In listening to Dr. Paul Maier’s presentation of How We Got the Bible, I realized the Bible involved a series of editors. From the collecting and organizing, revising and distribution, the bible is, at least, a blood-bound and politically-stained recording of the longest life that ever lived. Leaving the controversy aside, I’d say the bible is its editors. By how Dr. Maier translates it, and how history translates the Word, I find an interesting evaluation.
Immediately, when the Bible was compared with today’s technology, I learned that I had an opinion. I cannot agree with Dr. Maier introducing the HWGTB series by the unmarked concerns towards a newspaper. And his extending the metaphor to computer programs and mindboggling scripture is underdeveloped. I find the whole delivery over assuming.
Firstly, the bible is not meant to be the latest news. It’s actually old news, a prophetic text. Dr. Maier’s suspicion that no one wonders about a newspaper’s arrangement and author is grossly inaccurate. There is little need to wonder who wrote or edited a newspaper because the details are there; the credit is there; arranged from spectacle to recreational—there is a concept of “front page news, “page six article”, “small time paper”. A newspaper (with its authors, editors, and publishing) is rooted in credibility. It’s a business. You can’t compare the Bible to that—especially when there was such a strong discrepancy in converting it to common English and mother languages when Latin Vulgar ruled.
The second instance, to compare the scripture to computer, is not withstanding. Saying ‘to understand scripture is to not need it’ doesn’t make sense as well. There are flocks of people who have ideas, renditions, convictions, notions, and studies of the Bible—they have an understanding of the Word, and are attached to it for entertainment, intellectual purposes, or as emotional therapy. Dr. Maier himself expressed his attraction as a life-long devotee. He doesn’t understand the scripture, yet he is bound to it. My point is: you can understand something and not need it; you can understand and do need it—but how does that reflect on a computer, Dr. Maier? You can understand calculators, clocks, and the Internet and not need them, not use them. You could not understand them and be completely dependent, or live perfectly content without an encounter. By Dr. Maier’s words, to understand the scripture is to be God. In truth, those who understand (and created) the intricacies, capabilities, and supremacy of technology are our gods, but who’s to say we need them?
More importantly, what I hadn’t acknowledged was outside of the original and additional testament, the bible we know today was not completed up at one time. The verses and chapters had not existed, and the numbering and annotations were certainly not amongst its design either. What absolutely hadn’t thought about was how much the bible had to succumb to a considerable amount of processing before surfacing as the multilingual, interpretive edition, we now know.
I already knew the primary voice of the Bible is Hebrew. What I didn’t know was, from there, it took some western world disturbance to get the Bible translated—into Greek. This was called Septuagint, and the reason it exists is because Alexander the Great conquered territories. And when a Hebrew population was Greek-oriented to the point of there being Jews whose first language was Greek, a necessary preservation came to translating the Bible as needed. However, of that preservation came the first gathering of muddy commonality that was not god-breathed, god-inspired, or with credible eye witness account that made the Old Testament the most valid—the Apocrypha. Where the Old Testament provided integrity, the Apocrypha lessens the book for the sake of worldliness. It’s simply a collection of self-help that isn’t rooted in the power of the Lord. This change in edition accumulated a whirlwind of renditions to take off.
Starting early 1200s, Stephen Langton separated the bible into “chapters” when there were only the Old and New Testament. Then in the 1480s, an unnamed rabbi divided the Old Testament into “verses”, with sixty years reprieve to ensue before Robert Stephanus does the same with the New. A handwritten English text of the bible wasn’t established until late 1300s, and then it was bested by a printed distribution, translated into Latin Bulgarian in 1455. Next was 1522’s German edition by Martin Luther. It wouldn’t be until some forty years later when a third English edition of the bible would be produced, by Myles Coverdale, since the second translation and its author were severely persecuted. Coverdale’s translation was the founding bible of today’s America because of the pilgrims. Along the way were executions and tortures to edit the bible’s existence in or out of societies in order to preserve government. What would be left is the coveted book documenting lessons of convicted faith and sacrificial generosity.
Because the Old Testament is the god-inspired, and the New is treated as a secondary criticism, I realise the Bible can no longer be added on. It is a centuries-old theology, and in order for it to remain concentrated in precise faith, there couldn’t be another book, or a “Modern Testament.” Today it would be dubious: the god-inspired moments and prophecies would be demoted to insanity and coincidences. And if it were translated, it couldn’t be more than a click away. With that in mind, though I do not know who authored, scribed, or collected the lessons of the bible, I understand and appreciate the much work, frustration, humility, and (not hours but) several centuries-worth of life accumulated in order to obtain the precise organization of this book. I admit, this doesn’t hearten me to appreciate my hard copy of the Lord’s word. Instead it builds more questions to how this book lives again with each generation passed.
Works Cited
“How We Got the Bible”. Men’s Network. N.p. n.d. Web. 17 Jun 2012.
