I almost deleted my last post but, too late, through the magic of time zone differences, it's out there now living it's own life. I don't have the heart to kill it now. Some Father's Day mercy perhaps? Then I found this at Ben Byerly's blog.
At last, an attempt to show just how complex this thing called Bible really is. It's pretty good but doesn't allow for the changes that occur over time. The Epistle to the Laodiceans, for example, seems to have been a fairly common part of the medieval Latin Bible until the 15th century when doubts of its authenticity caused it to be shunted to an appendix where it remains to this day. But it does give a good account of how the standard English language Protestant (i.e. sans 'Apocrypha') Bible is a pretty modern invention. It also doesn't allow for the text varieties within the traditions. The Greek Bible has variant forms of Joshua, Judges, Daniel, Tobit. And they've even included Samaritans. I know it's only five books for them but the Samaritan Torah is one of the three ancient text types for the Torah (i.e. there aint no single original version).
So it's a start. All we have to do now is get it into Intro Bible courses so people learn that if God was speaking this 'Word' she had lots of stenographers hearing the words in different ways. So there can't be a literal truth. Thank God for that, I reckon.
At last, an attempt to show just how complex this thing called Bible really is. It's pretty good but doesn't allow for the changes that occur over time. The Epistle to the Laodiceans, for example, seems to have been a fairly common part of the medieval Latin Bible until the 15th century when doubts of its authenticity caused it to be shunted to an appendix where it remains to this day. But it does give a good account of how the standard English language Protestant (i.e. sans 'Apocrypha') Bible is a pretty modern invention. It also doesn't allow for the text varieties within the traditions. The Greek Bible has variant forms of Joshua, Judges, Daniel, Tobit. And they've even included Samaritans. I know it's only five books for them but the Samaritan Torah is one of the three ancient text types for the Torah (i.e. there aint no single original version).
So it's a start. All we have to do now is get it into Intro Bible courses so people learn that if God was speaking this 'Word' she had lots of stenographers hearing the words in different ways. So there can't be a literal truth. Thank God for that, I reckon.
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