Participatory Bible Study Blog

Earlier this year I commented twice on Dr. Peter Enns and the actions by WTS regarding his theology and writings. Now he has posted some additional information on his views and some responses to prior reviews of his work. (HT: An Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution, though I should note that this does not have to do with evolution.) I think it’s appropriate for me to provide a link to this newer material as well.

You can find a collection of links to material he has posted at I&I - Inspiration & Incarnation. This material was extremely important for me in clarifying his views, since I have not yet managed to read his book, though I very much intend to. I found this response to a review particularly helpful, after reading all of the five essays he presents on I&I.

I do want to respond to part of his statement on inerrancy, since I have written some on that subject myself (see my book When People Speak for God). He says:

I affirm that I am committed to the Bible’s inerrancy as a function of its divine origin. If I may offer a thumbnail definition, the Bible as it is is without error because the Bible as it is is God’s Word.

To get directly to the point, if this is inerrancy, then what is there to argue about? I do not affirm the doctrine of inerrancy, yet I could say pretty much the same thing. I usually phrase it as “the Bible is precisely what God intended it to be.” Perhaps some of my readers could tell me if I’m missing something here, after reading all of Dr. Enns’ referenced essay, of course. (For more of my view without having to pay for it, see Inspiration, Biblical Authority, and Inerrancy.) Looking at it from clearly outside the inerrancy camp, that doesn’t look to me like what most people who espouse Biblical inerrancy are saying, however.

As an example, I say that God speaks into the cultural matrix of the people who are addressed. He will work with what they believe on everything other than the truth he is trying to add. For a simple example, if one or both of the genealogies of Luke and Matthew are in error, one explanation could be simply that the communities involved would believe those particular genealogies and get the point–Jesus as human son of David and Adam. If one ancestor were wrong, for example, it would be harder to add something like, “Well, your genealogical records are incorrect, and the Holy Spirit is telling me to correct them.” That would uproot the teaching from history in the minds of the readers/hearers.

Now please note that this is not something I am attributing to Dr. Enns–this is something I am saying. I’m simply not seeing where it would contradict his statement of inerrancy, yet I’m pretty sure that most who espouse the doctrine of inerrancy would find my explanation unacceptable.

So there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. — Romans 8:1

Oh how we long to get to this verse in studying the Bible. If we’re reading through, we may be tempted to rush it. It’s like working forward through a tragic book to the point at which we know there will be a happy ending.

Besides the theology, however, there’s also just the complexity of the text. Romans 7 is harder to read and to follow, and it’s certainly more controversial in its intent.

But the book of Romans is a journey. It starts by letting us know that humanity is all fallen, that there are no “good guys” who don’t need any salvation, but that we are all human together in need of God’s grace. It continues by telling us that God’s grace has truly been offered, but then it seems to take a side trip into the labyrinth of Romans 7. Surely that chapter is a place of torment for Christian readers, and it describes a place of torment for the Christian life.

But then comes chapter 8. If I’m choosing my texts on which to preach, I’d prefer to preach a nice upbeat sermon, letting people know how everything comes out.

But the fact is that there will be many people in any congregation who are living something that looks much like Romans 7. The solutions to problems may look very clear, but be nearly impossible to implement. It will often look very much like the person who is told that the solution to his or her problems is to train for a new job. But supposing the person is a single parent and has to arrange childcare and transportation, has to have money for tuition, and has to be able to live in the meantime. The solution is clear, but life remains in turmoil.

For such a person, preaching about the victory is important, but so is preaching about the struggle and how to live through it. I’m an Arminian, sometimes I say I’m more Arminian than Arminius. The stereotype is that Arminians hold Romans 7 to be a pre-conversion experience, while Romans 8 is after conversion. I disagree. I think everyone will have struggles, to various degrees, and everyone can benefit from realizing that struggle is a part of the Christian life.

My primary point in bringing this up today is not to expound on Romans 7 or 8, but rather to point out that it’s easy to skip the hard parts and jump right to the easy parts in studying, teaching, or preaching scripture. But the hard parts are there for a reason. The person who is struggling may not be encouraged by hearing a sermon about the wonders of victory; he or she may, instead, be discouraged, thinking that everyone else is living this gloriously victorious life.

We like to claim that the Bible is all equally inspired, but we often don’t preach and teach that way.  Victory comes after struggle.  Knowledge after study.

It works in life and in Bible study.

There a teacher’s saying that there are no bad questions, except the ones you don’t ask. There’s another saying that says that once you know the right question, the right answer will follow. As with many one liners, these two seem to clash.

On the front of my book What’s in a Version?, I have printed the line, “The best Bible version is one you read.” That saying suffers from the same problems as any one liner. It may quite easily be construed in ways that would make it quite false.

On the other hand, such sayings do have the value of making us think a little bit about our assumptions, and even a question you might evaluate as “bad” may well help you understand an issue as you analyze the question.

Every time I have been at a show or a teaching event at which I have used or displayed my book, I’ve heard the question “What is the best Bible version?” That’s even after they look at the cover of my book. If I point to the line on the cover they’ll laugh and say, “Yes, but what is really the best version?” That question is, in a sense, a bad question. It doesn’t really have a very good answer, and that’s because of things that are lacking in the question. But it can lead us to think profitably about the question.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I can’t say what the “best” version is without asking just what the version is to be used for. For example, if you want to read extensively for pleasure and to get an overview, then I might recommend an easy reading version, such as the CEV, because it is easy to read rapidly. Yet if I were personally going to read for an extended period of time, I wouldn’t prefer the CEV. I’d more likely use the REB, or as an intermediate point, the NLT.

For rapid reading, I would regard all three translations as adequately accurate in the way they convey the general story, but they differ in style and vocabulary. Some people find the CEV very attractive. Attention has been paid to style and to how it will sound when read orally. But other people find its shorter sentences and simpler vocabulary tedious. The REB is music to my ears and to my mind, yet I find that most people to whom I read passages don’t hear the same thing I do in it.

So which of these translations is best? I go back to the line on the front cover of my book: The best Bible version is one you read–especially in this case.

No translation conveys all meaning from the source to the target language. To simplify that, when you read the Bible in English, no matter what English version you use, something will be missing over what might be received by a person reading in the source languages. (Another point that should be mentioned here is that different amounts are conveyed to the reader in the source languages depending on language and other skills.)

Here are some things that a translator might try to convey:

• Style of the original writers
  Hebrews is written in a substantially different style of Greek than Mark, 1 John, Revelation, or Galatians, and each of those four examples differs from one another. Translations tend to obscure these stylistic differences. The CEV, for example, is aiming at an easy reading level, and will break up long, complex sentences in the Greek of Hebrews in order to make them easier to read, thus losing much of the sense of literary style in the book. At the same time, the intended audience of the CEV will probably get more of the sense of the book than they would if it was translated into a style of English that matched the elevated style of the Greek. A translator has to choose. What to you convey? What do you leave behind?
• Literary devices
  If you want to get an argument going about translation mention literary devices. In this case I use the term broadly. In translating Hebrew poetry do I want to convey the style of Hebrew poetry, i.e. make an English representation of the structure of the Hebrew, or do I want to provide English poetry with a similar impact to that of the source? Personally, I’m happy to have translations that try for either option or a variety of compromise approaches, but the translation will be quite different depending on how one answers this question.
• Form and vocabulary
  This issue was discussed extensively by the KJV translators. Do you want to have a single English word always represent a particular Greek or Hebrew word? How about a limited subset? This question lies somewhere near the foundation of the dynamic equivalence/formal equivalence debate.

That is just a very basic start at looking at the various questions. Every translation I have read or studied includes passages I wish were translated differently, or makes choices I wish had been made differently. Yet nearly every one has some quality I can appreciate as well.

To answer the question in the title, requires that one consider these questions, and consider the audience as well, without knowing who will read, for what purpose they will read, and under what circumstances they will read, I can’t even take a stab at saying what Bible version will be best.

The final step in choosing a good Bible version should always be to read from it under the circumstances for which you are choosing it. The best test of a tool is whether it performs the intended task.

I have complaints about

The man was a good Christian. Any of us would be quite pleased to have his reputation for faith and Christian charity. He was part of a study group I led, and we were discussing witnessing.

“I’m afraid to put a fish symbol on my car,” he said. “I might do something that’s not Christlike, and then what would someone think?”

There is a risk in being a witness, but at the same time, a silent witness may not be sufficient. It’s important to be identified as a recipient of God’s grace through Jesus Christ, i.e. as a Christian person and not just a nice person.

I was struck by the simplicity of it today in reading the lectionary passage for a week from Sunday. It starts with Genesis 24:34:

And he [Abraham's servant] said, “I am Abraham’s servant.”

It’s easy to read right past that, but this morning it halted me. How simple! Abraham’s servant wasn’t certain he was going to be successful. In fact, he had asked Abraham to absolve him of failure ahead of time, should that failure result from a negative response from the family in Haran.

It reminded me of a missionary who told me that he simply did good deeds, in his case feeding children in need. If asked, he would say, “I’m doing this because Jesus told me today.”

Might it be possible that the one thing that needs to be added to your life and Christian witness is that simple statement, something like: “I am Christ’s servant?”

One of the key foundations of my participatory Bible study method is my firm belief that individual Christians can and should study the Bible for themselves. I believe this study will depend on the work of experts in many cases, and that it should be accountable within a church community, but the individual, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, is capable of studying and discerning.

The fact that people differ in their opinions does not change my mind. Experts also disagree. There is no level of theological training that will make everyone come to the same conclusion. In your study, you should not fear errors. Do your best to correct errors with the best information you have. Be correctable when others point errors out, but don’t let the possibility, not the probably, in fact the certainty of errors hold you back.

I really shouldn’t link to one post from two different blogs, but considering that my first one was for the Pacesetters Bible School Newsletter blog, a group blog, I’ll do it here. Peter Kirk wrote an excellent piece on this, and as a bonus he is relating this to the discussion of the Lakeland Revival. Check it out.

There is nothing that brings out quite so much strangeness as discussion of the end-times. Nonetheless, I consider it fun.

It has been commercialized in books, movies, and a video game, and now there is a special web site, You’ve Been Left Behind, which offers to allow you to send e-mails and files to unsaved friends who miss the rapture. (News story here, HT: Adventures in Revland.) Apparently God doesn’t have things quite under control, and thus it is necessary to try to communicate after you’re in heaven. One wonders if God does not, perhaps, have a purpose in not making this a standard thing.

One of the things I suggest when teaching from Daniel or Revelation is that one should never stop with one commentary. The same thing applies to someone who is teaching a lengthy and details timeline for the end-times. Any one person can sound convincing, but timelines are generally built up from a wide variety of texts, often used out of context, or more precisely in a contrived context. Reading another writer, equally convinced and possibly equally convincing will show you how many different scenarios can be supported if one is just

As an exercise, I suggest taking passages that one is applying to the rapture, tribulation, and millenium, and study them as part of the whole book. This can be done fairly easily with a book like Joel, or with several visions from Daniel, such as Daniel 7-9 studied together. You may find it quite interesting to note the difference in how people will understand certain end-times texts based on the original context versus how they are presented as part of an end-times scheme.

I will probably have to repent for posting this, but I can’t resist. Post in haste, repent at leisure–probably much leisure.

I received the following comment on YouTube responding to my video Why I Hate the KJV.

SHUT UP! “Thou fool”. The only obstacle is your own wickedness selfishness laziness and stupidity. The only hinderance is your nausiating self absorbed slop. Repent and get saved you ignorant unsaved pharisee!

I guess that will teach me!

For the eager multitudes (even if they are only “eager” and indeed “multitudes” in my imagination!) who have been awaiting the changes to MyBibleVersion.com to allow personalized lists of versions, I have an announcement . . . [cue trumpet fanfare, imaginary like the multitudes]

The site has finally been moved to the new server, thus removing my excuses for putting it off. It’s up near the top of my list for the coming week. I’ll get to it. Really.

Last Saturday I attended church with my mother, who is a Seventh-day Adventist.  I was visiting for her 90th birthday.  During Sabbath School (the SDA version of Sunday School), there were a number of questionable “facts” brought out by various members of the class.  Amongst these was “Spare the rod and spoil the child” as a Proverb (it’s not, though there are a couple quite close to it), and whether Jesus used the term “vipers” of his opponents, or was it only John the Baptist (Jesus used it too).

Now this post isn’t about the greater numbers of errors committed by SDAs than folks of other denominations.  SDAs do quite well studying their Bible.  I disagree with many of their theological suppositions, but regarding basic facts they are quite good.  <em>All</em> small groups are subject to this problem.  What do you do about it?  I suggest three things.

1. Check your Biblical texts in your Bible, not from memory, and check them with a variety of Bible translations.  A small group can agree to bring different versions.  Read the footnotes as well.  Sometimes you may declare that a certain verse doesn’t exist, only to find out later that it was quoted from a different Bible version.
2. When there is a question of fact, look it up in a good reference source, such as a current Bible dictionary (HarperCollins, New International Bible Dictionary, Anchor Bible Dictionary [used carefully]).  Bible handbooks or Bibles with study notes often include such information, but they also tend to have more opinion as well.
3. Distinguish fact from theological perspectives and other opinions, even in reference sources.  You’ll find differences of opinion between various sources, but you’ll also find a core that is quite generally agreed upon.  Using multiple sources written from different perspectives will help you on this.

Finally, don’t be afraid to study because you’re not an expert.  Dig in and work at it.  The world won’t come to an end because you made a mistake.  It has much bigger problems than your misunderstanding of a text.  So relax and enjoy, but take the time to check as well.

In today’s Running Toward the Goal podcast, recorded on the road with apologies for the quality, I discuss Ezekiel 1:28. I thought that as additional reference I’d provide my discussion of these terms from my college paper originally written in 1979. This is unchanged from the original form.  (This extract is an appendix to the original paper.  The full paper is here.)

The Uses of ;eyn, d^emuth and mar’eh in Ezekiel 1

In the textual comments (see note p on verse 13) I made an emendation of the text in which I stated that a scribe, reading the chapter and seeing d^emuth used in verse 13 would tend to wish to correct it to mar’eh as more appropriate to the context of the verse. As the King James Version uniformly translates each of the three words above with English words which are essentially similar, it is necessary to demonstrate that this use is indeed correct. The KJV has translated them as color, likeness, and appearance respectively.

;eyn appears four times in the chapter, Holladay suggests simply “look” or “appearance”, but Eichrodt (OTL) suggests “sparkle”. Elsewhere, gleam is suggested. The latter seem most appropriate in the context here, In verses 4 and 27 the Chashmal gleams, In verse 7 the polished bronze. In verse 16 the wheels, probably of a translucent or transparent color gleam. So gleaming or sparkling here appears to be the best translation.

d^emuth appears 9 times. We have the d^emuth of the four living creatures who have the d^emuth of a man. Their faces have the d^emuth of various creatures. The d^emuth of a vault is above the creatures’ heads. The sapphire stone resolves itself into the of a throne. Upon the d^emuth of a throne is the d^emuth of the appearance of a man. Finally the glory of God is said to have d^emuth. The only one of these which is neutral is verse 28, “the form of the glory of Yahweh”, although even here reference is being made to the form which was on the throne. Holladay suggests form as a translation for d^emuth. It appears to be the best translation in this chapter.

Lastly we have mar’eh which appears 11 times. It is used as a general reference to the four creatures, immediately followed by the statement that they had the form of a man, four faces, four wings, etc. In verse l3 there is the mar’eh of lightning, which does not have “form” as such. In verse l4 we have the mar’eh of lightning again. The mar’eh of the wheels was as the sparkle of tarshish, etc. The mar’eh of the wheels was as if a wheel were within a wheel. Ezekiel sees the mar’eh of sapphire which resolves itself into the form of a throne. There is the form of the mar’eh of a man, and the mar’eh of fire, the mar’eh of a rainbow, and the mar’eh of a gleaming. In only one of these cases would “form” be an appropriate translation. That is verse 16, with regard to the wheels.

In verse 13, however, the situation is reversed. The “coals of fire burning like lightning” could hardly be described as having “form”. The scribe, seeing Ezekiel’s normal use of the words could easily have added mar’eh in the margin to indicate that this would be a better word to employ here.