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Women, Consumption and Popular Culture (Vol. 4 No. 1); Life, Community, and Ethics (Vol. 4. No. 2)

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ABSTRACT

The aim of this article is to make a critical inquiry of the relationship among God’s thoughts, intention, and language, as well as to attempt to explain why the Bible, as God’s logos incarnated, is and must be popularized. The author surmises that God, in giving up His “linguistic omnipotence” or “supernatural declaration” that may turn thoughts into things, purports to create the kind of human beings who live in and through language instead of a human instrument that only functions as a piece of lifeless language machine. The article suggests that human languages, which are created out of and therefore imbued with God’s will, actually are not only a living testimony of God’s existence in time but also tangible evidence of human history. The mystery of God’s creation, accordingly, seems to lie in the fact that God has created and will continue to create different languages for different peoples for different purposes. In this sense, the popularization of the Bible (which incarnates God’s logos) in many a different human language duly reflects the “meaningfulness” of God’s language, which in turn can only manifest itself in the eternal diaspora of human languages.

Keywords: God, language, intention, the Bible, popularization, human history

摘 要

本論文企圖揣測（基督教／猶太教的）神／上帝的思想／意圖／言語和《聖經》的語言文字之間的關係，並藉此闡述嘗試去解釋《聖經》之所以流行以及必須流行的現象。主要論點在於推想神捨棄了那種不著語言卻可「心想事成」的神能，而選擇人的有限語言來創造事物，其目的似乎是想賦予人這個被造一個特別的功能，此即讓人成為一個語言的存有者，而非淪為神的一件語言工具或代言機器。換言之，儘管人不是神而人言也不等於神（的）話，然而人的語言終究還是神的創造，因此依舊涵蘊著神的旨意。而作為神聖意義的載體，人的語言不但證實了神的永恆存在也成為了人自己的存在歷史唯一的見證方式。或許這就是神創造人類的真正目的，因為祂讓人有了屬於自己的不同語言以及獨立的生命歷史。《聖經》之所以流行的奧秘正在於其不同語言媒介所具備的豐富性滿足了不同人的不同需求，而《聖經》之所以必須流行也正因為唯有如此神（的）話和人的不同語言理解之間的奇妙關係才得以開展。

關鍵詞：神／上帝，意圖，語言，聖經，流行，人的歷史

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