Are You Taking That Literally?

I have heard some people say that the Bible is the literal Word of God, and I agree with that, but then I have also heard people say that they take the Word of God literally. That's not the same thing, although it sounds very similar. The thing to remember is that, even though the Bible is the literal Word of God, that doesn't mean that there are not figures of speech in it.

Do you think that when Jesus said, "Ye are the salt of the earth," that we were immediately transubstantiated into salt? (wasn't that the punishment for Lot's wife?) Or was He merely stating that, just as salt can be used as a preservative to keep certain foods from going bad, that it is only because there are some people left on earth that God thinks are worth saving, that He hasn't gone ahead and destroyed the whole planet (in other words, we are the preservative for the earth). Unfortunately, sometimes it takes a lot of prayer to understand exactly what is meant by some of the passages in the Bible. Fortunately, God wants us to understand, so He will give us understanding, if we ask for it.

One of the most amusing arguments that I have heard, as far as not believing the Bible, is, "Do you have a paddle strapped to your weapon?" This is not so much a figure of speech as just an anachronism. God was trying to teach Israel a little something about sanitary hygiene, without getting into the explanation of why it's a bad idea to just provide a place for flies to gather and spread germs. I think most of us know, these days, that if you aren't where you can flush it, you should bury it. Besides, that is Old Testament law, and we are not under the law, but under grace.

By the way, while I am on the subject, I have heard a lot of people (many of whom should have known better) say the 'The Law' is the Old Testament. The Jews divide up what we call the Old Testament (what they call the Tanakh) into three parts: The Torah, the Neviim, and the Ketuvim. By the way, they don't arrange the books in quite the same order that we do, either. It starts out the same: The Torah contains Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy (although those books are called Bereshit, Shemot, VaYikra, BaMidar, and Devarim, respectively). The Neviim contains Joshua, Judges, First Samuel, Second Samuel, First Kings, Second Kings, but then goes to Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the Minor Prophets (Yehoshua, Shoftim, Shmuel A, Shmuel B, Melachim A, Melachim B, Yisheyah, Yermiyah, Yechezchial, and Treisar). Ketuvim contains everything else. My point is this: Ketuvim is the Hebrew word for writings, basically, this is the poetry of the Tanakh; Neviim is the Hebrew word for Prophets, so all the books written by prophets are included in the Neviim; Torah is the Hebrew word for law, so all the books of the law are in the Torah, or the books of Moses--also known as the Pentateuch (although Pentateuch comes from the Greek, so I guess it would be improper to refer to those books as the Pentateuch unless you were also using the Greek names Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). Did you catch what 'The Law' actually is? The five books of Moses--which would explain why the Law is sometimes referred to as the Law of Moses.

In summary, the Bible should be taken to be the literal Word of God, but not everything in it should be taken literally, and 'The Law' refers to the five books of Moses.

The Afterlife (part 2)

I posted about the afterlife one day last week (here), but I didn't address the fact that some people don't believe that there is an after life, and some believe that there is an afterlife only for the chosen few.

Obviously I'm not going to change the minds of anyone who doesn't believe in life after death. The Bible says that man was created in God's image. I happen to like what Voltaire said about that, "If God has made us in his image, we have returned him the favor." People have a tendency to think that if we were created in God's image, then God must look like us. That makes sense, as far as it goes, but, then, what does God look like? Is He black, white, or Asian? Is He blonde, brunette, or redhead? The answer, of course, is, yes, He is; and, yet, He's not. It is a mistake to think that God has a physical being, John 4:24 tells us that He is a Spirit. How does a physical being take on the image of a spiritual being? In Genesis, chapter 2, it tells us that we are created as immortal souls. So, our spirit is like God's Spirit: immortal, never ending. But God told Adam and Eve that they could die. In the physical sense they could, just as we can. Jesus told Martha that anyone who believed in Him would never die; but He was talking about Lazarus, who was already in the grave. John 3:16 says that believers should not perish, but have everlasting life.

What about non-believers? Well, non-believers have the same immortal soul that believers have, the difference is whether spending eternity in Hell really counts as 'life.' Some people believe that if one dies outside of the will of God, then one would just go in the ground and that would be the end of it; their spirit is extinguished. Part of me wishes I could believe that, but, to be honest, if I did, I would have committed suicide a long time ago. There have been times in my life that I felt it would have been better for me if I had simply ceased to exist. I suspect that is why Job wished that he had never been born. His wife suggested death as an option, but he rebuked her. I suspect that he knew that his death would only make things worse for him.

There are a number of times that Jesus talked about life after death for non-believers: In Matthew 8, Matthew 13, Matthew 22, Matthew 24, Matthew 25, and Luke 16 He talked about punishment awaiting those that do not make it into Heaven. (Side note: The parable of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16 I think is particularly interesting, first because, out of all the parables he told, Lazarus is the only person that He named. The rich man indicates that if he can't get anything for himself, he would at least like for his family members to be warned, that they not have to join him. He asked that Lazarus be raised from the dead for his brothers' sake. Abraham tells him that they should hear Moses and the prophets; the rich man protests that if one were raised from the dead... In the course of Jesus' ministry, Jesus was raised from the dead, but so was a man named Lazarus... It also strikes me that, as bad as the rich man had it, the one thing that could have made it worse would have been to have someone that he cared about join him in the pit.) The standard argument there, is that those are all parables, those are not things that actually happened. As far as I am concerned, that means that we should pay even more heed to them. Remember that parables are stories that Jesus used to try to make a point. He chose the situations, and the characters in His stories to illustrate spiritual things to the carnally minded. What is He trying to teach in these parables if not that the righteous have an eternal reward, and the wicked have an eternal punishment? Besides, Luke 13 is not a parable, and it makes it pretty clear that people who don't make it into Heaven aren't simply going to cease to exist. Matthew 18 (and Mark 9) is not a parable, and it talks about an 'everlasting fire;' if we simply ceased to exist, eventually that fire would run out of things to burn, wouldn't it?

Of course, one belief that persists is that Hell is really only temporary; that it will only exist until judgment, as suggested in 1 Peter. My question would be, how much torment are you prepared to endure, just on the proposition that it is only temporary; without even knowing how long 'temporary' might be (days, months, years, centuries, millennea)? Further, although Hell is temporary, in Revelations it says that Hell will be cast into the lake of fire. Sort of like, out of the frying pan...

Biblical Expressions

When I was younger, my father used to make a point of holding the door for my aunt, and saying, "Age before beauty." Her response was always the same, she would smile sweetly, and say, "Pearls before swine." I don't remember when I realized that my aunt was quoting Jesus (sort of).

There are a lot of other expressions that are used in the Bible, some of them originated in the Bible. Judas was left holding the bag, but that expression doesn't seem to have had the implication of guilt that it does now. Paul (or Saul at the time) was knocked off his high horse, although, in all fairness, the Bible doesn't say that he was riding a horse, but the expression fits: Here is a man who was so wrong, and so sure that he was right (and so proud of being right) until being proven completely and unarguably wrong. Also the term scapegoat comes from the Bible. When I was in the Navy, we used to keep a rope ladder on the ship in case of an emergency, known as a Jacob's ladder. Belshazzar saw the handwriting on the wall. Jesus warned against letting your left hand know what your right hand is doing, which can be a good thing, but today is normally viewed as poor communication. Abraham Lincoln is usually credited with saying that a house divided against itself shall not stand--but he was quoting Jesus. Herod's stepdaughter wanted John the Baptist's head on a silver platter... The expression, the blind leading the blind is fairly well known, now, I don't think it was when Jesus said it. Washing one's hands of something is basically allowing without accepting the blame for--it didn't work so well for Pontius Pilate. Money is the root of all evil is a common expression, but it's also a misquote. The truth shall set you free. Out of the mouths of babes come truth. Apostle Paul had a thorn in his side. Can a leopard change it's spots? (I've blogged about that before--but not using that reference) Why is a skeptic referred to as a doubting Thomas?

Of course, there are some jokes that have evolved from the expressions in the Bible. What is God's favorite automotive brand, and how do we know? Well, he drove Adam and Eve out of the garden in a Fury, so He must like Plymouths. On the other hand, the early church was partial to Hondas--on the day of Pentacost, they managed to squeeze 120 people into one Accord. What kind of sports did they play in the Bible? Well, baseball, obviously, because the Bible starts out saying, "In the big inning..." But also tennis, because Daniel served in the king's court. No mention of football that I know of, although some people in modern times have made the request, "Drop kick me, Jesus, through the goal posts of life..."

Of course, there are also misunderstood expressions. I've blogged about 'fetching a compass' before. In Acts 7:54, it says that when Stephen preached the gospel to the crowd, they 'gnashed on him with their teeth." To gnash means to grind together--all this is really saying is that they gnashed their teeth at him or because of him. I heard some people say that these people were so upset that they were chewing on Stephen; I don't think so. In 1st Samuel 5, the Bible talks about God smiting the Philistines with 'emerods.' This is a word that is no longer in common use. The word has 'evolved.' For some reason it has attracted a lot more letters. Let's just say that if the word hadn't changed, there would be commercials now for tubes of 'Preparation E.'

Quizzes

I get a little frustrated from time to time with quizzes. I like to have my mind challenged, but sometimes the people that want to challenge my mind don't do a very good job of it.

Some time ago, I was visiting a web site that had quizzes on a number of different subjects, but most of the choices didn't really appeal to me. There was one on science fiction, so I clicked on that one. A ten question quiz, the first question was about Star Trek, and it was easy. The second question was about Star Wars, also easy. The rest of the questions dealt with Joss Wheedon stuff. Okay, Joss Wheedon has done some science fiction ("Alien: Resurrection", "Titan A. E.", "Firefly" and "Serenity"), but none of these questions dealt with any of that. The remaining eight questions all dealt with "Buffy" and "Angel"--not science fiction. I managed to guess right on four of those questions, giving me a 60%. Normally I would be disappointed in myself for scoring 60% on a science fiction quiz, but, considering that only 20% of the quiz dealt with science fiction, I felt pretty good about myself--just not very good towards whoever put the quiz together.

Another web site was trying to set itself up as a collection of expertise, and they were taking applications from people who felt that they were experts in a particular field. In order to qualify, though, you had to score well on a quiz prepared by one of their existing experts. No, science fiction was not an available category (not that I really think that I'm an expert in science fiction--I know more than a lot of people, but not nearly as much as some), but the Bible was. That's interesting; let's see if I can qualify as a Bible expert. I didn't. One question in particular that bothered me was, "How many loaves of bread and how many fishes did Jesus use to feed the multitude?" That's kind of a vague question, since Jesus fed the multitude more than once; but the first time it was five loaves and two fishes, the second time it was seven loaves and 'a few' fishes. Neither one of those were possible answers. The closest I could find was five loaves and three fishes, so I put that. WRONG! The 'correct' answer was five of each. I'd sure like to know which version of the Bible that came from...

There was also another one that was obviously put together by someone just trying to be contentious--they asked a lot of very strange questions (meaning that I didn't know how to begin to answer them) , but one in particular asked, "What is the seventh commandment?" Their answer: "Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk." That's not even in the right chapter...

Anyway, one that I like much better is on the gotoquiz web site. To be honest, they call this "The Ultimate Bible Quiz," but most of the answers can be deduced even if you don't know (they have a bad tendency to ask 'who in the Bible' questions with two of the choices being people born in the twentieth century...). Maybe that's why I like it... Personally, though, I think the ultimate Bible quiz should have questions on it like, "Name both of Ruth's husbands." with choices like, "a. Mahlon and Chilion b. Mahlon and Boaz c. Chilion and Boaz d. Mahlon, Chilion, and Boaz," or, name all of the women mentioned in the lineage of Christ in Matthew. But, of course, I'm sure that such a quiz would have questions on it that I wouldn't be able to answer--but it would be fun to learn from it.

Marital Relations

The Bible talks a good bit about marriage. Of course, a lot of things have changed since the Bible was written, but people remain very much the same. Some of what was written is not as clear as it was, because of changes in culture, but it still applies.

There is a passage in Matthew chapter 5 that I had to spend a lot of time and prayer before I felt like I understood it. Jesus talks about putting away one's wife for cause of fornication, but then says that if she marries someone else, she is committing adultery. Now, I wondered about this for a long time, because my understanding of the two words, 'fornication' and 'adultery' is that adultery is between two people, at least one of whom is married, but are not married to each other; fornication is between two people, neither of whom is married. So, the question in my mind was, how does a married woman (and this principle works the other way also--even though Jesus was talking about a man divorcing a woman, a woman can divorce a man, too. That probably didn't much happen in that culture, but, let's face it, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander) commit fornication? Someone suggested that maybe it could be considered fornication if the other person isn't married. I struggled with that for awhile, until I realized that, right there in the same verse, Jesus says that if she that has been put away marries someone else, then she is committing adultery, and the man that she marries is committing adultery. Obviously, this judgment comes from an understanding that the divorce isn't valid, she is still married; so why would the same act be considered fornication before the meaningless divorce, and adultery afterwards?

The Bible also makes many comparisons between the relationship of a husband and wife and the relationship of Christ to the church. In John 3:29, John the Baptist refers to himself as the friend of the bridegroom; Matthew 25 refers to the coming of Christ as a wedding, with those that were ready at the time of His coming being the bride; Matthew 22 has a parable about a great king throwing a wedding feast for his son (who could that be?); and Revelations 19 talks about the marriage of the Lamb. This is an example of the Bible using a physical thing that people generally understand, to try to explain something spiritual. Jesus did that a lot in His teachings, because we are physical creatures, and we sometimes have a hard time understanding spiritual things. So, in the spiritual sense, we are betrothed to Christ, and, when He returns, then we will be His bride.

So, in the first paragraph, when the passage uses the term, 'fornication,' it is talking in the spiritual sense, not the physical, since a married person cannot commit fornication; but we are not yet married to Christ. And just in case it wasn't clear, Apostle Paul spells it out for us in 1st Corinthians 7. If a brother or sister is married to an unbeliever (by the way, I don't think Paul is advocating religious mixed marriages, but if a couple gets married, and then one of them accepts Christ, or if one of a Christian couple decides that they no longer believe, either way, a Christian man or woman is now married to an unbeliever, through no fault of their own) then the Christian has no right to end that marriage, but if the unbeliever chooses to go a different way, then that marriage is dissolved, the Christian is not bound to that individual any longer.

So, does that mean that adultery is not a good enough reason to get a divorce? Not in and of itself, no, really it isn't. On the other hand, it's unlikely that a Christian spouse would commit adultery. Don't misunderstand me, we are imperfect people, and sometimes we slip. If one of us were to stumble that badly, but to confess, and to show contrition, then the spouse is required to forgive, just as God forgives. Keep in mind also, though, that even though Jesus said that you must forgive until seventy times seven, I don't think that's talking about the same sin, over and over again. If I stole a car, and then confessed, and returned the car, and then went out and stole another car, would you believe that I had repented of stealing the first car? Maybe I repented that I didn't steal a nicer car... By the same token, if you catch your spouse cheating on you, and they confess, and make a show of repentance, but then later you catch them again, I think that you can assume that they are being unfaithful to both you and God: Toss that person out. Well, okay, I can't really tell you that you have to, you may be of a mind that once is a slip, twice is just the same slip again, and even three times is just evidence that your spouse has a weakness. Pray about that. Hard. An unfaithful spouse can bring home a whole world of trouble that you really don't need.

Rahab

Most of you should be familiar with the Old Testemant story of the battle of Jericho: When Israel came out of Egypt, they wandered in the wilderness for forty years, and when they finally entered into the Promised Land, they found that cities had been built there by the Canaanites. God told Joshua to first attack Jericho, a heavily fortified city with massive walls around it. Maybe 'attack' isn't the right word: the battle didn't happen for at least a week. First Joshua sent two spies inot the city, presumably to get a sense for the feelings of the people of Jericho. To be honest, the spies report had no real bearing on the outcome: God told Joshua what to do, each step of the way. But while the spies were in Jericho, they were found out, but a woman known as Rahab the harlot helped them to escape. As a result, she, and her household, were allowed to convert to Judaism after Jericho was destroyed. It's almost as though God had Joshua deploy spies just to see who was ready to accept Him as their God.

It's an odd thing: In ancient times, it was commonly believed that if two peoples, with different belief systems, went to war with each other, then their gods also went to war; so the victor was believed to have the stronger gods. In other words, if you can defeat me, that doesn't necessarily mean that you are stronger than I am, but it does mean that your gods are stronger than mine; clearly, I should accept your gods as my own. The problem that the Jews kept running into was that, even though this belief was widespread, they were uniquely monotheistic. Other peoples had a hard time with the idea that one God was stronger than all of their gods (even Rachel had a hard time giving up the gods that she had grown up with, even after seeing how Jacob's God blessed him).

For some reason, most preachers don't want to talk about Rahab's profession. We had a visiting preacher at our church once that commented on it: He pointed out that everyone in Rahab's house was saved, and he postulated that she must have had mom and dad and grandparents and cousins by the dozens in her house. He made a little joke, that she must have been a very good harlot--apparently she was able to buy the hotel that she worked out of. Of course, that's all supposition; the Bible doesn't tell us how many people were in Rahab's house. I have to wonder, myself, how many of her family could she have told about her agreement with the spies? I'm sure that there were lots of people that she would have liked to have had with her when the Israelites attacked, but that would have turned her in if they had known that she was consorting with the enemy.

I feel confident that she found another line of work once she became a Jew, but isn't it interesting that out of all the people in Jericho, the one that God chose was a harlot. We know something about her heart, because she helped the spies. The Bible doesn't give us any indication as to how she knew who the spies were. Maybe God knew that she had a willing heart and revelated that to her; maybe she realized who they were simply because they were the only men in Jericho that didn't treat her like a harlot (after all, it didn't make any difference to them--all of the people of Jericho were non-believers that were destined to be slaughtered).

Sometimes we, as Christians, get very caught up in our own image. I don't want to be seen with that woman, she's a prostitute; someone might think that I'm soliciting her (or being solicited by her. Whatever). It doesn't help that some very prominent people (both televangelsts and politicians) have been caught actively seeking sex with someone other than their spouse. Most people automatically assume that a man talking to a woman is more interested in her physically than spiritually, because that's the way our world works. But, if you stop and think about it, one sin is very much like another in God's eyes. A prostitute and a liar occupy the same moral ground. We are taught to love the sinner but hate the sin; all too often the hatred of the sin bleeds over, though. What we need to understand is that it isn't what a person does outside of Christ that is important; it's the fact that they are outside of Christ. The Bible says that to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin (of course the obverse is true: if you know not to do something, and then do it anyway, that is also sin). We can't expect those outside of Christ to have a clear understanding of what they should and shouldn't do (although it would be nice if they would at least be discrete about their sins, so that we would not be tempted), and it really doesn't matter what they do; quite frankly, if they aren't going to seek God for salvation, then their 'final destination' is the same, no matter what sins they commit here on earth.

What's in Your Translation?

There are many, many translations of the Bible out there; some of them have gotten a lot of criticism. I think the important thing is that it be accurate, and that you can understand it.

The King James Version is quite possibly the most controversial. Almost everyone seems to think that it is accurate, but, it was translated 400 years ago. The English language has changed since then, it's hard to understand now. There's a lot of truth to that, but, at the same time, William Shakespeare was writing plays at the time the KJV was translated, and you very rarely see the language in his plays updated (with the notable exception of West Side Story). It does take some work to understand the KJV, but most things worth doing require some effort.

The version has also taken a number of attacks based on the personal qualities of King James, himself. A little research will show that King James did not translate the KJV himself. He merely understood that the British people wanted an accurate translation that they could read. Protestantism was still fairly new in England, and the Catholic church had discouraged people from reading the Bible for themselves, telling them that they wouldn't be able to understand it (if you have a question, ask your parish priest). King James promised protection to the translators, made resources available, and ordered them to make sure that their translation was accurate. I think we can be assured that whatever bad habits the King had, they didn't creep into the translation that bears his name.

I had someone argue the accuracy of the translation once, on the grounds of Joseph's coat of many colors. They told me that they had done some research and determined that the word translated as 'colors' really meant 'long sleeved.' They went on to tell me that it made more sense that way anyway, because many colors simply meant using dye. Long sleeves would have made the coat more valuable, that was why Joseph's brothers were so jealous. I put forth the question, "But isn't a coat long-sleeved, anyway?" "Oh, well, not necessarily. You could have a short-sleeved coat." I don't remember ever seeing one... But I did a little research. First I went into a store and compared prices on shirts. In general, a solid colored, short-sleeved shirt from a given manufacturer costs less than either a solid-colored long-sleeved shirt or a patterned, short-sleeve shirt from the same manufacturer. The solid-colored, long-sleeved shirt and the patterned, short-sleeved shirt cost about the same (in fact, the first store I looked at, they cost exactly the same). Now, Joseph's father Jacob was a shepherd. Getting wool for long sleeves shouldn't have been such a big deal. Buying dye would have been more difficult. Also, we tend to take dye for granted, these days. All kinds of companies make all kinds of dyes available at your local market at very reasonable prices, but it wasn't always that way. In Jacob's day, a person who could gather the right berries or flowers or whatever to extract a permanent dye was considered to be an artisan--a highly skilled worker. Dyes were expensive. But, in looking at a parallel Bible, and comparing the English words to the Greek words, I saw that the word translated as 'colour' really does mean 'long sleeved tunic.' What the... So what does the word translated as coat mean? Well, it does mean coat (or robe)--and I have to believe that, in the days before Larry the Cable Guy, that meant having long sleeves. So what is this business about a coat of many long-sleeved tunics? What does that mean exactly, why were the brothers so jealous, and why did the translators translate tunics and colours? After a great deal of thought and prayer, I have come to the conclusion that it comes down to this:

Jacob had thirteen children, twelve boys and a girl. Joseph was, in fact, the twelfth child, but the first son of Rachel. When Jacob was a young man, he fell in love with Rachel. He fell very hard. He agreed to work for Laban (Rachel's father) for seven years if Laban would give him Rachel to be his bride. Apparently, Laban thought that during those seven years, that he would be able to marry off Leah, Rachel's older sister. When the seven years were complete, Laban made sure that Jacob imbibed to excess at the wedding. When Jacob awoke the next morning, he not only had a terrible hangover, but he found that he had spent the night with the wrong sister. Laban was apologetic, but explained that it was not the custom to marry off the younger sister first. A lesser man might have made a case for justifiable homicide, but Jacob agreed to work another seven years for Rachel's hand. The next few years get very involved, suffice it to say that only the last two children were birthed by the woman that Jacob loved. Those two, Joseph and Benjamin, became his clear favorites. So, one day the time came that Joseph needed a new coat. Times were hard, and Jacob had a big family to take care of. There's no money in the till to buy a new coat; there's not even spare wool to make a coat, they need to sell all the wool they've got, just to eat. So what does Jacob do? What can he do? Well, there are several hand-me-down coats that he could give to Joseph, but each of them has something wrong with it. Levi stumbled into the brambles wearing this coat, the left sleeve and the back are badly torn. Reuben fell on some rocks wearing this one, the front is all torn up, and there are bloodstains over much of the rest of it. Asher fell out of tree wearing this one, and it's a mess. And so on. But Jacob realizes that if he takes a part of each coat, and then sews the parts together, that he will have a fine coat for Joseph. The colors will be mis-matched, of course, so he's going to have to put some extra effort into making this coat look nice for Rachel's son; he's not about to let Joseph roam the countryside wearing a raggedy old coat--this coat needs to be the absolute best. But he can't take time away from the sheep to work on this coat, either, that means that he's burning oil in his lantern working late into the night making sure that this coat is everything it could be. And all of his children know what he's doing. And most of them know he wouldn't have done it for them. Jealous? You bet. Wouldn't you be? That's all supposition, you say. Okay, it is; but I have to think that it's pretty close to what actually happened. It wasn't the colors or the sleeves that Joseph's brothers were jealous of, it was their father's love.

Another argument has been made about some of the expression used in the KJV. for example, there are a few times in the Bible where it talks about 'fetching a compass,' and it sounds like a reference to a navigational instrument, but that instrument wasn't invented until around 1000. The compass that they are referring to would be used to draw circles (or half-circles) on a map or chart, the expression refers to circling around. I will not deny that this passage is clearer in every other version I have looked at.

Another passage that has inspired more than a little controversy is 1 John 5:7-8. In the King James, this reads, "For there are three that bear record in Heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. (8) And there are three that bear witness in the earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one." Most modern versions have a much shorter passage, for example, the New International Version reads: "For there are three that testify: (8) The Spirit, the Water and the blood; and these three are in agreement." I read somewhere that the most common type of error when copying long texts by hand is the error of omission, particularly when the same (or a similar) phrase is repeated soon after the first time it is used. The book that I read this in went on to give a long explanation as to why that couldn't be the reason that 1 John 5:7-8 read the way it does it most modern versions. To be honest, I was so surprised by the lack of logic in that, I don't even remember what his reasoning was. If you look at these in the original Greek then it makes even more sense. Five of the first six words of each verse are the same in Greek (1 John 5:7 "Οτι τρεις εισιυ οι μαρτυρουντες εν ...", 1 John 5:8 "Και τρεις εισιυ οι μαρτυρουντες εν ..."). It would be a very simple mistake to start copying 1 John 5:7, read a few words from the original, write a few words in the copy, glance back at the original and find those words just copied, read a few more words, and copy a few more words. That one word for bear witness or bear record, μαρτυρουντες, looks like a key word to me. If I were copying this, I would look for that word when I went back to the original. One piece of reasoning often used to explain ignoring the text is that it isn't found in the older manuscripts. Of course, frequently a manuscript was copied because the old one was wearing out, so the old manuscript was destroyed once the copy had been checked for accuracy. Of course, if a manuscript wasn't used, then, not only would the omission not be noticed, but it wouldn't wear out, so the defective manuscript might be older...

I've made my case. If it doesn't make sense to you, then okay, fine, that's your decision. If it does, good. Either way, I think that it's important that you have an accurate translation that you can understand. If you have to work at understanding it, that's not necessarily a bad thing. If it's easy to understand, but it's wrong, then it doesn't help you at all.

Parables

In the gospels, Jesus did a lot of teaching in parables. This was a way to get a point across by relating to people, talking about things that they already knew, but relating that to something that they didn't. One of the things that I have heard people say about parables is that, since they don't represent things that actually happened, they aren't actual doctrine; you can ignore them with impunity. That position doesn't make sense to me. Jesus, God manifest in the flesh (1 Tim 3:16), was teaching His followers through parables (Mark 4:2). Now He was able to create characters and situations to convey an idea. If anything, we should probably pay more attention to the parables than to all the stories in the Bible (not to suggest that it would be okay to ignore the stories, it wouldn't be).
In Luke 14:15-24, Jesus taught something which has become known as, 'The Parable of the Great Supper." In this story, a man planned a great supper, but his chosen guests started making excuses, so he sent his servants to look for other people to eat this dinner, so that, at least the food wouldn't go to waste. They went out and just found anybody they could, even carrying in crippled people to partake of the feast. Now, the obvious interpretation of this parable is that, since the Jews rejected Jesus as their Messiah, God opened the door to the Goyim, the Gentiles, to attain salvation. Some people have gone as far as to say that we are the new chosen people. I don't think that's the case; I think the parable is somewhat broader than that. Keep in mind that Apostle Paul wrote, in Romans 11, that we Gentiles have no right to boast against the Jews, because, just as Paul himself, being a Jew, had rejected Jesus but had repented and been saved, so too, other Jews could be brought to the knowledge of Christ. They were taken out because of unbelief, but, if they, God's first choice, were to accept Jesus as their Messiah, they would be saved. Perhaps Antisemitism has some of it's roots in jealousy--they were God's preference, and, even now, God would prefer them over us. Of course, the other excuse is that 'they killed our Lord and Saviour...' Please. Get over it. It was His plan to die for our sins in the first place. In any case, back to the parable, anybody that rejects Jesus, misses out on the reward--be they Jew or Gentile. Fortunately for us, anybody can repent, and get back in God's grace--be they Jew or Gentile. Remember Romans 1:16?

What Do You Want?

Well, it is time to blog again, and, once again, I am at a loss for words.

The men's group at church is having a fish-fry tonight. As much as I like fish, and as much fun as it promises to be, I find myself really not wanting to go. I don't really have a reason not to go, I just don't want to. I don't even have a reason why I don't want to. I'm going to go; and hopefully I'll have a good time. Maybe I need to pray about that.

It's funny how sometimes what we want and what we need not only don't match, but are directly opposite of each other. Of course, sometimes what we want and what we want are in direct opposition. For example: I want to be built like Governor Schwarzenegger, but I also want to eat like a pig, and lay on the couch and watch TV all the time. I want to be able, at any time, to give an answer of the hope that I have of eternal life, but I would rather take a nap than study my Bible. You can probably think of lots more examples.

I'm going to do a little travelling down a rabbit trail, now (just letting you know). I know a lot of people who want to be spiritual and want to go to Heaven, but they don't want to study the Bible, or they don't want to do any of the things in the Bible. I've had people tell me, "Oh, as long as you're doing your best. God will let you into Heaven." What I'd like to know is, if doing your best doesn't include reading the Bible, then what makes you think any of the rest of that is any good anyway?

Once I had somebody use the 'car wash analogy' on me. What he said was, basically, "If you owned a car wash, and you had an employee that didn't do things exactly the way you wanted, you wouldn't just fire him, as long as he got the cars clean, right?" That makes sense, in and of itself, but let's look at it a little deeper. First of all, you have a lot of chemicals in a car wash. There's glass cleaner, detergent, bug cleaner, degreaser, tire cleaner, and whitewall cleaner. OSHA (Our Savior Has Arrived) will expect any employee at the car wash to be familiar with the safety precautions and interaction warnings of each of these chemicals. If you, as my employee, don't get to know these things, OSHA can, and probably will, shut down my car wash (I am not letting you get my business shut down--besides, I don't want any of my employees to get hurt). Furthermore, although the main objective is to make sure cars get clean, I, as the owner, want to make sure that ALL the cars going through my wash get clean. If Ray normally brings his car through on Tuesday, but this week got something nasty on his car on Friday, and comes in Saturday for a wash, he's going to expect the exact same treatment that he normally gets on Tuesday. For that reason, I'm going to have a checklist made up to make sure everything that supposed to get done gets done every time a car comes through my wash, no matter which of my employees happen to be working that day. That means that I'm going to have some written material at my car wash: The checklist and the MSDS sheets for the chemicals. Each of my employees is going to know these things. If you haven't read, indeed, are not familiar with, the written guidelines of my car wash, then, no, you are not going to collect a paycheck. Having said that, do you really think that God gave us the written material that he gave us just for it to sit on a shelf and collect dust? Granted, God isn't worried about OSHA shutting Him down, or maintaining ISO 9001 certification, but there are things in there that He wants us to know. Isn't it just common sense that we read up?

I read somewhere that the Bible is still the best selling book in America, but that more Americans have actually read the IKEA catalog. I think they were being facetious, but it's kind of a scary thought, just the same.