Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

A man who had escaped came and reported this to Abram the Hebrew. Now Abram was living near the great trees of Mamre the Amorite, a brother of Eshkol and Aner, all of whom were allied with Abram.

• Genesis 14:13

You sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks, that you might send them far from their homeland.

• Joel 3:6

At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Greeks believed.

• Acts 14:1

They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon and in Greek is Apollyon (that is, Destroyer).

• Revelation 9:11

I babysat in Tennessee, and while there, I went to a Baptist church.  My son and grandson are in the orchestra.  My daughter-in-law is in the choir, and the other two grandchildren stand and sing next to her.  They had to be there quite early for orchestra and choir practice, but then I went to Sunday school.  I joined them at that time and went to an adult class.  Of the several adult classes, they ushered me to a small classroom that had about twice the attendance of my Sunday school class.  A boisterous lady got my information and introduced me, but a quiet man then stood to teach the class.  I turned in my Bible to the Psalm he would read, but the lady next to me said that I could not follow him.  He had a Hebrew and Greek Bible, and he translated as he read aloud to the class.

This backfired the second week.  His tang got tongueled, or is that tongue got tangled?  His translation brain got confused as to what day it was.  And oddly, no one in class, all having Bibles, came to his aid.  He stammered through.  Usually reading the translation of each word and then rearranging it into English grammatical sense.

While I was impressed, I wondered if they had to do that.  I would be unable to teach Sunday school if I had to do that.

I know the Baptists claim that they have no creeds, they are Bible only, but when I was growing up, they were King James Version Bible only, an English translation.  I think most of the pastors and other teachers at the church used either NIV or NASB.  I think the greeter that led me to that class thought I was “smart” or something.

Do not get me wrong, I loved the two Sundays in which I attended.

But is translating the Hebrew and Greek live in class pretentious?  Or does it allow someone, who is the only one with that Bible in the room, to translate each verse as he would like for it to be written instead of how it was written?

One of his side-stories, since we were supposed to be in Romans, was the story of Jephthah and his oath.  He talked about how the Hebrew text could be interpreted “and/or” and it left some scholars thinking that Jephthah’s daughter was not killed, but she was dedicated to service at the tabernacle and would never marry.  He personally thought Jephthah killed her, as most Bible scholars also think, but he provided the grammatical conundrum that allows a different interpretation.

That type of discussion was excellent.  I love to be challenged, especially requiring the brain cells to get exercise.  But could that same discussion be created by simply bringing up what other scholars say and why they say it?  A trip to the Strong’s Concordance can delve into the variety of interpretations of words.  And the Amplified Bible gives a variety of interpretations when key words could be taken in a variety of ways.

So, it was a unique experience.  I am glad I had the chance to do that.  But I do not feel inadequate in his presence.

So, you have the changes in the Bible’s original languages over time.  You have the changes in the language that you are translating the Bible into over time.  And you have the limitations of those languages, such as lack of punctuation and the lack of some parts of speech, or an overabundance of some parts of speech.  The translation of the Bible is not a calling to be taken lightly.  And I am glad to know that there are those people who know all that stuff quite well.

Because God never changes, and His message to the world must not change either.  Maybe how we say it, but the message is the same.  Jesus, fully human, fully God, came to earth.  He was executed on a cross. and He died.  He rose again and sits on the right hand of God, interceding for us.  And we must believe and trust in Him to be saved.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.