ARTICLE ONE – THE BIBLE IN THE HANDS OF JESUS AND PAUL

Every true Christian wants to have a revelation from God in their own “heart-language”.  Each of us (like English-speaking Christians from the days when the first English-speaking person was won to Christ) long for a final authority we can understand ourselves. True believers want to know their Creator and speak with divine authority about who our Creator is, and what His will is for our lives. We don’t know if the first missionary to English-speaking people reached them carrying the Greek New Testament, a Latin translation of the Greek New Testament, or a New Testament in his own native language.  We do know that those new believers (just like us) wanted a final-authority Bible in the English language they could read, study, memorize, and preach themselves. Unlike the struggles of the early English-speaking believers to have any of God’s words in their own language, the Bible has now been translated into English many times, by many different people, from several different sources, for a variety of reasons.  The question we face today, is not can I learn about my Creator and Savior in the English language.  The question for us today is different. Do we have a “final-authority” Bible in English, and if so, which one is it?  Do we have to become proficient in Hebrew and Greek to understand who our Creator is, and what He wants for our life?  Do we have to seek out some “expert” in ancient languages to understand every word of God’s words?

Discussing English versions of the Bible today is a “hot-button” topic, which produces strong emotional and intellectual responses from everyone involved.  Discussing revision of the Bible, translation of the Bible, and how to preach and teach the Bible is NOT a secondary issue.  The Bible is the final authority for everything in the life of a Bible-believing Christian.  Our final authority is NOT a secondary issue. Being able to hold the final authority in our own hands, instead of trusting someone else to tell us what the final authority says is NOT a secondary issue. The translation, revision of texts and translations, and how we should preach and teach the Bible is such an important issue, that we should not start with how we feel about it. Nor should our opinion about this issue simply be based on which Bible we think to be most applicable or readable to this generation.  Biblical Christianity is a part of something ancient (though some today act like this is not so).  The roots of our faith in the Old Testament are ancient.  The roots of our faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth are very ancient.  The New Testament from which we get our marching orders as Christians and as New Testament Churches is very ancient.  Biblical Christianity is NOT an American product that sprung up with the technological advances in our American culture in the last 40-50 years.  We are instead a link in an ancient chain, whose anchor rests in a Book that is thousands of years old, and in a sinless Savior who lived and died around 2,000 years ago.  Biblical Christianity is not some new chain or cultural fad, our anchor is ancient (and I don’t mean America in the 1940-50s). Because of that, our faith and the way we follow and serve Jesus is ancient.  We are charged to make something that is ancient relevant today.  The greatest way to be relevant today is to preach and teach timeless truths from eternal words, and apply timeless methods given to us in Scripture to our technologically advanced culture.  God has never changed, and our spiritual adversary hasn’t changed.  Fallen human nature and human inclinations are no different in someone holding an iPhone, than they were for an Israelite in the wilderness holding a pot of manna. Shocking news…people of all ages today, are just fallen people who need the same eternal words, timeless truths, and Biblical methods that people have always needed.

All of that to say…if we are dealing with the Bible to the English-speaking world, we should BEGIN with what the Bible teaches FIRST, rather than what we feel will make us or the Bible more culturally relevant today.  There are some who say (wrongly I believe) that the Bible teaches very little about Bible translation, beyond the obvious fact that God wants His Son to be believed and known by people from every language (that is obvious to everyone but a small segment of Calvinists).  But we will NEVER think rightly about the Bible translated in our own English language, unless we BEGIN with Jesus and the New Testament.  Did Jesus or the apostles have anything to say about Bible translation?  The answer to that question is YES, they had a LOT to say, but what they clearly said they taught us indirectly by their example. We will never think rightly about the Bible translation issue until we take a look at how Jesus and the New Testament authors handled the Bible in their hands.  Most sensible believers would agree with this simple statement…I want to handle the Bible I hold in my hands like Jesus and the apostles handled the Bible they held in their hands.  The first error with many people’s view of this issue, is that they begin in the wrong place.  Many begin with the views of “famous” Christian men from the last 100 years (all great men but flawed). Some begin with historical Baptist Confessions of Faith from the 17th century (even though few would look to those Confessions to support the “majority” view regarding Christ’s return, because that was not an issue at that time just like Bible translation was not an issue then). We should instead begin with Jesus and the New Testament.  I do care how men greatly used of God viewed the Bible they held in their hand, but not as much as I care about how Jesus and the New Testament authors viewed the Bible they held.  How did Jesus and the New Testament authors handle the Bible they held and preached from?  What Bible did Jesus and the New Testament authors have in their hands when they preached, taught, and reached their generation?  How does considering how they handled the Bible apply to me today?

It is simply a FACT for anyone who believes the Bible, that Jesus and the New Testament authors handled the Scriptures with the utmost care and respect.  They treated the Scripture of their day as if they were handling the very WORDS of God (which is more than the truths of God).  They were handling the WORDS of God.  There was (of course) in the days of Jesus’ ministry no written New Testament.  But there was (of course) Scripture in the days of Jesus’ ministry.  The Scripture Jesus and the apostles used, we call the Old Testament.  One of the first things that is readily apparent as we study Jesus’ life is that He held a VERY high view of the Old Testament Scriptures.  Jesus was the Author of the Old Testament, and every word He spoke was the word of God. Yet there is not a single recorded instance of Him casting a bit of doubt about the authority, authenticity, inspiration, or preservation of the Scripture in His day.  The gospels record Jesus saying “it IS written” 18 times describing 12 separate instances.  He never said anything like “it WAS written” when speaking about the Scripture.  He even chided those who opposed Him with statements about Scripture like “have ye not read” (recorded 7 times in the gospels describing 5 separate occasions).  He expected the Jews (especially their leaders) to view the Scriptures as the final authority. He expected them to have read the Scriptures, and (for the most part) to understand the Old Testament that they could read for themselves.

Jesus had His own authority (which He demonstrated at times like when He said: “but I say unto you”). But Jesus used Scripture authoritatively to answer the Devil, to answer and confront the Pharisees and Sadducees, and as a basis for many of the things He taught and did.  It is a great thought to consider that Jesus used the written word as a final authority, when He could have always used His own authority (Matthew 19:3-6).  Never once did Jesus put even a shred of doubt in the minds of His followers or His enemies who heard him about Scripture being word for word the words of God.   Jesus did not just consider the “heart” or “message” or “thoughts” of Scripture to be important.  Jesus considered the individual letters that compose the words, the individual words, and the tenses of verbs, to be essential, meaningful, and valuable.  Jesus focused on the tense of a verb in the account of Moses and the burning bush to teach that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were still alive in glory when God appeared to Moses in the fire of that bush.  This silenced the Sadducees (who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead).

“Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. And when the multitude heard this, they were astonished at his doctrine.” (Matthew 22:29-33)

Jesus (who was the Author of the Old Testament) stopped at the comma in Isaiah 61:2 in His first message in the synagogue in Nazareth, to distinguish between the purpose of His first coming, from that of His second (Luke 4:17-20).  It was Jesus Himself who said: “…Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled” (Matt. 5:18).  If it was written in the Scriptures in His day, it was good enough for Jesus.  Incidentally “it is written” was also good enough to defeat Satan, and send him packing from Jesus in the wilderness for a season.  In the wilderness Jesus used the written words of God as the final authority when He had his own authority over the Devil.  It is the supreme authority of the written word of God that has caused God’s words to be the center of the Devil’s attack.  Satan has (from the Garden of Eden) attacked what God has said in the minds of those who’ve heard God’s words.  If the Devil can dampen the faith of God’s people in what God has said, or confuse them about what God has said, he can hurt the people of God, and hinder people from coming to Christ (he loves doing both).  Anyone who is using the Scripture in any way that decreases people’s faith in what they hold in their hand is NOT imitating the way Jesus handled the written word in His day. The Scriptures were intended to BUILD FAITH rather than hinder it (Romans 10:17). Jesus used the Scriptures to overcome His enemies.  He used them to explain future events.  Jesus expected the Jews (especially their leaders) to have read them and understood them.  Jesus NEVER said anything like “It WAS written in the original” or “a better translation would be” or any such thing that is so common today, and has been common for many decades (even by “great” men).  It is always hard to remember that the best from among men, is still a man at best. Hear the Savior say:

“SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.” (John 5:29)

“…Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But HOW THEN SHALL THE SCRIPTURES BE FULFILLED, that thus it must be? (Matthew 26:52-54)

“And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, IT IS WRITTEN, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.” (Matthew 21:12-13)

“…HAVE YE NOT READ what David did, when he was an hungred, and they that were with him; How he entered into the house of God, and did eat the shewbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests? Or HAVE YE NOT READ in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless?” (Mat 12:3-5)

Not surprisingly, Paul as a great scholar, treated the Scriptures the same way that Jesus treated them.  Paul used the Scriptures to “prove” that both Jews and Gentiles were sinners in the sight of God (Romans 3:9-18).  Paul believed everything in the Scripture he was holding in his hand (Acts 24:14), and famously made sure his young protégé (and us) understood that ALL Scripture had been given by “inspiration of God” (2 Tim. 3:16-17), and was profitable for more than just learning how to live forever through Jesus (though that is the most important message of Scripture).  Paul never said a word that would have caused any of those who heard him, or read his inspired letters to doubt one letter of one word of the Scripture, either in the Old Testament or in anything He wrote. Paul even used the fact that “seed” in Genesis is singular instead of plural to make a point in Galatians 3:16. Paul’s view of the Scripture he and those who heard him held in their hand, was the same as Jesus’ view of Scripture. He never said anything resembling “it WAS written in the original” or “a better translation would be” or “the original language says” that might cause some “plow-boy” to doubt the Scripture they held in their hands, and could read for themselves (assuming a “plow-boy” could read…perhaps Tyndale speaking of a “plow-boy” was never trying to say the Scriptures needed to be dumbed down). Peter used and treated the Scripture the same way Jesus and Paul did (1 Peter 1:16; 2:6)(2 Peter 1:19-21).  Peter even considered Paul’s letters as “Scriptures” and warned of people in his day mishandling them to their own destruction (2 Peter 3:16).  Sounds like we should be careful how we handle the “Scriptures” to be more like Jesus, and the great apostles Paul and Peter.

For those followers of Jesus who believe the details of the Scriptures, and value the WORDS of the Bible in addition to the truths of the Scripture, making note of how Jesus, Paul, and Peter handled Scripture is no surprise to us.  Hopefully each of us attempt to treat the Scripture with the same kind of attention to detail and authority as our Savior, and those He chose to be instruments through which He would write inspired words passed down to us in the New Testament.  It is likely that I haven’t “lost anyone” who believes the Bible to this point. But many people do not often think through what was in the hands of Jesus, the apostles, and those who heard them “live” when they used the words “Scripture”, or exhorted people to “read” the Bible.  Because of the day and age in which God placed us, we are wrongly conditioned to HEAR “the original words on the original manuscripts in the original languages” when we hear the word “Scripture”. Fact is, when our greatest examples in the faith said “it is written”, or called some documents “Scripture”, or exhorted people to “read” something, it had NOTHING to do with original manuscripts in original languages.  They were all speaking about the Bible in their hands, and the hands of those who heard them speak (or read their words).  Jesus, Paul, and Peter (and the other New Testament authors) were NOT handling and speaking from original manuscripts of the Hebrew (and a little Aramaic) Old Testament.  Those who heard them, or read what they wrote, had something they could hold in their own hands come to mind (unlike many people today).  By Jesus’ day, the most recent part of the Old Testament (Malachi) was about 400 years old.  The oldest part of the Old Testament (assuming Job was written after Moses penned the Pentateuch) was around 1450 years old.  Any Hebrew Old Testament that was available in the days of Jesus and the apostles, would have been copies of copies of copies of the “originals”, and yet Jesus (the Author of the Old Testament) and the apostles (personally chosen and inspired by Jesus) never said a word that made any distinction in what was available in their day and the “originals”.  But when we consider what Jesus and the apostles were calling “Scripture”, it doesn’t stop with copies of copies of copies of the Hebrew Old Testament.

  Jesus, Paul, and Peter were actually using a Greek Translation of the Hebrew Old Testament when they spoke about the “Scriptures”, and made authoritative statements like “it is written”.  That translation in the common language of that day, was made from copies of copies of copies of the “original” Hebrew.  The translation used by Jesus and the apostles was 250-300 years old.  Does anyone actually think that Timothy was reading “original manuscripts” of the Hebrew when he was taught “the holy scriptures” as a child in his home?  It was without reasonable doubt a three-century-old Greek translation made from copies of copies of the Hebrew Old Testament that the Holy Spirit calls “scriptures”.

“And that FROM A CHILD THOU HAST KNOWN THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” (2 Timothy 3:15)

This whole idea that the Bible used by Jesus and the New Testament authors being a Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament (with a little Aramaic in Daniel) is an issue to which we don’t often give enough weight, when considering the Bible for us today in English. Every example of Jesus and the apostles using the Bible is an example of how to treat and use a translation. The common Greek translation of the Old Testament used in the first century is called the Septuagint or LXX (280-250BC). Though today that Greek translation is often criticized, it was used and treated as God’s words by Jesus and the NT authors.

“The translation of the Seventy dissenteth from the Original in many places, neither doth it come near it, for perspicuity, gravity, majesty; yet which of the Apostles did condemn it? Condemn it? Nay, they used it, (as it is apparent, and as Saint Jerome and most learned men do confess) which they would not have done, nor by their example of using it, so grace and commend it to the Church, if it had been unworthy of the appellation and name of the word of God.” (Preface of KJV in “Translators to the Reader”)

“Historically as well as religiously and spiritually, the LXX is of immense importance. As the first translation of the Heb. OT into a foreign language, the LXX gained great fame. The very fact that it was put into the language of culture and education of the day made its use wide. Philo of Alexandria used the LXX extensively. Josephus depended upon it. Jesus and the NT writers quoted from it as well as from the Heb. The Jews of the Diaspora used it. However, the schools and synagogues of Palestine venerated the sacred Heb. With the dawn of Christianity the LXX became the Scripture of Christians. It was venerated and quoted and used in controversy. The Old Lat., Egyptian, Ethiopic, Gothic, Slavonic, and other versions were made from it, and it was used in early missionary activity.” (from The New Unger's Bible Dictionary. Originally published by Moody Press of Chicago, Illinois. Copyright © 1988.)

“ The Jewish commercial settlers at Alexandria, forced by circumstances to abandon their language, clung tenaciously to their faith; and the translation of the Scriptures into their adopted language, produced to meet their own needs, had the further result of introducing the outside world to a knowledge of their history and religion. Then came the most momentous event in its history, the starting-point of a new life; the translation was taken over from the Jews by the Christian church. It was the Bible of most writers of the New Testament. Not only are the majority of their express citations from Scripture borrowed from it, but their writings contain numerous reminiscences of its language. Its words are household words to them. It laid for them the foundations of a new religious terminology.” (from International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Electronic Database Copyright © 1996, 2003, 2006 by Biblesoft, Inc. All rights reserved.)

No one today can be completely sure of what exactly the LXX Greek translation looked like in Jesus’ day because (unlike Greek manuscripts of the New Testament) we don’t have manuscripts from that “version” of the LXX.  We only know that the early Greek LXX translation was later modified several times. Manuscripts of the LXX we have today, are all from after it had been modified.  It is interesting to note that most “scholars” are highly critical of the Septuagint’s word choices in translation, in direct contrast to Jesus and the apostles refraining from criticizing it. They not only refrained from criticizing it, they used it either all of the time or most of the time. Whether Jesus and the apostles quoted directly from the Septuagint at all times cannot be determined with 100% certainty today, because we don’t have a 1st century Septuagint to compare to the New Testament (I personally believe they used it ALL of the time, but that cannot be proven or disproven).  Many say they freely translated at least a few places of the Old Testament Hebrew into Greek (that too cannot be proven or disproven).  What we do know is that 100% of the time when Jesus and the apostles were quoting the Bible, using the Bible, and speaking about “Scripture” they were referring to a translation in Greek rather than something from the original Hebrew or Aramaic, and was certainly not an original manuscript only. That is an important piece of information to let sink into our minds and hearts as we consider the Bible today.  It is of the utmost importance when we consider how GOD USED the word “Scripture” in the Scriptures. Considering the way the Bible uses the word “Scripture” and how Jesus and the New Testament authors handled Scripture, also exposes the kind of arrogance that is so common today when contrasting how the Author handled a translation of His inspired words in the Old Testament versus how people handle English translations today.

We have a strong example of how Jesus and the New Testament authors treated a Greek translation of the original languages (one that was 250-300 years old at the time). We need to take an honest look at whether we’re treating any “good” translation of the Bible in English in the same manner. Shouldn’t we be comparing English translations to find one to treat the same way Jesus and apostles treated their translation? Are we modeling how we treat the Bible in our hand after Jesus and the apostles?  Are we as careful as they were with the “plow-boys” who listened to them? Are we careful to not to take away a “plow-boys” confidence in something they can read themselves? Far too many people are following the example of other MEN (some of whom are “great” men), who are NOT following the example of Jesus in that area of their Christian walk.  Seems to me like we need to do some examination of English translations, so we can look for one to treat the same way Jesus, and Paul, and other New Testament authors treated a translated Bible in their day.  I want to treat the Bible I hold, (and it is likely that you do too) like Jesus treated the Bible He held.  But that is a subject for the next article.