Before reading any further in my reflections on the Gospel of John, it is important to pause and read the following caveat that applies to any thoughts I might share on any portion of the Scriptures.
1. I am not: an academic, a biblical scholar, a linguist, even close to an expert in ancient languages, a theologian, or an historian.
2. I am a person who loves the bible, has found great spiritual nourishment in its pages and has spent the past forty years attempting to help reasonably well-educated middle class first world people find in its words encouragement for their spiritual lives.
3. The bible is an enormously complex book. It seeks to address the deepest most inscrutable questions of the human condition. It deals in the realm of mystery, plunging boldly into the secret realms of the unknown. It pushes us to the edge of our intellectual capacity inviting us to step beyond what we think we understand into the realm of the numinous.
4. The process by which we have received our English versions of the bible is bewildering.
Any honest person reading the New Testament must acknowledge, at the very least that when we read the bible, we are not reading the original texts as they were first recorded. The original versions of the New Testament documents do not exist. The earliest complete New Testament in existence today is Codex Sinaiticus, written down about 350 CE, after having been passed from generation to generation by hand-copying.
The documents that make up the New Testament were originally composed between the 40s and 90s of the first century, according to conservative scholars, later according to most liberal scholars. Jesus’ sayings and stories were passed from person to person mostly orally with perhaps some written fragments being shared. It is not until the years 60 or 70 CE that the existence of an actual collection of written documents of sayings attributed to Jesus that had been orally transmitted and written in small fragments is believed to have come into existence. Although no copy of this purported document actually exists, scholars call it “Q” from “Quelle” meaning source.
The Gospel of Mark, generally agreed to be the earliest of the Gospels, was written shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE. Mark’s Gospel drew on earlier oral and probably written material, but was not recorded until most, if not all, of the eyewitnesses to the events of Jesus’ life were dead.
The teachings and stories of Jesus were first written in Koine Greek, an ancient dialect of the living Greek language, equivalent to reading Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in Middle English. The words of Jesus were, however not originally spoken in Koine Greek; they were most likely first spoken in Aramaic. So, when we read an English version of Jesus’ words, we are reading an English translation of an original written Greek translation of spoken Aramaic words that have been passed down orally and perhaps in small written bits, for at least three decades. We are not reading even a translation of the original, but rather a translation of a translation.
There are seldom exact equivalencies between many words as translators move from one language to another. This is especially true when the translation is from an ancient language no longer spoken to a contemporary language in a context vastly different from the original. The complexity of translation becomes even more acute when the writings in question are dealing with the deepest mysteries of life and the human condition.
My observations here are not intended to encourage cynicism about the documents we call the bible. Rather, my aim is to encourage a degree of humility when we seek to understand what the original speaker or author of these texts may have intended.
All translation involves some degree of interpretation and all interpretation includes some measure of bias. There are no absolutely objective translators. Translators do not practice their art in a vacuum. Their translation choices are shaped to some degree by their culture, their theological backgrounds and commitments and their unavoidable biases. We should always be cautious therefore about saying, “Jesus said…” and assuming we know precisely what it was that “Jesus said”. As with all human communication, there is always more than one way of hearing the words we are told that “Jesus said”.
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May 4, 2020 at 8:17 am
JwJ #27 – 3:16-19 | In A Spacious Place
[…] (nb: before reading any further in these reflections on the Gospel of John, please read the important “Caveat” posted earlier this morning https://inaspaciousplace.wordpress.com/2020/05/04/jwj-caveat/) […]
May 4, 2020 at 9:09 am
Michael Alan
A very important offering. Your word ‘bewildering’ is appropriate for the sheer number of interpretations that circulate around the globe, purporting all manner of ‘truths’. Your use of metaphor and suggestion as a contemplative ‘spring-board’ to one’s own direct experience NOW, is the most skillful means to give the bible value.
May 4, 2020 at 9:23 am
terryvatrt
Thank you, Christopher.
Imagine how many human hands have ‘touched’ the words we read. Relating to your post about Eve, and not to belabour the point, but we know which gender has interpreted the Word.
May 4, 2020 at 11:04 am
Dave
Can There Be Faith without Infallibility? (shared as requested)
As Protestants, we tend to find the Roman Catholic papal claim to infallibility ridiculous. A human or humans claiming to be incapable of error is hubris. Yet by claiming the inerrancy of the Bible, we also rely on infallibility of human speakers, writers, scribes and editors. In the Christian era, early church councils determined which New Testament and Hebrew writings were canon and which were heretical or merely apocryphal. In still more ancient times, rabbis gradually settled on certain prophets as infallible in their accurate transmission of God’s thoughts and thus worthy of the name. We are simply more comfortable ignoring all Scripture’s implied infallibility because the actual writing and decision making is lost in the mists of time and tradition.
Is it possible to have faith without infallibility? Does any margin of doubt render all “truths” equal? Does allowing for human error within the Bible inevitably throw the whole baby out with the bathwater?
Science gives us an example of a model in which people can find truth without insisting it must be absolute on one hand or collapsing into the lazy, relativistic attitude of “all opinions are equal” on the other. In science, truth is not absolute or unchanging, but that doesn’t make all theories and propositions equal in their worth. There is no room for giving equal time and weight to the theories of cosmological , geological and biological evolution and the theory that the world was created in seven 24-hour days. What sets up a theory to be accepted as our current, closest, best approximation of “truth” is its consistency with all available evidence, with fundamental logic, with previously agreed upon theories, and with processes and procedures designed to eliminate human error and bias as much as possible. The latter includes being able to replicate results and open peer review, which eliminates the need for any individual or group to resort to a claim of infallibility for their authority.
What a similar kind of process of determining truth allows us is the ability to aspire toward holding a “best possible” idea of what is true without claiming it is perfect or inerrant or will never change. In religion, that takes the steam out of the “massacre and burn the heretics” tendency without throwing up our hands and saying, “Your guess is as good as mine.” Once again, it does not encourage or condone the idea that all “truths” are equal. It does not deny that faith is part of every belief system but it attempts to hold beliefs up to rigorous collective standards.
May 4, 2020 at 12:32 pm
Christopher Page
many many years ago as a student in seminary I was quite taken by John Henry Newman who left the Church of England and became a Roman Catholic priest over precisely this issue. He believed he had come to see in the Pope an authority who could provide assurance of the authorized understanding of Christian faith. I remember once asking my Baptist New Testament professor, “If the Roman Catholics have the Pope to appeal to for final authority, what do we have?” He paused for a long time and then said, “I suppose I would have to say, we have the Holy Spirit”. I am not sure I was persuaded by his argument at the time. But I think now there may be wisdom in these words. All Christian faith teaches that the Spirit of God lives within the human heart. In the end, we can only appeal to the authority of what we experience within.When I am honest, I believe that which resonates as true in my heart, in my mind, and in my experience.