Cutting Edge
Monday, August 30, 2004
Jack T. Chick and the Bible
Sometimes I enjoy tweaking my riteous indignation muscles. I started searching for a cure for hiccups, and I found a very good one, but it was hosted by some sort of über-Roman Catholic, so I investigated a few links and became thoroughly offended.
That's when I decided to go whole hog, as it were, and check out the latest misguided claptrap from Jack T. Chick. This page discusses why the Septuagint is not holy scripture. In order to declare a whole group of believers in God through Christ "unholy" they've created a bit of a myth. The fact is back when Greece ruled the western world the large number of Jews, separated from Jerusalem, lived in the Greeek world. They spoke Greek, they took Greek names, but kept their faith. The problem they had was keeping the Hebrew language alive. A group of Hebrew scholars worked together to produce a Greek translation of the Jewish Bible for the Jewish people who lived in Greece (or Greek-speaking countries). They worked hard to make sure that the Greek language represented the word of God for the Jews. The Word of God had always been spoken in Hebrew. This first translation of God's word into the vernacular was a wonderful evangelical leap.
Even if you believe that God's word can be contained and cemented into any human language, historically we have to take Ancient Hebrew to be that language. The claim that the King James Version of the Bible is the only true source of the Word of God is laughable. King James had his own purposes for supporting the publication of the official texts, partially to help keep England and Scotland unified in worship, but to stave off encroaching Protestant English translations which he thought were abyssmal.
Basically, it's easy to write a bunch of scholarly like material and claim it's authoritative. I notice that there is one group of Christian Fundamentalists who only accept a certain group of scholars to be "true scholars," and the Roman Catholics have theirs, and then there is another group support by Bishop Jack Spong and Marcus Borg.
Our own Biblical Scholars can't agree on who's accurate and whose inaccurate. I figure it's best to read the Bible and try to figure it out for yourself. ¶ 4:36 PM 0 comments
That's when I decided to go whole hog, as it were, and check out the latest misguided claptrap from Jack T. Chick. This page discusses why the Septuagint is not holy scripture. In order to declare a whole group of believers in God through Christ "unholy" they've created a bit of a myth. The fact is back when Greece ruled the western world the large number of Jews, separated from Jerusalem, lived in the Greeek world. They spoke Greek, they took Greek names, but kept their faith. The problem they had was keeping the Hebrew language alive. A group of Hebrew scholars worked together to produce a Greek translation of the Jewish Bible for the Jewish people who lived in Greece (or Greek-speaking countries). They worked hard to make sure that the Greek language represented the word of God for the Jews. The Word of God had always been spoken in Hebrew. This first translation of God's word into the vernacular was a wonderful evangelical leap.
Even if you believe that God's word can be contained and cemented into any human language, historically we have to take Ancient Hebrew to be that language. The claim that the King James Version of the Bible is the only true source of the Word of God is laughable. King James had his own purposes for supporting the publication of the official texts, partially to help keep England and Scotland unified in worship, but to stave off encroaching Protestant English translations which he thought were abyssmal.
Basically, it's easy to write a bunch of scholarly like material and claim it's authoritative. I notice that there is one group of Christian Fundamentalists who only accept a certain group of scholars to be "true scholars," and the Roman Catholics have theirs, and then there is another group support by Bishop Jack Spong and Marcus Borg.
Our own Biblical Scholars can't agree on who's accurate and whose inaccurate. I figure it's best to read the Bible and try to figure it out for yourself. ¶ 4:36 PM 0 comments
