"You Can Understand the Bible"
with Dr. Bob Utley 2009 Bible Interpretation Seminar
Lesson 3 For more information, contact:
www.freebiblecommentary.org I would like
to recommend to you to read a book
along with this presentation. It's a $15 book at any bookstore. It's by Zondervan. In my opinion it's probably the best text
on special hermeneutics. I'm primarily dealing
with general hermeneutics, and it's written
by my favorite charismatic author, which is one of the most
balanced authors I know. It's called "How to Read
the Bible for All It Is Worth," "How to Read the Bible
for All It Is Worth" by Gorden Fee,
and Doug Stuart. I think
it'll be a blessing to you. You'll see it in many,
many places in my notes. Now, it seems
a little disjointed to me because I'm kinda going
as long as the time allows me and kinda cuttinh off where I can, so you may feel like I haven't made
a smooth transition to this topic. But the truth is I'm still caught
in last presentation's topic, so I'm on page 13, and I'm dealing
with Roman numeral IV, "The Basic Purposes of the Bible." The last time I dealt with A,
and just to remind you, I am committed to the Bible
primarily as finding a “guide.” The guidelines are important, but the major gift
is the “guide” himself, and I'm committed to that. Now if you'll notice I'm picking up on some other things
that the Bible is not. It is not a rule book, and number two,
it is not a science book. I really hope
that if you have children that are in science
or going to a secular university that you will take special note
of what I'm going to say for the next few minutes because I believe
there has been an engendered war between science and faith. Would you please look at me? I am not at war with science. I have become quite content to let science discover the when
and the how of the physical creation, but without
the revelation of the Bible there is no “who” or “why.” To know how and when
without an understanding of God is the most depressing understanding
that I can imagine because if you only know
science, as a species, we are doomed. There is no hope
in a violent universe like ours for the life on this planet. It is just a matter of time. Even the universe itself,
what we think right now, is going to expand
and expand until it goes cold. There is no hope in physicalness, and yet the world
is attracted to it because it gives us
all the gadgets and experimentally answers some
of the questions that we seek. But I say this to you,
even if we talk about a "Big Bang" it still doesn't talk
about who pulled the trigger, still doesn't talk
about the purpose. Now, I do not believe
that the Bible is antiscientific. I believe it is prescientific. It was in a Christian worldview
that scientific method developed. It was in great Christians
that early science began. There is no way for modern science to have begun
in the cyclical philosophies of Eastern religions. It was in the West that believes
that God has set guidelines and principles
and laws into creation that make it a regular
and observable kind of presentation to the human five senses. I would say to you
that the Bible predates science. The Bible was not written
to answer scientific questions coming out of the 17th,
18th, 19th, 20th centuries, and so to make an ancient book answer questions it was never
designed to make and then taking it
from ancient Hebrew thought and demanding that
it be literal Western history does terrible things to the Bible. I would say that the Bible
is written in what I call phenomenological language. It is written
in the language of five senses. It is written
as if a human observer was standing
observing what is happening. Now, many people
do crazy things with the Bible and think they have somehow
defended revelation. I've heard stuff like this, "Well, the Bible says
that there's a three-storied universe, and we know that's not true,
so the Bible must be false." Wait a minute,
wait a minute, wait a minute. The three-storied universe is a way
of talking about God and creation. It is not meant to be
the last word in this. And, by the way, just an example
of that 3-storied universe, people say, "The Bible says the dead
are in the center of the earth, and we know that's not true,
so the Bible's false." Wait a minute now. I heard about a story. Now, the deepest oil well
ever drilled was in China, and someone, God knows why,
put a microphone down the pipe. And they said, "We heard
people screaming, and now we know--" That was magma burping. Christians, like ancient Jews, like many people in the world
but not all people, bury their dead. In India they burn their dead. In the Americas
they put their dead on platforms to just disintegrate. In places in the Middle East they put 'em in towers
for the birds to eat and the bones to fall
in the collective middle. We happen to bury our dead,
so if you ask, "Where are the dead?" They're in the ground, but that was never meant
to be developed as a literal thing, people living
in the center of the earth. Another one, the Bible says
the earth floats on water, so there the Bible's not true. Wait a minute, wait a minute. You go down to Galveston,
you dig a hole in the sand, water fills it up. You go into West Texas,
many oil wells hit salt water. The ancients were desert people. They knew
that in the middle of the desert were these beautiful springs
and date palms. Where did that come from?
There was water down there. They said,
as the language of description not the language of science,
the language of description, "The Earth floats on water." Now, to take the Bible
ultimately literal as a way to discount its authority
is typical of Western thinkers who do not know
Eastern literature. We in America
speak the same way, and we claim
to be a technological culture. When you got up
this morning, rolled over into that special person
in your life and said, "Oh, what a beautiful sunrise," now, wouldn't it be just squirrely
to wake up and say, "Oh, honey,
look at this earth rotation." I guarantee the sun
did not rise this morning. Or we say,
"Oh, the dew fell last night." Friends, dew does not fall. There's a condensation layer,
a temperature variant, moisture content
close to the earth. We speak in the language
of description every day and then condemn
the Bible for doing the same. I went to India
several years ago, got off the plane. The Indian pastor was there. I said, "I am tickled
to death to be here," and he said, "I'm so sorry." We speak in these metaphors. "Oh, that's awfully good."
What? "I'm all ears."
Well, get me a giant Q-tip. I mean, what?
Come on! We speak in metaphors and demand a different
kind of thing for the Bible. It's crazy to me,
so let me go through this if I could. The Bible is prescientific,
not antiscientific. It is a worldview, God did it. Not a world picture,
how God did it. It is written
in the language of description, the five senses,
phenomenological language. Now, there's some great books
down here under number four. If you have a young person
going into the sciences or even a theological area,
this little book, "The Christian View
of Science and Scripture" by Bernard Ramm, has been
a wonderful book in my life. He has a PhD in the philosophy
of science and a PhD in theology. He is able to bridge that gap in a time where few others would,
could, or tried. He freed me
to begin to think in terms, in terms beyond
the literalism that I was given by sincere people
who love the Bible, delivered me from dogmatic preachers
and dogmatic scientists. The both give me a rash. This book, number E,
"Darwinism On Trial," is written by a lawyer,
but give it a break. This guy
has done some most exciting work on the flaws in naturalism. I am not against evolution. I'm smart enough to know
that animals change over time to certain changing situations
in their environment. I happen to know that all horses
came from an ancient little horse. All dogs came
from an ancient wild dog. There's nothing strange
about that. Just look at the fossil record. What I cannot live
with is “naturalism,” which makes it just chance,
luck, fate. You just look at one,
one human cell, and the sequential need
for chemical reaction goes into the hundreds that have to be sequential
in their order. This cannot be a random fact. This is why so many
are drawn to “intelligent design” as a way to look at our world. We can't document that
as far as do experiments on it, but the more we look
into the intricacies of a cell, the more we see,
that it was not known in Darwin's day, the more we see
how planned and structured this physical universe is. The last one's
"Reasons to Believe," by Hugh Ross, this is a PhD in astronomy. This is the man
that's convinced me of an old earth. Heresy! Before I'm a heretic,
why don't you read some? Just because you never heard it
doesn't mean I'm weird. Have you done
any personal study in this area, or you're just telling me
what someone told you that you trusted
from the last century? Have you read anything? We get so dogmatic on our Bible interpretation principles and forget
that we're in a type of literature in Genesis 1 that is never meant
to be the same kind of history as historical narratives
in the rest of the Old Testament. If you're going to summarize
how God did everything quickly, how do you do it? Well, the author of Genesis,
which I do not think is Moses-- Now before you throw a fit,
give me a minute. There are no Egyptian words
or concepts until Joseph. Now Joseph is way down
in the book of Genesis. All of the models, all of the parallels to the creation
that account in the Bible are Mesopotamian, Babylonian,
the Gilgamesh epic. Now, that all comes
from around Ur of the Chaldeans where Abraham was called from. I think that Moses writing
in 14-something used oral traditions
from the patriarchs dating back to much closer
to the time of the events. None of the Egyptian cosmology
is in the Bible. It's all Babylonian,
and, of course, those of us
who believe the Bible is true, believe the Bible's concept predates
the Babylonian one. But, simply to say, I think
there is evidence for an old earth. I personally am an advocate of what's called
“progressive creationism,” which makes the earth
3.7, 4.7 billion years old and makes the Garden of Eden
a more recent creation, isolated from the rest of nature. You can critique that, but it's an attempt by me
to take the Bible seriously and not just disregard
all of the experimental data that's coming in
to us in our age. I hope you'll read,
"Reasons to Believe." I think it will open your eyes to many areas that maybe
you haven't thought about. Number C, I do not believe
the Bible is a magic book. Now, I was
at a conference all week. I'm on the board of directors
for an evangelistic group, and they had
their annual meeting where they brought their people
from around the world in. I got to teach Ephesians.
I love that. One of the men
when I was leaving said, "Yes," that,
"I was seeking God's will for my life, "whether I ought to do this, and I just opened the Bible up,
and God revealed it to me." I do believe that God
deals in mercy with new Christians. I do believe
when we're new Christians God will bend over backwards
to communicate to us in ways that really
are more magical, but, friends,
once we become mature Christians, letting the Bible flop over
is not one of them. It always flops over
where I spilt coffee in the Psalms, and if I wanted to know
who I was supposed to marry, how do I find Peggy in this? Should I go to Lakeside,
and "Jesus walked by the sea." "That's it! That's it!"
That's a bunch of bull. That is treating the Bible
like a crystal ball instead of like a revelation
from God. That is more like
a Ouija Board than Christian! That is superstitious bologna! And yet God's people
do it all the time. Secondly, like a magical charm. I want to give you a test. I want you to put any translation
of the Bible on your dashboard, and I want you
to speed through a radar trap and tell me what happens. This is not magical. This is dead cow,
dead trees, and soot. There's nothing holy about this. It's the author that's holy. It's the message that's holy.
Its presence is not the key. Its message is the key,
and it must be read. Its physical presence
is not magical. Finally, it's not a fetish. I'd try to do this humor
as frequent as I can, but I hope I don't gross you out. But why do we take the Bible with us
when we go to the hospital? You're paying more
for that hospital room than you are
for the best cruise in the world. Why do you take this? Because for us as evangelicals this is a symbol
of the presence of God. There is a Bible in that room, a Gideon's New Testament
or a full Bible. If you want to read the Bible
you got a Bible, but you're not going to read;
you're sick as a dog, or you wouldn't be paying
that much for a room. You can put
this Bible over the incision, and it'll probably infect it. You can take
John 3:16 and eat it, and you will probably
be constipated for days. This is not magic. It is a message.
It must be read. Its physical presence
is not enough. On page 14 I'd like to summarize
these presuppositions because I think
all of us have them. All of us have them,
but we very seldom analyze them. I believe the Bible,
both Old and New Testaments, is the only clear
self-revelation of God. I had an Australian theologian
look at my website to recommend it
to Theologians Without Borders, and he wrote back and said, "I can't believe this guy said "that the Bible is the only clear
self-revelation of God. What about Jesus
and the Holy Spirit?" I wish I was in Australia. Would you please tell me how I know it's the presence
of the Holy Spirit? If the table floats
or I get goosebumps, the Spirit told me,
is that a clear revelation? If we get ten people,
and they all get different messages, quote, from the Spirit, which one do we say
is objective and true? I believe Jesus is the ultimate
revelation of God. There is no question the living Word
is superior to the written Word. There is no question that we only have
a limited amount of the written Word, but would you please tell me how I know anything about Jesus
apart from Scripture? I didn't live in the 1st century. He doesn't walk in my bedroom
and discuss theology with me. How do I know anything about him,
what he said, what he did, and who he is,
if it does not come from Scripture? Please tell me. The New Testament is the perfect fulfillment
and interpreter of the Old Testament. I believe in one and only one
eternal Creator, Redeemer. God initiated the writings
of our canonical Scriptures by inspiring certain chosen persons to record and explain his acts
in the lives of individuals and nations. The Bible is our only
clear source of information about God and his purposes. Natural revelation--
I've given you the text there-- Is valid but not complete. Jesus Christ is the capstone
of God's revelation about himself. I've given you the text. The Bible must be illumined
by the Holy Spirit in order to be correctly understood. How many adjectives
do I have to use to be a conservative? Please tell me
how many I have to use. Authoritative, adequate,
eternal, infallible, and trustworthy for all believers,
and yet there's a group of people who'll say, "Since you didn't use
'inerrant,' you're a liberal." Does the Bible
use the word "inerrant"? Is that a biblical word? So now I've got to use
a non-biblical word and define it the way
you feel comfortable for me to be a conservative? "By their fruits
ye shall know them." You watch
how I handle the Scriptures and how people who say
a whole lot about the Bible and then give you their opinion,
allegorize it. You tell me
where the authority is. I'm smart enough to know that if I let some fool on TV
say the Bible is inerrant and he finds
one manuscript problem, one number problem,
one seeming paradox, he can throw the whole thing out because if it's inerrant,
one error disqualifies it. But if it's infallible and trustworthy
and it has a literary nature, then some of these things
can be explained. Otherwise, we're in big trouble,
and, by the way, if you believe that God
gave an inerrant Bible, did the Holy Spirit fumble
the ball in making copies of it? because we don't have one today. The exact motive, its inspiration,
has not been revealed to us but is obvious, to believers,
that the Bible is a supernatural book written by natural men
under special leadership. Now, next in my notes,
Roman numeral VI, are the two sermons that I did for you
the first few days I was here. One of them is, "Why Do I Believe
That the Old Testament Is Trustworthy?" The next week,
"Why Do I believe the New Testament
Is Trustworthy?" Because I wanted
to base your understanding of at least what I want to say
on the trustworthiness of Scripture. Let God be true
and every man be a liar. We do not have to act
like intellectual sheep and say, "Well, it's just what I believe." No, no, no,
there is correlatable, historical evidence
for Scripture being unique. I'm not going to repeat this now.
Those DVDs are available. I hope if you have not heard
that or seen that you will get it because I think it will give you
confidence and assurance in the trustworthiness of Scripture. And if Scripture's
not trustworthy, let's all go home now. So beginning
in Roman numeral VII, I want to talk about some
of these manuscript problems and some of these things. Tonight is more informational
about the Bible. Hopefully in the next few times
I'm going to get into the interpreter and then into the method itself,
so this is mostly introductory. But I need to do this
to lay the foundation for the other points
that are coming. So the major sources of our Bible,
I've listed several of them. The most important of them
is the Masoretic text. When you see "MT" written,
that's what that's referring to, but I want you to know
that the Masoretic text was not finished until 900 A.D. The only reason the Masoretic text
is the Hebrew text that has survived,
it was the text of the Pharisees that survived the destruction
of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 and started the rabbinical councils
at Jamnia in Palestine. The Sadducees
were totally wiped out. The Essenes
were totally wiped out, and this is the text
of the Pharisees. This is
where this code book comes in. It says, "You put it in the computer,
you take every 143rd word, and that turns into a prophecy
about the West." I could just throw up
on prophecy about the West, but do you think
that the Masoretic text is the original Hebrew text? 900 A.D. is when it was finished. The text was established in 100 A.D.
but not finished until 900. There's an older text than that,
and that is the Greek Septuagint. Now, tradition has it
we have archeologically a letter called the “Letter to Aristeas” that says that Ptolemy the 2nd,
the king of Egypt, had the largest library in the world
at Alexandria, Egypt, and he had many Jewish people
in his kingdom and wanted to brag on his library
and wanted to placate the Jews, that he got 70 rabbis, and in 70 days
they wrote the Septuagint. Now, most scholars
say that's probably not accurate, but the date for its start,
somewhere around 250 to 150 B.C.-- So here is a Hebrew text that predates the Masoretic text
by hundreds of years. You say,
"How do we know that?" Because in the Dead Sea Scrolls,
beginning to be found in 1947, we have Hebrew manuscripts
that follow the Septuagint, and it is not the same
as the Masoretic text. Jeremiah is one-third longer
in the Septuagint, and we had Hebrew text
that followed the Masoretic text, which means that we do not have
the oldest Hebrew text. Now, my view of God
is that he preserved for us what we need to know, amen? Much of what we believe is by faith. We just don't come up
with all this evidence just to say we're sure and positive
and beyond a shadow of a doubt, but we do believe that we have
enough accurate Old Testament, New Testament manuscripts
to live a life pleasing to God and certainly to know Him. So we don't know everything. If we found several more books
about God or Moses, would I allow them
in the Canon? Absolutely not. We do not need more information. We do not need videotapes
on the life of Christ. Everything we need for faith
and practice is in Scripture. I'm going to leave at that. I'm going to go to page 60
in the New Testament. Again, I want you to look
at these texts. There are 85 papyri texts
of the New Testament. There are 286 Uncial manuscripts,
which is those all caps, no division
between the words. As a written language
of Koine Greek was developed, much, much later,
1,000 years later, we started having many more
handwritten almost-- It's called minuscule texts-- And we have 2,700 copies
of the New Testament in this writing small-letter style. On top of that, we have
2,100 copies of lectionaries, which is quotes from Scriptures
read at different times during the church year. You add those up, there's 5,300 copies
of the New Testament in part or in whole. Now, that's four more attestation
than any other ancient book. The New Testament
has far more evidence by multiples than any other ancient book,
but let me ask you a question. Of those 5,300,
no two of them exactly agree. Which one's the “inerrant one?” Five thousand three hundred copies,
and none of 'em exactly agree. You say, "What do we do?
What do we do?" Okay, quickly let me go
through just a couple of these. I want you to look at number three
with me for a minute. This is Sinaiticus,
so it was found by a Tischendorf, and you don't know
whether to believe this or not, but this is the story. This monastery
is on the site down in the Sinai where Moses
went up in the mountains, supposedly where Mount Sinai is. This is a walled monastery. You only get in
but by lifting up over ropes, and Tischendorf went there, and they wouldn't let him look
at all the manuscripts, but what he saw was amazing. And they say he went to the potty,
and, lo, and behold, the toilet paper was the oldest, ancient Greek New Testament
he had ever seen. Needless to say--
Well, I'm not going to go there. He asked them
to let him have that thing. They would not. They said,
"You can be in a room for a week." This man had a photographic memory, and he knew
the Greek New Testament well enough that he read this,
and after he was out made a copy of every place
it deviated from the text that he knew. Holy moly,
what a photographic memory. Some of these other ones
were just found in the library of the Vatican,
called Vaticanus. One of these comes
from Alexandria, Egypt; Alexandrinus. These are the earliest ones
we base it on, and they're from the 3rd
and 4th centuries. These manuscripts were hand copied
for over and over hundreds of years. Now, people say,
"If you go back to the papyri copies that'll be closest to the New Testament
and should have less problems." But the problem is,
as these books of Paul and books of John
went through the churches, somebody tried
to write them down very quickly. Some of them
are very good scribes. They recorded exactly. Other of them were lay people that just want to make
a quick, fast copy before the book moved on, and just because it's old
doesn't mean it's good. There were some really jerky,
papyri manuscripts, so just being old
is not enough. Now, most of us
have been influenced by the King James Version. The King James Version
is based on Erasmus' third edition of the Greek New Testament. The first
and second were different, but the third
is where King James built on it. Now, I think King James
is an excellent, word-for-word translation. The problem is it's based
on the manuscripts that they knew in 1611, and we have far more knowledge,
a greater knowledge, of old manuscripts now. And what we found out
is that many times-- and that's what I have
down here under number 8, the bottom of page 16. You can put
these manuscripts in families because they have the same additions
and the same errors, and there is an Alexandrian family,
a Western family, a Byzantine family, of which 80% of the 5,300 are,
and most of that-- And people say, "Bob,
how do you know which one?" You look.
You got 5,000 copies. Of these 5,000, most of them
are from one family. That must be the family that the Holy Spirit
wanted to preserve, but, well, that's possible,
but it seems logical to me that we gotta go back
to the most ancient ones closer to the original book
than to take the majority, called the Majority Text,
the Textus Receptus, that are basically built
on handwritten, later manuscripts from the 13th, 14th,
15th, 16th century. Seem like to me
the few ancient ones are a better text
than a whole bunch of later ones, but you've got to decide,
and there's a real fight in the church. On page 17,
just to give you an example of some of these problems-- In Number 25:9
it says that there was a battle, and 24,000 died. Paul quotes that in 1 Corinthians 10:8
and says 23,000 died. Oh, the Bible's got errors in it. Holy spit, do you think
there was some little Jew that went around
and counted these dead bodies? "Twelve thousand two hundred
and ninety-four, twelve--" These are round numbers,
are they not? God acted in history,
and a lot of people died. Is the issue
were there 24,000 or 23,000? Does inspiration hang
on a number issue? And if it does, don't you ever
read Samuel, Kings, and compare it to Chronicles
because you're in big trouble because those numbers
do not agree, and we're not always sure
how to fix it. The other one
I want to bring up-- and I hope
you'll turn with me quickly to Matthew 27:9, Matthew 27:9. Here is a quote
that is from the Bibles, and all the Bibles that you have and all the translations
are going to say, "And Jeremiah said," Matthew 27:9. The problem is,
look in the margin of your Bible. This is not a quote from Jeremiah.
This is a quote from Zechariah. So the question,
did a New Testament author mess up the source of a quote? I just want to show you how the church has tried
to answer this question. Now, A through H is the church.
Listen to these answers. These are tricks, mental tricks,
to explain away a perceived error. Just follow this. The Peshitta,
the 5th-century Syriac, just leaves out
the word "Jeremiah." Well, that solves it,
but you're changing the text. Augustine, Luther, said, "An error has occurred
in the Masoretic text." Origen and Eusebius said, "An error occurred
in the New Testament text." Jerome said, "It's a quote
from an Apocryphal book written by Jeremiah
but now lost." Oh, man,
we're jumping through the weeds now. Listen to this. Mede, commentator
from the Middle Ages, said, "Jeremiah
wrote Zechariah 9 through 11." Golly, now,
I think Lightfoot and Scofield probably have the best answer, "Jeremiah was considered
the first of the prophets in the post-exilic period,
and he'd be listed first," so what they're saying is,
and this makes so much sense to me, in the prophetic section
of the Canon it says this. Now, see, that just solves
the "which prophet." I think that's the best one. Hengstenberg says,
"Zechariah quoted Jeremiah," and John Calvin says,
"Huh, an error crept in the text." Am I going to lose my faith
in Jesus Christ over this? You bet your bippy I'm not.
This is just not that big a deal. We're talking about hand copied, and besides,
we always are thinking Western when the idea about Jeremiah being the head of the postexilic period
of the prophets fits perfectly
of why this got confused. Quite often they say someone,
somewhere said. It didn't even quote
the person who does it, and we're getting
all bent out of shape. Well, I've tried the next few times
to tell you how these errors occurred, and I just challenge you-- I know none of us
want manuscript problems. Oh, yuck, none of us want 'em, but I ask you to get inside a page
of any encyclopedia, get a blank piece of paper,
you hand copy that page, and you make sure
you don't miss anything either. And you let somebody check it, and it will amaze you what happens
from our eyes to our hand. You'll skip whole lines.
You'll write whole lines again. You'll put another word
for the word you just read. It'll amaze you how badly in wanting to so much
copy it perfectly that you will mess up,
one encyclopedia page. Just amazing.
Sometime it's a slip of the eye. They drop to another word
or drop to a similar word. Sometime they sat in a room,
one monk would read a text, and all monks would copy it, so it's a lot of little manuscripts
by close-sounding words. I was just thinking of one.
I forgot where it is. A King James--I think it's in Romans--
King James has, "Washed us," and the other manuscripts
have, "Released us," and the word is the word "luo," and it's pronounced
exactly the same for the word "washed"
and the word "released." Words that have similar sounds
but are spelled differently are often confused,
and this is what's happening. As you know, these texts
are divided differently. If you just take two
or three English sentences and put all the words
without dividing them up, it will amaze you
how you could make sense in different ways
out of this series of letters. You ever play Scrabble? How you make different words
out of a series of other words? Many times that's what happened
in these texts without these people
intending to do it. One time Paul will say this, and he'll add
a little-bitty closing thing, but over here
he adds a long closing thing, and ancient scribes
wanted to make them all the same, so they combined the two,
combined Paul's words. It happens over and over. Sometime somebody
will make a note in the margin to explain a text, and the next copier
will put the note in the text. I'll show you one of those
in just a minute. Everybody
who studies Greek in a university, whether it's a seminary or university, we study
the United Bible Society's 4th edition or the Aland edition
of New Testament. There is no
ancient manuscript like that. That is called an eclectic text where many of these
manuscript problems are solved by putting
some of these together, and here's
how they think about it. The most awkward
or unusual text is probably original because scribes tried to fix it. The shortest text
is probably original because scribes
tended to add and explain. The older text,
with everything else being equal, the older text
should be a better text. The text that is most widely,
geographically diverse probably is the original text because that means a scribe
in one place could change it, and just some manuscripts
have this edition or error, where all the rest do not. And then, finally,
every one of these biblical authors have a unique vocabulary
and unique style and a unique way
of expressing themselves. So part of it is, how does
this author express himself? And is this in line
with how he expresses himself? I think these
are the ways they did. Now, before you think I'm a heretic-- And whenever
I touch manuscript problems, people start saying,
"Well, I just believe my Bible." I hear that, I understand that,
so I'm going to quote Criswell tonight. Now, Criswell, the father
of fundamentalism in Baptist life-- I want you to hear Criswell,
not Utley say this. He's probably listening. W.A. Criswell told Greg Harrison
of the Birmingham News that he, Criswell, "Doesn't believe
every word in the Bible is inspired, "at least not every word
that's been given to the modern public by centuries of translators." Criswell said, "I'm very much
a believer in textual criticism. "As such, I think the last half
of the 16th chapter of Mark is heresy. "It's not inspired.
It's just concocted. When you compare
those manuscripts way back yonder"-- If you know Criswell,
that sounds just like him, "Way back yonder"-- "There's no such thing
as a conclusion to the book of Mark. "Somebody added it. "The patriarch of the SBC in Erastus
also claimed that interpolation, "this is the adding
the margin into the text, "is also evident in John 5:4, "the account of Jesus
at the pool of Bethesda. "And he discusses the two different
accounts of the suicide of Judas, "Matthew 27 and Acts 1. It's just a different view
of suicide," Criswell said. "If it's in the Bible,
there is an explanation for it. The two accounts of the suicide
of Judas are in the Bible." Criswell added, "Textual criticism
is a wonderful science in itself. "It's not ephemeral.
It's not impertinent. It's dynamic and central." Now, I'm about, on page 19, to show you the 5 or 6 major
manuscript problems. Now, you're going to scream
and holler and bite your teeth. If you're interested in this,
there is a wonderful, little commentary
from the American Bible Society put out by Bruce Metzger who was in the room
when they put all this together, and it's called "A Textual Commentary
to the Greek New Testament," that explains in English
how all this stuff happened. So would you turn with me
quick to Mark 16:8, Mark 16:8? As you know,
the Gospel of Mark-- I don't know if you know or not, but if you look
at your Bible at verse 8-- For some reason
the Gospel of Mark ends at verse 8, "And they went out afraid." What a terrible
way to end a Gospel. The early church knew that, and in the manuscript
traditions of Mark, there are
three different endings: one short,
one medium length, and one long. Some manuscripts
have one of the three. Some manuscripts have all three. Erasmus' 3rd Edition
Greek New Testament had the longest edition, and that's
how it got in King James. I submit to you that everything
past verse 8 is uninspired. I submit to you,
just along with Criswell, that everything
past verse 8 is heretical. There is nowhere else in the Bible that drinking poison
and handling snakes is an act of faith, and the groups that believe that
tend to get smaller and smaller. Would you turn with me
to John chapter 5, verse 4? My New American Standard, 1970, does not even print
verse 4 in the text. It puts it in the margin,
and that's where it should be. Now, here's Jesus
coming to a pool in Jerusalem, and there's sick people
all around it. And Jesus asked this one man,
"Why are you here?" And he says,
"Whenever I try to get in the water somebody steps over me." You're going, "What?" Would you drink from a well with a bunch
of sick people around it? What is the deal? There's a Jewish myth, myth,
that the well-- It's a spring-fed well,
so there's bubbles. Whenever there was a bubble
or a ripple in the water, it was an evidence that an angel
touched the water, and the first person in the water
after the bubble was healed. Does that sound like God to you?
Does that sound like God? But that explains
what that sick man was doing there, and that explains
why he told Jesus, "I can't get
in the water fast enough." So somebody put that explanation,
that Jewish myth, that uninspired, historical note,
in the margin, and the next copier
put it in the text. The one that's going to bother you
a lot is John 7:53, John 7:53 through 8:11. The Greek scholar
at our school for years and years, and I agree with him,
when I talked to him about this, he said, "Bob, this sounds
like something Jesus would do." It certainly does sound
like something Jesus would do. I have no doubt
Jesus probably did this. This is the healing
of the woman caught in adultery where he marked on the ground, and, "Let him without sin
cast the first stone." Ah, you've heard
it preached a lot. The problem is--
And I hope you'll look at my notes. I've tried to lay it out for you,
just lay it out completely. The passage does not appear
in any ancient Greek manuscript or early church father quote
until the 6th century. In no earlier papyri,
no earlier quote from a church father, no earlier lectionary. We know
from the manuscript evidence that there is one Luke manuscript where the author
tried to put it in Luke. In the Johanan manuscripts this story
is put three different places. If you read the text
and you skip 53 down to 8:12, there is no break in the context. Now, this sounds
like something Jesus did, and I don't deny he did it,
but here's my commitment. I'm committed
to apostolic Scripture. If an apostle didn't write it,
I don't want a sincere, early Christian or a later scribe adding to what
an inspired apostle wrote. Do you see
where I'm coming from? If one of those early guys
didn't write it, I don't want
just more information from later because I don't believe
that's inspired. When I come
to this text in my commentary, in my preaching, I just choose
not to preach on it. I don't know
if I have any more. You could see the rest of these. Would you look at me now because I'm running close
to out of my time? Would you look at me? No major doctrine
is affected by manuscript problems. Unless you think drinking poison and handling snakes
is a major doctrine. It may not be
in the text you think it is, so this is what I say. It's very practical to preachers
and Sunday school teachers and the like and Bible students. In the margin
of any modern study Bible is this phrase at certain points, "Not in the oldest
and best manuscripts." My suggestion is
if you're dealing with that text don't build a doctrine
on that verse, and find a parallel place where that doctrine
is taught in another verse, amen? If we're going to teach
a truth from God, let's go to an inspired text. Now, I don't think that hurts
anything or anybody, but we get so dogmatic that the Bible that I have in my lap
is exactly what God said, and that's ignorance
of the development of-- You think this thing
fell out of heaven and knocked Martin Luther
off a donkey or something? This is a historical development,
and it is not very pretty, but we believe by faith
that God was involved, and we have everything we need to know
for faith and practice, amen? Well, it's hard to say amen there.
I know it is. I know it is. I'm not sure
I'm going to get to finish this last little couple of pages,
but I want to try. The best theory
of translations that I've ever seen is in that book
I recommended to you called, "How to Read the Bible
for All Its Worth," and it puts them on a chart
from “word to word.” If there are five Hebrew words,
there'll be five English words. If there are 20 Greek words,
there ought to be 20 English words all the way down
to “paraphrase.” This is a continuum on how do we put
one language into another. If you speak two languages you know how hard it is to completely
put in another language what you're thinking
and what you've said. Every translation
is a commentary in some sense, so what we have is,
how do we best get to this? The modern view
is it doesn't matter how many words
we have to use, we need to communicate what the ancient writer
was talking about. Now, that's
the “dynamic equivalent” of NIV. I usually tell preachers
who do not have time to do Greek and Hebrew
as something they're familiar with, If you compare a word for word, be it King James, New King James,
American Standard, New American Standard,
Revised Standard, New Revised Standard,
with any dynamic equivalent, Today's English Version, the New International Version,
many others like that, where they disagree is where
you've got to go to the commentaries because where they disagree
is a word problem, a theology problem,
a manuscript problem, and you can't get it
from an English text. That's where you got to go
to the commentaries, but that'll solve
all the problems of where-- You can't spend your whole time
studying every verse every time, so this will really help you
find the place. Now, the paraphrase
really bothers me some. As you know, The Living Bible
was written by Kenneth Taylor who is the president
of InterVarsity Press, and he wrote his translation
for his elementary school children on the train coming home
from downtown Chicago. He would read it to his kids,
and if they understand it, he put it in the translation. Those of us who are tacky say that Kenneth Taylor
is more conservative than God because when God left it ambiguous Kenneth Taylor knew what he meant
and put it in the translation. The “Living Bible” is a great thing
for somebody to read and get the big picture quick, and it could even be used
in a sermon or a Sunday school class as a parallel of one good option
on what this could mean. But The Living Bible
is not a good study Bible. It's not one
that a teacher wants to use. I hope you'll think about that. We've got to remember that the Bible is written
in human language, and because it is, we have to speak
about God as if he was physical, as if he was temporal, as if he experienced humanness
the way we do, so notice the ways we do this. We got to know this isn't true. Please tell me, please tell me you're not expecting
to get to heaven and see an old guy
and a young guy on a gold chair and a white bird flying around. Please tell me
you don't believe that. God with a human body.
God walks in Genesis. God's eyes.
God is a man on a throne. These are all
anthropomorphic metaphors. How about God is female? Oh, I'm into it now. Genesis 1:2, "And the Spirit of God,
over the waters." "Brooded." Roosters do great stuff.
They don't brood. Hens brood.
It's a female bird word. Jesus himself used this,
"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, "you who killed the prophets,
how I would have gathered you as a hen does her chicks,
but you would not." El Shaddai--This is probably
kinda out there, but the word "Shaddai"
is not a Hebrew word. We don't know what it means. The same trilateral Hebrew root
in Arabic means a woman's breast. Don't get crazy. Do you know anything
more loving, protective, kind, and gentle than a nursing parent,
animal or human? How many times
does God describe himself? Isaiah 66, "Though a nursing mother
may neglect her child, I will never neglect you,
oh, Israel." And I really think that Hosea 11, as I showed you
in that sermon I did, is talking about a loving father
and a nursing mother. Deuteronomy 32:18,
"How I bore you on eagles' wings." Only female eagles
teach the babies to fly. Male eagles
have to go stand on flagpoles. Female eagles
push the babies out of the nest, soar them back on their pinions. That's a female metaphor for God. Well, they're all there. Then if you really
get too tough, have you seen that God
is a liar in 1 Kings 22? That God puts a lying spirit
in the mouths of the prophets? Well, friends, I hope
you know that's a vision, and I hope you know
that's not the character of God, and I hope you know
that the evil one is there, and God allows him to put the lie
in the mouth of the prophets. I hope you look at that, but it's still
an anthropomorphic metaphor. How 'bout God's right hand? I heard the story
about the Sunday school teacher that taught on this, and a student went home
to mother and said, "Mother, Mother, Mother,
God can't move." The mother said, "Why?" He said,
"Jesus is sitting on his right hand." You get literal,
you get crazy in some of this. How 'bout God
described in other metaphors? Shepherd, father,
kinsman redeemer, young faithful lover,
parent, father, mother. How 'bout God
described in physical objects? A rock, a fortress, a shield, the horn of your salvation,
a tree, Hosea 14:8. Now, watch these last two points,
and I'm through. Somebody said,
"You're going to be giving an invitation?" Yeah, we're going to decide
to go home. Number two, language
is part of the image of God, Genesis 1:26 and 27. Part of the image is our ability to communicate
with each other and with him. God is personal. He's allowed our minds to have
this ability to communicate orally, but sin's affected all aspects
of our existence, including our language. God is faithful
and communicates to us adequately, if not exhaustively,
knowledge about himself. This is usually
in the form of negation, "God is not a man
that he should lie," Num. 23:19 analogy, "Father, mother," or metaphor, "Tree, shield,
ever-flowing stream." These are metaphors. We're meant to understand
a characteristic from them but not to lock God
into some kind of physicalness. Remember the great prayer of Solomon
when he built the temple? "The universe
cannot contain you, oh, God, much less this little house
that I've built for you." God does not have a body. God is not male or female. God is an eternal spirit,
present throughout the creation. He manifests to us human. He puts information
on the lowest shelf. I submit to you, heaven
does not have streets of gold. Heaven is not a cube
1,500 strata squared. Heaven's far better
than gold, far bigger than that! Why do we get locked up
in these metaphors and cease to realize
they're an aspect of the character of God forced into the physical humanness
of our world's language, caught up in atoms
and temporal existence? And God is far beyond that. Well, I hope
you'll think about these things. Next time I'm going to deal
with the interpreter, and it's just one page,
so we'll get through it easily, and maybe I'll have a chance to let you ask questions
on that session. May we pray just a moment? Lord, I just love your book. I've committed my whole life to studying it
and trying to understand it, but to deny that it has problems
is just to put our head in the sand. There are manuscript problems.
There are number problems. There are metaphors
and analogies. We feel like we know you.
We feel like we can trust you. We feel like you're with us
and for us and will never let us go, and the hairs
of our head are numbered. Thank you for these metaphors. Thank you for language
that goes beyond the crude literal that help us catch a glimpse
of your majesty and glory far beyond the creation
of this little-bitty planet, the third from this little-bitty sun. God, God of a universe
so big we can't see the end. Forgive us for limiting you
to the physical shape of a human being, and yet you've come to us
as a loving person, a redeemer, a savior, a defender. We thank you for these truths. We thank you for this love, and we know
that you would not trick us, but we know because of our fall,
because of our limited ability, because our mind cannot put out
all that you created it to be, that in this time
we see through a glass darkly, but one day we will fully know
you and fully know reality. But until then
we can trust your revelation to adequately communicate to us
your characters, your truth, and your invitation to come. I thank you for these. I know in many way
this is new information, and it goes against much
that we have been taught by loving people in our churches. I pray, Lord, you would help us
to think through these issues, that in our day,
our post-modern day, our anti-Christian day, that we could not only
live the Christian life but know why
we live the Christian life and be ready to give a defense
for anyone who ask for the hope that is in us. In Jesus' name, amen.
Shalom, ya'll. For more information,
please contact: www.freebiblecommentary.org
