The History of Scriptures - Essay Example

The Scriptures The Scriptures should not be taken as entirely literal accounts, but are a means of passing on knowledge by interpretive analogies. Religion began as mankind sought to understand the world around him. It couldn’t just have happened he decided, so he sought for the source - the creator and found Him in God. The Bible sets out to explain not the science, but the faith of creation- the relationship between God and his creation. The Scriptures have been with us for a very long time, and have all suffered to some extent from some form of mistranslation, misinterpretation or linguistic detraction. Some has been due to language and context drifts over time, and some has been due to well meaning story tellers and some has been due to political motivation and manipulation for advantage. Yet the message, the love of God, is so strong and so consistent that it still shines through. Genesis 1 v 26-28:- God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them;   male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground. In the New Testament we have passages such as the early Chrisitian hymn quoted by St Paul in the second chapter of his letter to the young church at Philippi:-  5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:  6 Who, being in very nature God,    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing    by taking the very nature of a servant,    being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man,    he humbled himself    by becoming obedient to death—       even death on a cross!  9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place    and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,    in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,    to the glory of God the Father. So Paul explains what he believes happened , how Christ was the earthly expression of God , but makes no attempt to explain how. The Tanakh, also known as the Hebrew Bible consists of the teachings or Torah, i.e. the first five books, otherwise known as the books of Moses; Neviim (Prophets) and Ketuvim (writings). Sometimes known as the "Miqra” i.e. ‘that which is read’ the name Tanakh is an acronym , its letters taken from T,N. and K, the initials of the three sections. Also important in the Jewish faith is the Talmud, made up of the Mishnah, a collection of early interpretations of the scriptures, and the Gemara, made up of commentary upon the Mishnah. The Torah and the Hebrew Bible uses a vocabulary of less than 6000 words had been passed down from generation to generation. Its content or canon was finally fixed in the 3rd century C.E. Its original language was Hebrew, with Aramaic translations appearing after the Exile of the Jews, and then later on Greek translations became common. Modern translations of course come from languages which use far more than the original 6000 words and this is part of the reason for differences which occur from one translation to another. Although no original manuscripts survive today, the later discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1948, or fragments of the scrolls that were reconstructed to the most complete and accurate state achievable, has made it possible to verify many parts of the Old Testament. The scroll are made up of about 900 manuscripts in 30,000 fragments , so, as it can be imagined, sorting them all out into a readable archive, has taken a considerable time. As well as some non scriptural books fragments of every book of the Hebrew scriptures, except for the book of Esther, were preserved near to the shores of the Dead Sea. As the Jews spread around the Mediterranean in the 3rd century B.C.E. it was felt necessary to translate the Jewish scriptures into Greek. This translation is known as the Septuagint which means 70. This refers to the scholars who undertook the translation – there were in fact 72 of them – 6 from each of the 12 tribes of Israel. The text of the New Testament has a long and interesting history since the time Jesus first brought his Good News. The original was written down in Greek, although it is obvious that the writers are often quoting from the Aramaic, the language of Ist century C.E. Israel. As the message spread and the church grew over the years it was necessary to translate it. First into Latin. By the end of the second century a Latin translation was in use in Rome and there was another being used in North Africa. In 382 C.E. Pope Damasus gave Jerome the task of coming up with a definitive Latin version. This was completed in about 405 C.E. By that time the Goths already had a version in their Germanic language. Since that time there have been numerous translations and re-translations. The most scholarly go back to the original language before translating this. However there are those who consider that any translation must be in error. So much so that the Jehovah’s Witness sect brought out in 1957 a work entitled “50,000 Errors in the Bible” to try to correct or explain some of these errors, but it was of course written from their particular point of view, and was refuted by scholars. Also it does not even cite more than one or two of these so called errors. But even if the Jehovah’s Witnesses were correct, at least in part, they were referring not to the original scriptures, but to the King James’ Bible. The Bible as we have it is of course not in line with many Jehovah’s Witnesses teachings so they had, at that time, recently brought out their own version of the scriptures, one that fitted in line with the sect’s doctrines, and wanted to promote this. Many of the early Christian communities would have their own copy of the Gospels and the other texts which make up the New Testament such as the letters of Paul. By the beginnings of the 4th century there were a lot of documents circulating, all hand written at this time of course. Some of these however contained doctrines considered by the majority to be controversial or even heretical such as Gnostic works. For this reason lists of approved books began to circulate. Eventually the New Testament as we now have it was decided upon by the majority, although parts of Revelation were disputed for some time. Other texts such as ‘the Shepherd of Hermes’ were still in circulation, but were not considered to be as important or as spiritually helpful. When William Booth, 19th century founder of the Salvation Army, declared that the Bible was :- The only authorized and trustworthy written revelation of the word of God he was echoing the feelings of those Christians so long ago, those from the time of the emperor Constantine, who elevated Christianity to the official religion of his empire. . The first English Bible was produced by John Wyclif,( or Wycliffe) , 1330 – 1384, a Yorkshire born Oxford lecturer in religion and philosophy, in the late 1300’s. His translation , however was condemned by the Roman Catholic church. The Council of Constance, which met from 1414 -1418, ordered that Wyclif’s books be burned and his body removed from consecrated ground. Another version translated from Medieval Greek copies was produced by William Tyndale around 1524. It was printed in Germany in 1526, but only two copies are now known. The books were smuggled into England, but if found were burned. Later the people who owned them were also burned, including Tyndale himself in 1536. Another version based on Greek and German translations as well as on Tyndales’ translation was produced by Miles Coverdale around 1535. Rogers and Taverner produced their own translations around 1539, which generally added to Tyndale’s version. All these works were then compiled and edited by Coverdale to produce the Great Bible which was approved by the King ( Henry 8th) as the official English version of the Bible. Meanwhile in 1568 the Roman Catholic Church began work on the Douoy Bible, its first version of English Bible which was based on the Latin Vulgate translation. In 1604, King James I , seeking to bring calm to the religious front, wanted a fresh start, and collected together a number of scholars from Oxford and Cambridge, as well as Puritan and Anglican priests. This large group used the Catholic Douay, Luther's German translation, the available Hebrew and Greek copies, and to a very large extent Tyndale's work, and created the King James Version (~1611). Language, of course, is a fluid and constantly changing thing. Just how fluid can be seen In 1611 "allege" meant "prove," "prevent" meant "precede," and "reprove" meant "decide." Because of these and other changes in meaning The English Revised Version came out by 1885, followed shortly by the American Standard Version. There are of course other version , both in English and in many other languages. So from the Hebrew of the Old Testament, the Aramaic language which Jesus spoke, the word was translated into Greek, Latin, English, American and many revisions since. It can be argued that as language has drifted in meaning, so did some understanding, but it should also be remembered that in most cases the earliest possible originals were consulted and it was from these that modern translations were taken. The discovery of the 1st century C.E. Dead Sea scrolls has confirmed in many cases the authenticity of modern translations. The Qu’ran retains the original verses as revealed to Muhammad, in original Arabic script, but whilst this script may not have changed for 1400 years, the meanings of some words may have taken on slightly altered interpretations as seen in the widely varying multiple translations in different languages. Nevertheless, as in the case of the Jewish and Christian scriptures, every measure is taken to ensure accuracy and the passing on of an authentic message. References Bible, New International Version, retrieved 17th December 2010 from http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philippians%202&version=NIV Booth, W., quoted , Handbook of Doctrine, The Salvation Army International Headquarters, London 1969, ( page 9) Conti,A.,( September 2005) John Wyclif, The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, retrieved 17th December 2010 from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wyclif/#1.1 , Howe, L., ( 2010) Dead Sea Scrolls Going Online, Earthfiles.com,Science , retrieved 17th December 2010 from http://www.earthfiles.com/news.php?ID=1775&category=Science Qu’ran Explorer.com retrieved 17th December 2010 from http://www.quranexplorer.com/ Septuagint, History World,. Retrieved 17th December 2010 from http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=058 Ward, B. ( 1909) Douay Bible, New Advent Encyclopaedia, retrieved 17ht December 2010 from http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05140a.htm Read More