Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: Bible Study Tools

  • Learning a Little Greek

    One of the major problems with seminary study of Biblical languages is that it is often short term and shallow. The seminarian, required to take a certain number of hours or just get by a particular test focuses all his efforts to getting past the hurdle. Precious few such students ever gain a real facility with the language. Some will have an exaggerated view of their own skills based on that study, but most will abandon what they have learned. Others will pop Greek and Hebrew words on their congregations, normally gleaned from commentaries and various articles of, often of questionable validity.

    In general, when you hear a pastor say “what the Greek really says,” prepare to be deceived. Not intentionally–the preacher really believes he knows, but actually he is probably missing the point. I have heard sermons in which the Greek word was completely wrong because the preacher simply provided the wrong Greek word. At other times, the error was one of context, when the preacher used a definition for a Greek word that was valid in some context, but not in the particular context in question. In one case, I heard a speaker recite the “real Greek” of a verse in four words. The only problem was that the verse was not, as he claimed, four words long in Greek, and not one of the four Greek words he used were actually in the verse he cited. I could just barely tell I was looking at the right verse based on the interpretation.

    I have a book in my library from the infamous Dr. Floyd Jones of KJV-Only fame. In the front of the book, on a page titled “TO THE READER – THE SOUNDING OF AN ALARM,” he cites a number of Hebrew words from Isaiah 14:12, in which he is giving the alarm regarding mistranslation. He should, however, be giving the alarm about his disastrous ignorance of Hebrew. I count no less than 8 errors in Hebrew in the course of a single paragraph. Now the KJV-Only position is so discredited that one might wonder why I bother to mention it. The reason is that most of the errors noted in that paragraph appear to result from the use of an interlinear in order to find the Hebrew form that is cited. Transliterations don’t match the Hebrew, though the translations match in the way an interlinear would.

    In both KJV-Only debates and discussion with lay “experts,” I have also encountered work done from Strong’s concordance. While it is more difficult to work with Strong’s than with an interlinear, it is even easier to be in error. Strong’s definitions are often out of date, and in fact they are generally not definitions at all but rather lists of glosses. I once was presented with a possible translation of a Hebrew text in which not a single word was translated correctly. On careful examination, however, every single word was translated by some word from Strong’s, and what was more, the resulting sentence was comprehensible in English though a bit stilted. It simply had no relationship to the meaning of the source text in Hebrew.

    We’ve probably heard that “to err is human, to really foul things up requires a computer.” Well, enter Logos Bible software, now with reverse interlinears (HT: Metacatholic–I recommend you read his entire post). Now don’t get me wrong. I own Logos with all the Biblical languages extensions I can get my hands on. But many wonderful tools have potentially bad uses.

    When a student uses tools that allow him to look up words more quickly so as to cover more ground in reading that’s a good thing. One way to actually gain facility in a foreign language is to work with it. Many students plow through one or two verses at a time and never go beyond that. They become specialists in individual leaves on individual trees, but they have no sense of how Greek or Hebrew reads or feels. Tools such as reader’s lexicons–works that give glosses by verses–can be very useful for rapid reading. But they don’t teach you Greek. Neither do interlinears, and neither do reverse interlinears. (Everything I say here about Greek is equally applicable to Hebrew.

    I have to discipline myself to spend time reading without the tools to prevent dependence. Especially in reading the Septuagint, I like to go into Logos so that I can quickly look up some of the words that I don’t know from my New Testament reading. But to really dig in and learn the material, I need to read without those tools from time to time. Now I have taken an different approach from the normal seminarian (whoever that may be!). I started in Biblical languages as an undergraduate. I had several years of Greek before I got to Seminary. I had three years of Hebrew. I actually read the passages I use when I prepare sermons first from the original languages. I use all the Logos tools constantly–except for anything resembling an interlinear. That is something I won’t do to myself.

    The writer of the post on the Logos blog bemoans the passing of original languages requirements in seminaries. But I would suggest that it will not be an improvement if people who are not competent with Biblical languages start substituting their judgment for that of the trained translation committees and reviewers that produce our modern English versions.

    For more on this topic see my series Word Study Dangers and my post on my Threads blog What the Greek Really Says.

  • Looking at a Passage

    I’ve blogged here a few times about different ways of reading (here, for example). Lingamish has a series of posts on the topic as well that are well worth reading. They are:

    I have found many partisans amongst Bible students, especially of serious, detailed reading, outlining, diagramming, phrasing, and so forth. Others are partisans for reading large sections at a time. But all of these approaches have their benefits, and it is only by looking at the text from more than one angle that we get the whole. Someone might diagram an entire passage and provide extended exegetical arguments, but if the connection to the whole is not made, then something may well be missing.

    Lingamish has a “rubber meets the road” practical approach that is refreshing.

    One last link to Lingamish, Grasshopper Greek: Apocalyptic Rock, in which he puts a portion of Revelation to music. The player at the top of the post doesn’t seem to work, but the alternate link he provides does.

    As an occasional Greek teacher, normally of one or two students at a time, I take the opportunity both to read to them, and to have them read to me in Greek, before I ask them to translate. It takes a great deal of practice to smooth out one’s pronunciation and gain any ease in that process, but I find that students who do so can discuss the text and think about it more effectively. I’m guessing most of us who have studied Biblical languages remember a time early in our training when we would look at a word, but couldn’t really pronounce it, and then look it up in the lexicon. On failing to find it, we’d look back and realize that we weren’t looking for precisely the same word as was found in the text. Or was I the only one who ever made that mistake?

    Learning to pronounce the text comprehensibly helps with that process. I’ve been reading Syriac recently, trying to revive my knowledge of that language, which was never all that good in the first place. I made precisely that mistake just yesterday, because my pronunciation has become weak, and I don’t clearly remember the form and the sound together.

    I don’t know how many will take to rockin’ in Greek, but it’s an interesting idea!

  • New Bible Format

    The IBS is producing a new Bible, available in August, 2007, which will reorganize the books of the Bible, removing verse and chapter numbers. This is intended to provide a new and more original feel in reading the Bible.

    I suspect that such a format will annoy some people, but I’ll say bluntly they should chill. We live with the constant tension between the Bible as a unity (a book) and the Bible as diversity (a collection). While verses facilitate conversations about the Bible and references to specific passages in other documents, they tend to first treat the Bible as a unity, and then chop it up into potentially unrelated pieces. They certainly distract from simply hearing the message.

    At the same time the book order, which is in many cases arbitrary, keeps modern readers from getting their bearings in the historical context. While there are bound to be disputes over where various elements fit, the structure of this new Bible is a good start to starting to balance Bible study in the other direction–more toward hearing the message in its literary, cultural, and historical context.

    I strongly commend the IBS on this effort, and look forward to having a physical copy in my hands as soon as it is released. In the meantime, check out their web site for this project, complete with sample books of the Bible, and a blog. Currently the staff there is blogging about why they would carry out such a project.

    For those who use my participatory study method, this Bible will be particularly valuable in the overview reading portion of your study. It removes distractions and some of the elements of Bible reading that tend to make one feel that one has read more than one has. The TNIV is also simple enough in language to make it easy to read large amounts of text.

    HT: radical renovation via TNIV Truth.

  • Bible Software for Linux

    Since I am playing with a new box I built with Ubuntu installed, I have written a short note on Bible software for Linux on my Computer Services company blog. I’m looking at a Java based application which is also available for Windows, so those looking for free Bible software should check it out.

  • Lingamish on Iconography of the Gospels

    Lingamish is presenting a series on his blog, Iconography of the Gospels, in which he explores ways of looking at the gospels. I commend this series to those who are interested in reading the gospels with more breadth and depth.

    Entries thus far:

    Enjoy!

  • Similarities and Differences

    I am continuing to study through Isaiah with Brevard Childs Isaiah from the Old Testament Library, and I found another quote I want to share with a very brief comment. In discussing the literary connections between chapter 34 and 2nd/3rd Isaiah, he says:

    . . . For example, are the vocabulary affinities between chapter 34 and 40-66 to be given precedence over the large number of words in chapter 34 that are not found in chapters 40-66? Or again, what role does one assign to apparent similarities of syntax and style? — p. 253

    Now this quote seems very simple, but it embodies an important principle in Bible study, in areas ranging from comparing one scripture to another all the way to serious application of various critical methodologies. The principle is this: Differences and similarities must both be considered in any comparison.

    One of the best illustrations of this idea comes from the history of comparing the Babylonian creation story to Genesis 1. At first, there was a mass acceptance of the idea that Genesis was essentially copied from the Babylonian story. There are, indeed, many points of contact between the two. Then there was a reaction indicating that Genesis was almost totally different. There are also, it is true, substantial differences. After a time, most scholars came to the conclusion that there was a relationship, but that it was not a direct literary relationship. They concluded that both likely went back to an earlier source which each had used in its own way. (This is a very generalized history, and much of the conflict still goes on, especially in Christian apologetics.)

    I’d recommend getting a copy of each and enumerating key points and then lining them up together. What is the same? What appears to be related but is not identical? What is completely different? (Pritchard’s Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament with Supplement is a good source and is probably available at any good college or university library.) Then compare your own lists. I do this with the creation of man in each story when I’m teaching either on Genesis or the ancient near east in general, and I find the results are always interesting.

    The same principle, however, applies to comparing any two sets of material. For comparing scripture, make sure to understand both texts in their context, then look at what is similar between them but also at what is different. Just listing one or the other presents an unbalanced picture.

  • Biblical Studies Carnival XVI

    . . . has been posted.

  • Word Study Dangers: Your Dependence on Scholars

    A young man in one of my classes once told me that he didn’t want to depend on scholars. His aim in attending my class on Bible study was to know for himself.

    Now this young man has an admirable goal, provided that you use “goal” in the same sense as one uses “north star” in navigating toward the north. One will never reach Polaris, but one will continue traveling something close to north while using that star as a guide.

    The problem for the average student of the Bible is that you can’t know everything related to your study, so you will always be dependent, in some way, on the scholarship of others. For those who think that taking Greek and Hebrew removes that problem, let me tell you that it does not. After learning Biblical languages, I am still constantly depending on the work of others, and I’m much more aware of it now than I used to be. Once you get to reading the text in the original languages, for example, you then have to ask which text to read. This introduces textual criticism. While I have studied textual criticism to some extent, I am not nearly at the point where I would edit the text of a New Testament book for public use.

    The same thing is true of word studies and finding the definitions of words. If you will first accept the fact that you are going to be basing some of what you do on the work of others, it will help you more intelligently choose where to depend on someone else and where to try to do original research. You will want to consider just how objective the scholarship involved is, and how qualified you are to check the work.

    Let’s consider an example. My knowledge of textual criticism allows me to read an edition of the New Testament and understand the textual footnotes. I’m acquainted with the major manuscripts, so that when I look at a footnote I can quickly see the range of dates involved in the manuscripts, and I often know something about the specific manuscripts involved–not a massive amount, but enough to follow the note and understand in general why the editors chose the variant they did for the text. I could ask to reduce my dependence on other scholars by getting a look at a high quality photograph of each manuscript for myself, or even by trying to visit the library or museum in which the manuscript itself is kept, so I can check a reading for myself.

    But this would be a foolish thing for me to do. First, the process of transcribing a manuscript and collating it (cataloging its variants) is a substantially objective process. In a small number of cases in which letters are partial, or correctors have gotten involved, there may be a dispute, but in that case you will generally have an indication in the edition itself or in the literature. Thus I can put a good deal of trust into the data provided to me in my edition of the New Testament in Greek. Second, my qualifications for deciphering the ancient manuscripts directly are definitely not first rate. I can read such manuscripts, but I have no exprience trying to fill in gaps, or judge disputed letters based on the copyists hand, and so forth. It is therefore not a good use of my resources to go check individual manuscripts for myself.

    If you take a step back from that, and consider someone who does not know Greek or Hebrew, then you may see the need to ask, “Is it a good use of my time to do a word study?” To answer that question, let me look at some of your alternatives.

    1. Using footnotes in your translation
      Most translations provide alternate renderings of passages in footnotes when a passage is controversial. For many people, a whole new world will open up if they will simply pay attention to the footnotes. Many times users of various Bible versions complain bitterly about a particular rendering and the damage done to “the truth” (as understood by the complainer) by a lousy rendering, and how the translators should at least give the reader the option of this alternate rendering. Frequently when I check such a complaint, I find the desired rendering given in a footnote.
    2. Comparing multiple translations
      As often as I find that footnotes resolve the problem, not all translation issues are noted in every translation–far from it. Try using multiple translations. Reading your passage in several translations will take you much less time than doing a thorough word study, and may provide you with all the information you need.
    3. Use various theological wordbooks in English.
      In this case you will be dependent on scholars for providing you with the options, but commonly such wordbooks provide a variety of potential definitions. Take each option offered and try it in the context of the passage you are studying.
    4. Commentaries and/or study notes
      These often provide alternate translations and discussions of why. It is important to realize that the discussion of the reasons behind a particular option is more important than simply listing the option. Those reasons allow you to check the work that has gone before you. Does it make sense? Does the resulting translation work in the context of your passage?
    5. Learn the script of the language in question and use lexicons
      Here you will often find the specific verse you are studying with the suggested gloss or definition for your word. You can get a strong head start by listing the available definitions and some key passages from the lexicon entry, and looking those up to check and see how well they work. You will probably be amazed at how often the lexicon is right on target.
    6. Always study a passage in context
      Most errors in interpretation come from focusing too narrowly on a single verse or even phrase. If you come up with an understanding of the meaning of a particular word that contradicts the teaching of that author in the rest of his writings, you might want to reconsider. Who is more likely to have made a mistake?

    Each of these options will provide you with a substantial amount of information about a particular word or passage, and will give you many options to choose from in your study. In this way you can depend on scholars, but do so intelligently.

  • Kenny Pearce on Bible Translations

    [Gleaned from the Christian Carnival CLXI, which you should go check out.]

    Kenny Pearce has written an excellent post on Bible translations. I say “excellent” based on the obvious standard that he agrees with much of what I say! 🙂 He talks about a spectrum of translations using what he calls “a degree of literalness.”

    This is very similar to what I teach, and in fact what I demonstrate in my Bible Version Selection Tool. I think my ratings even come generally fairly close to his.

    This is recommended reading. It’s about as concise as you can get and still be accurate and practical.

  • Word Study Dangers: Overview

    [This is the first in a short series on word studies, especially the type of study done using an English concordance keyed to the Biblical languages, such as Strong’s Concordance.]

    A few years back in the pre-blog days when most online discussions took place on various forums, someone proposed to me a new translation and interpretation of a particular verse. I don’t even recall the verse any more. What I do recall was the process of figuring out what the gentleman had done in order to produce the words he presented to me. That text was totally unlike any English translation of that verse that I knew of, and completely impossible by my reading of the Hebrew. He said he had worked on the translation using Strong’s, so I knew my starting point.

    Slowly I worked my way back through Strong’s and discovered that he had simply looked through the possible translations for each word, and then selected one that he wanted to use. He had combined those English words in the fashion of one putting together a difficult jigsaw puzzle, and then had dealt with minor issues such as verb tenses and the syntax according to the sense that he was looking for. As a result, the verse consisted of a series of words, correct in the sense that they came from a Hebrew/English dictionary, but none of which were actually possible translations in that particular context.

    He was extremely disappointed when I was not enthusiastic about his creative efforts. Surely I was not dogmatic enough to simply reject his translation out of hand! After all, it came from Strong’s, surely a standard authority on the meaning of the Hebrew text, and one used by many, many Christians! And yet I was just that dogmatic.

    Now this is not a series on the inadequacies of Strong’s as a Biblical languages resource, though it does have many such inadequacies. It provides glosses, rather than definitions, and those glosses are taken from out of date sources. Discovering the meaning of precise forms varies from extremely difficult to impossible. Nobody who was actually skilled with the languages would make use of it as a serious resource for knowledge of the source languages. There are other English concordances, keyed to other Bible versions, that are based on more accurate sources, yet they still suffer from the other inadequacies.

    The larger problem, however, is the people who try to use these concordances as a resource to study Bible words. There are things you can learn making use of such resources, but finding more accurate definitions of Bible words than those found in standard language resources is not one of those things. A student who does not understand the source languages would do better with one of the many Bible dictionaries or word books that are available.

    The problem is in the nature of word studies. Similar issues come up in discussion when one tries to define a word. There are two extremes in discussing English words. On the one hand we have those who believe words mean whatever they want them to, and on the other we have the dictionary addicts. The first group doesn’t care to use standard definitions and creates a great deal of confusion for obvious reasons. The second group looks in the dictionary, and if a word is not being used according to the particular definition (often the first one presented) found in their particular dictionary, they are annoyed. The dictionary rules.

    There is a subset of this group who are fascinated by older dictionaries. “I want a dictionary that comes from a time when words had meaning and weren’t subject to the whim of the uneducated masses,” they say. That there never was such a golden age of language doesn’t other them at all. The word should mean what their older dictionary says it means, and anyone who disagrees is just the product of a “dumbed down” educational system.

    But dictionaries are merely reporters. The writers of dictionaries do not, for the most part, create meaning, except as any other writer does. People create meaning when they make use of words to communicate. A single word doesn’t have only one meaning; generally it has many. Its meaning doesn’t generally remain unchanged over time. What lexicographers (the writers of dictionaries) do, is survey the usage of words over a wide body of literature and formulate and report appropriate definitions. Multiple definitions per word are required, because words get used in many different ways with different meanings. There are scholarly meanings, technical meanings, popular meanings, regional meanings, and so forth.

    For example, when I talk about computers I use “CPU” (central processing unit) to mean the little chip on the motherboard that does the processing. I got used to that usage years ago. Frequently these days someone will call me for service on a computer, and they will ask, “Should I just bring my CPU or do you need the monitor and keyboard as well?” This usage bugs me, even though I truly believe what I said in the last paragraph. They’re not wrong; they’re just using a quite common popular usage. Most of my readers probably find CPU used in that sense to be more appropriate than its use to refer to the chip. In terms of the way meaning develops, CPU is an acronym, yet many who use it would not know what the letters stand for. It has become a “word.” Similarly “car” can mean many things, from the part of the elevator that one actually rides in, to the car on a train, to the automobile that one drives. This is generally true of words. One determines from the context just what definition is appropriate. Our minds are wonderfully adept at figuring this out.

    Words in Hebrew and Greek are no different. The reason a concordance like Strong’s has quite a number of glosses (words of phrases provided as possible translations of a particular Greek or Hebrew word) is that those Greek and Hebrew words have many potential meanings in different contexts. You can’t simply take the list of meanings, choose one that you’d like to read in this location, and run with it. There are many factors that go into the particular choice of an English word, factors that the mind of a native speaker would process naturally and quickly.

    Some of these factors are:

    • The immediate context
      For example, you can tell what definition I’m using for “car” easily in each of the following sentences. I drove my car to work. and The locomotive was pulling 25 cars..
    • The particular form of the word
      Both Greek and Hebrew are inflected, and sometimes such inflection will result in a completely different meaning for the word. The lexical form (the one you find at the head of the dictionary entry) will be the same, but the meaning will be substantially different. If you don’t know about these different forms, you may well come up with an impossible answer.
    • The type of literature
      Words are used differently in different types of literature, and you have to be conscious of that effect. For example, priestly texts will use words about sacrifices in a much more technical way than general historical texts.
    • Syntax
      The structure of the sentence may indicate a difference in the meaning of the word. In Greek, this is a very important thing to remember about prepositions. One common mistake made by those who do not know Greek is to list the possible definitions of a preposition and then choose the one best suited to their desired translation, without considering the form of the preposition’s object. That doesn’t work in Greek!
    • Time period, particularly in Hebrew
      Meaning can vary based on when a text was written. This is generally important in translating Hebrew, though not so much for New Testament Greek because the New Testament was written over such a short period of time.
    • Peculiarities of usage by the particular author
      Just as modern writers and speakers may use words in unexpected ways, the Bible writers could do likewise.

    In my next entry I’m going to go over the process of doing a good word study, and examine the level of knowledge of the Biblical languages required to handle certain information.