rightly dividing the Word of Truth part 6
Close your eyes. I’m thinking about something and I want you to picture it. Ready? HAND
Maybe you were imagining:
· That appendage with 5 digits (thumb, index, middle, ring and pinky)
· A personal possession (it fell into the hands of the enemy)
· A side (on one hand…on the other hand)
· A pledge (I give you my hand in marriage)
· A style of penmanship (I write this letter in my own hand)
· A skill or ability (I tried my hand at snowboarding)
· Aid or assistance (this morning, Daniel lent a hand in setup)
· Cards in a game (I was dealt a horrible hand)
· One who performs work (a hired hand)
There are a lot of things that hand can mean. When we come to the Biblical text, the same is true. The text is made up of individual words and each of those words may have any number of meanings. To complicate matters, we are reading English words which can mean many things, but they have been translated from Hebrew or Greek words which can mean a number of things in the original language.
This complicated matter is the backdrop behind our next principle of interpretation: determine carefully the meaning of words.
Knowing Scripture by R.C. Sproul (p 79) Rule 5 Determine carefully the meaning of words. Whatever else the bible is it is a book which communicates information verbally. That means that it is filled with words. Thoughts are expressed through the relationship of those words. Each individual word contributes something to the whole of the content expressed. The better we understand the individual words used in Biblical statements the better we will be able to understand the total message of Scripture.
Once again, we can see how these principles overlap. In word studies, the most determinative factor is context. To go back to our hand illustration, in order to determine what I mean by “hand” you need to hear me use it in context. If I said, “I was playing spades and was dealt a horrible hand” you would know that by “hand” I meant the particular cards I was holding. If I said “this morning, the worship was excellent, let’s give Adam and Josh a hand” you would know that I meant applause. If I said “this morning Daniel gave me a hand by helping set up” you would know that by “hand” I meant aid or assistance.
Context drives the meaning of a word. Gordon Fee (one of the authors in how to read the bible) says the following on p 79 in his work New Testament Exegesis: A Handbook for students and pastors that the aim of word study “is to try to understand as precisely as possible what the author was trying to convey by his use of this word in this context.”
So our 9th principle of interpretation is carefully determine the meaning of words.
COMMON FALLACIES
Before we move into the word study process, I’d like to share with you a few of the common word study fallacies set forth by Duval and Hays in Grasping God’s Word:
The English-Only Fallacy: Because the Bible was not originally written in English, it must be translated into English from the original biblical languages, Hebrew and Greek. This fact can complicate word studies for students who do not know the original languages…The English-only fallacy occurs when you base your word study on the English word rather than the underlying Greek or Hebrew word, and as a result draw unreliable or misleading conclusions.
Root Fallacy: One of the more common fallacies is the notion that the real meaning of a word is found in its original root. Think about how silly this can be even in English. (we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway. A butterfly has nothing to do with butter and a sawhorse has nothing to do with horses)…Give context priority over etymology and you will be on solid ground.
Selective-Evidence Fallacy: When we cite just the evidence that supports our favored interpretation or when we dismiss evidence that seems to argue against our view, we commit the selective-evidence fallacy. This error is particularly dangerous because here we are intentionally tampering with the biblical evidence whereas in other fallacies the mistakes may be quite unintentional. Although we want the Bible to support our convictions in every case, there will be times when its message confronts us for our own good. When that happens, we should change our view rather than twist Scripture to advance our own agenda. Before you begin studying a word in the Bible, make up your mind to accept all the evidence.
If you want more on fallacies, Grasping God’s Word, chapter 8 shares a few more. But I chose these to highlight.
THE 3-STEP PROCESS:
Now that we have looked at some fallacies, let’s look at the process of word study. It is a 3-step process:
1. Choosing your words
2. Determining what the word could mean
3. Determining what the word does mean in context
1) CHOOSING YOUR WORDS. Let’s be realistic, we don’t have the time to look up every single word in the passage, nor do we need to. We only need to look up the key words. How do you know which words are the key words? Duvall and Hays suggest the following guidelines for determining words to study in depth:
· Look for words that are crucial to the passage
· Look for repeated words (Blessed in Matt 5)
· Look for figures of speech
· Look for words that are unclear, puzzling, or difficult
Now if statistics are correct, you will only remember a fraction of what I say in this message. If you remember nothing else, remember this rule of thumb: the most important words are the ones that give you trouble. If a word is puzzling or gives you trouble, study it more.
Another one that I will throw out there is to study words that have been translated in different ways in different translations. If the NIV translates it one way, the ESV another, the NASB another, that may be a word worth studying (sarx, paraclete).
2) DETERMINING WHAT THE WORD COULD MEAN. Why do we care about what the word COULD mean? Because words can mean several different things but will usually only carry ONE of those meanings. Remember, we don’t go grab our English dictionary but determine what the Hebrew or Greek word is and look it up in a Hebrew or Greek dictionary or lexicon, strong’s concordance.
3) DETERMINE WHAT THE WORD DOES MEAN. (p145, ibid) “In light of the context, the first thing you must do is to select from the possible meanings the one meaning that best fits your word. What we said earlier about the importance of context bears repeating: Context determines meaning!”
So let’s do one. Turn with me in your Bibles to 1 Chronicles 21:1-2 1 Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel. 2 So David said to Joab and the commanders of the troops, “Go and count the Israelites from Beersheba to Dan. Then report back to me so that I may know how many there are.”
A few weeks ago we looked at this passage alongside 2 Samuel 24:1 Again the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go and take a census of Israel and Judah.”
Let’s practice our principle of carefully determining the meaning of words. Let’s do a brief word study on this word “Satan.”
We chose satan because it’s puzzling – it’s troublesome. Why would one passage say God incited David while the parallel says satan? This is a good reason to do a word study and carefully determine the meaning of the word satan.
At this point, we don’t grab our English dictionary and look up the word satan. We need to find out what the Hebrew word is so we turn to our interlinear bible.
WHAT IS AN INTERLINEAR BIBLE? It’s a bible with the Hebrew or Greek text with the English words running parallel to them. In my Hebrew Interlinear, I look at the verse (Hebrew is right to left). If you don’t have an interlinear on your shelf, you can find one for free online: www.interlinearbible.org
There are numbers that correspond with each Hebrew word. This one is 7854. I then look up the word in a Strong’s Concordance to find the definition or look up the word in a Hebrew lexicon. Online, you can simply click on the number and it will take you to a page with a definition.
We find that the actual word here translated as Satan is satan. The definition is: an opponent; the archenemy of good, adversary, withstand. So this word satan has a range of meanings in Hebrew just as hand does in English. satan can mean opponent, or the archenemy of good, or an adversary or withstand. If you continue this word study you will find that in most of the cases in which this word is used in the bible it is translated as adversary and only a handful of times did the translators use “satan.”
Recall our 3-step process:
So we did step 1: determine our word: Satan. We looked it up in the original language Hebrew and it is satan.
We did step 2: determine what our word COULD mean. It could mean adversary or opponent or withstand or archenemy of good.
Now let’s do step 3: determine what our word DOES mean.
In 2 Samuel 24:1 we have God’s anger burning against Israel and he incites David to number the troops. In the parallel text, 1 Chronicles 21:1, we have satan incited David to number the troops. So God is paralleled with satan. Remember, context determines meaning. Let’s see which definition of satan best fits the immediate context and then let’s broaden the context and compare scripture with scripture.
One definition is the archenemy of good. Is God the archenemy of good? No, He IS good. Mark 10:18 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. We know God is good, so this cannot mean that God is the archenemy of Good. He cannot be both good and the archenemy of good, so that rules out that possibility.
The other options are similar in nature. Adversary and opponent carry the same idea – one who opposes. Could this be what is meant by satan in the text? Could it mean that God was the adversary standing in opposition to Israel? Is that possible? It certainly is. Read the prophets; most of the message was that God was in opposition to Israel. It’s possible, but is it contextual? It says that the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, so this is certainly contextual.
Context determines meaning. This seems to be the likely meaning of satan in this text – adversary, since God was in opposition to Israel, He rose up as their adversary and incited David to number the troops.
Let’s broaden our context and see where this word is used elsewhere. Numbers 22:22
I’ll read first from the NIV and I’ll read verse 21-22 to give a little bit of context.
New International Version Balaam got up in the morning, saddled his donkey and went with the princes of Moab. But God was very angry when he went, and the angel of the LORD stood in the road to oppose (satan) him.
New Living Translation But God was angry that Balaam was going, so he sent the angel of the LORD to stand in the road to block his way (satan).
English Standard Version But God’s anger was kindled because he went, and the angel of the LORD took his stand in the way as his adversary (satan).
GOD'S WORD® Translation God became angry that he was going. So the Messenger of the LORD stood in the road to stop (satan) him.
Darby Bible Translation And God's anger was kindled because he went; and the Angel of Jehovah set himself in the way to withstand (satan) him.
The word translated as oppose, block his way, adversary, against, and withstand is our word H7854 satan. Here again we have Jehovah as satan. In this case we see that the context is similar. Notice the context – God’s anger was kindled sound familiar. 2 Samuel 24 Again the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go and take a census of Israel and Judah.”
God gets angry and opposes Balaam as an adversary in Numbers.
It seems safe to say that in these parallel accounts of David inciting the troops, God gets angry and opposes Israel as an adversary. It seems that in Chronicles, satan would have been better translated as adversary than Satan.
When words are puzzling or confusing in the Bible, look up the word in the original language, determine what the word could mean, then determine which of those possibilities best fits the immediate and broader context. Determine carefully the meaning of words.
The next principle which is closely related is Translation considerations.
As I mentioned earlier the original manuscripts of the Biblical texts were not written in English. Recall our emphasis of the necessary starting point being the original audience and our illustration of separation from that original audience. There is a river separating us and that river is characterized by culture, customs, geography, covenant, thousands of years, and language. The language barrier is part of that river.
I didn’t realize this for years. I don’t know what exactly I thought, but I saw church leaders holding up the bible in their hand and say this is the Word of God. So maybe I thought that the finger of God wrote the Bible as we have it in English. As much as I wish that were the case, it’s simply not.
I remember the first time I was at a church service where the pastor did serious exegesis in which he said the Greek word is such and such. I remember thinking “I don’t care what the Greek word is. What does that have to do with anything?” When I learned that the OT was originally written in Hebrew and the NT in Greek, I realized that what the word was in Greek had everything to do with our study.
The first translation consideration is: THEORY OF TRANSLATION or the APPROACH
When one seeks to translate from Hebrew or Greek into English, they have to decide on the approach. There are 3 basic approaches:
A) FORMAL EQUIVALENCE (LITERAL or word for word) as close as possible to the structure and words of the original Greek & Hebrew. The result is something that sounds closer to Yoda
a. word order
b. literal words instead of euphemisms
c. literal in idioms.
B) FUNCTIONAL EQUIVALENCE (DYNAMIC EQUIVALENT or thought for thought) focuses less on form and tries to express the meaning of the original text in today’s language. Here the translator feels a responsibility to reproduce the effect of the text so that its effect on the modern reader is equivalent to the effect on the ancient reader
a. change order of words
b. euphemisms for sexual things
c. change idioms so we can understand
C) FREE TRANSLATION (PARAPHRASE) technically this is not a translation from the original languages but merely a restatement or explanation using different English words. Here there is great license to interpret to a great degree.
In your bulletins, there is a diagram with a spectrum from paraphrase to dynamic equivalent to literal:
How to read…(p42) “the basic translation for reading and studying should be something in the TNIV/NIV/NRSV range.”
Let’s take a look at an example of how one verse is translated across this spectrum.
(YLT – not on diagram) Proverbs 23:6 Eat not the bread of an evil eye, And have no desire to his dainties,
Recall our discussion of idioms. We discussed Matt 6, in which the idiom evil eye meant stingy person. The YLT is a literal translation, which will not interpret idioms, but leave them in their literal form.
(NIV) Proverbs 23:6 Do not eat the food of a stingy man, do not crave his delicacies;
So you can see how the NIV translators took it upon themselves to interpret the meaning of the idiom.
(The Message) Proverbs 23:6 Don't accept a meal from a tightwad; don't expect anything special.
Next translation consideration: TRANSLATION INVOLVES INTERPRETATION
How to read the Bible for all it’s worth (p19) “For translation is in itself a (necessary) form of interpretation. Your Bible, whatever translation you use, which is your beginning point, is in fact the end result of much scholarly work. Translators are regularly called upon to make choices regarding meanings, and their choices are going to affect how you understand.”
In other words, you and I don’t have Greek and Hebrew texts before us. We have an English translation. People already translated it for us. They asked the question: what does this mean? When they translated it they made decisions that would affect how we understand the bible. When the original text says satan, translators determined if it should be translated withstand, oppose, accuser, adversary or satan. When the original text said sarx, translators determined if it should be translated as flesh or sinful nature and those decisions were based on their interpretation. That is certainly something to consider and shows the importance of word studies. Since we are working towards rightly dividing the word of truth, we need to realize that our starting point (NIV, ESV, KJV) is actually the end result of a lot of interpretation by scholars.
SUGGESTION: use more than one translation. I suggest using multiple translations in your study ranging across the spectrum from formal to functional. How to read the Bible for all it’s Worth (p33) “The trouble with using only one translation, be it ever so good, is that you are thereby committed to the exegetical choices of that translation as the Word of God. The translation you are using will, of course, be correct most of the time; but at times it also may not be.”
Lean towards the one done by committees – less bias, more balance.
Next translation consideration: TEXTUAL CRITICISM
Grasping God’s Word (p159) “Before the invention of the printing press in the 1400’s all copies were, of course, done by hand. As you know if you have ever tried to copy a lengthy piece of writing by hand, you make mistakes. The scribes who copied the copies of Scripture occasionally did the same. They might omit a letter or even a line of text, misspell a word, or reverse two letters. At times scribes might change a text deliberately to make it more understandable or even more theologically ‘correct.’ Consequently, the copies we have do not look exactly alike. Make no mistake, scribes were generally very careful, and you can rest assured that there is no textual dispute about the vast majority of the Bible. (footnote 97% or more of original NT can be reconstructed from existing manuscripts beyond any measure of doubt – OT about 90%) Nevertheless, there are differences in the copies, and we need some way of trying to determine which copy is more likely to reflect the original text. That responsibility falls to the discipline known as textual criticism.”
So some people dedicate their lives to comparing fragments of copies of manuscripts and seeking to determine what exactly the original manuscripts written by the original authors said before they were copied and disintegrated. Textual criticism is necessary, but, that’s not something we ever do. They do that for us and that’s great.
What we do have is FOOTNOTES! Read your footnotes!!!
FOOTNOTES are the vehicle used to convey to us both of the translation considerations I just listed.
A) Translation involves interpretation. Sometimes, when a word in the original language COULD be translated in one of two ways, the translators will choose the word that they think is best, but put a footnote with the alternative.
B) There are textual variants. One manuscript says one thing. Another says something slightly different. The textual critics try to determine which one is more likely the original and put that in the text. They will put a footnote indicating that another manuscript says such and such.
EXAMPLE: Look with me at Mark 3:7-14 7 Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the lake, and a large crowd from Galilee followed. 8 When they heard all he was doing, many people came to him from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, and the regions across the Jordan and around Tyre and Sidon. 9Because of the crowd he told his disciples to have a small boat ready for him, to keep the people from crowding him. 10 For he had healed many, so that those with diseases were pushing forward to touch him. 11 Whenever the evil[a] spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.” 12 But he gave them strict orders not to tell who he was. 13 Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him. 14 He appointed twelve—designating them apostles[b]—that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach.
In verse 11, we have “Whenever the evil spirits saw him…” In my Bible, there is a footnote, a small italicized “a” which corresponds to a footnote at the bottom of the page and reads “Greek unclean; also in verse 30.” This is honesty on the part of the translator. The Greek word in the text is unclean. The translators had a choice to make between leaving it unclean and putting evil. They chose evil and put a footnote to indicate the alternative.
In verse 14 we have an example of a textual variant. As the textual critics study the copies and copies of manuscripts in order to determine what the original manuscript most likely read they come across some manuscripts that have certain things that others do not. In this case, verse 14 varies. There is a footnote, a small italicized “b” that corresponds to a footnote at the bottom of the page and reads “Some manuscripts to do not have designating them apostles.” Again, the translators were honest and indicated that in this case there was a disagreement between some of the manuscripts and they make us aware of that through footnotes. READ YOUR FOOTNOTES!!!
SUMMARY
· Principle #9 Carefully determine the meaning of words
· Avoid some word fallacies:
o English only (by studying the words in original language: Bible originally Hebrew & Greek)
o Root
o Selective evidence
· 3 step process
o Choose words (key words, problem words) Look up word in an interlinear find word # find in lexicon or Strongs
o What COULD it mean? (be honest unguarded and open to all possible meanings)
o What DOES it mean? (context determines meaning)
· Principle #10: Translation considerations
o Translation theory or approach (formal, functional, free)
o Translation involves interpretation (right or wrong some things have been interpreted for you already)
o There are textual variants (thus need for textual criticism not by us but others)
o USE FOOTNOTES
§ To see other possible alternative interpretations
§ To see other textual variants
o Use more than one bible in the range from literal to dynamic equivalent
I’d like to end this morning with a word of exhortation. There is a possibility that the principles I have shared with you this morning might cause doubt or fear in you, stirring up the notion that says, “Not only do I need to keep all of these principles in mind to make sure I interpret the Bible correctly, but now you’re telling me that there are translation issues and I may need to study the original Greek and Hebrew words. Is there any hope then, for knowing the truth? This river separating us from the original audience seems impossible to cross because now I realize that our interpretation lies also upon the shoulders of the translators who may or may not have rendered the text accurately.” I want to encourage you to look at this glass as half full and not half empty.
· Don’t be discouraged, but be thankful that you are informed.
· And think of it like this: We could be living in a time and place in which we have no access to the Bible in our own language.
· Rather than being frustrated at these realities, let’s be thankful.
· So let’s praise God for those who have spent their lives studying the Biblical languages and doing the daunting task of textual criticism and translation so that we have before us a wide range of Bible translations and such ease of access to them in our own tongue.
www.ncfgeorgetown.com Church in Georgetown, Texas. Reformed church Georgetown, Texas Preterist church Georgetown Texas. Pastor David Boone. Full Preterism. Covenant Eschatology. New Covenant Fellowship Georgetown. Page House 10:00 am Loving God. Loving Others. Realized eschatology fulfilled eschatology Preterist church Austin Texas. Bible church Austin Texas Second coming of Jesus Christ churches in Austin area
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