint-based translations of the Bible while Protestant Christianity uses Masoretic-based translations of the Bible (2) The Septuagint was written first (like 700 years earlier), and (3) the Masoretic text came together to try to rule out discrepancies (proving the Bible is not as consistent and inerrant as we have thought it to be), I have become more interested in the Septuagint texts. See my next point for an intriguing example.
• Growing up, based off of Jeremiah 17:9, I was taught to not trust my own heart, because the verse (or at least, the Masoretic text of this verse) says: “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” However, the Septuagint translation of this verse (which is actually Jeremiah 17:5) says “The heart is deep beyond all things, and it is the man. Even so, who can know him?” The Orthodox Study Bible comments that the point of this verse is saying that “only God can know men’s hearts”. Going deeper into a Strong’s Concordance, the original Greek of the bolded adjective is “βαθύς”, transliterated “bathys”, which means ‘deep’. Some other definitions include “profound (as going down”, “deep – very early”. The root word of “bathys” is “βᾰ́σῐς”, meaning “a stepping, walking” and “that which one steps, the foot”. Other times the word “bathys” (deep) shows up in the Bible is in :
  
  (1) Luke 24:1 when the women are described as coming to the tomb “very early in the morning”
  
  (2) John 4:11 when the Samaritan woman tells Jesus that he doesn’t even have a bucket and the well is “deep”, and
  
  (3) Acts 20:9 when Eutychus was listening to Paul from the third story of a building and “sank into a deep sleep”
  
  Anyways, I share all of this seemingly extraneous information because nowhere in its intent in the original Septuagint, nor in its root word, nor in other instances where the Bible uses the same word per the original Greek (based off of the original ancient Hebrew) is there any connotation or implication of “deceitfulness”. Which begs us to ask the question – how did that translation come about through the Masoretic text then? Honestly, I don’t know, and I’m sure there are people who have tried to look into it, as I’ve discovered that here’s quite a handful of literature comparing the Septuagint to the Masoretic texts at this point. However, I am interested in figuring that out sometime soon, because if people are saying that the Bible is inerrant, is it the Masoretic text or the Septuagint text that is inerrant? If one version is believed to be inaccurate, how is someone sure they’re right? I am not sure I’m right, but something I can be confident in is that the Bible – in its historicity, creation, and canonization – is not consistent in and of itself – and that is actually not a bug, it is a feature of the library of sacred texts collected throughout the centuries.
  
  (But also, in my personal opinion, I’m more inclined to say that the heart is deep over the heart being deceitful. There are indeed times when our hearts are acting out of dysfunction – however, the dysfunction is almost always the perceived solution to a problem, it’s not the actual problem. The problem is usually some kind of relational disconnect, either to others or to ourselves. It is this disconnect that God can effortlessly see directly into that takes us humans so much time and effort to understand. God is the one who created our hearts and created them good – our being made in His image has to do with the original goodness of our hearts, so it doesn’t make sense that the heart is inherently deceitful in any way.)
• I wrote this while in Taiwan early April, but I could sense that God wanted me to be taking things really slow that time. I couldn’t make sense of it then, but I do now (which I already blogged about here.

Things I have been learning about (or being reminded of) people:

• Not only do people’s perspectives and past and current relationships shape their interactions with people, but any experience they have had also affects these interactions.
• Sometimes, people’s disappointment in you is not your disappointment to bear (emphasis on the *sometimes*). You can correct your behavior and mistakes, but the disappointment needs to be felt, and this is definitely not a comforting thought, but a necessary one.
• Sometimes (or oftentimes actually…), people will see you through the lens of their own culture, values, and relationships without any room for flexibility – and there’s not much we can do about it. However, acceptance of this reality, plus trying our best to be kind (or at least cordial/professional), is what is needed.

Things I have been learning about myself (also wrote these down while in Taiwan):

• As a second generation Taiwanese-American immigrant whose mother has passed away, connection to my heritage feels a bit more difficult, since I grew up visiting her side of the family in Taiwan most of the time. I’ve been thinking of more ways to be creative and really using some tools to connect to my heritage, as my trip to Taiwan has made me really feel the importance and impact of being connected in that way, as it is also a sort of self-connection.
• Travel makes me realize what feels like too much digitally, such as scrolling through social media and email spam. I’m still on a journey to find out what feels like too much so I can learn to be more still.

Thank you for reading this far if you have, I know it is a lot longer than some of my other reflections !