THE OLD TRANSLATIONS (Continued)
For the past several weeks we have been looking at some of the old translations of the Scriptural record as they relate to the Traditional Text. We have seen that the so called �oldest and best� manuscripts which have been used to fashion the eclectic text of the modern English language versions are not really the oldest. The existence of these early translations point to a prototype text older than these manuscripts. Neither are these old manuscripts the best as the still older translations tend to disagree with the readings of these manuscripts.
We are often accused of attempting to defend the King James Bible. This is not so. What we seek to defend is the texts from which the King James translating committee fashioned its work in the 1611 English version of Scripture.
The fact is that when we speak of the translating committee of the King James Bible, we are not speaking correctly. The committee which produced the Authorized Version of 1611 was only a revision committee. They were not charged with creating a new English version. Their charge was only to revise those English editions which had gone before them. They were to �fine tune� the English language version of the Scripture with an eye on the best manuscripts available and all of the English language versions which preceded their work.
This was also the charge of the 1881 committee of Dr. Westcott and Dr. Hort. They were not charged with producing a new version. Their charge was to update the venerable King James Bible.
This 1881 committee exceeded the scope of their authority and produced a completely new base text, based on a very minority of manuscript evidence, and gave the world the prototype for nearly all of the new English versions of the past one hundred and twenty five years.
MacGregor (The Bible in the Making) notes that �The first known translation ... Of any part of the Bible into Anglo - Saxon is Aldhem�s version of the Psalms, probably written toward the end of the seventh century.�
This was the beginning of a remarkable thirst among the English speaking world for a copy of the Words of God in their own language. MacGregor continues by noting that the 1539 Coverdale�s English translation had access to the Greek Text of Zimenes� Complutensian Polyglot. This was an edition containing the New Testament in both Greek and Latin. The Polyglot was a Roman Catholic work which was intended for study by her clergy.
Since the translating, or revision, committee of the King James Bible was charged to compare previous English translations as part of their work, this edition of Coverdale - along with it�s base text, would have been part of their working tools.
Since Coverdale had access to the Catholic Polyglot, which would have had access to Alexandrian readings, it follows that the translators (revisors) of the King James Bible had access to the readings which underlie the modern day English language translations. These readings were rejected in favor of the historic Traditional Text.
As a further note on this subject, the Roman Catholic Douay Rheims Bible was produced some years earlier than was the King James Bible. This Bible version extensively used the readings of the Alexandrian text type. This is a further illustration that those text types are not simply a product of the past four hundred years of archeology.
This is important because we are constantly reminded that the discoveries of the past four hundred years have made the base from which the King James committee worked an outdated base.
For the man and woman of faith there are two problems associated with this view. The first is theological. If the translating committee of the King James Bible, and for that matter all the translating committees of all the so called Protestant translations of the era, had faulty evidence of the Words of God, the view is given that God did not, or could not, preserved His Own message to humanity.
This view denies to our faith any real anchor other than the feelings and foibles of humankind. We are denied a sure Word from a Loving and All Powerful God. Our view of God is thus tarnished. Our view of sin, salvation, the Person and work of Christ, our understanding of the might and majesty of God, Himself, is removed from any sort of firm foundation.
Some will argue that the Holy Spirit could guide our faith. This is true. But, consider that all of our knowledge of even the Holy Spirit is contained in the Book which God has given us.
To take away that Book is to take away the certainty of our very salvation. It is even to take away our very understanding of the means of that salvation!
The second problem associated with the �missing textual base� view would be, �How can we ever know if we have recovered the message of God?� Without a historical frame of a preserved Scripture we can have no basis on which to trust any message we find in a flawed historical document which has suffered at the hands of man and time.
Either the Words of God are sure and constantly available to His churches, or they are transitory and unworthy of our trust as even being the Words of God.
The Bible critics often speak of differing �families� of Scriptural traditions. They argue that there are several families of readings of Scripture. Thus they are able to argue that the �family� of the Traditional Text is simply one stream of readings. The Alexandrian, the Western, and others are simply other streams of readings which go back to other template manuscripts. In this way they are able to discount the vast weight of the Traditional Text, between 85% and 95% of the available evidence, as simply one witness. The other witnesses are then given equal weight because they are simply other families of readings.
Some would argue that there are no such thing as families of texts. I would disagree. Each of these groups do stretch back to a template of some sort. It stands to reason that the greatest number of manuscript evidence would stretch back to the true template. The other families, all much smaller, point back to copies which contained error. That is why there are so few of them.
Also, all of those great discoveries of the past four hundred years have produced no new families of readings. All of the readings which we have today were available back in the time of the King James committee.
To attempt to defame the translating committee of the King James Bible as having faulty material with which to work because of all the new discoveries is a sham argument. Since there were representatives of all of the discoveries of the past four hundred years, it follows that the King James Bible committee had adequate material with which to produce this God honored work.
In our next session we will begin to look at some of the translation methods.
13 April 2007
TRANSLATION METHODS
There is something which we often overlook in considering the translation of the Scripture. It is simply that the Scripture is not simply another book from antiquity. Scripture is The Book which God has given us. Therefore, there must be a doctrinal basis considered in translating the Scripture from the originally inspired and preserved texts.
We must understand that the Words are the Words of God.
Fuller (Which Bible) points out a group of people who put more emphasis on their own intellect and reasoning power than they did on a fidelity to the Words once delivered. There were an early group of heretics which were called �Gnostic.� They felt that they had some sort of special understanding of things spiritual. They tended to see the �ordinary� Christian as somehow beneath them. Paul warns against them in I Timothy 6:20 where the word �science� comes from �gnosis� which means �knowledge.� These types of persons, influenced in the philosophy of Plato, exalted knowledge and understanding above Scripture.
This is the error of the modern day Bible critic when it comes to the base text of the modern English language translations. They start from the premise that God either could not or would not, by most certainly did not, preserve the Words of His inspired originals. They claim that it is their expertise which is able to reconstruct that which was lost.
Thereby they hold the standard of their own intellect and ability above that of the preserving power of God.
They also look down on those of us who accept a preserved Scripture. They consider us as unlearned. They deride our simple faith as unworthy of their own accomplishments. Then, in their arrogance, they disparage us a �trouble makers,� and �divisive� as we continue to trust God rather than worship at the shrine of their scholarship.
This sort of attitude, which places the critic above the Deity, will induce a translator to translate that which he believes God would have meant, rather than what God did say. This is dangerous because it reduces the versions so produced to the level of simple commentary.
Commentaries are good. But, our need is for the Words of God rather than that which someone may believe the meaning of those words is in fact. The Bible is a Book unlike any other. The Holy Spirit speaks to us in the Words which God has given.
When we speak of �inspiration,� we speak of a type of �Living Word.� The concept of inspiration is that God literally �breathed out� His Words to us. That means that the Words so inspired are eternal Words even as God is eternal. The Words are not �time centric,� they are of eternity. Therefore the Words which God spoke two thousand years ago are as fresh today as they were when they were first placed on parchment. They have the ability to speak to us today in a fresh manner.
When someone, a Bible critic or translator, has �filtered� the Words which were originally inspired, through his own understanding of what was probably spoken, then those Words have become encapsulated in the stuff of time. They are robbed of their eternally fresh ability to speak to us in this day. We are left with a note from God rather than a conversation with Him. And, that is the best we can possibly consider; it could be so far from His Words as to not even be Him speaking but the theological bias of the translator. Such is the problem when the Words are not accepted as preserved.
This kind of attitude will also cause a translator to look for new and novel readings rather than simply accepting what God has preserved via the Priesthood of believers and the historical Bible loving churches. By this I mean that the translator will begin to look for readings that have not been providentially preserved. He will look for readings that are at variance with the preserved text.
This is how we�ve seen the last few verses in Mark called into question. The evidence is heavily in favor of those verses. But, in order to glorify the work of the critic, we are told that they are not in the oldest and best manuscripts. These words are in almost all of the old manuscripts and lectionaries. There are very few which omit them. Even the famous Sinaiticus, although missing the last part of the final chapter of Mark, has left room for these words to be inserted. There is a break in the manuscript that would allow for this reading to have been reinserted.
Therein lies the problem; this type of attitude will produce apostasy.
Much is made of the fact, among those who decry our use of the King James Bible, that the earliest editions of the Authorized Version had the Apocrypha included. Normally not mentioned is the fact that these books were placed between the Old and New Testaments and clearly marked as not considered inspired. They were included, in a day when books were not all that commonly available, as spiritual and historical readings. They were considered like �Pilgrim�s Progress,� or some such work, to be ennobling but not the inspired Words of God.
Not as commonly mentioned is that we are now finding these Apocryphal books included in these newer versions. These are called �inclusive� Bibles. Part of the problem with using texts from the sands of Egypt is that they will tend to lead those who follow them into accepting the Bible readings which produced the dark ages. This is, essentially, where the newer English versions are heading.
Coupled with these false texts is the problem of translating by paraphrase. The critics will argue that some of the readings are so hard that they will simplify them to make them easier to understand. This brings the problem of the commentary, rather than Scripture, as mentioned above.
About the �hard� readings, David Cloud (Dynamic Equivalency - A Frightful Influence on Fundamental Translation Work) has said, �The Israelites did not fully understand the law given from Mt. Sinai, or the details fo the Tabernacle. They did not understand what manna was. That is what the word �manna� means, by the way - �What is it!��
Some of the Bible is hard to understand. When it is, this means that this is the way which God intended for it to be! It is better for the Christian for it to be translated as it was written so that the Holy Spirit can illumine us as to the meaning rather than to have it changed because someone feels that they are better at the task than is the Spirit of God.
The apostle Paul wrote something in Colossians 2:8 - �Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.�
This verse is very germane to our discussion. Fuller (Which Bible) give some comments on this verse.
�The philosophy condemned in this passage [Col. 2:8] is not the philosophy found in the sacred word, but the philosophy which is �after the traditions of men.� Even before the days of Christ [in His first advent], the very existence of the Jewish religion was threatened by intellectual leaders of the Jews who were carried away with the subtleties and glamor of pagan philosophy. This same temptation quickly ensnared multitudes who bore the name of Christian.�
I hesitate to say that the purveyors of the newer English language editions are following a Gnostic tradition. But, they are. The great slide in popular culture toward Gnostic ideals and writings which we�ve witnessed in the past decade or so, gives ample evidence to the trend. The fact is that knowledge and intellect are being valued above a faith in the ability, or love, of God to protect and preserved His Message to humanity is, at heart, a Gnostic glorification of humanity and the ability of humanity to reason out things rather than a faith which is based in the goodness and majesty of God.
These are just some of the reasons why there is a doctrinal basis of translations. The basis of the doctrine is either a faith in God and His power and goodness or a faith in man and his intellect.
We need to understand the doctrine of Preservation or we will cheapen the doctrine of Inspiration. Fuller (True or False) has said, �...the doctrines of Inspiration and Preservation are most important and Burgon believed and championed them both. What one believes does make a difference. No human being is capable of perfect objectivity...�
God, the Creator of the Human race of man, knew this. That is why He did preserve His Message to that race of mankind.
20 April 2007
TRANSLATION METHODS (Continued)
When I first began to look at my outline tonight I was struck that I had used the wrong terminology in my section heading. At first I was. I was struck that I should have used the term �Translation Philosophy,� rather than �Methods.�
Then I reconsidered. It is from our philosophy that our methods spring.
I like to drive a standard transmission automobile. My wife, on the other hand, preferred the automatic transmission. Each of us could use the others type of vehicle. But, we had a preference in how we did things that colored the vehicles which we purchased for ourselves.
Likewise, the Biblical translator will be comfortable with certain assumptions which color the direction in which his choice of words and text will follow. This session we will begin to examine some of the preferences and policies of Dr. Westcott and Dr. Hort of the 1881 English Revised Version translation committee.
The work of these two men is of tremendous importance because nearly every single translation committee, from their time since, has been influenced by the direction and directives of these two men and their committee.
Westcott and Hort used a philosophy of �intrinsic probability� and �transcriptional probability� in devising their text. Fuller (Which Bible) comments upon these assumptions.
�The former [intrinsic probability] inquires what the writer would most probably have written; the latter [transcriptional probability], which of two or more readings would most probably account for the origin of the other or others in successive stages of copying. ...who can be the proper judge of what one of the New Testament writers would most probably have written? There must be some standard.�
We should be familiar with these concepts from the famous Florida recount of the 2000 presidential election here in the United States. There was a recount which left the original outcome intact. One political party did not appreciate this outcome so other recounts followed. Finally the United States Supreme Court stepped in an halted the recount fiasco.
Why do I call it a �fiasco?� It is because the recount have moved beyond a �recount� and was now being asked to consider how people really intended to vote rather than how they actually had voted.
�The ballot style was too hard to understand,� some argued. I have worked as an election judge with this type of ballot. It is not hard to understand. The recount, on both sides of the political aisle, was tainted by a desire to find a �correct� outcome rather than considering the real outcome.
To �reconstruct� an approximation of that which one believes God might have said is hard. It involves a lot of work and comparison. To accept that which God has preserved through the ages still requires something; it requires trust in the power and love of God. The former is fiasco. The latter is faith.
One of the wonders of mass production in the manufacture of nearly any product is that the individual pieces are produced so that they can �fit� within any of the assembled products. The firing pin of one rifle would fit in any rifle of that make and model. We all understand that there are, seemingly, no standards for ink refills in our printers except that each model must use a different type of cartridge.
Why is this? It is because the manufacturer has decreed that some things will work and some things will not.
I have a very find old printer that still works very well. My only problem is that it is so old that the ink cartridges must now be specially ordered. I can�t just use any old cartridge, even from the same printer manufacturer, and expect it to fit. I must use that which was designed into the product.
How could we even imagine that the Scripture which God deemed to inspire and present to humanity would be any different. The words therein are not our words. These are the Words of God. To attempt, as did Westcott and Hort, to define the proper words as only those which their human mentality would choose to accept is to glorify man. The concept of �probability� carries with it the idea that we pick and choose our best guess.
The best guess of even the most respected and competent human fails on one very important position. It makes man the master of the message rather than God. The entire concept springs from a projection of doubt rather than faith. It denies the real possibility of any standard.
If some of the words are probably wrong, how can we have any faith that any of the words are even probably right? We, to be completely honest, can not. We are left with a Bible that is not a certain message from God; it is only a hint of what might have been His mind toward us.
The idea of an objective standard would imply that God had preserved His Word for humanity. This is a foreign concept to those who would elevate their own intellect above His power and love.
�I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another...� (Isaiah 42:8a)
Thus, the entire foundation upon which the modern day English versions rest is found to be faulty. Is it any wonder that the house built thereupon has found a society less and less responsive to the Words therein?
In our next session we will begin to look at some of the base assumptions upon which Westcott and Hort built their castles in the dreamland of their own imaginations while neglecting, and rejecting, the preserved and blessed Words of God in the Traditional Text. We will delve into the methods of their work.
27 April 2007
TRANSLATION METHODS (Continued)
In our last session we noted that the translation method of Westcott and Hort was based on a conviction that the God had not chosen to preserve His Words in the Traditional Text. As a matter of fact, the philosophy held that God had not chosen, or not been able to, preserve His Words except in dusty libraries and hidden documents. The view, in effect, argued that the churches and individual Christians had been basing their belief system on faulty evidence for nearly 1500 years.
As we consider this conviction we must also consider the times in which the 1881 Revised English Version was edited. This edition is the historical point where faith in the preserved Words of God as given in the Traditional Text began to wane.
It was a great time of change in the world at large. Darwin has postulated his theory of origins which removed the need for a consideration of an all-powerful God. Science and industry were making great strides in the lives of humanity. Health was getting better due to the study of infections and work was made easier by the use of steam and machinery.
The churches, stodgy and mired in an �old fashioned� belief system, needed to reinvent themselves for a new age. There was a fascination with searching for older copies of manuscripts which could give new meaning to the old faith.
The Roman Church had not pointed toward a preserved Greek text since the days of Jerome and his Vulgate. From that time on she had held to a Latin text as a base for all of her Scriptural needs.
I see a parallel here between the Catholic Church of the middle ages and too many of the Protestant and Fundamentalist churches of our own age. When the Roman church jettisoned the Greek text and accepted the Latin text, they renounced the Words of God for the words of man. They had a very weak text to begin with as it was primarily the Alexandrian. But, even this they chose to forego in favor of the translation of man.
Many (Most!) of the churches of this day have forsaken the God preserved Words of God for the eclectic texts of men. But, sadly, there are also many who stand ready to forsake the preserved Words of God for a version translated by man.
I firmly believe that the King James Bible is the standard for the English speaker. I say this because it is founded upon the truly preserved Words of God. But, that being said, the King James Bible is not the unalterable Words of God. True inspiration rests only upon the Words which God choose to inspire in the original Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic of the Old and New Testament manuscripts. I don�t want confusion here. This is important. I love the King James. I use the King James. The King James is an accurate reflection of the Words which God did originally inspire as Scripture for His people.
The King James has been blessed, and used to bring blessing to the people of God only because of the great fidelity held by the translators to the original Words of God. We can trust the King James Bible in this day because of its own intrinsic fidelity to the Words of God.
Therein lies the principle problem with Westcott and Hort and their newly, in 1881, concocted base text. Fuller (True or False) notes that Dr�s. Westcott and Hort departed from any sort of fidelity to the Traditional Text.
�...Dr. Hort rests practically his entire case upon the Codex Vaticannus... as being proof of an imaginary text, supposedly more ancient than that which he acknowledges as �dominant� over wide areas long before that copy was made.�
We�ve been through this fiction several times so I won�t mention it at any length at this point. The argument of Westcott and Hort was that the Traditional Text was faulty. Remember this is not a local text; accounting for between 85% and 95%, according to who is consulted, of the available evidence, the Traditional Text is found in every corner of Christendom.
Westcott and Hort realized that this great preponderance of evidence presented a problem for their working hypothesis that God had not preserved His Word to His churches, by suggesting that the Traditional Text was the product of a great ecclesiastical conference in the third century. After that time, they reasoned, it became the �official� text of the church. They argued that the Alexandrian text type was older, and thus pure from the official edition.
There are two main problems with this hypothesis. The first is that the time frame of their supposed council would have put it just before the beginnings of the Roman Church. Since the Roman Church has always favored the Alexandrian text type, especially under Jerome and his Latin version, it would seem strange that she did not take part in the new ecclesiastical tradition.
The second problem is that neither the church fathers, nor history in general, have any mention of such a council. This would have been a major council. To have no mention of it, had it happened, is inconceivable. Besides this, many of the church fathers will quote from the readings of the Traditional Text long before the time frame suggested for this council.
In short, this council never happened.
This makes it hard to imagine why Westcott and Hort, or for that matter most modern critics, would accept a local minority text as more reliable than a universal majority text.
One must agree with Fuller (True or False) on this matter.
�We hold it to be even axiomatic that a reading which is supported by only one document out of 1100 (more or less) already specified, whether the solitary unit be a Father, a version, or a copy, stands self-condemned, and may be dismissed at once, without concern or enquiry.�
Yet, somehow, Westcott and Hort led their team of translators to accept the Vaticannus as the primary base for their new edition. In truth, the idea of the supremacy of the Vaticannus is philosophical rather than scientific. Even unto this day this is an article of faith among many. The underpinnings which, supposedly historically, supported it have fallen with the fiction of its champions. But, it is a philosophy. God could not, or would not, preserve His Words so man has to dig and find what those Words were, as closely as possible, before He jettisoned His protection from them.
In our next session we will look at the predisposition of Westcott and Hort to jettison the Traditional Text as part of their translation philosophy.