Punctuation, appositives, heresy and theology

Punctuation matters.

I emphasized that in three decades of mentoring young newspaper reporters and in teaching journalism and basic English (a part-time gig). Because of my long-term fixation for finding errors in spelling, grammar and punctuation, I have been unable to turn loose of my editing pencil, even while sitting in the church pew.

Sunday's church bulletin provided a copy of the Gospel for the day, along with the Old Testament and New Testament lessons prescribed in the lectionary. The day's Gospel was taken from Mark and included this passage in Mark 9:7, using the New Revised Standard Version: "Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud came a voice, 'This is my Son, the Beloved' listen to him!"

As I read the text, I realized that either a comma was missing after the appositive "the Beloved" or the comma after Son should be a semicolon, which would completely change the meaning of the passage. Dropping the following comma in appositives is a very common error.

An appositive such as "my sister, Margaret," is known as non-restrictive and behaves like a word in parentheses (beginning with an open parenthesis and ending with a close parenthesis), implying that I have one sister, whose name is Margaret. Without the punctuation, "my sister Margaret" implies I have more than one sister and I am referring to the one named Margaret. No commas are needed.

Here's what bothered me about the punctuation in Sunday's Gospel: Without the following comma, the appositive is incomplete. The reader is left to wonder whether "my Son, the Beloved" is a restrictive appositive implying God has more than one beloved son (a heretical concept). Alternatively, the passage could be punctuated in error by using a comma rather than a semicolon after "Son." That punctuation would turn the last five words into a declarative or imperative clause, changing the meaning of the sentence: "This is my Son. The Beloved listen to him." This makes "The Beloved" refer to all you folks listening.

Punctuation matters.

I double-checked the transcribed Scripture in the church bulletin against my copy of an NRSV Bible. It shows a comma after "Beloved," thereby completing the non-restrictive appositive. The older King James Version translation avoids this punctuational question this way: "and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, 'this is my beloved Son; hear him.'" I also checked the New International Version, which says: "a voice came from the cloud: 'This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him.'"

Final verdict: the church bulletin's punctuation issue was likely a "copy and paste" error and not a theological revision.