Tag: translations

Relation to Yahweh

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 3 – Dancing in the Kingdom– Chapter 17 – Finding our place

Relation to Yahweh

[Bible references: Exodus 6:1-6; 1 Corinthians 13:12]

Most English translations of the Bible obscure a very significant relationship. In Exodus 6, the Creator revealed himself to Moses as Yahweh for the first time in history. Our translations mask the personal nature of the name when they translate that name with the title, LORD. However, if when reading the Old Testament replacing the word LORD with the name, Yahweh, we will discover, particularly in the Psalms, a very personal relationship between us and Yahweh.

Not only is God not some impersonal force but He is a person with whom we can have a relationship. In fact, He created us to have a special relationship with Him. As such, the meaning of our lives cannot be found solely within ourselves as if we were isolated creatures or self-contained universes. We are image-bearers of Yahweh, the person who is a community, we are designed to be people in community. And since we are created as an outpouring of the love that was shared between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we should outpour that very same love in our relationship with Yahweh and with each other.

We were created to be co-creators with Yahweh. Not that we have the same kind of powers, but we can use the materials and abilities He has supplied for us to create families, cities, nations, art, tools, and many other types of things. It was intended that our creations would glorify Him.

We know that we are not able to love Yahweh in the same way He loves us. Firstly, He is the Creator, and we are the creatures. Secondly, ever since our Rebellion, we were born in a corrupt state with a tendency to rebel against our Creator. Therefore, to discover the meaning of our lives, we need to search out the essence of the love of Yahweh toward us. In Chapter 15, we explored the various spiritual disciplines which could be helpful in guiding us in the search of who Yahweh is and how he loves us.

Even though our rebellion against Yahweh has harmed our relationship with Him, he continues to love us and has made provision for our relationship with Him to be restored. It is also because of his love, that he has had great patience to endure our constant rebelling and he is constantly working to draw us back to him. Our relationship with Yahweh does not require us to do great things or to do sufficient good things to outweigh the bad things we do. We “merely” need to be born again, to have his Spirit join with our spirit. When we are born of the Spirit, that is when we are born again, then we are not only image-bearers, but children of our heavenly Father. And one day, we will know him fully even as we are fully known by Him.

Observe

Read Exodus 6:1-6. What is the difference between knowing God as “God Almighty” (El Shaddai) vs. “Yahweh?”

Mystery of the traditions and the Bible

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 2 – The Kingdom Revealed – Chapter 13 – Distinctives within the body of Christ

Mystery of the Traditions and the Bible

[Bible reference: Matthew 15:1-14; Mark 7:1-23; 2 Timothy 3:10-17]

What is the relation between the Bible and church traditions?

Christ came to establish the church, not the Bible. The Bible is the product of the church recognizing which of its writings should be considered to be inspired by God. Within the Orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions, there are unwritten as well as written traditions (including the Bible and other writings by the church Fathers) and both have equal weight. The Protestant denomination, reacting against the corrupted traditions of the Roman Catholic denomination, gave the Bible the authority over tradition.       

How were writings selected to get included in the Bible?

Throughout history, there were various “lists” denoting which books should be accepted as scripture.[1] Eventually, most congregations agreed on the New Testament writings, but there has been significant disagreement about which books to include in the Old Testament.

The Masoretic text is a set of writings that were preserved in oral form by the Jews until they were set in writing by Masoretes during the 6th through 10th centuries. This “Hebrew Bible” contains all the writings included in the current Protestant Bible and are arranged in three groups: the Torah, the Prophets and Writings.

The Roman Catholics and Orthodox use the Greek translations of the Hebrew scripture that were created around 200 BC.[2] The writings that are in the Septuagint that are not in the Masoretic canon but are accepted by the Orthodox as scripture are: I Esdras, Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiastical by Sirach, Baruch, the Epistle of Jeremy, the First, Second and Third Books of Maccabees, and parts of Esther and Daniel. The Roman Catholic canon includes all those books except 3 Maccabees, Psalm 151, the Prayer of Manasseh in Chronicles, 1 Esdras.

The Protestants use the Masoretic texts but put the texts in the same order as the Septuagint[3].

How do we interpret the Bible?

The Bible was not constructed as a book of doctrines, but rather a collection of different types of poetry and prose: songs, wisdom literature, letters, civil and religious law and narratives, stories of God interacting with people and people trying to respond to God. More than that, each of those genres use a variety of literary techniques: hyperbole, poetry, allegories, anthropomorphisms, metaphors, etc.

That complexity, combined with the complexity of the historical context and language barriers, means that it is not straightforward as we try to use the Bible to construct theologies, statements of faith, and rules for behavior. The result is that many disagreements have arisen in how to interpret the Bible.[4] One of the current controversies has to do with that when we say that the Bible is true, how literal do we need to be in Bible interpretation.[5] That discussion is very serious as various heretical teachings have arisen when some individuals or groups put the community to the side and developed their own interpretations. For example, an individual, Marcion, rejected the Old Testament entirely and most of the New Testament except for what Paul had written.

The main types of interpretative principles used by various church communities are:

  • Interpreting the Bible according to its historical, socio-political, geographical, cultural, and linguistic / grammatical context.[6]
  • Analyzing the Bible by applying various literary genres that it uses,[7] including the differing levels of symbology, allegory, figurative language, metaphors, similes, and literal language. Also, each verse should be analyzed in context of surrounding chapter and book.
  • Presuming that the original texts of the Bible are without error or contradiction.[8]
  • Presuming that the basic message of the Bible can be easily understood by the average person.[9]
  • While some basic content can be understood by the average person, those understandings need to subject the expert knowledge of those who are trained in Bible interpretation.
  • While there are many academic disciplines used in interpreting scripture, proper interpretation can only be done by those who are spiritually discerning. The main goal of Bible study is not to gain knowledge but to gain sanctification.

How do you apply Biblical views to todays’ issues when the Bible is silent on those issues?

Particularly in regards in how to do worship, there are two main schools of thought on how to apply scripture: that we are allowed to do whatever is not specifically restricted by Scripture, or we cannot do anything that is not specifically permitted by Scripture.[10]

[1] Canonical books are the writings that are accepted as scripture from God

[2] Septuagint, a translation form Hebrew into Greek which was created by seventy-two scholars in the 2nd and 3rd century BC.

[3] Oakes, John. “When was the Old Testament Canon Decided?” Evidence for Christianity 3 Dec 2013 evidenceforchristianity.org/when-was-the-old-testament-canon-decided-was-it-at-the-council-of-jamnia

[4] The technique of interpreting the Bible is called hermeneutics, with the first step of hermeneutics being exegesis which means to interpret a text by way of a thorough analysis of its content.

[5] Christian Bible Reference Site. “Should the Bible Be Interpreted Literally?” christianbiblereference.org www.christianbiblereference.org/faq_BibleTrue.htm#:~:text=Literal%20Bible%20Interpretation%20Many%20fundamentalists%20believed%20the%20Holy,true.%20Anything%20less%20would%20be%20unworthy%20of%20God Different Church communities have different ideas on how to use a high level of literal interpretation or whether to use allegorical interpretation in various sections of Scripture; Bible Project “How To Read the Bible” Podcast Series bibleproject.com/podcast/series/how-to-read-the-bible-series

[6] Historical-grammatical Interpretation considers the historical, socio-political, geographical, cultural, and linguistic / grammatical context.

[7] Literary analysis – Each genre of Scripture (narratives, histories, prophecies, apocalyptic writings, poetry, psalms, and letters) has a different set of rules that applies to it.

[8] The principle of Inerrancy – The original autographs were without error or self-contradiction or contrary to scientific or historical truth (when the original authors intended historical or scientific truth to be portrayed).

[9] Principle of perspicuity

[10] Jackson, Wayne. “The Silence of the Scriptures: Permissive or Prohibitive”; also known as permissive view of scripture vs the restrictive view Christian Courier christiancourier.com/articles/the-silence-of-the-scriptures-permissive-or-prohibitive

Appendix A – Tips on How to Study the Bible

The following tips are taken from Fee, Gordon D. and Stuart, Douglas “How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth,” Zondervan, ©1981. Read the Stuart and Fee’s book for more information.

The goal of interpretation is to understand the author’s intended meaning and that must be done in light of the language, time and culture in which a document was written. The difficulty is that our interpretation is affected by our experiences, culture, education, etc. Biblical interpretation is also impacted by understanding the document in its original context while trying to discern how to apply that understanding in a universal way. The Bible also is a complex document written in many genres: history, law, poetry, wisdom, parables, sermons, etc. and each genre must be taken into consideration.

The process of interpretation, hermeneutics (the process of interpreting the text and applying its meaning) begins with the process of exegesis (the process of figuring out the original meaning of the text). 

The process of exegesis involves asking the right questions of the text and figuring:

  1. Context –
    1. historical context– time and culture of the author and audience, occasion  of the text, geographical, topographical and political factors
    1. literary – relation of each sentence to the preceding and succeeding sentences, units of thought (paragraphs of sections)
  2. Content – meanings of words grammatical relationships
  3. Use of tools such as: good translation, Bible dictionary, commentary

Some types of exegesis are:

  • historical – find what text meant back when it was written or when it happened),
  • canonical – looking at entire text of Bible as a whole document designed to be what a specific community shapes its life by
  • symbolic/allegorical – figuring out the symbolism of each story, character, and event,
  • literary – considering the context in light of the literary form used and examining word choices, editing work, main themes or narratives, etc.
  • rational – using logic and deductive techniques

Hermeneutics – Ask questions about Bible’s meaning in reference to here and now: A text cannot mean what it never could have meant to its author or readers but when our current particulars match the original particulars, the principles (morals) could apply to us now.

  • One general problem is historical distance: the original text was written with little historical distance and was therefore a high context situation where things could be left unstated because they were assumed. We are reading the Bible in a low context situation where we have to try to discover what were those high context assumptions that were left out of the text.
  • Techniques include reading the entire document out loud in order to hear the text, outlining the text, dividing it into sections, make notes about people being referred to, attitudes, problems being discussed
  • Our questions or problems about the text may not be the questions the original hearers were asking.
  • We need to be aware of the types of literature being used: parables, hyperbole, poetry, questions, irony, etc. so that we can interpret them appropriately

Problems of historical context

  • determining the situation being written about
  • determining if the problems/questions we see are the problems/questions that would have been asked in those situations
  • determining when a problem being addressed should be seen as just a historic particularity/culture or transcends the particular issue/culture and can be applied to more general situations.

Type of Bible translations.

  • Formal – adheres to structure of original language (NASB, HCSB, RSV, NRSV, ESV). In extreme, a literal translation (KJV, NKJV)
  • Functional – translates idioms in context of receptor language (NIV, NAB, GNB, NLT).
  • Free/paraphrase – translates ideas more than words or phrases (NEB, LB)

Types of considerations:

  • External evidence – quality and age of the manuscripts;
  • Internal evidence – copyists and authors;
  • Human variables – original language of manuscript, receptor language (language) being translated to.
  • Problem areas include translating weights, measures and money, euphemisms, wordplays, grammatical structures such as Greek use of genitive construction (my book vs. book of me, God’s grace vs grace of God), use of masculine language where women are included.
  • For these considerations it can be useful to have one of each type of translation.

Narratives

Narratives are stories about particular historic events with three basic parts: characters, plot and plot resolution. The narratives in the Bible are parts of the larger metanarrative which is the story of God and his working in the world and of his universal plan for creation and for his people. Old Testament Narratives are not meant to be allegories or teach moral lessons directly (unless they illustrate what is explicitly taught elsewhere). Narratives are descriptions of events and are not meant to establish norms unless there is explicit teachings elsewhere.

There are three categories of doctrinal statements derived from Scripture: Christian theology, Christian ethics and Christian experience/practices. Some of these statements are explicit (and are considered to be primary) and some are derived (are considered to be secondary).

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My own comments: There is sometimes a question about what translation will be best; there is no “best” translation. In fact, it might be best to have one of each kind of translation: formal equivalence, dynamic equivalence and paraphrase. A Bible dictionary and a concordance are useful, and all of these are available online as well as in hard copy. The depth of your study will depend on your education, your effort and your available time and resources. The average person will have limited time and education to use all the information presented above. But none of these study methods are meant to be a substitute for the simple living of the gospel, a way of life that is available to all of us.