****The Randy White Guide to Hermeneutics

Session 3 | What Does The Bible Say?

The Lesson, In a Nutshell

*Your decisions about the content of the text will determine the output and conclusions.*
In the previous lesson we learned that decisions about the content of the Bible determine your interpretation of each passage in the Bible. Now we focus on the content of the text and see that what we believe about the actual text of Scripture determines the results of our interpretation.
In this lesson, when we refer to the text of Scripture, we are talking about the actual words which we are interpreting.
There are two main issues when it comes to decisions about the content of the text:

• Which text is the Biblical text?

• Which method do I use to translate this text?

These two questions are so vastly important in Biblical hermeneutics that it would not be overstating the case to say that all of Christianity needs to stop where they are and answer these questions. It is shameful that Christianity does not have an answer to which is the original Bible text AND* what methods should be used to translate that text*. It seems to me that the Achilles heel of Christianity is that it has never been able to determine what the Gospel is nor what the Scripture is. On the former question, Christianity has broken into denominations, which is necessary for such an important subject. On the latter question, large swaths of Christianity have determined that it doesn't matter. Sadly, the average evangelical church has no interest in a debate on the issues related to the content of the Biblical text.

Which Text Is The Biblical Text?

Due to the faithful care that Jews gave to the Biblical text, there are very few textual variants in the Hebrew Scriptures which we call the Old Testament. For the purposes of this lesson, we will focus on the Greek Scriptures we call the New Testament.
There are “families" of Biblical text, the Byzantine, and the Alexandrian.
The word Byzantine refers to that which comes from Byzantium, or the eastern Roman Empire. The western Roman Empire collapsed about A.D. 476. From this time until 1453 the eastern Roman Empire, with its capital in Constantinople, continued the Greco-Roman traditions but rejected Greco-Roman deities in favor of the official religion of the empire, Christianity.
The word Alexandrian refers to the Judeo-Greco (hellinized) philosophical movement based in Alexandria, Egypt from the first through the fourth centuries, A.D. Texts of Scripture from the Alexandrian family are always older than those from the Byzantine family but are far fewer in number.
Of over 5,000 existing ancient Greek manuscripts over 90% are from the Byzantine family. These texts are almost totally identical in content. These texts also come from various parts of the world and were widely disseminated through the Christian community through the ages. The Alexandrian texts are few and come almost exclusively from Egypt.
Until the Revised Version of 1881, every English Bible ever translated came from the Byzantine text. Only with the Revised Version (and now a plethora of English versions) did translators begin to produce English Bibles using Alexandrian texts.
We should note that it would be a fallacy (of great proportions) to assume that the older text is always the better text. Though proponents of the Alexandrian textual family often make this claim, one should consider the following:

• Byzantium was in the area in which many of the epistles were originally written and distributed, while none of the writing or distribution came from Egypt. An argument could be made that Alexandrian text was far from the hub of Christian activity and had more opportunity for perversion.

• The climate of Alexandria, with its low humidity, is much more favorable to the long-term viability of papyri (an early form of paper). In the more humid climate of Byzantium such documents could only be expected to last several decades, while in the dry climate of Alexandria they could easily last hundreds of years. It would be fallacy to think that Byzantium texts did not exist prior to the fifth century simply because existent copies do not exist from earlier time-periods.

• The religious culture of Alexandria was filled with mysticism, asceticism, syncretism, and Gnosticism from the beginning. The theologians from that time-period and location were invariably proponents of heretical theology and always held to an allegorical approach to interpretation. Two examples would be Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-215) and Origen (c. 185-253). When considering the accuracy of Alexandrian texts, the context of the time and location should be considered.

In short, one should never base the accuracy of a certain text on the age of that text. There are so many more factors that must be considered.
As for me, I think that the preponderance of evidence supports the thousands upon thousands of Byzantine texts. These texts compose what has become known as the Textus Receptus“received text." “received text," the term refers to the Byzantine family of texts which are so virtually identical that differences are of no substantial significance.
The Alexandrian texts compose the Critical Text. The challenge that we face in our interpretation of Scripture is that the vast majority of* evangelical Christianity is using an underlying text of Scripture which had been rejected prior to 1881*. The most popular rendition of this text is the The Novum Testamentum Graece (Nestle-Aland), currently in its 28th revision, with a 29th“standard," the church through the ages has rejected both the Alexandrian texts and the Critical Text derived thereof.
The interpreter of the Word must, therefore, determine which word he will interpret. The Textus Receptus is the basis for the King James Version, the New King James Version, Young's Literal Translation, and a few other lesser-known translations. The Critical Text is the basis of hundreds of English translations, most of which have been revised numerous times since their debut.

Which Method Do I Use To Translate This Text?

Once the text of Scripture is determined, the interpreter must determine a translation method for interpretation. Few students work primarily from Hebrew and Greek texts, and such is not necessary to have a full understanding of the Word of God. This work goes from the assumption that an English translation of the Scripture will be the student's primary source of God's Word.
In Biblical translation, there is a continuum between word-for-word and thought-for thought translations. A true word-for-word is almost impossible since it requires ignoring rules of English grammar. In Greek and Hebrew, parts of speech are determined by spelling, and word order is not as necessary as in English, where parts of speech are often displayed in word order. In addition to clear rules of grammar, there are unwritten rules of functional grammar. For example, the Greek will often speak of the Spirit Holy, but in English we would only speak of the Holy Spirit. A Greek interlinear or the Young's Literal translation use a word-for-word approach.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, a thought-for-thought approach believes that the power of Scripture is not in the actual words, but in the ideas behind the words. “dynamic equivalence." The New International Version“father of dynamic equivalence" in English Bibles.
The challenge of word-for-word is readability. The challenge of thought-for-thought is accuracy. In just about any estimation, it seems, accuracy is more important than readability. For the interpreter of the Scripture, readability is very low on the list of needs. Interpreters need (and must demand) accuracy. To overcome readability issues, a host of tools is at the interpreter's disposal, including repetition, the use of qualified dictionaries, verbalization, feedback from others, and so much more.

Summary

If the content of Scripture is words from the Byzantine text that are interpreted word-for-word, then the output of the interpreter is much more likely to be Biblically and thus theologically sound.