A Doctrine of Translation

Actual languages, or the Greek word glossa has no meaning.

 

Proof? Actual quotes?

 

Actual non-miraculous languages, spoken by actually bilingual or trilingual people.

 

If so, his metaphor is fatally flawed, since that has absolutely nothing to do with Gnosticism.

 

Here is the outline I give of my my lecture on a theology of the human preservation of Scripture. Translation is one way we preserve Scripture, humanly speaking. Forgive the format--MS Word formats don't carry over well into Internet forums.


The Human Preservation of Scripture


INTRODUCTION: The question of how God preserves Scripture is a big issue today. The subject is best approached as a subset of the general doctrine of divine preservation. Here is a statement of that doctrine.

By preservation we mean that God, by a continuous agency, maintains in existence all the things which He has made, together with all their properties and powers. In preservation we have, therefore, the first manifestation of God’s sovereign rule. Note what this definition implies: it implies that preservation is to be distinguished from the act of creation, for that can only be preserved which is already in existence; that the objective creation is not self-existent and self-sustaining; and that preservation is not merely a refraining from destroying that which has been created.[1]

Since the Bible is a creation of God, then obviously it is included in His action of preservation. However, for our purposes, a subset of that doctrine is the doctrine of human preservation of the Word of God. This is a responsibility delegated to us by God, and is thus providential rather than miraculous.[2] As translators, the only step we can take concerning God’s preservation of Scripture is to choose the best original text, the one we believe to be preserved. Beyond that, though, we are responsible for the human preservation of Scripture.

Important to this is the doctrine of the priesthood of the believer. This doctrine means that we are each obligated to preserve the Bible. Let’s examine what the Bible says about the human preservation of Scripture.


I. Statement of the Doctrine

1. God has committed the earthly preservation of the Word of God to every believer in Christ, even while taking it upon Himself to oversee that preservation.
   1. In Old Testament Israel, the priests were entrusted by God with the task of preserving the Scriptures (Deut. 17:18, Ezek. 44:8 and 15, Mal. 2:7). Remember that the Decalogue of Moses was to be kept in the ark of the covenant (Deut. 31:26), and that the Temple was where the scrolls of Scripture were to be kept (2 Kings 22:9-11).
   2. In the Church Age, each individual believer is a priest of God (1 Peter 2:5 & 9, Rev. 1:6, 5:10, 20:6).
2. Therefore, each individual believer has a personal responsibility to preserve the Word of God.

II. Bible Examples of the Personal Preservation of the Scriptures

1. God commanded the Jews to bind God's law on their hands and on their foreheads (Ex. 13:9, Deut. 6:8 & 11:18-20, Prov. 3:3, 7:1-3).
2. Each king of Israel was required to write out his own copy of the Bible. “And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites” (Deut. 17:18). Not only was he to have his own copy of the law, he was to live and rule by it (v. 19).
3. Moses cared enough about the Decalogue to make a box of shittim wood in which to preserve it (Deut. 10:3-5).
4. The ark of God was called variously “the ark of the testimony” (Josh. 4:16) and “the ark of the covenant” (Josh. 4:18), obviously referring to the fact that God's Word was to be kept inside it (Deut. 31:26).
5. God commanded the Jews to build an altar and write the law on the stones of it when they crossed the river into the Promised Land (Deut. 27:1-8). Joshua obeyed God's command and did so (Josh. 8:30-35).
6. David preserved God’s Word by hiding it in his heart (Ps. 119:11).
7. The Apostle Paul specifically asked Timothy to bring his personal copy of some of the Old Testament Scriptures (2 Tim. 4:13).
8. Remember the Bereans, who learned the Bible by diligent study (Acts 17:11).

III. The Forms that Human Preservation of Scripture May Take

1. Each believer ought to have his or her own copy of the Bible, and ought to learn it and memorize it and care for it himself, judging every doctrine he is taught by it alone, as is consistent with the priesthood of the believer.
2. Textual criticism should be considered a form of human preservation. It is a very difficult discipline, but can be a great help in determining the nature of the original manuscripts of Scripture.
3. Translating the Bible is a form of preserving it in a foreign language. Some believers with special God-given abilities in scholarship or language ought to dedicate themselves to translating the Word of God.
4. Printing the Word of God with a machine as the kings and priests of Israel were to do by hand is a worthy and important form of the preservation of Scripture.
5. Each believer ought to do his part to obey the Great Commission and help spread the Word of God to all nations. In the Bible, the seed is the Word and the field is the World.

IV. God's Part in the Human Preservation of Scripture

1. Has God abandoned us, giving us no help in our earthly efforts to preserve His Word? No, of course not.
2. How, then, does He help?

1. He helps through the leadership of the Holy Spirit both in calling and equipping us for the task (John 16:13).
2. He helps by giving linguistic gifts to some of His servants (1 Cor. 12:10, 30). The phrase “kinds of tongues” clearly indicates linguistic ability. My own position is that these linguistic gifts may be either providential or miraculous. Here is a similar view:

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The ability to speak in different kinds of tongues has been taken to mean speaking in ecstatic, humanly unintelligible utterances, possibly similar to the ecstatic speech exhibited in pagan Greek Dionysiac expressions. In the light of Acts 2:4ff., where it is said that the Holy Spirit gave them ability to speak with different kinds of language, i. e., known foreign languages (Acts 2:7-11), we are safe to say that the ability mentioned here in 1 Cor. 12:10 is the ability to speak unlearned languages. LSJ [the classical Greek lexicon] does not list under glossa any meaning under the category of ecstatic speech. Rather, the emphasis of the word is “language,” “dialect,” foreign” language.[3]

1. He helps by providentially guiding the process of restoration when some seek to alter His Word (Prov. 30:6).
2. He helps by preserving the truths of His Word (Mark 13:31).

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a. All Greek New Testaments teach the same doctrines, whether words or verses are accidentally added or deleted.

b. Every single name of Jesus Christ is preserved in all Greek New Testaments.

c. All the passages of the Word of God are preserved. Even in the critical Greek texts include the pericope adulterae of John 8 and the longer ending of Mark 16, though in parentheses.

CONCLUSION: What an awesome responsibility God has given us! We are each responsible, in our own way, for the earthly preservation of God's Word. It would be a solemn thing to stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ and admit that we had not done our part.



[1] Henry Thiessen, Lectures on Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publ. Co., 1949), 174.

[2] For an article on this issue, see Jon Rehurek, “Preservation of the Bible: Providential or Miraculous? The Biblical View.” The Master’s Seminary Journal, 19/1 (Spring 2008): 71-90.

[3] W. Harold Mare, 1 Corinthians (TEBC 10; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976), 262-263.

 

Well, you didn't call me a Nazi. Nope, you just called me a Gnostic--and the Gnostics were pretty evil people. I just lectured on this. They believed that Jesus was not truly God, but only a demiurge, a lesser god who is an emanation from the true God. They believed that matter is evil and only spirit is good. They were dualists, believing that God and Satan were equal. I believe none of this, so by calling me a Gnostic you are calling me an arch-heretic. Nice.

And now you've gone off the reservation. I did not say any of this. I'm talking about Bible translating, "not rightly dividing the Word of truth," not comparing versions, not exegesis. So now you are lying about me.