Tolle Lege

At the outset I want to be quite clear.  This blog post is not intended to be normative.  This is not a prescription  nor is it some sort of magical key to one's devotional life.  My intention is to relate my own experience in the hopes that those who have personality similar to mine might benefit.

 There are many excellent Bible reading plans available to the Christian.  If one were to read 3 chapters of the Bible each day, and 5 on Sundays, one could read through the entire Bible in a year.  Most Bible reading plans are meant to accomplish this goal.  Many are designed to allow the reader to read through the Psalms, Proverbs, and Gospel's twice, and the rest of the Scriptures once.  One of the better plans is the reading plan by Robert Murray McCheyne which has you read through various types and genres of Scripture simultaneously.

These sorts of reading plans work for many people, and many people derive great benefit from them.  I, however, am not one of them.  For me, these plans make the goal of reading through the Bible more important than reading the Bible.  When I follow one of these plans, I tend to read to finish the section, rather than for understanding.  I recognize that the problem is not with the plans themselves, but with me.  However, I also think that the way I read does not lend itself well to using these methods.  Put simply, it is too fast for me to dig into the text, and too slow for me to synthesize my reading.  Recently, I've found a method that works much better for me, and which has made Bible reading a joy.

Get the Big Picture:
I stumbled across this quite by accident.  For class here at Covenant Seminary (which has a fancy new website) we are required to read the Bible (a more obvious sentence may never have been written!).  Due to the pace of the schedule, this often requires reading large sections of the Bible in one sitting.  Recently, I read Genesis over the course of two days, and Matthew's Gospel in one.  Last semester, I read the majority of Paul's letters in a few days.  I learned two things from this:

1.  "Books" in the Bible are much shorter than we think them to be.  When I opened Genesis in the past I would see the "book" as containing 50 "chapters."  Just the terminology that we use caused me to think of Bible reading as a daunting task.  The 66 books of the Bible are described with terminology similar to a novel.  It gives the perception that they are longer than they really are.  Likewise, "chapter" sounds similar to what you would find inside of a book that you would pick up at Barnes and Noble (...or download on your eReader).   I recognize that this sounds obvious, but reading a "book" or three "chapters" sounds like a difficult task.  In reality, though, reading a whole book of the Bible is not unlike reading a chapter in a "normal" book.  Matthew was, I think, about 35 pages.  Not insurmountable in a single sitting by any means, and it is a fairly "long" book, especially by New Testament standards.

2.  When reading a whole book of the Bible in one or two sittings, you see things that you would have otherwise missed.  At the end of Matthew, the authority and magnificence of Christ are poignant having read the Gospel from start to finish.  One finishes the book and cannot help but to worship, such is the rhetorical force of the book read cover to cover.  This is something that I did not "get" when reading a few chapters a day.

I should mention that I do not read a book of the Bible every day or even every week.  I might do something like this every other week or so.  In the intervening time I think about the book that I read, and reflect on the major themes that it put forth.

Dig Deep:
This likely looks quite different for me than it might for other people.  This daily aspect of my devotional reading was also discovered by accident.  After I finished Greek in exegesis last year, I purchased a Reader's Bible and decided to try to read from it everyday.  Recently, having just finished Hebrew II, I read a Hebrew's reader Bible as well.  Basically, I choose a book (John in the NT and passages from Numbers in the OT), and I read anywhere from a few verses to paragraph (depending on how complicated the section or vocabulary is).  While my "big picture  reading helps me grasp the flow and argument of the book, this allows me to dig deeply into the text and notice minutia that I too easily skip when reading more quickly in English.

As an example, the other night I was reading in Numbers.  I was reading about Caleb encouraging Israel to enter the land despite the presence of mighty people occupying the land because God had promised it to them. The very next verse says that the Israelites picked up stones to stone him. Surely I read that wrong, I thought. But no, that's what it said. When I read that passage in English I read so quickly that I blow right by the enormity of the situation. "Yeah I know," I think, "they don't go into the land." But slowing down and reading the Hebrew, it struck me in a new way. The slavery, the plagues, the Red Sea, the promise to Abraham... The goal is right there, and when Caleb says as much, they pick up stones to stone him.  Wow.

Now, many of you who read this might not be able to read the original languages, but that does not mean you can't intentionally slow down and focus on a few verses.  A good book or two on hermeneutics (how to read) might not be a bad investment of your time.  Learning to read the Bible well is not a skill that we are born with, it is something that we learn.

As I said at the outset, there is no "right" way to read the Bible, but we must read it.  We must be a people of the Book who hear the voice of God and allow it shape, change, and mold us.  I have found a method which allows my Bible reading to be refreshing and exciting, but it might not work for you.  That is okay, but you must, as was famously said to Augustine, "Take up an read." Tolle lege.

"Cor meum tibi offero, Domine, prompte et sincere."

A Worthy Investment?

Eighteen of the 103 credits in the M.Div program at Covenant Seminary are language courses.  This number increases to Thirty-nine credits when you count the exegetical coursework.  That means a full 38% of the time and money spent on seminary is time spent either learning or using Greek and Hebrew.

That sort of expense of resources and time has lead some to question the value of spending so many credits learning the Bible's original languages.  Seminaries could get people out into the work of doing ministry much more quickly if the workload in Greek and Hebrew were lightened.  Some argue that the time invested in dead languages would be better spent in counseling or other church ministry courses.  After all, our English Bibles are outstanding, and programs like Bibleworks and Logos make research in the original languages much simpler.

To be straightforward with my position, I do think it is worth the time and effort.  I also know that it is not fun, especially in the beginning.  What follows is my assessment of the benefit that learning the original languages holds for pastors.   I am in no way seeking to condemn any pastor who does not know Greek.  I am also aware that, down the road, I too may be one of the majority that loses the languages after seminary.  Please do not think this is condemnatory.  I am merely explaining why I think it is a beneficial endeavor, and why those of us who are non-ordained members of the church should encourage our elders to make sure that our pastors have the time and means to study their Bibles in as much depth as they are able.

For those of us in Presbyterian churches, there is a confessional basis for these classes.  "The Old Testament in Hebrew (which was the native language of the people of God of old), and the New Testament in Greek (which, at the time of the writing of it, was most generally known to the nations), being immediately inspired by God, and, by His singular care and providence, kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentical; so as, in all controversies of religion, the Church is finally to appeal unto them."  Thus begins Chapter 1 section 8 of the Westminster Confession (the second half of which was quoted in my previous post).  What the Confession is explaining is that in theological disagreements it is the Greek* text to which we must appeal.  Some would say that with the lexica and software programs available one needn't know Greek in order to appeal it.  But in Greek, as with all languages, meaning is found context.  If our pastors do not know Greek syntax and structure (those issues that the advanced Greek classes deal with), then our church councils are at the mercy of theologians and academics instead of elders and pastors.


Tied closely to this is the idea of what a pastor should do, or rather, should be.  He should be an expert in his field.  I doubt anyone would want to go to a medical doctor who did not attend medical school, even if he appealed to the wide and useful knowledge base available.  "Look, I didn't go to med. school, but between wikipedia and web m.d., I'm pretty sure we can fix your tendinitis."  That would not be confidence inspiring. I don't mean to say that pastors who do not use Greek every week aren't experts, but I know that these men did learn the languages at some point.  Medical doctors won't remember everything they learned in med. school.  Needless to say, they learned enough to allow them to practice medicine well.  We should expect no less of our pastors, and part of that process is learning the original languages.

A third reason that Greek and Hebrew are important is exegesis.  Our English Bibles sometimes make exegetical decisions for us.  Take something like "the love of God" (ἡ αγαπη του θεου).  This phrase shows up often in 1 John.  Usually, the ESV translates this phrase as "the love of God."  The NIV sometimes translates it as "God's love."  The question in these texts, though, is whether John means our love for God or God's love for us (an objective or subjective genitive, to be precise).  The NIV editors believe it to be subjective, and so they translate it that way, but the Greek is ambiguous at this point leaving us to use the larger context to figure it out.

Another good example is 2 John 6.  In the ESV, "And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it."  The NIV translates it this way, "And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love."  Notice the difference?  The NIV defines "it."  In Greek, it is a feminine singluar pronoun, which in this passage can refer to "love," "commandment," or "truth."  If a pastor were to forgo learning and using Greek, he would likely assume that John is referring to love, but this may not be the case.  Knowing Greek does not give you all the answers, but it does lead you to ask the right questions.  If a pastor doesn't know Greek, he will always have to rely on the work of others as a primary, not secondary, source.

Another aspect in which an education in the original languages is valuable is that it makes us slow down.  This was a point that Dr. Agan made in class.  We are too good at English.  We can breeze through a text rather quickly and not see the little things.  In reading a second language we tend to read more carefully and precisely.  Another thing that happens in our first language is that we fail to stop and think about the tiny details.  For instance, sometimes there is one English word for a few Greek words, or vice versa.  In Greek if we are reading and see two different words for the verb "to see" in one paragraph, we might just slow down and ask why.

Yet one more reason that learning Greek, and learning it well, is a worthwhile undertaking is that it helps pastors understand the text in such a way that they need not appeal to their knowledge of Greek to make their point.  This may sound odd at first, but I think it is true.  If you know and understand the language, you can probably find a translation that emphasizes whatever nuance you are hoping to draw out.  If you don't have a good grasp of what is happening in a text in it's original language, you are more likely to quote a lexicon to make your point.  This can make your sermon sound too "heady" or, worse, cause people to think that they need to know Greek to understand the Bible.  To put it another way, I have heard it said that if you know something really well, you will be able to explain it in a simple way that a child can understand.  With a good understanding of what is happening in the Greek, a simple explanation in English will be sufficient and transparent in a sermon while concurrently delivering the nuance of the Greek text.

Finally, the more a pastor uses the Greek, the better he will be at it.  If our pastors don't learn Greek (and Hebrew) they won't use it.  If they do not receive a good background for it in seminary, they will rarely gain this on their own later.  A foreign language is a lot of work, and if one doesn't consistently use and practice it, it will continue to be hard.  When it remains hard it won't be used.  Software programs don't make the work easier.  It is much easier to know the language and use the tools as a help in answering exegetical questions or looking up similar grammatical constructions.  Using these tools to look up every tense and all of the uses of the dative is a task that will be far to burdensome for any pastor to bear.  Only in learning the language well enough to read it on one's own (or with the use of a good reader's Bible) will allow a pastor to keep his language skills in the midst of all of his other responsibilities.

In short, I think it is imperative that those of us who are training for the pastoral ministry should at least learn the languages well, even if, as pastors (myself likely included down the road), we don't use it on a daily basis.  While all of a pastor's duties are important, none are more so than knowing his Bible.  The best way to know any written work is knowing it in its original language.  It is hard.  I know it is hard.  My Greek grammar that has found itself tossed on the floor at times knows it is hard, but it is oh so rewarding.  The effort, the time, the expense that is spent learning these languages in seminary will be rewarded, over and over, down the road.  We must trust the wisdom of our father's in the faith who taught these languages before our time.  We must take it upon ourselves to teach and be taught them in the future, for God's glory and the church's good.

*and Hebrew.  In this post I will mostly be writing about Greek, since I have yet to learn Hebrew

"Cor meum tibi offero, Domine, prompte et sincere."

Translating the Bible

It was not that long ago that I would joke about the abbreviation of the New International Version of the Bible (NIV) standing for "Nearly Inspired Version."  Funny, that, but I was certainly speaking from ignorance (and arrogance?).  The theory behind the joke is that the NIV's dynamic equivalent translation philosophy was by default inferior to the English Standard Version's (ESV)- aka "English Superior Version"- formal equivalence translation philosophy.  The first tries to capture idea for idea what the text says, while the latter tries to capture the meaning word for word.  What I've discovered in the last two weeks of translating 1 John is that these categories, while helpful, are not absolute, and the idea that the formally equivalent versions are always and in toto superior for every purpose is a fallacy.  (As an aside, I've not yet read any of the 2011 NIV, but that is somewhat beside the point).

During our two week class Dr. Agan tried to drill into our heads that the question, "What is the best version of the Bible?" should be met with the answer, "For what purpose?"  Are you hoping to look into the sentence structure of the Greek, but don't know Greek?  The NASB might be a good bet. Are you hoping to read the Bible publicly, but leave some exegetical questions ambiguous (perhaps ones you plan to address in Sunday School or a Bible study)?  Give the ESV a turn.  Do you want to have some insight into the differences in different Greek manuscripts, but don't know how to use the apparatus in a Greek text?  Try one of the two just mentioned and a NKJV.  Do you want to read large passages of Scripture and have more of the interpretive issues answered for you?  The NIV is great for that.

There are many other variables as well.  The sorts of questions that I just reviewed would likely be issues that a person who is a fairly serious student of the Bible might ask.  But different versions work well for different types of people.  The best version for Jr. High student is probably (though not necessarily) different from the version a college student would use.  A child will use a different version from her parents.  An older person, especially in the South, will likely prefer a KJV.

Jorge Luis Borges once quipped, "The original is unfaithful to the translation."  George Borrow said, "Translation is at best an echo."  The author Umberto Eco said of translation that "Translation is the art of failure."  What these men are getting at is that you always loose something in the translation.  If you a capture a verbs aspect well, you may loose its tense.  If you get its tense, you may loose mood.  When writing a simple translation (non-annotated) it is difficult to convey every single thing that the original says in every instance.  It just cannot be done.

But what is lost in translation?  Without getting into modern language theory, the simple answer is nuance.  It is like a piece of music.  Whoever can read music is able to play a song if they have a notes on a page.  Think of a hymnal.  It's just a key signature, notes, and words.  If you can read music, your in good shape.  But in truly excellent music played by competent musicians there will be more on the page than just notes.  The music contains something called dynamic marks.  These tell the musician or conductor how loudly to play, how quickly to play, and the style in which to play.  It is the nuance of the music.  This last bit is what is lost in translation.

Obviously, you can understand a piece of music without the dynamics.  Our English Bible's capture the meaning of the Bible, and capture it rather brilliantly.  In fact, this was one of the major themes of the Protestant Reformation.  In my own church's confession this is made explicit.  In Chapter 1 section 8 the Assembly at Westminster wrote, "...because these original tongues [languages] are not known to all the people of God, who have right unto, and interest in the Scriptures, and are commanded, in the fear of God, to read and search them, therefore they are to be translated into the vulgar [common] language of every nation unto which they come that, the Word of God dwelling plentifully in all, they may worship Him in an acceptable manner; and, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, may have hope."

We are fortunate to speak one of the world's most used languages.  The number and quality of our English language translations is enviable.  There have been many faithful and careful translators who have made the Bible accessible.  But if we do not understand how difficult it is to translate anything from one language to another, we will fail to be generous to these outstanding translations.  Some people fall into the arrogant, ignorant attitude that I embraced all too recently.  We as Christians should never give someone reason to doubt that the Bible they hold is the Word of God.  If they are using a faithful translation (which would exclude things like the New World Translation) we should encourage others to read it and receive the Spirit through it.

May we all take the advice of the childlike voice that lead to Augustine's conversion, "take up and read" in whichever version you prefer.

(In the next few days or so, I plan to look into this topic again, namely to evaluate the question, "should pastors take the time and money to learn the original languages if our English translations are so good?"  In that post I will write a few more details about how some of these Bibles translate the same Greek passage in different ways).

Some of the Bibles laying around the house: ESV, NEB, Living Bible, NASB, KJV, NKJV, NIV,  USB4, NA27

"Cor meum tibi offero, Domine, prompte et sincere."