Session 1 | Can You Hold A bible In Your Hand?
The Lesson, In a Nutshell
Your view of the nature of the Bible dictates your hermeneutics
But First, let's consider the word
Hermeneutics is that awful sounding word with a simple meaning: the interpretation of words.
“pertaining to." Thus a pragmatic is concerned with the pragmatos“deeds done"). Hermeneutics is concerned with hermeneutes*, *“interpretation." It was a word that grew out of Greek mythology and its god Hermes, who was the “messenger god" and the “god of oration."
A few simple examples of the Greek word in use can be found in John 1:38 and 42 or Hebrews 7:2. First Corinthians 12:10 gives another perfect illustration of the meaning of the word, speaking of those who had the gift of interpretation of tongues.
Simply put, hermeneutics is interpretation. We do it every day, in all sorts of circumstances. We interpret the news. We interpret a text message. We interpret a facial expression. In all of these, we have a set of experiences and knowledge which help us to do the interpretation. All of this is hermeneutics.
But Biblical hermeneutics is such an important matter that we write books about it, hold graduate level classes on it, and make it a field of study in itself. This is because, for Christianity, everything rises and falls on interpretation.
The Nature Of the Bible
If the Christian faith rises and falls on hermeneutics, then hermeneutics begins, by necessity, on that which is being interpreted. Therefore, we cannot study hermeneutics without settling the matter of the nature of the Word of God.
The Bible is either religious myth created by religious people to support their belief system, or it is, itself, the oracles of God. If this is the case, then it would be filled with factual errors of past events used to support the theological claims. The work of interpretation would be to determine fact from myth.
If it is the oracles of God, it is either a perfect record of history and the perfect revelation of God's knowledge, or it is human author's best guess and memory on God's revelation.
The internal testimony of Scripture is exclusively that the Bible is the Word of God, with no error whatsoever. Consider the following:
Daniel 10:21 speaks of the scripture of truth.
Romans 3:2 refers to the Hebrew Scripture as the oracles of God.
2 Timothy 3:15-16 claims that all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is able to equip the man of God to the point that he be perfect.
2 Peter 1:21 the prophets were holy men of God who were moved by the Holy Ghost in the things they said.
The Bible closes with words of warning about adding to or removing from the book of this prophecy, in Revelation 22:18-19.
Can You Hold A Bible In Your Hand?
If our task and our desire is to interpret“can I get a copy?" This question is not asked enough by those who believe the Bible. Yet skeptics who reject the Bible use it to mock our passion for handling Scripture with care and reverence. We need a ready answer to the question.
And the answer involves two aspects. First is that of the availability of the Word of God. Second is that of the translation of the Word of God.
“original autographs" of the Scripture are not known to exist. But do we have to insist on the first original copy to say that we hold a Bible in our hand? I do not know of any such requirement for any other resource.
We will soon study issues of the underlying text and how that determines what we are interpreting in hermeneutics. But we will suffice it to say, at this juncture, that despite the absence of the first handwritten copies, we can be comfortable that we have copies (and copies galore) of the original words of the authors. The text of Scripture has been written more times than any other text, and all other texts combined. This is true both in its original languages and in practically every written language known to man.
But while we agree that the original has been preserved, what about the issue of the translations of the original“the Word of God?"
“there is no perfect translation." If this be the case, then can we hold a Bible in our hand?
For the purposes of our study, we will dismiss matters of spelling. We can also, reluctantly, dismiss matters of saying the same thing a different way. If there is no possible way of getting a different interpretation out of a translational variant, let's go ahead and set that aside. For example, Genesis 25:7 in the King James Version says that Abraham lived an hundred threescore and fifteen years. The New American Standard Bible (95)“one-hundred and seventy-five years" and the English Standard Version says that he lived “175 years." In the end, regardless of the manner in which you put it in print, Abraham's life was the same length and there is no possible way of getting a different interpretation. Putting aside matters of spelling and synonymous phrases brings the translations largely into harmony.
Largely, but not completely. What about passages that are translated from the same underlying text, but the translation says something very different? Let's consider Romans 14:23, for example.
KJV: he that doubteth is damned.
NASB: he that doubts is condemned
TEV: *…God condemns them*
NCV: those who act without being sure it is right are wrong
The Message: you are out of line
I think we would have to logically admit that two dissimilar books cannot be the same book. But do we have the book“the Word of God?"
*For the purposes of our study, I am going to work on this principle: The King James Bible and its underlying texts are the most attested to and defended words known to mankind and can therefore be trusted as the Word of God*.
