I ended up sitting next to a very nice couple with a very beautiful baby and we had a nice chat. They told me which version of the Bible the church used and offered to explain things if I couldn't keep up.
The PKN (the denomination to which the Pilgrimvaderskerk belongs) has officially adopted the Nieuwe Bijbelvertaling as the translation which they encourage the churches to use in worship. The Nieuwe Bijbelvertaling is a newer translation (it came out in 2004). It has a reputation as being kind of a "fluffy" read and not that useful for study. One of the guys on the minority side of the PKN committee which ended up approving the use of the NBV said that the choice to use the NBV was an "irresponsible decision unworthy of the church." (http://www.pkn.nl/5/info.aspx?page=14820) The reason that the PKN decided to use it was because it was popular with the "ordinary" reader.
On the other hand, whatever people say about the NBV version, as far as I know, no one has called it a "trick of the devil" which is what at least one pastor called the Herziene Statenvertaling Bijbel, the 2010 redo of the old Statenvertaling Bijbel. (http://www.cip.nl/nieuwsbericht_detail.asp?id=19390)
In any case, I definitely need to get a Dutch bible of my own (it turns out that they don't have pew-Bibles available at the church, it is just that a lot of the Bibles people bring with them look like the song books). I have my English Bible and, once I get to the correct place, I at least know what the pastor's text is about but it is very difficult to listen to the Dutch and read the English at the same time and still have an idea what is going on. I just have to decide if I want to go for the "fluff" Bible that will be easy to follow along with or if I want to go with a real Bible that will not match what the pastor is reading.
One good thing about church services is that there a lot of things that are the same no matter what the language, so there are things that you can recognize and it helps you feel like you know what is going on. One such thing is the reading of the 10 commandments. One thing I noticed this week, though, is that there is a little difference between the Dutch and the English commandments. In the 9th and 10th commandments one is forbidden to bear false witness against a neighbor or to covet any of one's neighbor's things. In Dutch, the typical word for neighbor (which you use in everyday conversations) is "buurman". However, the Bible translation doesn't use that word either in the Nieuwe Bijbel or in the Statenvertaling Bijbel (I looked it up). Instead it uses the word "naaste". Usually you use this to mean something that is next to you. Google Translate also gives an alternate translation of "fellow creature" which may be why it is used instead of "buurman"--it just gives a broader and more inclusive meaning. (It could just be to avoid all of those jokes about being allowed to lie about the guy who lives across town.) In any case, I don't suppose it matters that much; mostly I was just impressed with myself that I was understanding enough of what was going on that I could tell the difference.
My next big project (having, I feel, conquered the "trekken" and "duwen" (push/pull) challenge) is to memorize the Lord's Prayer in Dutch. It is something that you learn almost without thinking about in church when you are little and I feel kind of silly not being able to follow along with the congregation when they pray it in Dutch. This is the Lord's Prayer in Dutch:
Onze Vader die in de hemelen zijt,
Uw naam worde geheiligd
Uw Koninkrijk kome;
Uw wil geschiede,
Gelijk in de hemel alzo ook op de aarde.
Geef ons heden ons dagelijks brood;
En vergeef ons onze schulden,
Gelijk ook wij vergeven onze schuldenaren;
En leid ons niet in verzoeking,
Maar verlos ons van de boze.
Want uwer is het koninkrijk
En de kracht
En de heerlijkheid
In de eeuwigheid. Amen.
If you want to hear what it sounds like, you can listen to it (in a variety of versions) at this website: http://web.me.com/schuffelen/Site/du3ourfathers.html. The version I will practice is the Protestant version but I am going to have to make sure this is the one the church actually uses before I go and learn the whole thing wrong.
The sermon was on the Parable of the Prodigal Son. From what I could tell, the pastor said that the parable was analogy of the relationship between God and the Church. He also said (I think) that the church ought to work at having better internal relations between Christian brothers than the two brothers in the parable did. It wasn't ground-breaking stuff but, to be perfectly fair, I had a lot of trouble figuring out what he was talking about most of the time, for some reason, and he could have had the best sermon ever and I would have been none the wiser. I definitely do not think that I understood as much this week as I did last week.
Altogether, though, the most memorable thing about Sunday was probably that, as I came up out of the Metro station, there was a drag queen with a heavy five o'clock shadow, wearing a little, bitty evening dress and flip flops, walking down the road.
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