Archive for September, 2008
When Evil is Beautiful
Posted by Peter in Ancient Hebrew, Bible, Genesis, Hebrew, Old Testament on September 16, 2008
Adam, Eve and the Serpent
I chose the title “Beauty of the Bible” for this blog because I believe there is beauty in God’s Word beyond the mere words on the page (as beautiful as those are). I realize that even non-believers recognize the Bible’s poetry, prose, symbolism and literary value as being among the most beautiful in all of literature. I would suggest that we have barely scratched the surface.
I have written before that I believe every word, letter, or jot in scripture is divinely inspired and divinely placed. To evidence this, I have shown examples of individual Hebrew words and names that, when broken down into the individual ancient Hebrew pictographs, themselves are related scriptural references (see Isaac & Ishmael, Noah, Moses, and God/Elohim). If this phenomenon occured only occasionally, it would be remarkable, but for this to occur as frequently as it does in the Bible’s first book is nothing short of divine.
I’m convinced this complexity and elegance extends throughout the Torah and probably the entire Old Testament. In other words, I think the examples of storylines being retold and/or elaborated upon in the tales told by the Hebrew pictographs are endless. It took me several months to work through Genesis 1:1, so my ambition to work through the book of Genesis was perhaps a bit naive.
Nevertheless, while I realize that systematically working through every verse of Genesis would take me several lifetimes, I love doing this enough that I can’t imagine it ever getting tiresome. That said, any plans to continue with Genesis 1:2 are on hold because I want to apply this same method to other topics that interest me or that others might request.
I have answered requests before from friends and family, but I have only published one of those even though it was one of my own personal favorites (see God’s Blessing). I think the challenge of researching and answering these and the excitement generated by the results is too much to pass up. This is not to say that I will be doing this exclusively, by any means, but I will write about them more.
Several months ago I was asked to look at Genesis 3:15, the results were pretty cool. I actually arrived at this backward. Because of how individual words frequently open up and reveal the broader context in which they are contained, I chose to begin reviewing Genesis 3:15 by studying the context. So, I began by studying the word “serpent” (plus I thought it would be pretty interesting). Well, I was either really lucky, or God was very gracious in not having me spend several months in Genesis 3:15. Either way, “serpent” was the scriptural reference for Genesis 3:15.
Okay, here goes. In Hebrew, “serpent” is the Hebrew word nachash, and is spelled with the Hebrew letters NUN (the equivalent of our letter N) which is pictured as the “seed of life” or a fish and means seed of life or life. CHET (J or Ch) which is pictured as a wall or fence and which means to cut off or to exclude, separating those inside from those outside. And SHIN (Sh) which is pictured as two teeth, meaning to destroy or consume.
Genesis 3:15: I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel. (NASB/HCSB combo).
The letter NUN is the seed, CHET is the wall or fence separating the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent (the enmity between), and SHIN (two teeth) is the serpent biting at the heel with his two fangs. It is really a pretty cool picture of “you will strike his heel,” but the result is the ultimate destruction of the serpent. Here’s the visual:
Serpent in the Ancient Hebrew
A Week With the NLT Study Bible
Posted by Peter in Bible, Bible Translations, Book Reviews, Christianity, New Testament, Old Testament on September 15, 2008
NLT Study Bible
It has been one week since I received my New Living Translation Study Bible from the NLT Bible Giveaway, and I want thank Tyndale and the NLT Blog for the free NLT Study Bible.
Before I get into the meat of this post, I want to repent of my earlier prejudice against the New Living Translation. Perhaps a short confession is in order.
To say that I had a bad first impression of the NLT is an understatement. My first encounter with the NLT was not in a bookstore, or a review, or an online version, or even in church, my first experience with the NLT was at a friend’s house.
My wife and I were ministering one evening to friends who had recently experienced personal tragedy, and, in response to the discussion we were having, I felt prompted by the Holy Spirit to read Romans 12:20 (the “hot coals” verse):
“BUT IF YOUR ENEMY IS HUNGRY, FEED HIM, AND IF HE IS THIRSTY, GIVE HIM A DRINK; FOR IN SO DOING YOU WILL HEAP BURNING COALS ON HIS HEAD.” (NASB).
We had been ministering to our friends regularly, and I always carried my Bible with me for just such an occasion. However, for some reason, I left my Bible in my car, so I asked my friend for his Bible. He has a New Living Translation Life Application Study Bible. I turned to Romans 12:20, and it wasn’t there, at least the Romans 12:20 I new wasn’t there. The Romans 12:20 I was reading said,
“If your enemies are hungry, feed them. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink, and they will be ashamed of what they have done to you.” (NLT 1996).
Rather than recognize that the translation was simply different, I was completely distracted, thinking I had the wrong verse. I was flummoxed. I spent the next 30 minutes looking through this unfamiliar Bible for a verse I knew was there somewhere. Alas, the ministry opportunity was lost, I was upset, and I blamed the NLT.
Well, I repent. I should not have been distracted by something so minor, and I should not have been so eager to place blame elsewhere. It doesn’t hurt either that Romans 12:20 in the NLT now reads:
If your enemies are hungry, feed them. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals of shame on their heads. (NLTSB)
Close enough. I assume this revision occured in the 2004 second edition (NLTse), but I’m not absolutely positive about that.
Back to my review, such as it is. Well, not really a review, per se, but my thoughts. I was pleasantly surprised to receive a black, bonded leather NLTSB which, according to the NLT Study Bible site wasn’t due to be available until September 8 (the day I received it). So, a big thumbs up for the softcover.
I am probably not the best person to comment on Bible extras because I read thinlines primarily, I pull out the big guns when necessary, but I prefer to read small, text-only (or text-and-little-else) Bibles. The NLTSB is certainly not that, but as far as study Bibles go, it is quite remarkable. I very much appreciate the thorough treatment of the Hebrew in the study notes, the in-depth people profiles, and the multi-faceted timelines.
Admittedly, I have only been reading this Bible for a week, but from what I have been able to glean, there appear to be few, if any, doctrinally interpretive study notes apart from an overall Christian perspective. In other words, it is not apparent from the study notes that the scholars or editors are denominationally or theologically aligned – although I recognize that such an observation might, in itself, suggest something theologically.
The introductory material to the books of the Bible and Old and New Testaments is well written and forthcoming with possible alternatives. Where a particular authorship or historical fact might be in question, the positions taken are well defended. Even though this is a study Bible, the language of the extra-textual writings and notes is highly readable and understandable, appropriate for teenagers and above.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I want to congratulate the editors for the inclusion of two, yes two, bookmarking ribbons. I think this was a stroke of genius. Now that I have a Bible with multiple ribbons, however, I would suggest the appropriate number should be three. This is not a criticism of the NLTSB, quite the contrary (I feel spoiled by the two), but three would seem ideal. I personally am not a fan of Bible reading plans, but most suggest Old and New Testament daily readings (ribbons 1 and 2), and most readers I know read both anyway, but that leaves the reader without a ribbon for his or her own personal reading. So, if I could construct the ideal Bible, it would have three bookmarking ribbons.
The primary criticism (if you can call it that) of the NLTSB is not with the study aspect, but rather with the translation. I still have a repentent heart, and now that I have had time with the NLT, I am growing to appreciate the translation. I understand the need to render the text into “modern English.” And I note this from the NLT FAQ page:
On the one hand, they translated as simply and literally as possible when that approach yielded an accurate, clear, and natural English text. (…)
On the other hand, the NLT translators rendered the message more dynamically when the literal rendering was hard to understand, was misleading, or yielded archaic or foreign wording.
I can appreciate this sentiment. However, I think the priority, then, should remain on translating as literally as possible, and not dynamically rendering things for dynamic rendering’s sake. The example I have chosen is Joel 2:1 which reads in the NLT:
Sound the alarm in Jerusalem! Raise the battle cry on my holy mountain! Let everyone tremble in fear because the day of the LORD is upon us. (NLTSB/NLTse).
Most, if not all, translations however translate Joel 2:1 as:
Blow a trumpet in Zion, And sound an alarm on My holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, For the day of the LORD is coming; Surely it is near… (NASB).
I do not mean to nit pick here, but “Blow a trumpet in Zion,” is accurate (“shofar” is more exact than “trumpet,” but close enough), it seems clear and quite natural. In any event, I don’t think it can be fairly said that the NLT’s translation is more clear or natural. This would appear to be the perfect place for the translation to be accurate and a study note applied to offer any explanation the editors saw fit.
This is not the only example, but it is representative. This is a matter of personal preference, though, and I recognize this completely. On the whole, I have found the NLT to be extremely readable, and I continue to find my initial distaste melting away. In fact, I have encouraged my wife to read the NLT to see if she finds the language to her liking as I have.
I do not foresee the New Living Translation replacing my NASB as my primary reading and study Bible, but I would encourage anyone to experience how pleasantly it reads. I can easily see reading the Psalms, Proverbs, and Song of Solomon out of the NLT regularly. I haven’t yet, but I also want to study the treatment of Revelation and Daniel in the NLT.
Apart from the study-Bible aspect, the NLT is a phenomenal reading Bible. With the study Bible additions, NLT readers may no longer need to supplement reading the NLT with a more literal translation. I fully anticipate the NLTSB will be a huge hit. The popularity of the NLT has exploded, and the primary knock on the NLT has been that it sacrifices accuracy for readabilty. I think critics may find this problem resolved in the study notes.
With the NLT Study Bible you get free access to the NLT Study Bible online, a nice perk. If you’re not convinced just yet, no worries, you can try out the NLT Study Bible online free for 30 days here.
Buy the NLT Study Bible @ Amazon
Other NLT Links:
- NLT Official Website
- NLT Study Bible Website
- NLT Study Bible Online
- NLT Blog
- NLT Study Bible Blog
- Tyndale House Publishers
Genesis 1:1 and God’s Great Ambiguity
Posted by Peter in Bible, Bible Translations, Christianity, Genesis, God, Hebrew, Old Testament on September 8, 2008
This month marks the one-year anniversary of the beginning of my study of Genesis 1:1. When I first began studying Genesis 1:1 in the ancient Hebrew, I remember being amazed at how after 2 months I had yet to exhaust the remarkable wisdom and revelation contained in this one seemingly simple verse.
Genesis 1:1
The one-year older and one-year wiser me now realizes that, even after a year, I still cannot wrap my head around all God has packed into those seven little Hebrew words. If you are new to this blog, please review these posts for reference:
- In the beginning
- God (The Lord is My Shepherd)
- created (On Creation)
- the heaves (Part 1 and Part 2)
- and the earth (The Salvation of “the earth”)
As wonderful and majestic as these revelations are, they barely scratch the surface. In addition to trying to show the word pictures painted in Genesis 1:1 by the ancient Hebrew pictographs, I have struggled for almost as long trying to come up with an accurate and appropriate English translation of Genesis 1:1. Quite frankly, I don’t think I can. I’m not sure anyone can. There are plenty of approximations, but none that I would endorse as being the translation.
After spending a year in this verse, I think I know why: Genesis 1:1 is ambiguous. I don’t mean to suggest that God meant for it to be ambiguous, or that He wants it ambiguous, or that He thinks it is ambiguous. But, Genesis 1:1 is not translatable into a single, simple rendering. The language of God (see The Language of God and God Speaks: The Origin of the Alphabet) is ambiguous because it is so meaningful and so complex that it cannot be rendered word-for-word or thought-for-thought and still mean all that it is supposed to mean.
I don’t think this sort of ambiguity is limited to Bible translation, scriptural interpretation is just as ambiguous. For example, I am familiar with four interpretations of why God favored Abel’s offering and not Cain’s (Genesis 4): 1) Abel’s offering involved a blood sacrifice, Cain’s did not, 2) Abel’s offering was of the first born of the flock, Cain’s was not of the first fruits, 3) Abel’s offering was made in faith, Cain’s was not, and 4) (the most recent and interesting interpretation I’ve heard was actually from our pastor, Eric von Atzigen of Emmanuel Fellowship Church) Abel’s offering was of the first born and not made in the course of time as Abel’s was.
Are any of these interpretations mutually exclusive? Don’t they all suggest scriptural principles? Can they all be correct? I’m not saying that all of these interpretations are necessarily right, but I find no scriptural reason why they couldn’t be. I think the same is (often) true of Bible translation. And I think it begins in the beginning.
Thus, a few suggestions for the many facets of Genesis 1:1:
1. The Runner Up: The translation of the Jewish Publication Society’s Hebrew-English Tanakh (I will presume the qualifications to produce such a translation). The Holman Christian Standard Bible contains a similar translation suggestion in a footnote as do other English translations. This is probably as accurate a translation as there is.
1 When God began to create heaven and earth-2 the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water-3 God said, “Let their be light”; and there was light.
2. The Narrative: My own personal idea of God as the great narrator, telling Moses the ultimate campfire story. I don’t pretend that it is a word-for-word translation, but I think it conveys what it needs to. It fits with the Toledoth (Hebrew for “generations,” translated “the generations of…”) structure of Genesis, and has that “Once upon a time” feel.
1 The beginning: God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was formless and void and darkness was over the abyss. God breathed on the surface of the waters and they started to vibrate. 3 And God said to light “you will exist,” and light existed.
3. The Technical: A very literal but useful translation which gives insight into the expansion of the universe and other cosmological observations. I pieced this together from the mechanical translation at the Ancient Hebrew Research Center and others.
1 In the beginning, God fattened the sky and the land. 2 The land had only existed in chaos and was unformed, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and a wind from God was fluttering upon the face of the water. 3 And God said “light will exist,” and light existed.
4. The Ultra-Hebraic: A translation that is somewhat surprising, but I think as plausible as any, although you would never know it from any of the traditional translations (see The Letter Aleph at Hebrew for Christians). I very much appreciate the idea that, if God creates things by speaking them into existence, the first creation has to be language and an alphabet.
1 In the beginning, God created the aleph-tav, the sky and the land. 2 The earth was chaotic and formless, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And a wind from God was fluttering upon the face of the waters. 3 And God said, “Let their be light,” and there was light.
5. The Traditional: The translation with which we are most familiar, with slight variations (a combination taken from the NASB and NIV). Although not necessarily the most accurate, it is the most common, and probably as accurate as any.
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
I do not believe that any of these translations are mutually exclusive, nor do I believe that any suggest anything that is scripturally false. I do believe that all of these are supportable from the text and that all suggest a slightly different aspect of God – all of which I love.
I write this to suggest that ambiguity in the Bible might not be ambiguity at all, but our inability to put the Word of God into simple English, or Spanish or Esperanto. If this is the case, shouldn’t we be less dogmatic about our own determinations about which translation is the most accurate. I think I prefer the idea that God’s Word is so rich and meaningful that it cannot be put into…well, words.
Digital Apologetics Study Bible
Posted by Peter in Bible, Bible Translations, Book Reviews, Christianity, God on September 6, 2008
Apologetics Study Bible
I want to thank Kent from Logos Bible Software for making me aware of the new digitized Apologetics Study Bible (ASB) that is a part of the Holman Reference Collection available from logos.com.
In my post So Many Translations, So Little Time, I wrote that my next big project would probably be the Apologetics Study Bible published by B&H Publishing Group. The text of the ASB is the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) which I am quite fond of; in particular, the treatment of the Hebrew in a few key Old Testament passages (Genesis 1:1 to be exact, albeit in the footnotes). I appreciate that Kent found my reference and responded.
More than the referral to the digitized Apologetics Study Bible, I was quite surprised by the scope of the entire Holman Reference Collection. It includes the Apologetics Study Bible, the Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary, the Holman Bible Handbook, the Holman Concise Bible Commentary and Teacher’s Bible Commentary, Holman Bible Atlas, Holman Book of Charts, Maps and Reconstructions, Harmony of the Gospels, the book 131 Christians Everyone Should Know, 4000 Questions and Answers on the Bible, and much more.
The production is still in the preorder stage, so if you are interested, you can preorder for approximately 60% off. I, personally, have not preordered. I am not familiar enough with the publications listed to purchase the package without more information. The package does look impressive though.
My personal experience with Logos is extremely limited, but I know several others who absolutely love Logos, my pastor included. I will have to put familiarization with Logos on my ever-increasing to-do list. Thanks for the info, Kent.
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