One reasonable objection to my objection to paraphrases is "well, if it's only one book, even a significant book, that's being simplified, does it matter that much?" I would tend to sustain that objection, even if the book is the Bible. If someone understands the impact of the paraphrase--that it tends to hide the nuances and connections of the text--and is willing to do what it takes to overcome that weakness, no harm is done.
That said, I'm afraid that most of the time, it simply isn't the case. Exhibit A is the classic devotional My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers. If one looks it up on amazon, one will quickly find not one, but at least two revisions of this work. Original copyright date: 1917. Oldest writing in the work: 1911.
We should be sobered, I think, by the fact that we can no longer understand homilies that our great-grandfathers would have readily comprehended. We should be even more sobered by the fact that they understood with an eighth grade education, while we need revisions despite years in college.
If the failure to understand older works of theology doesn't bother us, let's consider a few other documents of that vintage that we might not be able to understand, like the Federal Reserve Act, the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th Amendments to the Constitution, the Treaty of Versailles, the treaty creating the League of Nations, and so on. And if we cannot understand these, how can we understand the Gettysburg Address, Emancipation Proclamation, the Dred Scott decision, or for that matter, the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence.
You see, the ability to comprehend a document is not primarily innate, but learned. If we refuse to train our minds with the primary document we use each day, we shall quickly find ourselves unable to decipher the rest of our lives.
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10 comments:
Are you sure your objections to paraphrases are not really a complaint against the deterioration of the American education system? That's the theme you keep coming back to. I know you don't really think this, but you sure do sound like you're saying that if people were just educated enough they'd prefer the same version you do.
Joe, I've wondered the same thing, and the differentiation that I come up with is a question; are paraphrases a symptom of, or driving, our inability to approach a text?
I'd argue that it's both. It certainly took me a while before I was able to understand the KJV. On the other hand, anyone who does not have the "womens' studies" disability and a moderate level of langauge ability can understand the NIV--or for that matter, the first revision of Oswald Chambers.
So I have to argue that something else is going on besides a failure of education.
But what in the world do you mean by, "an inability to approach a text"? I think you are referring to being able to determine the theological usefulness of a text, and I continue to maintain that looking for only knowledge in Scripture is a crippling narrow-mindedness. Sometimes God speaks through the text to me in a way that makes my hermeneutical training object, "That's not what the text says!" How ridiculous! Scripture is living and active, not a cadaver on the gurney to be dissected. Haven't you noticed that some of the OT quotes made by NT authors are violently taken out of context? That is precedent enough for me that I'm not going to confine God's use of Scripture in my life to human rules of interpretation. When I read the Bible and God speaks to me about things going on in my life, how can you say this is not "approaching" the text???? What else is it for????
Joe, don't forget that people can and do forget what they learned in school. "Use it or lose it," right? (and besides, isn't it a relief that for once I'm not overtly beating up on the schools?) :^)
Seriously; it is absolutely true that our culture's dependence on paraphrases can be greatly attributed to poor education in the schools. McGuffey's 4th Reader features passages that now are in high school or college, for example.
In the same way, it is just as true that if we who are no longer in school can quickly forget what we learned if we don't use those thinking muscles.
I don't quite understand what you're saying with the rest of your post, though. Certainly God can lead in any way He desires; I'm simply getting at the fact that if it's not translated well, the reader is going to have trouble getting at every level of understanding, including those you mention.
I meant that sometimes what I "get" out of Scripture breaks hermeneutical principles. TC (theological correctness) would say that the hermeneutical transgression proves God didn't speak to me after all, and I'm saying that's ridiculous. I mentioned it because I feel that a lot of what you've been saying about paraphrases is TC and elitist to boot. I wanted to remind you that the Bible is not a textbook, and that "accuracy" means more than just having the ideas right, it also can mean hitting the target. I submit that the Bible's primary target is our heart, not our mind.
Joe, it would be silly to assume that the Scriptures engage our hearts without engaging our minds, though. Perhaps I am "elitist" or "theologically correct" for holding this view, but for millenia, all educated men have believed that there are certain criteria by which we evaluate any text. They've debated what the criteria are, but they agree that when certain logical criteria are violated, the violator is almost certain to fall into error.
Yes, this view has fallen into disfavor in the past century (yes, as government schooling removes logic, history, and literature from the curriculum), but I make no apology for holding to the traditional view. Put simply, the Creator of Language and Author of Scripture knew what He was doing, and He created language and His Word according to certain principles just as certainly as He created physical laws.
Elitist? TC? So be it.
I never claimed that Scripture doesn't engage our minds. What I did say is that it is able to speak to our hearts over the objections of our mind. I remember when I was in Bible school that I'd be reading Scripture and something would strike me, but I'd immediately go into TC mode and check to make sure it was hermeneutically "legit." I know I missed hearing from God because I quenched the Spirit with my mind. What you write reminds me of that process I was trained to do, of making sure I only listened to the proper interpretation. Ironically, it was how we were supposed to "hear from God" because God of course isn't doing any communication anymore now that the canon is closed (don't want none of that wacko tongues or prophesy stuff, do we?). It's all bogus, and now that I've learned to recognize God's voice in my heart I don't bother anymore with checking the Spirit's hermeneutical acumen to see whether I can ignore him or not.
The elitist part refers to your implication that if only people were as educated as you were they'd prefer the version you like, and also to the idea that we are qualified to tell God what he can and can't say through his own book.
Joe, you're turning things on their head. My whole thesis here is that it's a bad thing when people put words in His mouth, in this case through paraphrases.
And yes, He could use other means, but in this world, He has chosen to use His Word. It also happens to be a fact that there are certain rules for evaluating any text, and that those who violate those rules are almost certain to arrive at error.
Now I don't know exactly what Moody taught you to which you object. I know that my current pastor has some severe reservations about some things going on there today, though, so it wouldn't surprise me if what you call "theologically correct" had what Dr. Maclachlan would consider to be some errors.
But that said, I think you're falling into a very ugly trap; that of thinking you can make the rules for proper understanding of a text. In other words, you're coming awfully close to being guilty of what you're accusing me of doing.
Well Bert I think I've found the fundamental source of our disagreement: the first sentence of your second paragraph. The Word is IMO not the only way that God speaks to us nowadays. The thing that Moody taught me that I object to is the dispensational idea that God no longer speaks, that the only communication we're going to get from him nowadays is what our mind can mine in his Word. But since you apparently agree with that, there's no surprise you are going to disagree with me so much. No doubt you feel I am in danger as much as I feel you are missing out.
The value of the hermeneutical rules is that we can use them at our own volition and at our own timing. They are an essential check on our study of Scripture so we can avoid errors of the sort you mention in your first paragraph. When God does choose to speak to us more directly, however, it is IMO quenching the Spirit if he tells us something using Scripture and we retort, "You can't make it say that!" He’s the Author, after all! So I don’t feel I am introducing a new rule for interpreting, I am simply recognizing that the rules we already have are not always useful.
I know you will be concerned about how we can know when it is God speaking. Well for one thing, you do get to recognize when he is speaking to you (I’m not talking about an audible voice, that has never happened to me). It is certainly safer to only trust the hermeneutics and what you can reliably get from the Word, but Proverbs 3:5 comes to mind. For another, he will never say something that contradicts the massage of Scripture—he may use a particular verse in an “unapproved way,” but what he says in that way will fit overall.
Since I’m not doing a very good job of explaining this, I’ll mention a book you’ve probably already heard of that talks about this sort of thing: Surprised by the Voice of God by Jack Deere. He’s got a blog here: http://jackdeere.com/. But I have to get to class.
I still don't think paraphrases put things in God's mouth.
Joe, I'm actually not a strong cessationist, but I do hold to a very basic principle; Scripture is primary. If one thinks that he is led in a different direction than the Scriptures indicate, then it probably isn't the Holy Spirit doing the leading, but rather another, less holy spirit.
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