Bible Terminology.
Introductory Remarks.
Many of the disputes among men arise from the different senses attached to the words they use, and are more apparent than real. Words represent things and ideas. When employed to represent what is objective and obvious to the senses, they are less liable to be misunderstood than when employed to express invisible things and abstract ideas.
This difficulty is greatly increased in translating the expressions of one language into the words of another, especially in rendering from an ancient into a modern language, between which there must necessarily be so much dissimilarity, owing to the different habits, customs, modes of thought and expression of the people using them. The ideas are often new and strange. It is frequently quite impossible to find equivalent terms for the expression of any given idea in the two languages, or even to be sure of the idea that is to be conveyed from the one language to the other. There is often opportunity for the translator to impart something of his own mind and personality to the work he is translating. Perhaps it is not possible for him to avoid being influenced by his own mental state, if he be ever so honest, in rendering the thoughts of another in a foreign language into his own.
These are some of the embarrassments and disadvantages — and others might be mentioned — which we experience in the use of our English version of the Scriptures. The Old Testament was written— nearly all of it— in the old Hebrew language, long before the beginning of the Christian era; and the New, principally in the old Greek language, in the first century after Christ, now nearly two thousand years ago. These Sacred Scriptures have necessarily suffered in being translated from those ancient languages into ours, from the want of identical and equivalent terms, from the imperfect knowledge of the translators, and from the coloring which their own views, prepossessions and prejudices must unavoidably have given to their work. And more than all they have suffered, and still suffer, from the peculiar meaning which expositors, commentators, theologians, and others insist on putting upon the otherwise plain terms found in the Scriptures, to adapt them to their own human philosophy. The peculiar religious sense in which, we are told, these words are to be used, is often quite different from their usual meaning in common life, and not unfrequently just the opposite of their actual meaning; and no other reason can be given for this anomaly, but that the philosophy of man requires it. In this way, plain common sense is ruled out of court, and not allowed to have any voice— or any controlling voice — in deciding what the Bible means, or intends to teach; and the people are driven to the commentaries, to systems of theology so-called, and to catechisms and creeds to know what to believe.
Many of our religious teachers, who are set for the defense of the truth, rely more upon the authority of tradition than upon the Word of God to justify their position and enforce the doctrines they teach; and so they hand down their interpretations from one generation to another. Indeed, it has already come to pass that in some of our great organic church bodies, a man is regarded as heretical or sound according as he agrees or disagrees with the book of the Church, which is not the Book of God, but, like the Mishna of the Jews, is a digest of the traditions of the elders and of the interpretations they have decided to put upon the Scriptures. And when a man is tried for heresy, he is tried by their church-book, and not allowed to appeal to the Word of God!!
It should be remembered that the Bible was given to the world at large, and not intended for any one class of men or minds; and that, while it contains something that is adapted to every stage of mental elevation and style of thought, and contains depths that are unfathomable and mysteries that are insoluble, even by the wisest of men, it also contains much, very much, that is open to the simplest intelligence. Indeed, many of its doctrines, that are called mysterious, have only been made so by the fog which human philosophy has thrown around them. They are clear enough to the humble, docile spirit. Even its poetical portions only express the higher feelings of simple, pious hearts. Its parables, its metaphors, and otlier figures of speech, were not given to puzzle men, but to illustrate and enforce doctrines which are elsewhere expressed in the plainest language possible.
These tropical portions of Scripture in which philosophical speculators and theorizers have always delighted to revel— as affording the opportunity to find and prove just what they wish to find and prove, no matter what it may be— were not given to teach new doctrines, but rather to illuminate those already taught. They are not to be taken as doctrinal statements for the foundation of one's faith to which the plainer literal portions must be made to conform, but only in harmony, as they are, with its didactic utterances. Hooker, in his Ecc. Pol, says: "I hold it for a most infallible rule in expositions of sacred Scripture, that when a literal construction will stand, the farthest from the letter is commonly the worst. There is nothing more dangerous and delusive than that act which changes the meaning of words, as alchemy doth, or would, the substance or metals ; making of anything what it listeth, and bringing, in the end, all truth to nothing."
Jeremy Taylor says: "In all the interpretations of Scripture, the literal sense is to be presumed and chosen, unless there be evident cause to the contrary." Martin Luther, in his Annotations on Deut., also says : "That which I have so often insisted on elsewhere, I here once more repeat, viz. : that the Christian should direct his first efforts toward understanding the literal sense of the Scripture, which alone is the substance of faith and of Christian theology. . . . The allegorical sense is commonly uncertain and by no means safe to build our faith upon; for it usually depends on human opinions and conjecture only, on which, if any man lean, he will find it no, better than the Egyptian reed. Therefore, Origen, Jerome, and similar of the fathers are to be avoided with the whole Alexandrian school, which formerly abounded in this species of interpretation. For, later writers unhappily following their too-much-praised and prevailing example, it has come to pass that men make just what they please of the Scriptures, until some accommodate the Word of God to the most extravagant absurdities."
In the critical examination of the Scriptures, it is not. only requisite for the scholar to examine the original text, but also — what is more important — to bring to his investigation a mind as free as possible from any preconceived theories of his own or others; to guard against any peculiar bent or influence, from whatever cause, which he may have toward any doctrine; and to seek, with all docility of mind and candor, to ascertain just what the Divine Spirit intends to teach and does teach by the language employed; and this, not for the purpose of sustaining or opposing any theory, but simply for the sake of the truth. Let us try to examine the Word of God in this spirit, with reference to some of the principal words employed in this discussion.
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