Tag Archives: Bible

Piety isn’t always pithy

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People like quotes. Short little sayings that quickly convey an idea. We like to be able to refer to something Tolstoy said without actually having to read Tolstoy’s works!

In the business world, the idea of the “elevator speech” is popular, where you can explain some project in 30 seconds or less.

We like our religion the same way. We like short take-away expressions, like “Love your neighbor as yourself” or “I can do all things through Christ.” It’s easier to deal with the Bible at that level than to actually have to work through concepts like genre, context, linguistics, etc.

In my opinion, it’s why many people like the book of James. “It’s so practical,” they say. What they mean is that they can read a verse and seek to apply it, without working through the things I mentioned above. (That leads to lots of mistakes, of course, but it is definitely quick and easy)

Piety isn’t always pithy. Biblical concepts can’t always be explained in 30-seconds or less. Not every principle can be explained during an elevator ride. Not every problem can be solved by throwing a proof text at it.

Some things are as quick and easy as they seem. When Jesus tells us what the two greatest commandments are, that’s fairly straightforward… even though it would take us a lifetime to work out all the implications. But many other concepts only get distorted when reduced to a verse or two out of context.

We have to be willing to take the time to work at understanding the Bible. Yes, it does make it harder to explain to outsiders and beginners. That doesn’t change the facts of the matter. Quoting “I think, therefore I am” doesn’t explain Descartes. It doesn’t even describe the existential crisis and healing process around that phrase. The same happens with the Bible.

If it weren’t that way, God would have given us a religious quote book and left it at that.

 

 

 

photo from www.creationswap.com

Stopping to see the beauty of the text

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Photo by Ove Tøpfer; from Stock Xchange

Had thought to write a bit more about context today, but technical issues slowed me up this morning.

Instead, let me share a quote from the introduction to The New Testament in Modern English by J.B. Phillips. I love to read the Phillips New Testament, and the introduction is fascinating. Here’s the quote I wanted to share:

Paul, for instance, writing in haste and urgency to some of his wayward and difficult Christians, was not tremendously concerned about dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s of his message. I doubt very much whether he was even concerned about being completely consistent with what he had already written. Consequently, it seems to me quite beside the point to study his writings microscopically, as it were, and deduce hidden meanings of which almost certainly he was unaware. His letters are alive, and they are moving—in both senses of that word—and their meaning can no more be appreciated by cold minute examination than can the beauty of a bird’s flight be appreciated by dissection after its death.

I love the imagery of that last sentence. I confess that I can sometimes be the astronomer who can’t see the beauty of the stars or the topologist who only sees mountains as something to be mapped. Sometimes we need to sit back and appreciate the beauty of the Bible.

Thoughts, comments, complaints, suggestions?

Putting Bible books in order

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Is there a Bible out there that attempts to group the books in the order they were written? There would be some guesswork involved, of course, but surely such decisions could be worked out. It seems to me that it could help our understanding to see the books, especially those of the New Testament, presented in chronological order by their time of writing.

This occurred to me when discussing the frequency of the Lord’s Supper with someone in a Yahoo! group. This person was referring to the Corinthian church and mentioned “the prior teaching they had as to the when of the Supper,” referring to Acts 20. I pointed out that it’s hard to know what prior teaching they had, but we know for certain they didn’t have the book of Acts, for it hadn’t been written at that time. 1 Corinthians 16 seems to indicate that the teaching about having a collection on Sunday was new, so it’s hard to know what they had been taught and hadn’t been taught. (And yes, I’m convinced that 1 Corinthians 16 is talking about a special collection, but that’s another topic)

As I’ve pointed out before, many get confused when discussing the gospels because they don’t place them in their proper timeframe. It used to be a standard Church of Christ lesson to claim that they title page that says “New Testament” shouldn’t be placed before Matthew, but should be found in Acts 2. People have actually taught that the gospels don’t belong in the New Testament! If we realize that these books weren’t written at the time that the action took place, we come to realize that the gospels were written for the church. They are Christian books.

I remember F. Lagard’s Smith’s Narrated Bible presented the Bible in chronological order, but that was according to the order in which things took place, not the order of writing. Has anyone seen a Bible laid out in the order the books were written? Could be a helpful study tool.

Provincialism and translations

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There’s another surprising place where provincialism raises its ugly head within the realms of Christianity. That’s in the area of translations.

Most people take a fairly healthy view toward translations. They choose a translation according to their needs and give others the freedom to do the same.

But within Christianity, there are some who feel that there is no choice among translations. They believe that only one translation bears God’s seal of approval. In the English-speaking world, that’s usually the King James Version, particularly the 1611 version of the KJV (from the first edition in 1611 to the 1769 revision there were some 75000 changes, mostly regarding spelling and grammar). In an Internet discussion, one minister made the comment:

I am of the persuasion that if there isn’t a perfect translation in the English language, I will stand down from the ministry and get a secular job rather than teach and preach falsehood. Mind you, I am NOT of the Ruckman mentality the the KJV is inspired and therefor equal (or even superior) to the originals. I believe it is perfectly preserved. It is exactly what God wants us to have. As God overrode the human element in divine inspiration and gave us His Word perfectly in the originals, He overrode the human element in divine preservation and kept His Word pure through translation.

To some degree, I wouldn’t have that much of a problem with the above, except that he used the same reasoning to reject all other translations. Since the KJV is what God wants us to have, according to this minister, no other translation will do.

So why is this an example of provincialism? Because such views only work when you limit yourself to one language. Someone in that same discussion group made a similar claim about the 1569 Reina Valera. I told these two men that their views were completely incompatible. If the KJV is a perfect translation, the R-V can’t be. And vice versa. First, because there are serious differences between the two. Second, because you can’t have an exact translation between two languages. Not word for word, jot for jot, tittle for tittle.

Only if you limit yourself to one language can you say that one translation is perfect, complete and infallible.

KJV-onlyism has lots of other problems, of course. But provincialism is a necessary ally. Without it, there is no way to hold to that view.

The Bible & War: General Abraham?

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Bible & soldiersOK, I’m ready to start looking some at God’s people and war in the Bible. Genesis 14 seems like a good place to start, though someone may want to point out an earlier passage.

In Genesis 14, we see two groups of kings going to battle against one another. At this time, kings tended to rule over city states, rather than countries. In the ensuing fighting, Sodom is conquered and Abraham’s nephew lot is taken captive. So Abraham decides to rescue his nephew.

“When Abram heard that his kinsman had been taken captive, he led forth his trained men, born in his house, 318 of them, and went in pursuit as far as Dan.” (Genesis 14:14)

That’s an intriguing verse. While Matthew Henry suggests that these men may have been religiously trained, that is, Abraham only took those who had faith in God. However, this phrase, while unique to the Bible, has been seen in other writings to refer to “armed retainers,” according to the NIV Study Bible. I would tend to think that in this context it’s referring to some sort of combat training. Which is in itself remarkable. What use did Abraham have of a fighting force, besides this one incident we see here? It’s a small army, granted. But it’s an army.

It should be noted, however, that Abraham did not pledge his loyalty to any of these kings, not even the king of Sodom. He refused to accept anything in payment.

Another interesting part of this story is the tribute Abraham pays to Melchizedek, the king of Peace. There is no record that Melchizedek’s people took part in the fighting, yet Melchizedek came out to bless Abraham.

Here’s our first foray into the fighting world of ancient times. What shall we make of it?