THE AGES DIGITAL LIBRARY REFERENCE INTERNATIONAL STANDARD BIBLE ENCYCLOPEDIA VOL. 4 F- GYMNASIUM Books For The Ages AGES Software • Albany, OR USA Version 1.0 © 1997 2 F FABLE <fa’-b’-l> ([mu~qov, muthos]): (1) Primitive man conceives of the objects around him as possessing his own characteristics. Consequently in his stories, beasts, trees, rocks, etc., think, talk and act exactly as if they were human beings. Of course, but little advance in knowledge was needed to put an end to this mode of thought, but the form of story-telling developed by it persisted and is found in the folk-tales of all nations. More particularly, the archaic form of story was used for the purpose of moral instruction, and when so used is termed the fable. Modern definitions distinguish it from the parable (a) by its use of characters of lower intelligence than man (although reasoning and speaking like men), and (b) by its lesson for this life only. But, while these distinctions serve some practical purpose in distinguishing (say) the fables of Aesop from the parables of Christ, they are of little value to the student of folk-lore. For fable, parable, allegory, etc., are all evolutions from a common stock, and they tend to blend with each other. See ALLEGORY; PARABLE. (2) The Semitic mind is peculiarly prone to allegorical expression, and a modern Arabian storyteller will invent a fable or a parable as readily as he will talk. And we may be entirely certain that the very scanty appearance of fables in the Old Testament is due only to the character of its material and not at all to an absence of fables from the mouths of the Jews of old. Only two examples have reached us. In <070907>Judges 9:7 through 15 Jotham mocks the choice of AbimeItch as king with the fable of the trees that could find no tree that would accept the trouble of the kingship except the worthless bramble. And in <121409>2 Kings 14:9 Jehoash ridicules the pretensions of Amaziah with the story of the thistle that wished to make a royal alliance with the cedar. Yet that the distinction between fable and allegory, etc., is 3 artificial is seen in <230501>Isaiah 5:1,2, where the vineyard is assumed to possess a deliberate will to be perverse. (3) In the New Testament, “fable” is found in <540104>1 Timothy 1:4; 4:7; <550404>2 Timothy 4:4; <560114>Titus 1:14; <610116>2 Peter 1:16, as the translation of muthos (“myth”). The sense here differs entirely from that discussed above, and “fable” means a (religious) story that has no connection with reality — contrasted with the knowledge of an eyewitness in <610116>2 Peter 1:16. The exact nature of these “fables” is of course something out of our knowledge, but the mention in connection with them of “endless genealogies” in <540104>1 Timothy 1:4 points with high probability to some form of Gnostic speculation that interposed a chain of eons between God and the world. In some of the Gnostic systems that we know, these chains are described with a prolixity so interminable (the Pistis Sophia is the best example) as to justify well the phrase “old wives’ fables” in <540407>1 Timothy 4:7. But that these passages have Gnostic reference need not tell against the Pauline authorship of the Pastorals, as a fairly well developed “Gnosticism” is recognizable in a passage as early as Colossians 2, and as the description of the fables as Jewish in <560114>Titus 1:14 (compare 3:9) is against 2nd-century references. But for details the commentaries on the Pastoral Epistles must be consulted. It is worth noting that in <550404>2 Timothy 4:4 the adoption of these fables is said to be the result of dabbling in the dubious. This manner of losing one’s hold on reality is, unfortunately, something not confined to the apostolic age. Burton Scott Easton FACE <fas>: In Hebrew the translation of three expressions: (1) [µyniP;, panim] (2) [ˆyi[“, `ayin], literally, “eye” and (3) [ta”, ‘aph], literally, “nose,” “nostril,” already noted under the word COUNTENANCE, which see. The first and second of these words are used synonymously, even in metaphorical expressions, as, e.g. in the phrase “the face of the earth,” where panim is used (<050615>Deuteronomy 6:15 et passim) and `ayin (<042205>Numbers 22:5 et passim). The third expression preserves more clearly its original 4 meaning. It is generally used in the phrases “to bow one’s self to the earth,” “to fall on one’s face,” where the nose actually touched the ground. Often “my face,” “thy face” is mere oriental circumlocution for the personal pronoun “I,” “me,” “thou,” “thee.” “In thy face” means “in thy presence;” and is often so translated. A very large number of idiomatic Hebrew expressions have been introduced into our language through the medium of the Bible translation. We notice the most important of these phrases. “To seek the face” is to seek an audience with a prince or with God, to seek favor (<192406>Psalm 24:6; 27:8 bis; 105:4; <200715>Proverbs 7:15; <280515>Hosea 5:15; compare <202926>Proverbs 29:26, where the Revised Version (British and American) translates “Many seek the ruler’s favor,” literally, many seek the face (Hebrew pene) of a ruler). If God “hides his face” He withdraws His presence, His favor (<053220>Deuteronomy 32:20; <183429>Job 34:29; <191301>Psalm 13:1; 30:7; 143:7; <235408>Isaiah 54:8; <243305>Jeremiah 33:5; <263923>Ezekiel 39:23,14; <330304>Micah 3:4). Such withdrawal of the presence of God is to be understood as a consequence of man’s personal disobedience, not as a wrathful denial of God’s favor (<235902>Isaiah 59:2). God is asked to “hide his face,” i.e. to disregard or overlook (<195109>Psalm 51:9; compare 10:11). This is also the idea of the prayer: “Cast me not away from thy presence” (literally, “face,” <195111>Psalm 51:11), and of the promise: “The upright shall dwell in thy presence” (literally, “face,” <19E013>Psalm 140:13). If used of men, “to hide the face” expresses humility and reverence before an exalted presence (<020306>Exodus 3:6; <230602>Isaiah 6:2); similarly Elijah “wrapped his face in his mantle” when God passed by (<111913>1 Kings 19:13). The “covering of the face” is a sign of mourning (<101904>2 Samuel 19:4 = <261206>Ezekiel 12:6,12); a “face covered with fatness” is synonymous with prosperity and arrogance (<181527>Job 15:27); to have one’s face covered by another person is a sign of hopeless doom, as if one were already dead. This was done to Human, when judgment had been pronounced over him (<160708>Nehemiah 7:8). “To turn away one’s face” is a sign of insulting indifference or contempt (<142906>2 Chronicles 29:6; <261406>Ezekiel 14:6; Sirach 4:4; compare <240227>Jeremiah 2:27; 18:17; 32:33); on the part of God an averted face is synonymous with rejection (<191301>Psalm 13:1; 27:9; 88:14). 5 “To harden the face” means to harden one’s self against any sort of appeal (<202129>Proverbs 21:29; <235007>Isaiah 50:7; <240503>Jeremiah 5:3; compare <260309>Ezekiel 3:9). See also SPIT. In this connection we also mention the phrase “to respect persons,” literally, to “recognize the face” (Leviticus19:15, or, slightly different in expression, <050117>Deuteronomy 1:17; 16:19; Proverbs 24; 23; 28:21), in the sense of unjustly favoring a person, or requiting him with undue evil. Compare also the Hebrew hadhar (<022303>Exodus 23:3 the King James Version), “to countenance” (see under the word). The “showbread” meant literally, “bread of the face,” “of the presence,” Hebrew lechem panim; Greek artoi enopioi, artoi tes protheseos. H. L. E. Luering FACT Lit. “a deed.” The word occurs only in the heading of the chapter, 2 Kings 10 the King James Version, “Jehu excuseth the fact by the prophecy of Elijah,” and in 2 Macc 4:36, with reference to the murder of Onias, “certain of the Greeks that abhorred the fact (the deed) also” (summisoponerounton, literally, “hating wickedness together with (others),” the Revised Version (British and American) “the Greeks also joining with them in hatred of the wickedness.” FADE <fad> ([lben;, nabhel]; [marai>nw, maraino]): “To fade” is in the Old Testament the translation of nabhel, “to droop or wither,” figuratively, “to fade,” or “pass way” (<191845>Psalm 18:45; <230130>Isaiah 1:30; 24:4; 28:1,4; 40:7,8); once it is the translation of balal “to well up,” “to overflow”; perhaps from nabhal (<236406>Isaiah 64:6, “We all do fade as a leaf”); in the New Testament of maraino, “to come to wither or to fade away” (Jas 1:11, “So also shall the rich man fade away in his ways,” the Revised Version (British and American) “in his goings”); compare The Wisdom of Solomon 28, “Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds, before they be withered” (maraino); amarantinos (amaranth), “unfading,” occurs in <600504>1 Peter 5:4, “the crown of glory that fadeth not away,” and amarantos (<600104>1 Peter 1:4), “an inheritance .... that fadeth not away”; compare The Wisdom 6 of Solomon 6:12, “Wisdom is glorious (the Revised Version (British and American) “radiant”), and fadeth not away.” For “fade” (<264712>Ezekiel 47:12), the Revised Version (British and American) has “wither”; for “fall” “falleth” “falling” (<233404>Isaiah 34:4), “fade,” “fadeth,” “fading.