Participatory Bible Study Blog

… others not so much.

On his blog today, Eddie Arthur laments the lack of comment in the blogosphere about the need for Bible translation for language groups that do not have any portion of scripture translated. While many of us discuss with some vigor the merits of various approaches to translation and of renderings of specific verses, some people have no translation at all.

Since I am certainly guilty of extensive work comparing one English translation to another, I feel a bit like I’m in the bullseye of Eddie’s rant, as he calls it. So first let me tell you why I talk a lot about English Bibles, and why I will probably continue to do so, despite the fact that I think Eddie is mostly right. Then I’ll make a suggestion to help adjust our priorities a bit.

In spite of the number of Bibles that we have in the English speaking world, knowledge of the Bible amongst the general population and even church membership seems to be diminishing. I’m not going to spend time backing that up right now; numerous studies and my own personal experience suggest it. If you disagree, I’d be interested in hearing from you.

My personal mission is not the production of Bible translations. I believe I’m called to get Christians more and more involved in Bible study. The abundance of Bible translations is one area in which our blessing can also be a curse. We have so much material, so many options, yet we don’t actually make use of what we have.

For many people, the many Bible versions is an impediment rather than a help. They wonder how to choose a translation, and whether they can trust the text of the one they choose. I have often told classes that they can go to a Christian book store, enter the Bible section, and select a Bible blindfolded, and it will be usable.

Now I don’t prefer that they do that. Given the number of English Bibles available, I prefer that they find a Bible translation that makes it most likely that they will read and understand. This is one reason I’m turned off by detailed theological criticism of various translations. I like the CEV, for example, yet in reading it for my own use, I’ve found plenty of places where I think the translation is less than the best. But there are two things to note here—this is my personal opinion. It doesn’t mean that the translators were wrong; it simply means I disagree with them. But even more importantly, I’m generally arguing minor points of theology that can be settled effectively by reading in context, while there are millions of Christians who would be uncertain how to find that particular book of the Bible, were they called upon to do so in a Bible study.

Given this, I’m going to continue to try to provide information that helps people choose a Bible that works for them. I’ve found that to be helpful in getting people to go deeper into Bible study.

But that plays right back into Eddie’s point. While I feel my mission is to my fellow mainline Christians here in America, his mission is translating the Bible into these other languages. While the American reader has a problem because he sees so many Bibles and doesn’t know which one to follow, there are millions of people who will have to use a Bible in some other language if they want one at all.

I think that if even a small portion of the money used to produce new Bible translations in English were instead donated to groups working in other languages, it would be a tremendous blessing both to those who give and to those who receive.

I’ve noticed that one of the best ways to get American Christians involved in Bible study and in various spiritual disciplines is to get them involved in service to folks who are less well off, whether those people are overseas or just down the street. So I’m going to combine this with Eddie’s suggestion that we add a note about those with no translation at all to our comparison’s of English translations.

How about this? Whether we like it or not, economics is a powerful motivator. When you go out to buy that new English Bible, try donating an amount equal to what you paid for it to an organization like Wycliffe Bible Translators. The extra expense might make you value your new purchase even more!

I contributed a post taken from 2 Corinthians today, but you really ought to subscribe to Grace Through the Desert–inspirational.

I was tempted to title this “What we REALLY mean when we sing those praise songs.”

HT:  Peter Kirk.

I was reading an excellent post by Martin LaBar (Sun and Shield) today about our reading choices.  He’s commenting on a study that shows that we tend to select reading that confirms our already existing views.

Now I suspect there’s nothing terribly surprising about that.  At least most of us assume that other people only read to support their own prejudices.  We, of course, just choose to read only the truth!

This idea connected with some current reading.  My daughter and her family, who obviously know me well, sent me a gift card for Barnes and Noble for my birthday, and I used it to get a commentary I’ve been wanting, Frank J. Matera’s commentary on II Corinthians.  I’ve been reading it for part of my devotional time.

In the exceptional introduction to the book, Matera finds a common theme for the book that connects the gospel to apostolic ministry. To summarize and paraphrase (a fuller explanation of this is on page 14), Paul preaches God who raises the dead, but to participate in this resurrection, one must participate in Christ’s suffering and affliction.  Paul becomes part of Christ’s suffering through his suffering in his ministry to the church.

Thus the book presents a picture of ministry that is almost entirely the opposite of the waythe world–and often the modern church–see it.  We like to think of great leaders, strong and capable people, called to carry their natural gifts into service, for which they get due reward.  That is not New Testament, Christ-like service, however.

While we quote a text or two in 2 Corinthians, on topics like new creation, imputation, and cheerful giving, that is only a tiny portion of the theme–the theme of the book is a defense of Paul’s apostolic minsitry as a fragile, weak vessel used by God.

So what does this have to do with reading choices?

Ask yourself how much time we spend studying various books of the Bible.  I recall, for example, that books like Romans and Galatians were pretty popular in the seminary where I studied.  Second Corinthians?  Not so much.

Indeed, we didn’t really get the whole books of Galatians and Romans.  I took a class titles Exegesis of Romans in Greek in my undergraduate program, and we never got past chapter 8.  Chapters 9-16?  The professor mentioned them a few times, but I had to work on those on my own later.

In graduate school I took a course in Galatians.  With effort we got through chapter 4.  We missed chapters 5 & 6.

But one of the things 2 Corinthians does is provide us with the application of salvation by faith to ministry–ministry by faith.

Perhaps we ought to spend some serious time on the portions of the Bible that are a bit less popular.

I was struck by the wording of Leviticus 16:13 tody. There is a long list of instructions, followed by the clause “that he may not die.” It’s just 2 words in Hebrew.

It seems to me that the Israelites approached the issue of God’s judgment against them very differently than we do. Rather than seeing contact with God as essentially safe activity and death or harmful results as requiring explanation, approaching God is seen as deadly. It’s survival that requires explanation.

This is hardly a new thought, and one should note some other differences, for example that the word “judgment” can be misleading in this context.

I’m posting from my Palm Centro, so I’ll be brief and probably miss a large number of nuances!

Tags: Leviticus

I planned to get this posted early this morning, but my job–you know, my paying work–intervened.  Advance copies of one book arrived from the printer yesterday, and then the first release copies of two more showed up today.  For a small publisher, that’s a heavy couple of days!

In any case, even though it’s not for me, summer vacation is here, so I’m going to organize today’s carnival around various types of vacations.  Don’t read too much into the vacation spot under which I list your post.  It’s intended as fun!

To the Beach!

First let’s head out to the beach for some fun.  There we will find:

The Sites of the Reformation

I will be posting Christian Carnival #CCLXXIX some time tomorrow.  In the meantime you have some time yet to submit your best work from the past week.

If you are new to the carnival, Jeremy Pierce has an excellent plug for it here.

I’ve been following through the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary in my study of Leviticus for the last few weeks.  Unfortunately, the way I like to study these passages involves reading the text in Hebrew, reading and annotating the commentary, reading the text in the LXX, hunting down materials in other commentaries and translations, and so forth.  Considering that one of the commentaries on my shelf is Jacob Milgrom’s three volume set (well, it’s usually on my desk, not the shelf!), that involves a great deal of time.

The kind folks at Tyndale House sent me a complimentary copy of the commentary volume with the idea that I would review it, and they deserve a review sooner than I’m likely to finish the book .  So I’m going to pause the detailed study, read the commentary through, and then return to having fun with the texts.  I may post notes along the way and will definitely post a review of the whole volume.

I have had very little time to post on Leviticus over the last few weeks because of my business, in which I’ve been working on three books simultaneously. But Leviticus has not been very far from my mind.

The more I read Leviticus, the more I like it. I’ve read through it with a variety of commentaries, generally reading it in Hebrew along with whatever commentary I’m currently working through. Each time I get more. In the case of the commentary I’m using presently, the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary on Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, the particular focus is on the connection to Christian themes.

While one can argue that there isn’t any forward looking sense in Leviticus, I think it is close to impossible to argue that Christians did not look back to Leviticus and use its themes as the learned how to speak of the experience of Jesus and what his life, death, and resurrection meant to them. I’m going with that theme in looking at the book with specifically Christian eyes.

I’m rambling a bit, but stay with me. One of the neglected aspects of Christianity today is, I believe, a neglect of liturgy. Now I don’t have some sort of detailed checklist as to how liturgy should be conducted. What I do believe is that liturgy should bring us into the presence of God, i.e. bring us into the presence of eternity in some way. Most of our worship services do not function in this way at all.

At about the same time I read this chapter and this particular commentary on it I heard a sermon titled “The Eighth Day” in which the speaker suggested that we are to be living in the 8th day, somehow in the kingdom even though it’s not here yet. There’s a bit of a theme based on that in the appearances of Jesus in the book of Luke. I believe that we are to be living in eternity, and both our liturgy and our teaching needs to reflect that.

The liturgy in this passage reflects that full sense of history as we go from inauguration to glory and then to celebration of the glory in one pass.

The worship here involves everyone. It is emotional. It is educational. It is enthusiastic. It is also rewarded.

David W. Baker, author of this section of the commentary notes (p. 66):

… the people could not keep silent before a God who responded to their worship, so they joined their voices to those of the priests (9:24). God can and should be approached at times in stillness (Ps 46:10), but exuberance can also be appropriate. Everyone, young and old, male and female, was represented by the priests and leaders in the rituals; they each witnessed God’s response, and each responded appropriately in worship.

Just so!

Thomas Nelson has release The American Patriot’s Bible: The Word of God and the Shaping of America^*, which is a Bible so lousy in concept that one can dislike it without even bothering to read it.  (HT: Christ my righteousness.)  You’ve probably heard the cliche, “It’s a really bad book, that’s why I never read it?”  OK.  I’m caught.  But I’m still not going to read it.

I don’t really hate study Bibles.  I’ve reviewed some of them before.  They can provide valuable background information and ideas.  But in too many Bible classes I see students reading the footnotes in place of the Biblical text, and assuming that the notes are correct, rather than interacting with what the Bible text (you know, the part normally printed on the top half of the page) actually says.

But the Patriot’s Bible goes a step further by simply mating two sets of concepts.  It is really quite rare that American patriotic stories and symbols go directly with the passage of scripture one is reading.  In many cases, the text might just go quite contrary to these symbols.

But by putting information on a particular page of the Bible, one suggests (to the suggestible, at least) that the Bible in that particular place actually embraces what is contained in that extraneous information.  Unfortunately, I know people in churches who are just careless enough to believe this without actually checking.

The first rule of interpretation should be to actually read the words of the text you’re interpreting, even if only in translation.

^* Note that I provide this link for information purposes only. I do not in any sense recommend buying the book to which the link leads you.