 |
|
| Vol. 13 No. 7 July 2011 | Page 6 |
|
|
| Vol. 13 No. 7 July 2011 | Page 6 |
Donald R. Fox
I just came from my local bank and drove to Kroger’s gas station to fill-up my car’s tank. It was a beautiful day, Tuesday, 2 December 2008. I like to take care of my chores early; it was 10:00 a.m. The gas station was not crowded. I opened my car door and heard a very angry, screaming voice near the gas pump next to me. A large middle-aged woman was outside her car on a cell phone. She was loudly blaring in rage to the one on the other end of the cell phone. I turned my back to her and started to process the gas pump. The outrageous screaming went on and on. I would not give any attention to such shameful behavior. I know how easy it is for such a person to turn anger onto innocent bystanders. In a flash, her car drove away. Possible trouble was avoided, and peace prevailed at the gas station.
As a Christian gentleman I pondered this experience. I could not think of anyone of my friends, family or strangers that I would ever address in such an uncivilized manner. Such type of conduct as described above is too common. With that said, you don’t expect it in such a place as a public gas station, in a very nice part of town. You expect such behavior outside or inside a bar or around unruly, intoxicated individuals. The woman demonstrating this uncivilized, boisterous behavior could not be a Christian. Such violent types of people are widespread. I find this very sad!
This woman and all of us are and will be held accountable for the words we use. “But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned” (Matthew 12:36-37). This woman and all of us will give an account of our actions. “For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us shall give an account of himself to God” (Romans 14:11-12). “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil” (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14).
D. Gene West
The cry often goes up from Islam and other false religions that the Bible is unreliable because it has been translated so many times. It seems that unthinking persons accept that sort of propaganda, which is all it is, without ever doing any research, or even giving the Bible the benefit of the doubt. One would think that the fact that parts of the book have been here for the greater part of eight thousand years, and nothing, even in the oldest parts have proved to be untrue, would give people cause to pause and think about what they are hearing. Alas, it seems that it does not! What we need to do is investigate the accusations to see if they are true, and if they are, then we may give some of these people an ear, at least for a while. However, if after investigation we find their charges to be wholly false, then good judgment demands that we ignore both the accusations and those who make them. If the Bible, down through the centuries, had been translated from one language to another, which was then translated to another, and then to another, perhaps these people would have a point, albeit a weak one. For example, if our Old Testament, originally written in Hebrew and Aramaic had been translated into Arabian and that translation had been translated into Greek, and then that one into Egyptian, followed by one into Latin, and that one into English, one might grant the possibility of their being errors. However, that is not the way the translation has been done!
The Old Testaments that we have today in our English Bibles have been made directly from the original languages – Hebrew and Aramaic into English. That is only one translation, dear friends. Our New Testaments have been translated directly from the language into which the original writers put it, namely Greek, into English. That is only one translation. How, in the light of that can one claim that it has been translated so many times that it is highly unreliable? There has only been one translation from the original language into another. Oh, it is true that it has been translated in Latin, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, Telugu and almost every other language on the face of the earth. However, each time it has been translated, it has been translated from the original language into the second one such as Russian, etc. Any way you can only count that as one translation. Someone will ask, “Well, what about the Syriac, the Coptic, the Peshito and other ancient translations?” What about them? They were translations made from the Greek manuscripts into those ancient languages, and they were not translated from one to the other. These ancient translations can be very valuable in that we can take them, due to their ancient nature, and compare them with translations today to check for accuracy in translation. Yet, the bottom line of all this, where the rubber meets the road, is that the charge that the Bible has been translated so many times that it is no longer reliable cannot possibly be true if the translators go back to the original language in which the Sacred Volume was written and translate into one language at a time. Consequently, this is all nothing more than propaganda to confuse the minds of unthinking people. This in turn, will allow them to be easily deceived into turning to some other so-called holy book. It is a ruse. That is all it has ever been, and that is all it ever will be!
The plain fact of the matter is that you can trust your Bible in your native tongue. If you cannot trust your Bible, then you surely cannot trust any of the other so-called holy books, for they too have been translated. I do not read the Qur’an in Arabian, for I can neither read nor speak that language. If I cannot trust my Bible because it has been translated from Hebrew and Greek into English, then I cannot trust the Qur’an that has been translated from Arabic into English, for both books have been translated the same number of times. If one cannot trust his Bible because it has been translated from Hebrew and Greek into English, how can he trust a book that was supposedly written on golden plates (which no one ever saw except purportedly one man), but has been translated into English and then corrected more than 3,900 times? Friends, the whole accusation is a smoke screen, and whatever charges are made against the Bible in this regard can with equal force be made against the other books to which reference has been made. The origin of these books is far less authenticated than is the Bible. Stay with your Bible! “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17 NKJV).