There are Many Different
Books Call a “Bible”
Building a Biblical Vocabulary Series
If
you participate in Biblical Heritage
Center or TOV Center discussion groups
you will be asked to follow the guideline below:
My Belief System will be large enough to include all of
the facts.
I will allow my Beliefs to be examined and questioned.
I will change my Beliefs if errors or new facts are
discovered.
The
reason we ask all participants to agree to follow it is a bunch of people in a
room that ignore facts, refuse to allow their beliefs to be questioned and will
not change what they believe even after they know contain errors isn’t a
discussion group – it is formula for
chaos.
Instead of having
open discussions, meetings between people like that turn into groups of
polarized people blindly defending their beliefs and verbally attacking anyone
that happens to disagree.
The
bottom line is that by agreeing to follow the above guideline, participants
create an open safe environment in which everyone can engage in self-discovery
of their own beliefs and explore other beliefs that not only profoundly
influence lives – but are important parts
of individual and group identities.
As
a former Christian pastor, “The Bible”
was definitely an important part of my
life, my identity and my vocabulary.
My beliefs about “the Bible” were
summed up in a bumper sticker you may have also seen:
The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it.
I
was very much like a guy I heard on a talk radio program the other night – “I don’t care what you say! I am not going to
change what I believe!”
Using
the above Guideline is the first step to bridging conflicts over beliefs. The
second step is building the biblical vocabulary
required to have discuss our beliefs. Let’s begin by making sure that we have the same meanings for the vocabulary terms
below:
● Facts are things that exist
independently of people and are sensory perceivable by anyone regardless of
their beliefs.
● Beliefs are memes, pieces of
information that only exist in human brains.
● Institutional Truths are beliefs
created by institutions and backed by authority.
The
next skill we need in order to benefit the most from our discussions is making clear distinctions
between facts, beliefs and institutional
truths. The way we do that in a group is by simply asking people that use
a word or phrase which one it is -- a fact, belief, institutional truth or
something else.
For
me “The Bible” was an institutional truth, but I treated it as
if it was a fact. It seemed like an
absolute fact to me. I was surrounded by institutions and people who all
treated it like a fact. Hey, what else
could I think in that environment – I am just human! But, when I begin hearing
about some very real facts, they began to change my beliefs.
1. The term “The Bible” is an institutional truth. The factual answer
is that I was actually referring to just “my
Bible.”
2. “My Bible” was the 1769
edition of the King James Translation. The original King James Translation was made in 1611 under the authority of King
James I of England for political not religious purposes.
3. Another fact is that
since “my Bible” is a translation,
that means that someone had to translate something else that existed
before “my Bible” was created
and it was written in a different language.
4. “My Bible” has two sections, Old Testament and New Testament. The facts
are that my Old Testament was the
Jewish Scriptures called “The Tanakh”
originally. Another fact is
that the Old Testament of Roman Catholic Bibles and the
original 1611 King James Translation
contain additional books called the Apocrypha.
The Roman Catholic Church
added the Apocrypha to the Jewish Scriptures and Protestant translators of “My Bible” removed it.
5. Another fact is that the New Testament in “My Bible” is one many New
Testaments that have been part of Christian
Scriptures over the past two-thousand years. The primary difference
between them is that they contain different books.
6. Still more facts are that thousands of
Greek, Hebrew and Latin manuscripts exist that contain the
books in Christian and Jewish Scriptures. Those manuscripts do
not all contain the same words for the same book. Someone had to make decisions
about which words would be includes or excludes from “my Bible.”
7. Another important fact is that hundreds of English
translations of Christian Bibles and Jewish Scriptures now exist because translators
chose different meanings for some very important words in their translations.
So,
“My Bible” was one of many Bibles that have
existed in the almost two-thousand years of Christian history. Bibles differ based on the books they contain, the ancient manuscripts translators chose to
translate or ignore and different
choices of English words they chose to translate Greek, Hebrew and Latin words.
In
addition to the above facts
about the many Bibles that exist today, there are also four primary institutional truths about
Bibles:
1. The Bible is a book that contains the
inerrant infallible word of God.
2. The Bible is a book that was inspired by
God.
3. The Bible is a book that contains legions
and traditions.
4. The Bible is a book of fiction.
The
one fact that everyone seems
to agree on is this -- “the Bible is a book.” Obviously
people with belief #1 view the words of their Bibles in very different ways
from people with belief #4. Disagreements
over what the words of their Bible mean between people with belief #1 produce
very different biological and emotional responses than disagreements between
people with belief #4.
However,
in or discussion groups, after we become aware of our different beliefs we are
able to take the next steps:
We work together to discover their origins, identify
institutions that made them institutional truths and track how they evolved over time.
The
bottom line is that the BHC/TOV
Center Guideline and a common
vocabulary of biblical terms create transparency.
Everyone knows “there are some big elephants in the room,” but instead of trying to
avoid mentioning them, we want everyone to be able to see them as clearly as
possible so we can openly and safely discuss them.
We
believe that this is an important and worthy goal. What do you think? I f you
agree, we encourage you to learn more – and
begin applying what you learned today now!
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