Bible Study is Hard Work

A book I am now reading, "The Lost World of Genesis 1: Ancient Cosmology and the Origens Debate" by Dr. John H. Walton from Wheaton College reminds me that bible study is hard work.  Walton can't emphasize enough how important it is for serious interpreters of the bible to first understand the biblical Hebrew/Greek language as well as the Ancient Near East culture before reaching conclusions about what particular biblical texts are seeking to convey.

One of the common mistakes we make in interpreting the bible is to assume that our English translation has the same meaning for us as it did for the original biblical audience in ancient time.  This leads to the potential problem for us of arriving at conclusions that were never intended by the biblical author.  We think that we are "being biblical" when in actuality, we are being very unbiblical!

One of the gems from my early reading of this book is something Dr. Walton includes in his first chapter.  By keeping this statement close in our consciousness when we study the bible, it will do a couple of things for us: 1) It will keep us humble because the bible wasn't first written for us.  It was first written to a people who lived in a very different culture and language than we do.  And 2) It will lead us to the important reality that if we want to understand the bible for our day and age, we first need to understand what it meant to the original hearers.

Here's Dr. Walton's statement: 

"The Old Testament does communicate to us and it was written for us, and for all humankind.  But it was not written to us.  It was written to Israel.  It is God's revelation of himself to Israel and secondarily through Israel to everyone else.  As obvious as this is, we must be aware of the implications of that simple statement. Since it was written to Israel, it is in a language that most of us do not  understand, and therefore it requires translation.  But the language is not the only aspect that needs to be translated.  Language assumes a culture, operates in a culture, serves a culture, and is designed to communicate into the framework of a culture.  Consequently, when we read a text written in another language and addressed to another culture, we must translate the culture as well as the language if we hope to understand the text fully."

Like I said, bible study is hard work.  But well worth it!
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