Posted on 08/18/2015 11:36:30 AM PDT by LearsFool
Is the ability to read Greek necessary to understanding the Bible? Or is access to Greek scholarship necessary for avoiding the pitfalls of the translations from men?
No doubt reading Chekov or Baudelaire or Julius Caesar in their original tongues adds a richness otherwise missed. And understanding the "Hebraisms" and Hebrew poetic devices found in the Scriptures enhance our enjoyment. As the saying goes, there's often something lost in the translation. But what is it? Can TRUTH be lost in the translation of the Scriptures?
God did not leave us at the mercy of Greek scholars and "experts" for our understanding of His revelation to us. Just as He was able to preserve His Word despite attempts to destroy it physically, He is able to preserve its meaning despite attempts to twist it by mistranslation. Let's look at a couple of examples, beginning with Matt. 16:19, which varies in translation:
KJV: "And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."
NASB: "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.”
A bit of research will explain why the NASB has the present perfect tense "shall have been bound" instead of the future-tense-sounding "shall be bound". But we needn't worry too much about all that. Because, again, we're not dependant on the translators for our understanding of what Jesus meant. All we need to do is have patience and let God teach us through His Word, and He'll correct any mistaken preconceptions and assumptions we've acquired.
So how does this binding and loosing work then? If we don't know Greek, how can we ever understand it?
As we read on in the Bible, we find Jesus in Matt. 18:18 saying the very same thing to the disciples that He had said to Peter, and in John 20:20 saying something very similar. Then, beginning in Acts 2, we find the keys of the kingdom of heaven being wielded, as Christ's apostles announce the conditions of entry into the kingdom. We find that they spoke as inspired by the Spirit, as Jesus had promised them (in John 16, Matt. 10, etc.), binding and loosing on earth the things revealed from heaven by that Spirit. We find them declaring God's conditions for the forgiveness of sins, and consequently the conditions for the retention (non-forgiveness) of sins.
If we didn't know what Jesus meant when we first read Matt. 16:19, we're beginning to understand, aren't we, after seeing the story unfold?
Let's look briefly at one more example: baptism. If we didn't know what baptism was, if (for instance) our copy of the Bible had a inaccurate translation of the word, or if we had been taught it was but a sprinkling of water on the forehead, or if we were confused about its purpose, would all be lost? Would there be no way to ever remedy our ignorance and correct our error?
The Bible tells us what the form and the function of baptism are, so that in every passage addressing it, we learn more about it. The result is that no matter how much the translator or teacher has tried to disguise the truth about baptism, with each encounter we peer a bit deeper through that disguise, and God's truth shines through. So if we didn't know what baptism was all about when we first encountered it, our understanding grows as we read through the Bible.
No, knowing Greek is not necessary. God's Word will correct all our misunderstandings. But it will do so only if we're willing to set aside our preconceptions and be taught by Him. A few are able to do this. Are you one of them?
I’m guessing you didn’t read my original post. Not that it’s “the definitive statement on the matter” or anything like that. But it would be much easier for us to discuss the position I hold once you understand why I hold it. :-)
Nonsense.
I know why you hold it. You hold it because your assumption of sola scriptura requires it. It's the old Lutheran saw about "the humble milkmaid" reading the bible and knowing it perfectly.
And so far as the "new testament" is concerned, feel free to hold that. But I don't think you understand that a humble medieval German milkmaid couldn't get all the details of how to build the Tabernacle or perform a sacrifice out of the text alone.
Just keep your sola scriptura on the "new testament" side and you're fine.
There’s over 25 Greek Lexicons...Whose Original Greek does one use???
>>”Whose Original Greek does one use???”
Why whichever one comports with the Iscool interpretation of scripture of course!
Without some reader of Koine already having trod the way, you wouldn’t know how to write this diatribe. Both the premise and the outcome are wrong.
No, the absolute truth.
Chafer and Thieme described Inspiration best as :
The human writers of Scripture so wrote, without waiving their human intelligence, their vocabulary, their personal feelings, their literary style, their personality or individuality, that God’s complete message to man was permanently recorded with perfect accuracy in the original languages of Scripture.
Here is some additional perspective providing insight.:
Why did God do it this way? Why did He not drop a book out of the sky in every language so that their would be no problem recognizing its divine significance? Why did he just not give us a book written in reformed Egyptian Hieroglyphics and have someone with magic glasses write down the content?
(a) There is a great deal of parallelism throughout the Bible. One of the most important is that of Jesus Christ, who is the living Word, fully and unequivocally God and yet true humanity (John 1:1-12). This is parallel to the concept of Scripture, God’s complete and connected message to man as recorded by the human authors of Scripture who did not waive any of their humanity in the writing of Scripture. A grasp of the living Word gives us understanding of the written Word and vice versa.
(b) There is the principle of chronological revelation; that is, we exist in time and God has different programs for different ages. The church age was not pertinent to Adam and Eve, to Noah, or to Moses. Having information about the church age would have not been helpful. Jesus Christ came in time, so the Scriptures which preceded His coming had to look forward to His coming and those Scriptures written after His death and resurrection had to look backward to his first advent. Therefore, each set of
generations of peoples required revelation which was for their time in human history. It was not until the church age that we had God’s complete revelation to man.
(c) We must never forget that we are an integral part of God’s plan. We are not just a separate entity on earth with some divine will imposed upon us from heaven. God is personal and there is an moment-by-moment interaction between God and ourselves which is real and dynamic.
The proper interpretation here is: some people profess to be religious, spiritual, to love God, etc. The reality of the alleged spirituality is found in their interest in God’s Word. This is where we find out just exactly Who
God is. Without His Word, we do not have the ability to love God because we do not know Who God is.
Note, however, that even though God spoke to Pharaoh, this required a mature believer to interpret the dream.
Notice that these dreams, visions and trance-like states occurred with more frequency prior to the recording of Scripture. After Moses recorded the first Scripture, then these methods were used by God in order to write more Scripture.
Prophecy does not begin and end with the foretelling of future events. A prophet represented God to man and his message was God’s message to man. So all that a prophet had to say was called prophecy and only a portion of that was prophetic.
....
(a) Human authorship. Over forty different authors, from kings to common fishermen to tax collectors to four star generals to theologians wrote the 66 books of the Bible over a period of over 1600 years. The cohesion of Scripture is better explained by the supernatural guidance of God than it is by pure coincidence.
Some detractors will try to point out that this is religious literature put together by religious people who all have the same viewpoint. This is highly unlikely because if anyone has a different set of viewpoints, it will be religious people.
Recall the statement, When any two rabbis agree on any one thing at one time, Messiah will come.
(b) Personal honesty and objectivity of the writers of Scripture. Believer and unbeliever authors alike tend to see themselves with rose-colored glasses. They can spot the faults and shortcomings of others, but cannot see even the same deficiencies in themselves. However, the authors of Scripture, when they sinned or were wrong, they did not do the natural human thing: gloss over it, neglect to include it or rationalize and/or justify it; instead, they record their sins and failures along side their triumphs and successes.
David’s adultery with Bathsheba and the subsequent murder of her husband that he contracted; Noah’s drunkenness (probably originally recorded by Noah); Moses’s sin which caused him to be kept out of entering into the promised land with a multitude of one of the most degenerate generation of Jews ever; Solomon’s failure to woo the Schulumite woman in Song of Solomon.
The Bible is filled with the accurate recording of many men. Some Christians find this troubling; to examine some great man of Scripture and then to find out that not only does he have feet of clay, but he is knee deep in mud.
Most Islamic scholars will agree that the Q’oran can ONLY make sense in the original Arabic. They go so far as to say that, when critics of islam quote the extremely bigoted and violent suras of the Q’oran, they don’t really know what they are talking about. It is their way of hiding what islam really stands for. Some very famous examples of this are the very name “islam”, which they tell us means “Peace”, when it actually means “Submission”. They say that “Jihad” means an internal struggle for righteousness, when in reality it means “Holy War”. They also speak of chronological subrogation, meaning that more recent verses of the Q’oran cancel out the contradictory verses that were penned earlier in time. Even the transliteration of the Arabic has changed. “Q’oran” used to be “Koran”.
The Scriptures, while magnificent in their original languages (Particularly the Psalms in Hebrew), do not suffer from this problem. Although the wording may vary from one translation to another, the ESSENCE remains the same. That is why the complete Bible has been translated into more than 600 languages, and portions into thousands more, and has the Power to Save in every tribe, nation, and tongue.
I have several different translations and enjoy them all. Greek was the original language of the NT, and has some tenses that do not exist in English, but the Message does not suffer.
There are still places on the planet where one can be executed for having a copy of the Bible. It is a very powerful Book, and is not restrained by human language.
My opinion...yours may vary, but i suggest everyone at least give it a try! :-)
Blessings will come.
Good points!
Thank you. :-)
In recent years there has been an unfortunate movement within Evangelical circles that insist that one can’t fully understand the Scriptures without learning Hebrew. (BTW, I LOVE the Hebrew Language and do lots of word studies on both the Hebrew and Greek).
But, the Hebrew Scholars of Ancient Israel did not seem to feel this way, as a committee of 70 renowned translators endeavored to reach their Greek-Speaking neighbors by translating the entire Hebrew Scriptures into Greek! This is called the Septuagint, and is often the source of the Bible quotes in the Gospels.
So, if Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were quoting a Greek Translation of the Hebrew to provide cross references in the Gospel accounts, to either prove that Jesus was the Messiah or to cite fulfilled prophecy, then they were in effect saying that a translation is OK as long as it is accurate.
As I said, searching out the nuances of the original languages is a wonderful, enlightening, and fun pursuit, but the Gospel is the Gospel, even if it’s in Klingon.
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