Great Guide – Unreachable Goal
Pure exegesis is a great guide but an unreachable goal.
Pure exegesis is a great guide but an unreachable goal.
I’m approaching the textual issues for these four chapters from the point of view of English translations. I want to look for those textual issues that actually have an impact on major English translations. This is a procedure you can follow any time you study a Bible passage, assuming you don’t know Greek or Hebrew…
The Lord is my shepherd, I will lack nothing. Really?
See You in Bible Class says the MSNBC/Newsweek headline on a story that informs us that the state of Georgia has decided that having a Bible class is a critical part of the public school curriculum for their state. They’re going to mandate that it be added. The story is headed by the picture of…
Green grass and quiet water, for both body and soul.
Many of the issues of Biblical criticism are illustrated in these four chapters from the book of Isaiah. The book of Isaiah as a whole is fertile ground for such study, but one has to take a reasonable sized bite for an illustration. What I want to do with these chapters is discuss how various…
I have repeatedly heard the claim that the Bible has been translated many times, and that as a result of this, one cannot be certain of what it says. This is used in two different ways. First, skeptics claim that one cannot rely on the Bible because such translation will introduce errors. Second, there are supporters of the scientific reliability of the Bible who will claim that if it is just translated correctly, then we will discover scientific accuracy. In this second view, most or even all claims of scientific inaccuracy are the result of translation errors.
Let’s look at the basics of the process of translation, and the history of the Biblical text to see if these claims are justified. I’m largely interested in the second claim, which is often used in arguing in favor of creationism of one sort or another.