DescentBB

How important is the accuracy of the modern Bible to Christianity?

I've broken down the creation of the modern Bible primarily into three processes (which may ultimately prove frivolous) where inaccuracies could creep in--
(1) the original authorships of the books of the Bible,
(2) the transcription of the books throughout the years, and
(3) the translation of the Bible into English (or any other spoken language).
I believe that with #1, accuracy should be with respect to factual accuracy; with #2, accuracy should be with respect to the original autographs; and, with #3, accuracy should be with respect to the intended meaning of the available transcriptions.

Regardless of its potential frivolousness, I believe that this list represents a descending hierarchy listing the processes that would most "irk" Christians if inaccuracies were found in them. For example, Joe Blow Christian would be more irked about an inaccuracy in the original authorship of the Bible than an inaccuracy in the translation of the Bible.

Whether or not these are correct distinctions is certainly open to discussion, but, without having that discussion yet, a more in depth question I would pose in addition to the original is: How important is accuracy in each of the three mentioned processes to Christianity? Is "perfect" (defined any which way) accuracy required in any of them? If not, how accurate should they be? Should inaccuracy be more tolerable in some processes than others?

Thanks.

P.S. Although the subject can't be entirely avoided, this thread isn't about crapping about how accurate one thinks the Bible may or may not be.

Regardless, expect a hit 'n' run by Mobius.

I highly doubt there were many translation errors in the early days of the Bible. Have you ever heard of the Septuagint? The Greek translation of the (then Hebrew-only) Bible? 80 scholars were supposed to have translated the Bible as carefully as they could to the Greek. When they came back together to compare their translations (yes, each of them translated the entire thing) the only difference in their translations were their uses of our equivalent of the word "the" in English. Greek has a LOT of different forms of the word "the". Darkside Heartless would know more about it than I--he learned quite a bit of Greek, as I'm recalling.

At any rate, the inaccuracies in the translation of the Bible into English are much more concerning to me. I believe in the Bible, and that it has been truly and carefully translated through the years, but there are several common translations that have been printed recently that are blantantly false to the original texts. I have literally seen verses added to the end of a book of the Bible. Not a big deal? Not in most cases, but it was so blatantly obvious in this case, and the verses added were so out of character with the rest of the book, that it astounds me that anyone would even use that particular translation.

I'm basically summarizing week 1 and part of week 2 of Drakona's class on Biblical interpretation here. If you want more detail, click the links, and consider working out the homework if you're really interested. I'll also try to define terms I use as I go, for the benefit of other readers.

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In order to answer the question, you really have to understand the GOAL and the PROCESS.

The GOAL of any sort of communication is to take a thought that began in one person's mind and put it into someone else's mind. In this case, the goal is to get a thought from God's mind into our mind. Since most of us aren't telepathic, we typically use a language -- either written or spoken -- to get the thought from one mind to another.

The PROCESS, in the specific case of the Bible, is thus:

1) God and a human author have some thought in their collective mind, and God inspires the author to write some text in some language (Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic.) It differs exactly how much of the thought comes from which mind or how (depending on the situation), but for the moment, simply assume that they somehow combine to create original-language text. We call that original-language text an "autograph".

2) The original language text is copied down over time, either because the old copy is deteriorating, or because someone else (say, another church) wants a copy. This process is called "transmission". Either the Priests (OT) or the church (NT) decides what's worth copying and preserving and passing on by selecting works for the "canon". We call each copy a "manuscript".

3) Those texts pass through time and space to get to modern-translators, who look at them and translate them into English (or other language) words for us. We call the final copy a "translation".

4) We read the texts and try to figure out what idea God and the original author had in their minds. This process is called "interpretation", and it's something far too few people learn how to do properly.

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Over the whole of the process, what we care about is that the thought that was intended to be communicated is actually communicated. At each step, we care about something slightly different:

1) During the original authorship, we care that the thought or occurrence is faithfully compressed into words. Whether God speaks words that are directly recorded, or whether God gives someone a vision that they write in their own words, or someone simply recorded history, we want those words to convey the original idea or situation as clearly as possible.

Is it possible for this to be inaccurate or incomplete? Of course it is! Any time you take an idea and compress it into words, some information is lost (except in certain technical situations, where every word is carefully defined.) The fewer words are used, the less information can be conveyed -- so you would expect, for example, that describing the whole history of the universe in a page of text would give you only a limited and possibly inaccurate picture. On the other hand, if a dozen pages are spent describing what you had for lunch, we probably have a very complete and accurate picture.

One thing to notice is that we care more about inaccuracies relating to the central thought being communicated than inaccuracies that are tangential -- for example, we don't mind much when someone is describing a sporting event that they don't explain the weather very carefully. For most sensible Christians who understand the process, this is the only place at which an inaccuracy should cause any sort of crisis of faith -- if the original actually wrote something false, that's bad.

2) In the process of transmission, we care that the words from the original are properly preserved. If Paul wrote the word "kai" (in Greek characters), we care that the word "kai" shows up in exactly that same place in Greek characters in every manuscript.

Again, here, we expect inaccuracies. We care more about major inaccuracies -- like, sentences being added or important words being changed -- than we do about typos. There are certain cults that like to pretend no inaccuracies exist at this stage, but anyone with a good idea of the manuscripts that exist will tell you there are plenty of inaccuracies. Nobody should have a crisis of faith over this -- it just means you have to be careful when you study.

What's neat is that we actually have a very clear idea of what sort of inaccuracies exist, and we can identify what passages they're in and have a fair idea of what the originals said. In the Old Testament, we have the Hebrew-language Masoretic text (6 manuscripts from about 800 AD), and we also have the Dead Sea Scrolls (from about 100-200 BC), and we can compare the differences. We can also look at other language translations like the Greek Septuagint or the Latin Vulgate to get an idea of what the original language probably said when those translations were made.

In the New Testament, we have about 5,500 Greek manuscripts, 30,000 other-language ancient manuscripts, and over a million quotations of the NT by early church fathers. These are from different eras and different geographic locations. Not only can we be pretty sure of what the originals said in almost every circumstance, but we can actually trace when, where, and how most errors occurred. (This is why it's completely laughable when Mobi comes in with the "the Bible has been rewritten gazillions of times" spiel -- the textual evidence is strong enough that we can tell what era and region a particular typo arose in!)

Grab a copy of the NET Bible and look up your favorite passages, and look for "textual criticism" notes (marked tc) to see what sort of inaccuracies exist in each passage. It's actually quite impressive how few textual errors there are, and how rarely they're of any importance.

3) In the translation process, we care that the manuscripts (and all of the textual evidence) are translated into English in such a way as to give readers a clear idea as to what the original author meant to communicate. Some errors creep in at this stage, and we care more about certain types than others. For example:

- some translators introduce their own biases into the translation, and occasionally they're downright dishonest in translation (NWT, cough cough...) We care a lot about that.
- some translators want to create a Bible for children or new believers, so they paraphrase the original text and don't focus much on accuracy, but they get the big picture mostly right and explain it clearly. Most people aren't bothered like this, as long as they understand the intended audience of such a translation.
- some translators aim for very accurate rendition of the original language, even preserving word orders that are more natural in other orders in English. In a translation of this type, it really matters if something is inaccurately translated.

One big thing to remember is that the tools are out there for you to get a good idea as to what the original language said. Grab a good NAS or NET with study notes and lexical notes, grab an interlinear (original language and translated text on alternating lines, typically including numbers to tell you were to look in a lexicon), and use a Lexicon to see what the original-language word meant and how it's used elsewhere.

The only way anyone will have a crisis of faith over an error at this stage is if they've been indoctrinated into the "KJV is infallible" / "the King's english was good enough for Paul so it's good enough for me" camp.

4) Interpretation is still, by far, the weak point in the whole process. Most theological inaccuracies creep in simply because people don't have good hermeneutical principles (that is, good principles of how to read and understand the text as the author intended it to be understood.) It's not just that they're lacking in good Biblical hermeneutics -- most people are lacking in general hermeneutics. Most people will read our posts, newspaper articles, or books and come to seriously wrong conclusions about what the author intended. Some of it is laziness, but most of it is just not understanding how to extract meaning from text properly. (That's why there are weeks 3-6 of that class!)

Stryker wrote:80 scholars were supposed to have translated the Bible as carefully as they could to the Greek. When they came back together to compare their translations (yes, each of them translated the entire thing) the only difference in their translations were their uses of our equivalent of the word "the" in English.

It's actually 70 scholars. The Septuagint is often referred to by the Roman numerals LXX because of it.

I hadn't heard the particular tale of the translations only differing in the use of the definite article. I'm a bit skeptical of that -- because words don't always translate perfectly into other languages, I'd expect there to be some disagreement just based on what each translator considered to be the "primary" meaning of certain words. Sounds kind of urban-legend to me...

I have literally seen verses added to the end of a book of the Bible.... the verses added were so out of character with the rest of the book, that it astounds me that anyone would even use that particular translation.

A truly good modern translation will include a lot of verses with notes that say "these verses are in manuscripts X, Y, and Z but not in manuscripts A, B, and C" and explain which set is more trustworthy for what reason.

What concerns me is not original-language errors, transmission errors, or translation errors. I have faith that God never lied in putting together the Bible, and that the church fathers didn't include works that didn't belong. Everything else -- unclear language in the original, transmission errors, translation errors -- can be overcome just by using the right tools. Just downloading a NET Bible will cover the vast majority of those things.

What concerns me is that many intelligent Christians aren't even aware such tools exist, yet they're willing to take single words out of their English-language Bible (words which may or may not be the best choice to represent what the original language said) and make a huge deal out of them. That's frightening. Any decent Bible translation should give you the right idea if you read it with the big picture in mind, but far too often, people end up going off the deep end based on some detail that they read in English and never used the right tools to try to understand. If you're going to do serious study of individual words, you should have access to a Lexicon, a good Lexical-keyed ("Strong's number") concordance, an interlinear Bible with Strong's numbers, a nice study Bible in a good translation (NET, NAS, or the slightly less good NIV), and enough sense to know when you need to go ask an expert.

Thanks. That'll all take some time to absorb. With regard to tools, I'm personally a fan of e-Sword. Regrettably, though, it lacks modern translations like the NIV due to $$$ issues.

The idea that the writers of the bible were little more than "God's Stenographers" is an insult to all right-thinking people. What a load of rubbish.

The bible was inspired by man, written by man, edited by man. It's a human work.

By far the biggest changes to the bible in history, have been made by the church. The bible has undergone a huge amount of editing, particularly before it was ever translated into Ebglish: many parts have been removed and added - and the internal inconsistencies (of which a huge number still appear) were mostly removed well before ever going into English.

Of most significance to modern readers though, is what has been included, and what has beene excluded from the bible. Who made the choices to include or exclude books from the bible? Yes, that's right, human beings. Why were they added or deleted? You got it: to serve Christian doctrine more effectively - nothing more and nothing less.

The funniest thing I find in the bible today is the concept of a "Unity of Trinity". OMFG. That's just laughable. The church would have you believe that the father, son and holy ghost are separate, and yet the dsame. Well, any 5 year old can tell you that 3 != 1, and that 1 != 3. This in particular is the most horrid of the bible's (many) internal inconsistencies.

It's just impossible to reconcile, as the math does not add up. When you question religious persons about this, they always reply the same way; "That's just the way it is." Which does not answer the question: How can 3 = 1? We know it doesn't.

We might as well start talking about the "duality of the quadrupleness", or the "tripleness of the quintupleness". Nonsense is what that is.

Anyway - the point here is that the bible's contents are now, and always have been, the decision of a small group of people - and if you're asking how did they know what to do, the answer is simple: they didn't! God didn't tell them what to do - they did it all by themselves.

That completes my drive-by.

Further reading:

"Crimes Against Logic" by Jamie Whyte
"Christianity without God" by Lloyd Geering

Both are highly recommended for intelligent, skeptical persons who are interested in the truth, as opposed to upbringing and doctrine.

and so it begins.

...and I am usually right behind Mobius, quick to exclaim "OMFG'ing" too when people believe that reading, writing, translating about God, "studying" god in the books written about'him' is anything that touches, that even looks at what the authentic experience of God is ...

Writing the Bible is the semantic excercise of trying to put the ineffable into words, done by many authors. It will fail to become anything more than an attempt, and end up an artisitic word-game full of metaphor.

The Bible is an old example of this natural effort of the human psyche; to write about the ineffable, using many meatphors and images to describe what cannot be done justice with words.

"Inaccuracies in the Bible" therefore means what, if in writing it in teh first place WE were already unable to escape using metaphor to capture the ineffable ? Metaphorical accuracy, is that possible ?

"...I have faith that God never lied in putting together the Bible, and that the church fathers didn't include works that didn't belong..."

Lothar ! .. are you so thumped to (mean to) say that God wrote the Bible ..?

.. I know, I know, ... Mobius' and my comments don't really help, but OMFG ! .. !

Upbringing and Doctrine vs experience... I'll take experience any day, and I'll teach that to my kids, even about God.

You laugh because you do not know. That's akin to me saying evolution is bogus because everyone knows that when the big bang occurred life came out fully formed. It's pure, rhetorical bogus. Do you guys doubt the accuracy of Plato's writings? Do you doubt the accuracy of Tertulian? Yet you persist in saying the Bible cannot have been translated accurately.

Laughing at something you do not understand is not a good idea.

Edit: You're right never mind....

You're all dorks and can't follow even the simplest of instructions, so I find it difficult to hold any of you as an authority on something much more complicated.

;...

Anyone on topic, given the various sources of authorship, like listening to God audibly speaking, seeing a vision, general inspiration, etc., do you think that it would have been possible to get a fact blatantly wrong? Say, if Moses was writing God's audible words down, do you think that he might have misheard or miswrote? During a vision, could, say, John have misidentified something? Or do you believe that the Holy Spirit was dynamic enough with these people to prevent something like that from happening in every case?

The way I see it is that, spiritually, the Bible is completely accurate; in other words, the actual theological or moral intent of any particular passage is as God intended it to be. For something as central to the entire Old Testament as the Ten Commandments, I believe that we're reading exactly what God intended us to read. However, I don't think that the Bible is always correct in every fact it presents; there are numerous instances of scientific inaccuracies, and I'm sure that there are a few historical errors as well. At least in my opinion, these are nothing more than the reflection of the human authors of the texts; after all, we all know that no one living a few thousand years ago had any concept at all of modern astronomy or biology. That being said, I don't believe that such errors take anything away from the intent of the Bible, from the original message inspired by God.

El Ka Bong, I can understand that your viewpoint of God is very different from most of us here, but I think it would be beneficial to have a more involved discussion about it. To what sort of "experience" do you refer? I know it's completely different than what you're referring to, but I also agree in saying that experiencing God's presence in life is important; to me personally, this means celebrating the rituals of the sacraments, communicating with God in prayer, or just recognizing the little miracles that occur around us every day. Also, what specifically do you see wrong with being brought up in faith or in observing certain doctrines? I'm curious as to what exactly you're referring to.

I know that this message is completely pointless, as he won't bother reading this thread again, but Mobius, did you bother to read any of this thread at all before spouting off your tired, uninformed, bigoted, idiotic drivel again? Did you, by any chance, fail to read the warning at the bottom of Jeff's initial post, asking that such concepts as yours be left out of this thread? Did you bother to read a single word of Lothar's post, which completley refuted every word of your argument? No, I didn't think so. Even if you had, I doubt it would do you any good. Your attempt to simplify the concept of the Trinity to "1=!3" really is something else. Having an intelligent discussion about the Bible's content isn't a "load of rubbish," but I can tell you what is. As for your self-proclaimed "drive-by," last time I checked, most of the mods don't look too favorably on such trolling. For the good of the whole forum, please, just bite your tongue and stop spewing your same old rhetoric in every thread invovling religion. Some of us here actually want to have intelligent discussions about the topic, even though that concept may be completely alien to you.

Top Gun wrote:The way I see it is that, spiritually, the Bible is completely accurate; in other words, the actual theological or moral intent of any particular passage is as God intended it to be. For something as central to the entire Old Testament as the Ten Commandments, I believe that we're reading exactly what God intended us to read. However, I don't think that the Bible is always correct in every fact it presents; there are numerous instances of scientific inaccuracies, and I'm sure that there are a few historical errors as well. At least in my opinion, these are nothing more than the reflection of the human authors of the texts; after all, we all know that no one living a few thousand years ago had any concept at all of modern astronomy or biology. That being said, I don't believe that such errors take anything away from the intent of the Bible, from the original message inspired by God.

So you're suggesting that God went to greater lengths to insure that the spirtual or theological truths of the Bible were originally written down without error? That certainly makes sense in that that's what the Bible is supposed to be about after all. But it also seems almost too convenient. Scientific ideas and historical details can often be easily disproven, whereas spiritual or theological ideas cannot be tested.

Simply said, since some stray scientific ideas or historical details might not have been exactly true to the matter, is it really safe to assume that in an untestable area like theology that there were no stray errors?

I would not attempt to describe an experience of God, just too hard, or it would make it trite. I don't have such skills as a writer. But yes, experiencing God is "small miracles", synchronistic events, dreams that carry meaning, to the astounding, awestriking things we can't even utter, or the constant beauty of nature at macro and subatomic levels .. all of that is what I would say is experiencing god. Consciousness is the tip, maybe the "fingertips" of God's prescence in this 4 dimensional reality we seem to be "awake" in.

I was just trying to distinguish the experience of god from the doctrine we use to discuss, and communicate that experience of God. Since we have to resort to metaphor to write a doctrine of any kind that addresses God, how can you quibble about accuracy, especially if the metaphor is ancient, old and in need of some modernization ? Modern metaphor perhaps could be best derived from some modern experience of ourslves, alive in the universe today.

.. so, I just wondering, isn't it time to "re-write" the Bible, ... maybe add a few modern metaphors..? Aiming to make the whole text "more accurate" given our modernized and expanded knowledge of ourselves in the Universe..?

We will rewrite it for sure, when "we" as a species encounter a new irrefutable truth about ourselves in the universe; such as the discovery that life is not unique to our planet of solar system.

Astounding events like that would force our doctrines to be out of date, or to be "updated" quickly... I imagine an event so amazing, so awe-inspiring that even the most extreme-indoctrinated viewpoints would be shattered, and thereby induced to be re-written by us now, in modern times.

For eg. the panspermia model for life in the universe ( .. trying to get Mobius to respond, genuinely, I'm not being sarcastic..). Don't you all expect that in the next few decades that we will have evidence for extraterrestrial life ..? This would be astounding ! amazing ! event ! I would imagine that everyone's school books would be rewritten, and so would every other doctrine we have out there if we found life exists beyond Earth...

And btw, the other frontier to be on the look-out on for "astounding" earth shattering, doctrine-shattering events is our consciousness. I have been reading Terrence McKenna lately, and interpreting his 'doctrine' of consciousness and reality.

But let's stick to the course of this thread, ... you know like, how many angels fit on the head of a pin ?... ( which is perhaps also a serious metaphor for an experience of God.)

..Jeff you say:

"Scientific ideas and historical details can often be easily disproven, whereas spiritual or theological ideas cannot be tested. " ...

Spirituality and all those theological ideas are absolutely "testable" simply through the experience of them. Then you act your life out in belief of those principles you experienced working through you, and "viola" ... ! They are proven, you live them, and the "reality" you live actually gets shaped by them.

With such a self-feeding-back spiritual practice, probabilities and events will "line up" in synchrony with your intentions. In a familiar phrase; "you reap just what you (spiritually) sow" by acting it and experiencing it. And eventually experiencing God is not that far fetched as you might say talking to aliens is, especially in these modern times.

Reading and writing about these experiences serves to guide others to that experience, and is required to communicate that experience.

I wonder to confirm the accuracy of any doctrine of spirituality or religion, why can't one just "test" it ? Do you have to live your whole life reading about it, studying the Bible or Koran, waiting all your life to die just to find out if you interpreted it right? .. Not in these modern times ... you can experience anything we know of.

Wow, these bible topics are always long and full of debate.

As far as bible accuracy, I definately believe that the bible is accurate, but that belief is not by blind faith. I suggest that anyone who is religious should actually research the facts and prophecies contained in the bible and compare with historical and archeological data and facts. What you will find is an accuracy that far excels the foretelling ability of any man. And that's the reason why I do believe the accuracy of the bible. At the same time though, you will discover a lot of innaccuracy and untruth in today's modern Christian religions. It's no wonder that people like Mobious have no faith or belief in Christianity. Most religions nowadays have pretty much turned themselves into mere hypocritical jokes.

An interesting point was brought up though, and that was considering translations and the trinity. I'll address the translation issue first. The New World Translation is by far among the easiest to read as well as being accurate. It actually corrects some of the "introductions" brought in by church influenced translations. The second item is dealing with the trinity. This is something that the Bible actually does NOT support. Those scriptures that "hint" at the existance of a Trinity were actually introduced by the church and really originated in pagan religions where deities existed in a trinity form. These are the same churches that introduced Pagan holidays and converted them to Christianity in order to more easily "convert" others to Christendom, so it's not really surprising at all.

El Ka Bong, experiencing is only the first step of the process. Testing involves observation, but also hypothesis and experimentation. Design a test to determine the existence of God or determine the validity of the doctrine of trinity. And be sure to rule out all other variables (you know, like acid tripping ).

Again I obviously did not read the lengthy posts(too lazy), but my opinion is that while the English texts may not be 100% accurate because it is a different language than the original Hebrew and the Greek, it is close enough to understand the biblical truths. Honestly now, the Bible is not a highly theological book meant only for the learned and sophisticated. It's simple enough for children to understand.

I will agree that the English version of the Bible misses some non-spiritual facts in the Bible in regard to medicine and science. It does mention some things like what the priests used to keep clean in the temple. These oils they used are what is now being called "Essential oils" because of their amazing curability.

Overall however, the Bible in any language contains the key message of salvation, the Good News, if you will

Jesus Freak, I took a look at your website and the things you have mentioned there. I'll post my commentary on the items and explanations you listed and illustrate how the bible actually contradicts a lot of the teachings that you have learned in your Baptist church.

Jesus Freak wrote:Overall however, the Bible in any language contains the key message of salvation, the Good News, if you will

Accuracy is less important to skimmers at any rate

Jeff250 wrote:How important is the accuracy of the modern Bible to Christianity?

I've broken down the creation of the modern Bible primarily into three processes (which may ultimately prove frivolous) where inaccuracies could creep in--
(1) the original authorships of the books of the Bible,
(2) the transcription of the books throughout the years, and
(3) the translation of the Bible into English (or any other spoken language).
I believe that with #1, accuracy should be with respect to factual accuracy; with #2, accuracy should be with respect to the original autographs; and, with #3, accuracy should be with respect to the intended meaning of the available transcriptions.

You have hit the nail on the head. You have obviously done some studying in this area.

Understanding the "accuracy" of the bible has a great deal to do with the amount of knowledge we have. What we might assume is accurate may very well be inaccurate under a more intensive investgation. One key to understanding is determining if an inaccuracy demands a change in viewpoint, or not.

Example: There does not exist a complete Hebrew version of the Old Testament that dates earlier than the middle ages; there are manuscripts of various books that date earlier, but some of these are not complete and as a group they do not contain all of the Hebrew cannon. The earliest complete Old Testament is the Septuagint, which has many differences when compared to the Hebrew texts (like Psalm 110). Do the differences matter?
In general they do not make that much difference. What they do, however, is demonstrate some minor differences in theology that guided individuals during those earlier times.

Jesus Freak wrote:it is close enough to understand the biblical truths.

Which is why we need Biblical Interpretation classes?
Every week for hundreds of years?

Mobius said it all....

Bettina

Well, if Mobius is right, and there is no God, then his argument is valid.

I guess I missed his proof.

(Does this mean I am not "right-thinking" and "intelligent". )

dissent wrote:Well, if Mobius is right, and there is no God, then his argument is valid.

I guess I missed his proof.

(Does this mean I am not "right-thinking" and "intelligent". )

No it doesn't. It means you have an opinion....like I do....like we all do.

My opinion is that there is no god, never was, never will be. The bible is just a book written by humans, like all books are. As far as the "proof" is concerned, god cannot be proven either way so intellegence has nothing to do with it.

Bettina

Yeah, you are entitled to your opinions; it just drives me crazy when people assume it to be true in an argument. I don't mind assuming it to be true for one reason or another (generally most Christians will tell you the Bible was written indirectly by God), but trying to tell someone one way or the other only works in a debate if they agree with you.

The whole trinity thing is probably the wrong way of looking at it anyway. There is only one God; the Father, Son and Spirit are just different aspects or functions of that God. It's certainly not illogical, and there are other things that exhibit similar behaviour, such as the space-time nature of the universe.

El Ka Bong wrote:so, I just wondering, isn't it time to "re-write" the Bible, ... maybe add a few modern metaphors..? Aiming to make the whole text "more accurate" given our modernized and expanded knowledge of ourselves in the Universe..?

Which is an interesting proposal, and perhaps possible to do. The problems come in where we don't actually know what was going on, or understand precisely what the author was referring to, and therefore can't definitely rephrase it using language from our current knowledge. Most of the Bible doesn't contain anything out of the ordinary; the handful of cases that might are mostly in books like Revelation.

That opens an entirely new can of worms. The chances that we couldn't more accurately rephrase some terms from that book are quite remote; however, to actually do the business we would have to settle on an interpretation, and then assume that interpretation is accurate.

Dangerous business really, because it is quite possible to get wrong.

Interpretation......

This is the only saving grace for the bible. The way it is written now, confusing and contradicting, allows the preachers to "interpret" the meanings to fit any situation or any future situation that happens to come up. As it stands now, it will be good for decades.

Once an "official" interpretation is written, it may not be able to answer a future discovery or problem.....and thats what scares them.

Bettina

Bet51987 wrote:Interpretation......

This is the only saving grace for the bible. The way it is written now, confusing and contradicting, allows the preachers to "interpret" the meanings to fit any situation or any future situation that happens to come up. As it stands now, it will be good for decades.

Once an "official" interpretation is written, it may not be able to answer a future discovery or problem.....and thats what scares them.

Bettina

Interpretation is an issue with more than just the Bible. There are continuing debates on how the US Constitution should be "interprepted." Most man-made documents suffer from this incessant need to be "interpreted." This demonstrates a great flaw in man's thinking; the overwhelming need to shift undersatanding to the point where it's most aggreeable, even if that means changing the original meaning. In other words, "If you don't like what it says, change it until you do like it."
With this attitude all standards are lost to the onflood of liberal thinking that drowns us in a morass of befuddlement, and leads only to more confusion.

The Bible is actually very simple, very straighforward, and astonishingly contempory because it deals with issues regarding the human condition that haven't changed from the founding of the world. It's man who makes it seem so ridiculously difficult and so very out-of-date.

Bet51987 wrote:Interpretation......

This is the only saving grace for the bible. The way it is written now, confusing and contradicting, allows the preachers to "interpret" the meanings to fit any situation or any future situation that happens to come up. As it stands now, it will be good for decades.

Once an "official" interpretation is written, it may not be able to answer a future discovery or problem.....and thats what scares them.

Bettina

The reason why there is no one interpretation to the Bible is because interpretation is simply done on a personal level. Avoiding the fact that it's subject to opinion, even if one did interpret the entire Bible, what is he or she going to do next? Write it down? Now you're in even a deeper hole, because now you've got even more text to interpret.

Without getting too philosophical, I think that you'd be hard-pressed to find anything in life that didn't involve interpretation to some extent anyways. Surely even the drab rhetoric of the Humanist Manifesto involves some element of interpretation.