You may have heard someone say something like, “You may interpret the scriptures; I just read it and obey it.” That may sound good on the surface, but it demonstrates that the speaker probably has little concept of how we got our modern Bible. In the first place, a number of interpretive steps actually went into the process before it became a document that we could even read. And secondly, it is impossible for us to understand and follow what the Bible says without making a number of interpretive decisions ourselves.
1. Oral and written sources
As is clear from the opening words of Luke's Gospel, for example, the inspired human writers of the books in the Bible often relied on first-hand accounts passed down orally or in written form to piece together their own compositions. The same thing can be seen from the references to earlier historical accounts cited in I and II Chronicles, for example.
2. Autographs
When a biblical author wrote down his final document or dictated them to a secretary (as was the usual custom for Paul, for example), that resulted in an “autograph,” the original hand-written manuscript.
3. Manuscript Copies with Variants
Unfortunately, we do not possess any of these original manuscripts for either the Old Testament or New Testament. But we do have a wealth of copies of the New Testament books available, some dating not long after the time of the original writings. And for the Old Testament books we have the evidence of the Dead Sea Scrolls (dating to around the time of Christ) assuring us that the trained Jewish scribes accurately copied the manuscripts over a period of hundreds of years.
4. Standard Text
At this point, some major interpretive decisions need to be made. This is because the numerous hand written manuscripts contain many minor variations, none affecting any major Christian doctrines. This is the job of textual critics who attempt to reproduce accurately the shape of the original manuscripts.
5. Canon
Next comes the decision as to which books are to be included in the Bible and which are to be excluded. For the NT books, this was debated over the early centuries of Christianity until a final consensus was reached between the various local church bodies. However, concerning the OT books, there was a division between the Roman Catholic Church and the early Reformation groups. The former accepted all of the books included in the Greek OT, called the Septuagint. The Protestant churches generally went with the more restricted Hebrew Canon which excluded the books called the Apocrypha, or Deuterocanon.
6. Translation
At this point, many interpretive decisions need to be made, beginning with the choice of the correct standard text to use for translation. In general, the King James Version was based on the Majority Text, derived by looking at the number of hand-written manuscripts containing a particular reading. By contrast, most modern translations rely more heavily on the earliest manuscripts available. This decision assumes that these will more closely resemble the original autographs.
Then the actual translation process can take place, which involves an intimate knowledge of linguistics, history, and customs of the times. The styles in which translations are written differ widely depending on how much paraphrasing is felt necessary to adequately communicate the meaning of the original to a modern audience.
7. Read
Once a translation is available, the modern reader can at last approach it. But no one is completely objective at this point, whether they realize it or not. We each read the Bible with our own prejudices, degrees of ignorance, and prior decisions as to how we will approach it. Some believe in a woodenly literal understanding (whatever that may mean); others pick and choose which parts to believe and which ones to ignore; still others feel incompetent to understand it all without guidance from some spiritual authority, etc. etc.
8. Interpretation and Application to the Current Situation
Many Christians jump from a simple reading of the text to a supposed meaning for their life without at all considering what the text meant to the original audience in its context. This can lead to some bizarre practices such as snake handling and vicarious baptism of deceased ancestors, to name just two.
As a matter of nomenclature, it is necessary to define two terms, hermeneutics and exegesis. The first word is usually used in the sense of general principles of interpretation while exegesis refers to the application of those principles to understanding a particular passage of Scripture.
Basic Principle of Interpretation
This has been expressed in various ways, all in general agreement with one another:
“The objective is to unfold what the passage meant to the human author (as he was energized by God to convey a specific message) and original readers and what the passage means to us today”
A. Berkeley Mickelsen, Interpreting the Bible, Eerdmans, 1974
“Accept the most simple and natural interpretation of a passage as its true and only meaning.”
Edward Blair, The Bible and You, Abdingdon, 1953
“That meaning of a sentence which most readily suggests itself to a reader is, in general, to be received as the true meaning, and that alone.”
Milton Terry, Biblical Hermeneutics, Zondervan, 1974.
Look first of all for the obvious and natural meaning of the test (which may be figurative rather than literal).
John Stott, Understanding the Bible, Regal, 1972.
“A passage is to be taken as true in its natural, literal sense unless the context indicates otherwise or an article of faith established elsewhere in Scripture requires a broader sense.”
Melodyland School of Theology
Biblical Inspiration
Related to the above subject is one's view of the origin of the biblical writings. The following doctrinal statements are typical of those held by many evangelical groups. Notice that some are much more elaborate that others.
"All scripture is inspired by God and profitable to teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work."
II Timothy 3:16-17
"No prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God."
II Peter 1:20-21
"If you chance upon anything in Scripture that does not seem to be true, you must not conclude that the sacred writer made a mistake; rather your attitude should be: the manuscript [handwritten copy] is faulty, or the version [translation] is not accurate, or you yourself do not understand the matter."
St. Augustine
"Every statement is accurate and infallible whether religious, scientific, historical, or geographical, but only in the original autographic text [that document handwritten or dictated by the author himself]."
A. A. Hodge and B. B. Warfield
"Books of the Bible as originally written were inspired of God, hence free from error. They constitute the only infallible guide in faith and practice."
Statement of faith from Christianity Today magazine
"The Bible is trustworthy in all that it teaches, including history and natural science."
J. I. Packer
"The Scriptures in all that they affirm are without error, in the whole and in the part, and therefore are completely trustworthy."
Melodyland School of Theology
"Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teachings, not in the sense of being absolutely precise by modern standards, but in the sense of making good its claims and achieving that measure of focused truth at which its authors aimed."
The Chicago Statement (Boice, Geisler, Sproul, etc.), 1978
"We believe the Holy Scriptures to be the verbally inspired Word of God, authoritative, inerrant, infallible and God breathed."
Grace Covenant Church (Austin, Tx.) constitution
The Truth of the Bible
Despite the reasonable agreement between all of the above statements, it should be kept in mind that they all come from the conservative branch of Christianity. Not everyone, or every Christian, would agree with them. In fact, there is a wide diversity of opinion regarding the proper view of the Bible depending on what label you would attach to yourself. Ranging roughly from the most conservative to the most skeptical, some common terms you may run into are: fundamentalist, inerrantist, conservative, Bible-believing, evangelical, orthodox, moderate, neo-orthodox, liberal, mainstream, agnostic, skeptic, atheist.
Range of opinions regarding the inspiration:
1. The Bible was dictated word-by-word by God in precise, literal language and is free from any factual or doctrinal errors.
2. The Bible is the only entirely trustworthy and infallible guide in conveying God's truth although the language used may not always be considered precise by modern standards.
3. The Bible is God-inspired in the sense that it contains man's response to God's actions. Although God's truths can be found in it, much of the writings are marred by factual errors and the outdated ideas of the human authors.
4. The Bible is inspired only in the same sense that Shakespeare's writings, for example, are inspired.
Factors to consider:
1. The actual wording of the original text is not certain in some passages.
2. There are problems in translating the original text into modern languages.
3. The Bible contains more than just factual statements which are “true.”
4. The Bible extensively uses non-literal, figurative language, even more so than many modern writings employ.
5. The Bible contains reports of the sometimes inappropriate actions and words of men.
6. The Bible contains ceremonial laws no longer binding on God's people.
7. Descriptions of nature in the Bible are usually phenomenal (i.e., they reflect the visual appearance to an observer rather than being a description of the ultimate cause).
8. The Bible is a human composition as well as the Word of God. In this way it is analogous to Jesus' nature, being both divine and human at the same time with no simple division between the two natures.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments