Something has been bothering me for quite some time now that I would like to get some input on. A lot of people reference the Bible as a history book or science book, basically quote it as fact. That is what troubles me and brings me to my question.
If the Bible is thousands of years old, has been translated between nearly every language and has been reproduced countless times, wouldn't some of the information be skewed or incorrect due to being lost in translation?
If you took an English version and had it translated to Spanish and then back again, I can guarantee there will be changes between each version. But now do that over and over and over for so many years. How can people be certain what is in the Bible today is what was in it 1,000 years ago or even 200 years ago especially when ways of reproducing text were horribly unreliable throughout history??
All it would've taken is one tired person typing "John" instead of "Jesus" and we have a new story being printed and distributed. It's like if we were playing telephone between languages but with a book.
So if it's likely that there are inconsistencies with it, how is it still quoted as being true?
There's a couple points I'd offer:
1) The Bible hasn't been translated back and forth between languages. The books of the Bible have been translated many times, but it's not back and forth. When you pick up an English translation you are getting a Bible that was translated from Hebrew and Aramaic texts (Old Testament) and Greek texts (New Testament), the exception to this is that some translations use the Septuagint rather than the Masoretic Text, but that's rare and also there are some books of the Deuterocanonicals (books found in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles but not usually in Protestant Bibles) which were originally written in Greek or which we only have Greek translations (via the Septuagint). The source texts used by Bible translators are original language texts, critical editions based upon careful study of hundreds, even thousands, of available manuscripts. And a good Bible usually points out in the marginal notes where there are variances in the manuscripts, and thus alternate readings are often provided.
2) Very few Christians believe the Bible is a "history book" or a "science book", that really isn't how the majority of Christians look to our Scriptures, we understand our Scriptures as a collection of writings which have been received and confessed down through the centuries to be read in the church as part of our worship--the purpose of the Bible is to build up and edify our faith and point us to Jesus. Early Christian statements to this regard include St. Augustine who spoke of Christ as the "One Utterance" of Scripture; which is how most Christians understand and read our Scriptures: as being about Christ, Christ is their chief subject, and they are read that we might hear and encounter Him. In traditional, orthodox Christian teaching it is Jesus Christ that is God's Word, not a text. The Bible, therefore, isn't a book of rules, or a book of propositions, or a book at all, but a library of books which exist for the edification of Christian faith, to shape Christian practice, and direct our focus to where it properly belongs: on Jesus. It's quite important that early Christians understood this, which is why you often find non-literal readings of the creation stories:
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For who that has understanding will suppose that the first, and second, and third day, and the evening and the morning, existed without a sun, and moon, and stars? And that the first day was, as it were, also without a sky? And who is so foolish as to suppose that God, after the manner of a husbandman, planted a paradise in Eden, towards the east, and placed in it a tree of life, visible and palpable, so that one tasting of the fruit by the bodily teeth obtained life? And again, that one was a partaker of good and evil by masticating what was taken from the tree? And if God is said to walk in the paradise in the evening, and Adam to hide himself under a tree, I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance, and not literally." - Origen of Alexandria, c. 200 CE
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It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation." - St. Augustine of Hippo, c. 400 CE
The above is a warning then later echoed by St. Thomas Aquinas,
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First, that the truth of Scripture be held without wavering. Second, that since sacred Scripture can be explained in many ways, one should adhere to no explanation so precipitously that he would [still] presume to assert this understanding of Scripture [even if] it were [later] agreed, because of a certain argument, that this position is wrong—lest Scripture be mocked by unbelievers because of this, and the way of believing be blocked for them." - St. Thomas Aquinas, 1265-1274 CE
The insistence on a woodenly literal reading of the creation stories, and what we would term Young Earth Creationism is, largely speaking, a rather modern idea. It didn't even really become widespread in Fundamentalist and Evangelical circles until the 1960's and 70's. One can find more literal interpretations of those texts throughout history, just as one can find non-literal ones; but the sort of dogmaticism we see in the modern Creationist movement is entirely modern, a phenomenon of the 20th and 21st centuries.
-CryptoLutheran
