David's Daily Diversions

Infallabilty, Inerrancy, and Original Intent

Following on my entry about the translations wars, I have had some further thought thoughts on how my view of Holy Scripture has changed since becoming Orthodox.

As a Protestant, I was a great champion of Biblical inerrancy and infallability. It is certainly one of the great pillars of fundamental Protestantism of any colour and for Calvinists enshrined in the very first chapter of the Westminster Confession of Faith.

As an Orthodox I believe the Holy Scripture -- even the huge chunk left out by the Protestants after Herr Luther ditched the OT that had been used by the Church for 1500 years, and the book of James he didn't care for either -- is the Word of God. But I do not believe this because I believe that somewhere or even at some point in time there is or was a perfect text or even combination of texts, in any language, be it Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, Elizabethan English, or Urdu. What is infallable and inerrant is not the exact words that were written.

What is infallable and inerrant is what was said. By this, I don't mean what was spoken, as in the Dictation Theory. I mean what was meant. Words are not empty things that we fill with whatever meaning we believe them to have. This is why I have no used for textual criticism or even the whole Protestant approach to hermaneutics. God didn't say, "Here are My words; now you make sense out of them," or even, "Here are my words, and if you unlock the exact reason why I chose this particular Greek preposition, you will know the truth."

I used to teach that the theology of the New Testament hinges upon the use of preposition and verb tenses and once you understand these points of Greek grammar, the meaning becomes clear. [For which I believe Herr Luther's nemesis, the Brother of the Lord, says I can look forward to a stricter judgment.] Let me say now: no it doesn't. The theology of the New Testament hinges upon the Church. The Church taught what the NT teaches before the NT taught it.

The purpose of the Bible is not to convey the exact words of God -- it is to convey the exact message of God. This does not denigrate in any way the work of translation. It is easiest to study and expound upon the message when the best words are there to use.

The problem with most modern English translations of the Bible is not that they choose the wrong texts from which to work (though I think that most of them use inferior texts). It is that they aren't so much interested in translating what was said as they are conforming what was said into what they want to hear.

The latest craze of gender-neutral translations is wrong for two reasons. First there is the fact that the text simply can't be translated that way. The words aren't there. The second is that the meaning isn't there, because the Church has always said so. To emasculate the translation is an abuse of both the Bible and the Church.

As long as the Church holds to the faith of the Fathers, entrusted to them by the Holy Apostles and Prophets, upon whose foundation the Church rests, the Church will not be led astray by bad translations, bad translators, or even by variant readings in Greek or Hebrew texts.