People.
May 1,1997
Carlos Colon: Late-Night Fixture at The Pantry
13
Donough Forde
Pendulum Reporter
Late night The Pantry is a place of weird
ness. Not unlike the Waffle House, it is
usually populated by shuffling glazed-eyed
students.
Carlos Colon, (aka the friendly late-
shift Puerto Rican guy at The Pantry to the
last seven years of Elon students), greets his
customers with a friendly smile regardless of
how glazed their eyes are or how confused
their behavior is.
“We’re all wild when we’re growing up.
When the kids go home, this place is dead.
When the kids are here, then it really is a
store,” Colon said.
Colon comes from the Puerto Rican
town of Canovanas, a town so small that “it’s
not always on the map,” he said.
He moved to New York at 14 to live with
his aunt because he "was always getting in
trouble.
He is the only member of a family of 12
to move away from home. “I’m the only one
to drift away. I love Puerto Rico and will go
back when I get older,” he said.
Regardless of his love for home, Carlos
once went for a 12-year period without call
ing home.
“They thought I was dead,” he said.
Colon moved to North Carolina to marry
a Burlington girl he met in New York. How
ever, he has been divorced for six years.
“People always ask for me. Even col
lege kids who graduate, who are coming
back to see family and friends always stop
back to see me.”
The Pantry experience has been dimmed
somewhat by now closing at 11 p.m. But
there are plans to bring back the late-night
service by August.
Colon said, “I miss the third shift. I miss
my crazy kids out here.”
I
Andrew Brickey/r/7e Pendulum
Carlos Colon, a popular cashier at The Pantry on Haggard Avenue, said he enjoys seeing
the late-night crowd of Elon students who come into his store.
Wilson Explores What the Bible Says About Women
Donough Forde
Pendulum Reporter
If one disregards the concept
of divine revelation often attrib
uted to the authors and translators
of the Bible, and recognizes the
possibility of human error and bias
in the production of such a complex
manuscript, one must ask the ques
tions: What were the mistakes of
translation and what were the fab
rications of bias involved in the
production of what we now know
as the Bible?
In order to gain insight into
these questions, dealing specifically
with the question of the status of
women. Pendulum reporter
Donough Forde sat down with
Christian Wilson, professor of reli
gious studies, in his book-lined of
fice at Carlton 319.
Wilson is an ordained minister
who completed his undergraduate
and doctoral work at Duke Univer
sity. He has been teaching at Elon
for 12 years He works extensively
in the ancient languages of Greek,
Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac,
Coptic and Egyptian-
WUson: Every translation, to
some extent, will show the biases
of the translator. This one that I will
show you now has to do with women
in the ministry. The first one is in
the letter Colossians 4:7. “Tychicus
will tell you all the news about me;
he is a beloved brother, a faithful
minister, and a fellow servant in the
lord.” Now that word translated
“minister” when referring to
Tychicus as a man is the Greek
word dicikonos, That is the New
Revised Standard Version. This is
the New International Version that
will translate this particular pas
sage identically.
Now if we go to Romans 16:1
in the New Revised Standard. We
have, “I commend you to my sister
Phoebe, a deacon of the church at
Cenchrea.” Deacon here is not go
ing quite as far as to have women in
the ministry. If you look at the
original Greek on Romans 16 pas
sage, it is exactly the same word
letter for letter (as in the Colossians
passage). But, here it is translated
as Deacon rather than minister.
The New International is a very
conservative version. It’s done by
very conservative scholars for
whom the idea of women being
ministers was probably more than
they could bear even though they
were so in New Testament times.
Here the exact same word is trans
lated as servant that was translated
minister when it referred to man is
translated “servant” when it refers
to Pheobe, a woman.
Pendulum: So it’s even gone
below the level of Deacon.
Wilson: Well, they give an al
ternative footnote translation, dea
coness, even though there is no
feminine ending on the word in
Greek. The New International Ver
sion at times translates things in a
sexist way. I think that’s what we
see in this instance.
Pendulum: Who would view
this text as being their primary text
for biblical reference?
Wilson: A lot of evangelical
and fundamentalist groups and
Baptists will use this as their pri
mary source.
Pendulum: How does this ver
sion stand up to the old King James
version.
Wilson: Almost anything is
better than the King James. There
are two major problems with the
King James. First, it is based on
very inadequate evidence. The King
James translators for the New Tes
tament had only five manuscripts
none of which covered the entire
New Testament. The earliest they
had was dated from the 11 th cen
tury so it was very late with many
errors creeping into the copies over
the centuries.
Whereas the King James is
based upon five manuscripts, the
New Revised Standard is based
upon 5,300 manuscripts going all
the way back,to the second century.
Second, the King James is writ
ten in early 17th century literary
English, not in the English we speak
today.
Pendulum: How will Chris
tianity develop and the thought that
is the linchpin of Christianity
change as the translations improve?
Or will it change?
Wilson: Well, it will change
differently for different Christian
groups. Obviously the Catholic
Church is very slow to change
things. This particular passage is
telling us that women were in the
ministry in the first century. At
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least at this point this Pope is not
about to allow women to be priests.
And that’s what ought to change
with the new translation. And cer
tainly that has changed in many
Protestant denominations.
Pendulum: Some people have
used the Genesis stories as the ba
sis for the subordination of women.
Is that a valid use for the stories?
Wilson: I don’t think that’s
the intent of the stories. There are
really two stories of creation. In the
Genesis 1 creation story, there is no
distinction made between female
and male, they are both created at
the same time in the image of God.
Now, the Genesis 2 story, writ
ten by a different author at a differ
ent time, is somewhat different.
From the dust He created the man
of dust, in a sense. The woman is
created by taking her from the rib
of the man. Now, the normal He
brew word for man is ish and the
word for female is isha. “Adam”
translates as the word "Adtham"
which is the Hebrew word for hu
manity.
Therefore, what you have in
initial creation is a sexless human
being. When the woman is taken
from the man, you have a differen
tiation and there are two sexes. In a
sense it was only when the Adam
was divided that you had the ish
and the isha.
Pendulum: Just recently a
Baptist church in Arkansas used
the passage from Titus 2:5, “So that
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they may encourage the young
women to love their husbands, to
love their children, to be self-con
trolled, chaste, good managers of
the household, kind, being submis
sive to their husbands, so that the
word of God may not be discred
ited,” as justification for the clo
sure of its day care, saying that a
woman’s place was in the house.
Wilson: The passages that they
find and interpret in anti-feminist
ways are never things that Jesus
said. It’s always these later letters
in the New Testament. You don’t
find any anti-feminist statements
on the lips of Jesus.
For instance, in First Timothy
1:2, it is the author of the book
speaking. “I permit no woman to
have authority over man.” It’s not
saying that God does not permit.
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