ANTONIN SCALIA: APPLAUSE, PLEASE

Antonin Scalia was born in Trenton, New Jersey, on March 11, 1936, the son of an Italian immigrant. His father graduated from Colombia University and eventually became a professor of Romance Languages at Brooklyn College.  Antonin's mother was no dummy--she was an elementary school teacher. They had only the one child.

Antonin was a Boy Scout, and  was admitted to the prestigious Order of the Arrow in that organization. When he graduated from Xavier High School in 1953, he was first in his class and was the valedictorian. From there, it was on to Georgetown University In 1953, where he graduated valedictorian and summa cum laude in 1957 with a Bachelor of Arts in history. {The fact that he majored in history was a tip-off that he would do great things.)

While in college, he was a champion collegiate debater in Georgetown's Philodemic Society and a highly regarded thespian. He spent his junior year at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. Scalia studied law at Harvard Law School and graduated magna cum laude (What else is new?) In 1960, travel throughout Europe during 1960–1961.

He was a true Renaissance man: he loved the opera, played the piano, loved to sing, to travel; he enjoyed and excelled in writing, although he said it was agony because, when he wrote, he HAD to chose the right word, not a cousin of the right word, but the precise word.  His family consisted of a baseball team; he and his wife had 9 children. He loved nothing greater than, at the end of every day, going home to be with his family.

President Ronald Reagan appointed him to the Supreme Court where he served for 30 years until his death in Texas on February 13, 2016. He stayed true to his conservative principles all his life, becoming committed to conservatism when he was in high school. 

And he had one habit that should bring those of us who love the Bible to our feet in applause. 

If you were to go into Scalia's library, you would be confronted by a multitude of dictionaries. He would tell you that one of those dictionaries was more important than all the others: it was Webster's Dictionary, Second Edition, the dictionary used by our Founding Fathers. And therein hangs a tale.

Since Scalia was a Supreme Court Justice, he studied the Constitution and devoted his life to its principles and interpretation. And this is where Webster's Dictionary (2nd. ed.)  comes in. His passion was to know the precise definitions of the words our Founders used to write the Constitution. He didn't want to know the definitions those words have today, but what the definition was back in the day when Madison et al., used them. 

When Scalia studied the 2nd Amendment, he wanted to know what "militia" meant back in Jefferson's, Washington's, and Franklin's day. To say it another way, not in reference to the 2nd Amendment, Scalia wanted to know how John Adams and Patrick Henry would have understood "cruel and unusual" or "high crimes and misdemeanors."  

Scalia knew that words evolve over time, so he wanted to nail down the precise meanings of the words of the Constituiton at the time those most brilliant of men put quill to parchment. 

Speaking of words evolving, "peruse" is one such word. Some time back, "peruse" meant to give something a close and serious scrutiny, but today, it means to give a furtive glance to something. 

And this brings us to why those of us who love the Bible should stand and applaud. What Scalia did with the Constitution is what we should to with the Bible, that is, we should ask the question, "What did the words in the text mean to the first readers/ what did the words mean to the author," not, "What do those words mean to us today?" 

The classic reason that this is important, vital, and crucial: we need to ask, "What did 'repent'/'repentance" mean to the first readers? What did they mean to the authors? The answer is not, "What the word has come to mean today?" Back when Paul wrote, "repent" meant, "change of mind." It did not mean, "feel sorry for sin" or "weep for your sins." The word had no connection with "penance" or it's reenforcement, "REpenance." 

Scalia, in my opinion was a great jurist. We need more like him. We also need more Christians who will hound and harass their pastors with the question, "What did this text mean to the first readers?" 

If you're not doing that, begin now. The right kind of teacher will love it!