Hello everyone.
Been gone a while, I haven’t posted a topic here for since 2004, but remembered this story this morning, so I thought I’d make a post.
Dungy idols! Ring a bell with you?
I remember when practically every meeting in the week had a scripture in it with this phrase. It’s all over the book of Ezekiel, so it probably relates to that time in the late 60’s or early 70’s when we were studying that Ezekiel book. And, as we all recall, that Ezekiel he’s just crazy, he’s constantly railing about “dungy idols”
But how do you say it?
This might seem like a strange question to you, perhaps you think it’s obvious.
But, in our congregation it was always, always pronounced : dun - jee [ rhymes with spongey] .
That’s right – nothing to do with dung, or anything unpleasant like that. The official, universally-approved, elder-endorsed pronunciation of this particular biblical phrase in the congregation I grew up in was: “dun-jee” as in, say, suggestive of dingy, dark, dirty, dungeons (or something, I dunno, I’m guessing here).
When I was younger, I didn’t think about it, it was just “bible-talk” dun-jee was fine by me, I said it the same as everyone else. As I grew older, though, as a fine young teenage witness of Jehovah, I would tend to research things a little. I would enthusiastically look things up in encyclopaedias and dictionaries. And, of course, I came to realise that the only English word spelt that way was, in fact, the one to do with animal droppings. Goodness me! The Bible was much earthier than I had imagined. (see ps note)
Pretty soon, one of my talks from the platform involved one of these Ezekiel scriptures, and I pronounced the word – for the first time to my knowledge in our congregation - correctly.
I was counselled afterwards by our Carpet-cleaner, barely-literate School overseer. He absolutely couldn’t comprehend that the Bible had words like “dung” in it, and he was shocked that I had used that pronunciation. He counselled me about “embarrassing the congregation”.
So that was me told. And it didn’t do to argue, of course, even if you’re right, you’re wrong.
Even a couple of years later when, at a Circuit Assembly, our D.O. (Brother Drage, anyone remember him?) used exactly that pronunciation, I was too fine and humble to go back and crow to Carpet-cleaner man, I just let it go. And it didn’t make a bit of difference to the way the congregation carried on pronouncing the word. Dunjee it was and dunjee it still is, for all I know.
p.s. with the internet these days, you can research these things more thoroughly. As for the “earthiness” of Ezekiel’s language, look at these 2 quotes:
" The word used for the "idols,"(Heb.gullilim), is the worst word imaginable in Hebrew. Ezekiel used this word thirty-nine times as he drew a parallel between human excrement and the form of the idol images. It is the most contemptuous term possible in the Hebrew language " -The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol 1, p.1181
" Modern sensitivities prevent translator's from rendering this expression as Ezekiel intended it to be heard, but had he been preaching today he would probably have identified these idols with a four-letter word for excrement."-Brock. World Commentary Series, Ezekiel Vol 1