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18th Oct 2007
Freaking out!
Many Christians become hysterical when they see others looking at the Greek and Hebrew behind our English translations.
“So you don’t think the translators are doing a good job, eh?”
“Don’t you know the Bible is inerrant?” By that implying that the English translation is without error, as if the Scriptures were written in English! The Holy Writ in its original is inerrant, but…
These same ones then read a book like “Misquoting Jesus” (2007) by a noted New Testament scholar, who became agnostic, and exclaim, “Goodness me! I never knew there were so many problems with our manuscript copies.”
So you feel kind of deflated after reading it. But then you read “Reinventing Jesus” (2006) and “The Case for the Real Jesus” (2007). And you say, “Oh, okay. I understand things better now. This is no crisis”.
You see, our means of development provided in this world is through learning from others' experiences; whether that be by reading, listening, observing or just plain sitting down in a lecture hall and taking notes.
Scholarship is just that. You are a “scholar” in that particular field. It doesn’t mean you have embraced what you are doing. It just means that you are good at what you do. You’ve been taught certain study methods; how to speak; how to act; how to move around in the system. Any job is about that, whether you’re a newscaster, doctor, engineer, architect etc…
That’s why you can have an atheist New Testament scholar, because the Scripture is a historical document to be studied as other works; yet so much more.
So there are spelling errors in hand-copied manuscripts of the originals. Big deal.
There are absent “a’s” and “an’s”. So what?
There are inconsistencies between manuscripts. Uhuh.
Tell me something that isn’t new!
The central issue is God never needed us to have a perfect translation to have faith in Jesus Christ. The Bible remains the unrivalled ancient historical document of the world. The most scrutinised. The most accurate. The recovered manuscripts (excluding those dubious late ones that are hyped up in the media) are virtually unanimous in their central theme:
“Jesus came into the world to save sinners. He was crucified. He was raised. Whatcha gonna do about it?”
So it’s easy to see why the author of “Misquoting Jesus” lost his faith when he noted something wrong with a copied manuscript. He had assumed perfection in some”thing” rather than Someone. Herein is the difference.
We are asked to search and dig. We will not find life in the pages, but the pages will bring us to the One who is Life. (John 5:39 “...think...”)
The Originals were inerrant, and we have enough copies to continue to validate the accuracy and faith in our Hebrew and Greek scriptures.
The question should not be, “Is the KJV the best?” “Or is it the NIV?” “What about the NASB?” “Oh Pastor! Which shall I choose?!”
Choose any. Choose many. You will see Christ on the pages.
Our prayer is to be: “Father! You have given us these written words that speak of You. You breathed on them as You led your servants to write. Help us to find your Son on these pages. Help us to be centred on You. To search. To see. To spread Your message of goodwill to all men: that the Christ of God has come to set us free.”
Remember the reason for all these inconsistencies: “That no flesh should glory in His presence”. (1 Cor 1:27) We must come to know Him personally or not be known of Him at all.
God has chosen the weak things to confound the strong.
That has never changed. Nor will it ever do.
Blessings to you this weekend.
Tony
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