HUH?!!?

There's a full-page ad in the Chronicle's Religion section today which has the word "HE" and scripture reference after scripture reference, noting who said it, when it was said, and (for Old Testament references) when it was fulfilled in Jesus. The last scripture reference is from John 10:35 - "The Scripture cannot be broken" (NJKV, probably). At the bottom is the group's url.

OK - They succeeded. They got me to look, but only because of a professional interest in the topic. I thoroughly despise proof-texting! Occasionally guilty of it myself, but it's more of a counter-proof-texting than anything. I still try vigorously to avoid it.

As you might guess, it's that quoted reference which blew my gasket - completely taken out of context and only a fragment of the scripture at best. At this point in John, Jesus is telling off the temple Jews who were planning to stone him right there on Solomon's Porch. Here's what Jesus says: "Is it not written in your Law, 'I have said you are gods'? If he called them 'gods,' to whom the word of God came--and the Scripture cannot be broken-- what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, 'I am God's Son'? " (John 10:35-37, NKJV)

The Bible wasn't written in King James' English!! Nor any form of English, for that matter, so stuff, nuances, literal interpretations, get lost in the translation. We do our bumbling best at interpreting what words with multiple definitions might mean in their particular context and culture at the time they were written.

When I have a few extra minutes, I enjoy digging around in what we have of the original languages (even the Greek and Hebrew texts didn't come down to us perfectly - in spite of what some people think. There were humans involved in the process, after all, and we ain't perfect!). I don't really have a few extra minutes today, but took them anyway.

First stop - other English translations. Lo! and behold! There are all sorts of other possibilities. "The scripture cannot be annulled"(NRSV) is one of them.

Second stop - the handy-dandy KJV with Strong's lexicon (tells you which Greek word was being used at that particular point - it can make a difference). The Greek word which shows up as 'broken' above is actually closest to the English word 'loose' - as in to untie or set free something.

Puts a whole different twist on it, once you get the entire context of the scripture. To me, Jesus is saying something like, "OK. In your own texts (not the Torah, btw, but your Wisdom literature, the Psalms), God is calling you gods, and you can't change what's written, so why are you so bent out of shape over me claiming essentially the same thing?"

Another twist is that Jesus calls it "your Law", not God's law. Just seems to me that Jesus was attempting a healthy debate with the biblical literalists, and trying to open closed ears. It certainly doesn't seem to me to be warrant for biblical inerrancy for whatever translation you happen to be using and whatever texts you choose to pluck out of the whole. *sigh*

Shoot! Even the "original" Hebrew texts may not be quite what we think they are! The Hebrew text was initially transmitted by word of mouth. How many times have you played "Gossip", only to discover that the original sentence was nowhere near what came out at the other end? And in its first written forms, Hebrew didn't even use vowels. The consonants were there to ensure the text didn't degrade further. They only went back and added vowel points when someone noticed that Person A wasn't quoting the text quite the same as Person B (maybe the Southern accent clashed with the New England twang?), and in Hebrew an 'a' or an' e' can make a whole lot of differece in the meaning of the word. To me, the miracle is that the words have traveled so well over the years. Have you ever seen vowel points? It wouldn't take much to add an extra dot or smear a line and change one vowel to another!

Anyway ... guess that rant's run down for today. I know I won't change those who buy into the theology of the group that ran the ad. I also don't see them changing me anytime soon. What I believe, however, is that God, through Christ, is big enough for all of us and loves us dearly in spite of all our human foibles. And that's a message worth preaching!