Christianity 101: Week Four

All Scripture is God-breathed and inspired by God and is useful (profitable) for teaching, rebuking, convicting, correcting and training in righteousness (holy living) so that the servant of God may be complete and thoroughly equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17

Many biblical scholars agree that the Holy Bible is inerrant (truthful), inspired and authored by God. The doctrine of inspiration not only explains the process of writing the Holy Bible but also provides the basis for viewing the Holy Bible as authoritative and inerrant. The next question arises what about the issues of secretaries, editors, co-authors, and assembling of the sixty-six books of the Bible and inerrancy. Biblical scholars note that the books of the Bible have gone through editorial revisions.

To resolve the inerrancy debate, many biblical scholars agree that God’s Holy Spirit was continually involved in the revisions, editing, and translations to produce the Holy Bible. God’s Holy Spirit authored the Holy Bible (2 Peter 1:21) and enabled both the educated and uneducated the ability to perceive, speak, understand, and apply God’s true Word (Jeremiah 23:28; John 14:16-17, 26, John 16:13-15, 1 John 2:20, 27, 1 Corinthians 2:6-16). The Word of God is alone reliable and guaranteed.

The fundamental tool for good biblical interpretation is a trustworthy translation of the Bible. Most respectable Bible translations make a diligent effort to be faithful to the original Hebrew and Greek. There are many different translations of the Bible. Bible translators use different models, philosophies, and hermeneutical methods to interpret and understand what a Scripture text means. For example, the literal correspondence method is a philosophy of biblical translation that tries to interpret the Bible word for word from the Bible’s original Hebrew and Greek language. Examples of literal correspondence method include the Interlinear Bible, the King James Version, and the Amplified Bible. On the other hand, some biblical translators use the dynamic equivalent philosophy. With the dynamic equivalent method, biblical translators try to interpret the ancient ideas or thoughts of the original Greek and Hebrew words of the Bible into modern language. A good example of the dynamic equivalent method includes the New International Version and the New Living Translation.

Moreover, when translating the Bible, biblical translators are also faced with the range of different meanings of a Greek or Hebrew word. A single Hebrew or Greek word may have more than one semantic domain. For example, the word “right” can be translated as the opposite of left, wrong, conservative, just, etc.

Many biblical scholars recommend selecting a good, reliable, and recent Bible translation and to faithfully read that translation, including the footnotes and margins. In general, the newer Bible translations take into account all the discoveries made and are better translations. An example of a good and easy to read translation includes the New International Version (NIV). Also, scholars recommend reading a Bible’s Preface to discover the translators’ philosophy and method of translation.

Nevertheless to get a fuller and comprehensive understanding of God’s intentions, many biblical scholars recommend using more than one Bible translation. When working with a Scripture text, often working from one Bible translation is not adequate.

References

McCartney, Dan. Let the Reader Understand (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presb. and Reformed Publishing, 2^nd Edition, 2002)

Schwab, George, Ph.D., Professor of Exegesis (Due West, SC: Erskine Theological Seminary, 2016).

Grubbs, Norris and Curtis Scott Drumm, “What Does Theology Have to Do With the Bible? A Call for the Expansion of the Doctrine of Inspiration” (JETS 53/1, March 2010), 65-79.