Replies

KJV:

1Co 4:15 For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.

So the KJV went with the literal meaning on murioi ("10,000"), but good lexical resources will tell you this had become an expression effectively meaning "countless," so I get why some translators would use it on a theory of dynamic equivalence. I'm just not a big fan of dynamic equivalence. Though I will also concede there are translation scenarios where there really is no way to do a direct translation and searching for some sort of equivalent function is a matter of necessity.

As for some alleged aversion to "father" in the KJV, not at all. Certainly not in this passage. In fact, the Vulgate and the KJV and the Greek are all remarkably close here:

The Vulgate:

nam si decem milia pedagogorum habeatis in Christo sed non multos patres nam in Christo Iesu per evangelium ego vos genui

And the Greek:

εαν γαρ μυριους παιδαγωγους εχητε εν χριστω αλλ ου πολλους πατερας εν γαρ χριστω ιησου δια του ευαγγελιου εγω υμας εγεννησα

And the Vulgate:

For if you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet not many fathers. For in Christ Jesus, by the gospel, I have begotten you.

See http://www.latinvulgate.com/lv/verse.aspx?t=1&b=7&c=4

In any event, this does not validate creating an ecclesiastical title of "papa," which is expressly forbidden by Christ. We only have one who bears that title, the Heavenly Father. But Paul here speaks to a spiritual reality, that by analogy to human fatherhood, these Corinthians came to be born into the family of God through Paul's ministry of the Gospel among them. This is impossibly far from justifying systematic breach of Christ's direct command to avoid the term as a title in the assembly.

Being called to dinner. Later ...

Peace,

SR

Third entry “And the Vulgate” should be “And the Douay-Rheims.” Sorry.

And the notion of papa or Pope is being used precisely in the manner that Saint Paul speaks of being a Father to the Corinthians. Nothing controversial here.