BOY
BOYHOOD
221
to ' bottles ' occurs in connexion with a question that had been addressed to f'lui'-l with ii'i;:ird to an ob- served difference betwi-rn 1 1 1~ .li-riplis and those of John the Baptist and l\v I'linii r,^ (Mt9"-", Mk 2'8-2=, Lk o^-'^). A <cii:iiii ..nlw.inl conformity was expected in religious teacliin;,' and example, and the absence of fasting among His disciples seemed to create a perplexing ami objectionable departure. The interview takes place immediately after the incident of Levi's feast, when Christ's eating with publicans and sinners was objected to as lowering the standard of the religious life.
The simile reminds us that the life of institutions as of individuals has a limit. It is sufficient for the wine-skin to have once held and matured and pre- served its new wine. The attempt to repeat the act of filling and distension involves the loss of both the wine and the vessel which holds it. The most venerated form was once an innovation on what preceded it, and by the operation of the same law a fresh expansive force will again alter external conditions and create new conformities. Christ claims the entire devotion of His disciples, and while the fasting that was largely a com- memoration of the past was suspended during His presence, it would receive in days to come a fresh impulse from His absence.
The important truth taught by the simile of the wine-skin and its contents is emphasized by the twofold fact that religious forces are the most ex- pansive of all, and that their receptive forms often attain to a degree of rigidity which preserves the outward shape after the contents have been with- drawn. With regard to the principle of fasting, the affinity of mind and body that connects sorrow with sighing (Is 35'°) abundantly authoriz.es the observance under naturally suitable circumstances, but fasting by statute has usually been found to be linked, both as cause and effect, with ecclesi- astical segregation and asceticism.
LrreRATURB.— Brace, Parabolic Teaching, p. 2i)5S., Galilean Gospel, p. 180 ff. ; F. W. Eoberlson, The Human Mace, p. 190 fl. G. M. Mackie.
BOY (the word).— In the AV this word does not occur in the Gospels, noi' indeed in NT, and only three times in OT (Gn 25=', Jl 3=, Zee S% We usually have ' male child ' for a very young boy, and ' lad ' for an older one, where ' boy ' would be used in modern English. And RV has retained the older use in most cases.
But there is in modern English an ambiguous use of ' boy.' It sometimes approximates to the sense of ' servant ' (cf. ' doctor's boy '), and in some of our colonies is used of a native male servant irrespective of age. A ' boy ' in this sense may be grey - headed. This force of the word made it suitable as a rendering of ttois in certain cases. In Mt 8'-'^ = Lk l--'", the centurion's servant is sometimes described as a SoCXos (RVm, 'bond- servant') and sometimes as a Trais (RVm, 'boy'). RV text keeps the AV ' servant ' tliroughout for both words. A comparison of Mt 8'^ with Lk 7'" shows that the two words ajiply to the same person. It is in the centurion's oirn speech (Mt 8*-'=Lk V) that he refers to the slave who was ' precious unto him ' (Lk 7= RVm) by the milder word. The narrative (except Mt 8") uses SoOXos, as the centurion hini-elf .Nm's in MtS', Lk 7". The variation is eitlici ii ii,itin,il simple touch, proving the veracity of tlie narrative, or it is an instance of the highest art. See art. Servant.
As in the above instance Trah= SoOXos, so in the narrative of the healing of the epileptic child (Mt 17»->», Mk 9"-=', Lk 93'-'3) we find in St. Matthew and St. Luke (not St. Mark) that irafs can = ui4s. Here Mt 17'8, Lk 9« RV have 'boy' in the text, for the AV ' child.' Similar is the use in Lk 8"-", where ij ttois is ' maiden ' and ' maid ' in EV.
Except where the context requires a diHerent rendering, irais is usually translated ' ser\'ant ' in botli vei'sions, and RV often points out occurrences of ooOXos by putting 'or bond-servant' in the margin.
In .In 4='' both versions have ' son ' ( = irars) where RV had far better have put ' boy ' as in the above instance, keeping ' son ' strictly for uiis.
George Farmer.
BOYHOOD (.Jewish).— So little is recorded on this subject in the Gospels, or in the NT generally, that we are dependent on other sources for our facts. These sources are cliiefiy the OT, the OT Apocrypha, Josephus, the Talmud, and modern Eastern life. The first of these authorities is too early, and the last two too late, to justify us in basing on them any very positive statements as to Jewish boyhood in the time of Christ. With this caution they are used in the present article. And it will be remem- bered (1) that the Jewish life of our period was the result of the jirevious life of the nation ; (2) that Israel is a nation of great conservatism in matters of religion and the home, although receptive of new ideas ; (3) that some of the Apocryphal books were late enough to be products of an age in which Pharisaism, Hellenism, and other Jewisli views met each other, much as they did in the early part of the 1st cent. A.D.