I've been "studying" the Bible a lot lately, but that probably means something different to most people than what it really was. That's why I put it in quotation marks. My study isn't of the Bible, but about the Bible. It's also "studying" because I'm listening to audiobooks, which means I'm usually doing other things (driving, mowing the lawn, playing videogames) while I'm listening. As a result, I'm not fully focused on the books while I'm going through them.
The two books are The Bible Doesn't Say That and Whose Bible Is It? While the first one is about mistranslations, mistakes, and flawed interpretations, the second one is more of a history, looking closely at what's known about the creation of the Tanakh, all the way up to the modern usages of the Bible. Both of the books cover similar ground, and both have been really enlightening.
As a Mormon, my relationship with the Bible is less comfortable than other so-called Christian religions*, despite having studied it extensively during my mission to Florida back in '02-'04, as well as taking courses on the Old Testament and New Testament during high school and going through each Testament every four years in Sunday School. In other words, I'm not unfamiliar with the Bible, but it is certainly more of a this-is-a-portion-of-how-I-understand-the-world kind of feeling about it. I read many sections frequently--particularly the stuff in Luke 2 during the Christmas season--but I wouldn't say I'm an expert.
After reading these two books, I realize that there's a lot more to unpack about the Bible than I was ever led to believe.** Mormons don't really subscribe to the idea that the Bible is an ancient fax from God to mankind, transmitted perfectly for every language through one language and somehow surviving sans extraction, addition, or mistranslation. The Article of Faith 8 pretty much puts it clearly: "We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly..." So the fact that there are problems in what I, as a Mormon, see in the Bible can easily be squared with the idea--even the need--of continuing revelation to dictate what the Bible means.
What's baffling to me is trying to filter through what's revelation and what's tradition. A large swath of Mormonism is built upon concepts, doctrines, and beliefs that are easily traced to early mistakes within the Christian tradition. There are a lot of things that are rather immaterial to me, errors within modern translations of the Bible that fail to capture the actual meaning of the original text (inasmuch as any of the Bible can be said to be "original"). But I'm definitely striving to make sense of what the Bible is supposed to be.
On the one hand, I can see why the Bible is so potent a text. Much of what it promises and discusses touches something that extends into the deep past of humanity as much as toward the vague possibilities within an eternal future.
But there are eddies and currents in the book that seem ignored, glossed over (a phrase that comes from Biblical marginalia, it turns out), or deliberately misconstrued. What are those? Apologists have tried to square a fundamentally circular text, and the fact that much of what's being argued isn't even the point of particular passages. As a brief example, one of the most important, tear-readying lines in the New Testament comes from John 3:16--"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." The phrase that is rendered "so loved" is more correctly translated as "in this way [God] loved", which is less a superlative and more instructive. It's less poetic and potent to have the more accurate translation, but isn't there something lost in relying on an error?
My feelings aren't finished on this, but it's interesting to pursue nonetheless.
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*I say "so-called" because there's always a tension--for me--about what a Christian is, what its defined as, where it came from, and who's using it. In some ways, I don't think Mormons are Christian at all, while in other ways I feel we're quite Christian. Then there's always the idea that the only Christian was nailed to a tree 2000 years ago.
**The fact that there's a general misunderstanding about the Bible--and that such a misunderstanding is, in many ways, perpetuated--is a subject for another day. Suffice to say, it brought me to a thorny question I haven't resolved: Can lies be used to protect the truth?
The two books are The Bible Doesn't Say That and Whose Bible Is It? While the first one is about mistranslations, mistakes, and flawed interpretations, the second one is more of a history, looking closely at what's known about the creation of the Tanakh, all the way up to the modern usages of the Bible. Both of the books cover similar ground, and both have been really enlightening.
As a Mormon, my relationship with the Bible is less comfortable than other so-called Christian religions*, despite having studied it extensively during my mission to Florida back in '02-'04, as well as taking courses on the Old Testament and New Testament during high school and going through each Testament every four years in Sunday School. In other words, I'm not unfamiliar with the Bible, but it is certainly more of a this-is-a-portion-of-how-I-understand-the-world kind of feeling about it. I read many sections frequently--particularly the stuff in Luke 2 during the Christmas season--but I wouldn't say I'm an expert.
After reading these two books, I realize that there's a lot more to unpack about the Bible than I was ever led to believe.** Mormons don't really subscribe to the idea that the Bible is an ancient fax from God to mankind, transmitted perfectly for every language through one language and somehow surviving sans extraction, addition, or mistranslation. The Article of Faith 8 pretty much puts it clearly: "We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly..." So the fact that there are problems in what I, as a Mormon, see in the Bible can easily be squared with the idea--even the need--of continuing revelation to dictate what the Bible means.
What's baffling to me is trying to filter through what's revelation and what's tradition. A large swath of Mormonism is built upon concepts, doctrines, and beliefs that are easily traced to early mistakes within the Christian tradition. There are a lot of things that are rather immaterial to me, errors within modern translations of the Bible that fail to capture the actual meaning of the original text (inasmuch as any of the Bible can be said to be "original"). But I'm definitely striving to make sense of what the Bible is supposed to be.
On the one hand, I can see why the Bible is so potent a text. Much of what it promises and discusses touches something that extends into the deep past of humanity as much as toward the vague possibilities within an eternal future.
But there are eddies and currents in the book that seem ignored, glossed over (a phrase that comes from Biblical marginalia, it turns out), or deliberately misconstrued. What are those? Apologists have tried to square a fundamentally circular text, and the fact that much of what's being argued isn't even the point of particular passages. As a brief example, one of the most important, tear-readying lines in the New Testament comes from John 3:16--"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." The phrase that is rendered "so loved" is more correctly translated as "in this way [God] loved", which is less a superlative and more instructive. It's less poetic and potent to have the more accurate translation, but isn't there something lost in relying on an error?
My feelings aren't finished on this, but it's interesting to pursue nonetheless.
---
*I say "so-called" because there's always a tension--for me--about what a Christian is, what its defined as, where it came from, and who's using it. In some ways, I don't think Mormons are Christian at all, while in other ways I feel we're quite Christian. Then there's always the idea that the only Christian was nailed to a tree 2000 years ago.
**The fact that there's a general misunderstanding about the Bible--and that such a misunderstanding is, in many ways, perpetuated--is a subject for another day. Suffice to say, it brought me to a thorny question I haven't resolved: Can lies be used to protect the truth?
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