more dots join up in my mind
confirmation of what I question about christian teaching and understanding of the bible
confirmation of what I question about christian teaching and understanding of the bible
More troublesome, though, is what happens when a translator has no understanding of the culture behind the language he is translating. You don’t need to be at all familiar with French Culture to learn to speak French. You don’t need to be familiar with Hebrew culture to learn Hebrew. The problem is, without uniting the understanding of the culture with the language, the translator will only understand what that word means in the context of his OWN cultural sense. And, that is the MAIN problem we have with Bible translation; precious few translators have ANY depth of knowledge of ancient Hebrew culture and concepts, and worse, often they have a built-in prejudice AGAINST the ancient Hebrews, and so goes forward with a negative view.
Many of us who have purchased small appliances or electronic widgets made in China often have found the accompanying instructions to sound odd or even pretty funny. I vividly recall being told in one manual that I was to tighten a screw until “it was happy”. Say what? How do I tell when the screw is happy? Of course, the idea was to tighten it until it was correct, or appropriate. And, in a dictionary, you’ll find that happy and correct have very similar meanings. But, for Americans happy is an emotion displayed by living creatures, not a technical term. So, the word seems right to the translator, but the concept is all fouled up.
We have that exact problem in many places in the Bible. So, let’s get back to adjusting our understanding of just what a Biblical covenant actually is.
Partially because of the use of the Greek word diatheke in the NT, and also partially because the Hebrew concept of B’rit doesn’t have a direct parallel to either Greek or English speaking cultures, Christians have adopted the belief that what is being referred to is equivalent to our concept of a will (like in the sense of “last will and testament”). In fact, I have heard MANY sermons that seek to explain covenant in exactly those terms. Therefore, we have come to use the English word “testament” as in NT and OT, to describe the two halves of the Bible. And, boy, is that concept off the mark. No modern credible biblical scholar should defend using the Greek word diatheke or it’s English equivalent testament as a proper translation of B’rit (covenant). So, why do we continue to say OT/NT instead of Old Covenant, New Covenant……. habit, tradition, and an ignorance of just what a real Biblical covenant is in the first place......