Biblical exercises in negotiating meaning

Exercise 1:

In 2Ti 1:8-2:19 Paul repeatedly touches on the theme of not being ashamed (two related terms are used in Greek). There are at least two, and possibly three different contexts for this embarrassment. Can you name them, and can you defend one as being the source or context for the other(s)? Be sure to look at the actual historical contexts as well as the literary contexts. Also, be sure to weigh the texts, and not just count them.

Exercise 2:

Look at my PP presentation entitled "The embodied mind," and find slide (or page) 46. To what category/schema/frame(s) would you assign John 3:16? Please defend your choice(s). You are not limited to these choices, and you can use more than one if you like (ambiguity is a feature of many biblical texts). 

Exercise 3:

Read Gen 11.1, then look back at chapter 10 (esp. vv. 5, 20, and 31). Explain how everyone is speaking the same language in 11.1, yet apparently speaking many different ones in chapter 10.

Extra credit: Apply the same analysis as above to Gen 1:1 vs. the rest of Gen 1, and also to 2Sa chapter 1, especially vv. 11-12 vs. the rest of what follows in the chapter.

Exercise 4:

I was talking with Brian harmelink on the train, and he mentioned that the term "plaza" in Spanish is pretty much untranslatable in English, due to cultural differences in how people live (embodiments) in the cultures represented by the different languages. This got me thinking: two terms often misunderstood in translation are "church" and "nation." Can you think of how translators might understand these terms differently today than they were understood in ancient times? Hint: it is the same underlying (embodied) issue as with the term "plaza."