Defending the Bible: Burning the NIV

According to an article written by Mark Whittington, Marc Grizzard, pastor of the Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, North Carolina, plans to celebrate Halloween by burning NIV Bibles. Whittington wrote:

The pastor of the Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, North Carolina plans to celebrate Halloween by leading his fourteen member congregation by burning Bibles. Pastor Marc Grizzard is not a Satan worshiper or a militant atheist.

Pastor Grizzard says that he is a Christian. However it seems that the Amazing Grace Baptist Church believes that only the King James Version of the Bible is the true word of God and that all other versions of "perversions" and "Satanic." Along those same principles, Pastor Grizzard intends to burn books written by Christian authors such as Billy Graham and Rick Warren.

I have written several posts dealing with misguided attempts at defending the Bible (you can read those posts here, here, and here). I have never written one on the King James Version of the Bible, but I may do so soon.

Those who believe that the King James Version of the Bible is the only translation that God approves or who say that the King James Version of the Bible is the only inspired translation of the Bible, or who say that only the King James Version is the “true” Word of God , do not understand the true nature of the Bible.

The King James Version of the Bible was published in 1611 by the order of King James. What many conservative Christians today who advocate a King James only mentality do not understand is that the Puritans and the Reformed Christians in England refused to adopt the King James Bible because they considered it to be a “Popish” Bible.

If those people who say that only the King James Version is the Word of God knew the story of the King James, they probably would not burn the NIV and other translations of the Bible on Halloween.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Bible, King James Bible, NIV

A Requiem for the TNIV: RIP

In a previous post I reported on Zondervan’s decision to discontinue publishing the Today’s New International Version in 2011. This version of the Bible has gained little support among evangelicals and its demise is a testimony of the failure of the TNIV to find acceptance among pastors and scholars.

Rick Mansfield at This Lamp has an excellent article on the future of the NIV. His post also includes a requiem for the TNIV, from which the above image was taken.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Bible, NIV, TNIV, Translations

The NIV Revision

On September 1, 2009, Zondervan, Biblica (formerly known as the International Bible Society) and the Committee on Bible Translation announced a revision of the New International Version of the Bible. The new revised NIV will be available in 2011. According to the joint announcement, the new revision will mark the first complete update of the NIV since 1984.

At the same time, Zondervan announced that with the publication of the revised NIV in 2011, they will cease selling the TNIV. The TNIV is a controversial translation of the Bible released in 2001 which was met with wide rejection among evangelicals because of its gender-neutral language.

I have written several posts in which I discussed some of the weaknesses of the NIV. I even wrote a post in which I compared the NIV and the TNIV (check the links below). To me, the biggest problem with the TNIV was the many changes this translation made in the Hebrew text in order to employ a gender inclusive language to address the cultural constraints of our American society and its reluctance to use words such as “father,” “son,” “brother,” and the masculine pronouns “he,” “him,” or “his.”

I am quite aware that in the twenty-first century our society expects people to use inclusive language in order to include both men and women in whatever is being said or written. However, when a Hebrew verb is changed from the singular to the plural, such a change creates inaccuracies in interpretation of the text and it provides a false understanding of what the text is trying to communicate to the reader.

I can assure you that the Committee on Bible Translation will have a difficult time in accommodating the many different views and desires of the evangelical world. If the translators of the revised NIV follow the same principles adopted by the translators of the TNIV, the revised NIV will suffer the same fate as the TNIV and it will open the doors for the ESV to become the Bible of the evangelical world.

Posts dealing with the NIV:

The Inconsistencies of the NIV - Part 1

The Inconsistencies of the NIV - Part 2

Amos, Justice, and the NIV

The NIV and the TNIV: Two Bibles with Contradictory Views

Hosea 6:6 and the NIV

Rereading Micah 6:4: Miriam, A Leader in Israel


Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Bible, NIV Revision, TNIV

The Review of Biblical Literature - Old Testament

The Review of Biblical Literature has published a list of new reviews in the area of biblical studies. The Review of Biblical Literature is a publication of the Society of Biblical Literature.

The following new reviews are of interest to students of the Old Testament:

Stephen C. Barton, ed.
Idolatry: False Worship in the Bible, Early Judaism and Christianity

Description: Idolatry is a collection of nineteen authoritative essays on major aspects of this fascinating subject, unduly neglected in recent years. The coverage is varied and comprehensive, ranging across theoretical perspectives, the Old Testament, Early Judaism, the New Testament, Church History, and Christian Theology to the present day. The contributors are all authorities in their respective fields of study. In biblical studies, there is John Barclay, Stephen C. Barton, Helen Bond, Mark Bonnington, Crispin Fletcher-Louis, Robert Hayward, David Horrell, Nathan MacDonald, Christopher Rowland, and Stuart Weeks. In Church History and Christian Theology, there is David Clough, Andrew Goddard, Carol Harrison, Trevor Hart, Timothy Jenkins, Gerard Loughlin, Paul Murray, Bernd Wannenwetsch, and Graham Ward.

Walter Brueggemann
A Pathway of Interpretation: The Old Testament for Pastors and Students

Description: Writing with the pastor and student in mind, Walter Brueggemann provides guidance for interpreting Old Testament texts. He offers both advice for the interpreter as well as examples of working with different sorts of passages: from narratives, prophecies, and Psalms. He also demonstrates how to work thematically, drawing together threads from different traditions. His goal is to work through the rhetoric of these passages to reach toward theological interpretation. These investigations indicate Brueggemann's conviction that the process of moving from text to interpretive outcome is an artistic enterprise that can be learned and practiced.

J. Harold Ellens
Sex in the Bible: A New Consideration

Description: What is the Bible's stance on such controversial issues as homosexuality and polygamy? What does it have to say about sexual behaviors that some would deem perverted or criminal? Is sex always wrong if it is not used to create life? Ellens answers these and other questions in a book that argues that our understanding of what the Bible has to say about sex is frequently misguided. He corrects our impressions with a look at the Scriptures themselves, considers what they might have meant to people in the past, and reflects on how we understand, or misunderstand, them today. Focusing on early interpretations and contemporary misconceptions, Ellens guides readers through what the Bible actually says, showing how these messages have been interpreted in different contexts, and suggesting new ways of reading and translating them for use in our own lives. Readers hoping to reach a better understanding of the Bible's views on sexual practices and sexuality in general will find their questions answered here. What does the story of Adam and Eve reveal about sex and sexuality? What does the Old Testament say about sex and how might we interpret that in our own lives today? How does the New Testament say we should behave in our sexuality and our lives? What lessons can we learn from a closer examination of the Bible and its teachings on human love, marriage, and sexuality? These are among the many questions Ellens answers in an effort to help us all come to a better understanding of the gift of sexuality and its attendant behaviors in our lives. In non-judgmental prose, he elucidates the Bible and our understanding of its teaching on these and related issues.


Jonathan Gan
The Metaphor of Shepherd in the Hebrew Bible: A Historical-Literary Reading

Martin A. Shields
The End of Wisdom: A Reappraisal of the Historical and Canonical Function of Ecclesiastes

H. G. M. Williamson
A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Isaiah 1-27: Volume 1: Commentary on Isaiah 1-5

Description: Hugh Williamson's Isaiah 1-5 is the first of three volumes in a important new commentary on Isiah 1-27. For over one hundred years International Critical Commentaries have had a special place among works on the Bible. They bring together all the relevant aids to exegesis - linguistic, textual, archaeological, historical, literary, and theological - to help the reader understand the meaning of the books of the Old and New Testaments. The new commentaries continue this tradition. All new evidence now available is incorporated and new methods of study are applied. The authors are of the highest international standing. No attempt has been made to secure a uniform theological or critical approach to the biblical text: contributors have been invited for their scholarly distinction, not for their adherence to any one school of thought.

Enjoy your reading.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Bible, Hebrew Bible, Literature, Old Testament

George Washington and the Old Testament

One of the most memorable passages in the book of Micah is his vision of a future where peace would prevail:

“But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the LORD of hosts hath spoken it” (Micah 4:4).

This passage describes the lasts days when the Lord will establish his kingdom and all nations will seek the Lord to learn his ways. The expression “sitting under the vine and the fig tree” reflects the peace and harmony that all people will enjoy under the protection of God.

So important was this proverbial expression of peace, security, and rural comfort that it appears several times in the Old Testament (1 Kings 4:25, 2 Kings 18:31; Isaiah 36:16; Zechariah 3:10).

Another person who understood the concept of sitting under the vine and the fig tree was George Washington, the leader of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) and the man who served as the first President of the United States of America (1789-1797).

In the introduction to the electronic edition to The Diaries of George Washington, the Library of Congress describes George Washington’s use of this biblical expression:

No theme appears more frequently in the writings of Washington than his love for his land. The diaries are a monument to that concern. In his letters he referred often, as an expression of this devotion and its resulting contentment, to an Old Testament passage. After the Revolution, when he had returned to Mount Vernon, he wrote the Marquis de Lafayette on Feb. 1, 1784: "At length my Dear Marquis I am become a private citizen on the banks of the Potomac, & under the shadow of my own Vine & my own Fig-tree." This phrase occurs at least 11 times in Washington's letters. "And Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig tree" (2 Kings 18:31).

One example of Washington’s use of this expression appears in his letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport, written in August 1790:

Gentlemen:

While I received with much satisfaction your address replete with expressions of esteem, I rejoice in the opportunity of assuring you that I shall always retain grateful remembrance of the cordial welcome I experienced on my visit to Newport from all classes of citizens.

The reflection on the days of difficulty and danger which are past is rendered the more sweet from a consciousness that they are succeeded by days of uncommon prosperity and security.

If we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good government, to become a great and happy people.

The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy—a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.

It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my administration and fervent wishes for my felicity.

May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants—while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.

May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy.

G. Washington

The two last statements in George Washington’s letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport are very important. The first statement is a biblical reference to Abraham and a quotation from Micah 4:4.

The second statement is George Washington’s prayer in which he affirmed his belief in an afterlife: “May the Father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here and, in His own due time and way, everlastingly happy.”

It is amazing how people can say that the Founding Fathers were not religious, that they did not believe in God, and that they did not pray in public.

And remember, Washington wrote this letter, which includes a prayer and a biblical reference to Micah’s book, in 1790, at a time when he was the President of the United States. This means that George Washington quoted the Bible and wrote this prayer “on government time at taxpayers’ expense, and he delivered it in his official capacity as president.”

If George Washington were alive today and had used government time and taxpayer money to write and send that letter, the Supreme Court probably would decide his action was unconstitutional and Congress probably would vote to impeach him.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Bible, Fig Tree, Founding Fathers, George Washington, Religion, Vine

The Discovery of an Ancient Version of the Bible

Photo: The ancient Bible written in Syriac



According to a news report published by Reuters, governmental authorities in northern Cyprus have reported that they have discovered an ancient version of the Bible written in Syriac, a dialect of the language spoken by Jesus. According to the report,

The manuscript was found in a police raid on suspected antiquity smugglers. Turkish Cypriot police testified in a court hearing they believe the manuscript could be about 2,000 years old.

The manuscript carries excerpts of the Bible written in gold lettering on vellum and loosely strung together, photos provided to Reuters showed. One page carries a drawing of a tree, and another eight lines of Syriac script.

Experts were however divided over the provenance of the manuscript, and whether it was an original, which would render it priceless, or a fake.

Experts said the use of gold lettering on the manuscript was likely to date it later than 2,000 years.

Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic. Aramaic, which was language spoken by Christ, was also the language spoken in much of the Middle East and Central Asia.



Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Archaeology, Bible, Syriac Bible

Martin Luther King’s Views on the Bible and Christ

Don Boys, a former member of the Indiana House of Representatives and the author of 13 books, has written an exposé of Martin Luther King’s views on the Bible and Christ.

Boys did a study of King’s seminary papers preserved in King’s archives and kept by the King family. What he discovered was that, in many places, King’s view of the Bible and Christian doctrines departs from what could be considered orthodox Christianity.

Below are a few excerpts from Boys’ article. All the quotations are the words of Martin Luther King, taken verbatim from his seminary papers.

King’s views on the Old Testament:

“If we accept the Old Testament as being `true' we will find it full of errors, contradictions, and obvious impossibilities-as that the Pentateuch was written by Moses.”

“To my mind, many of the works of this period were infinitely more valuable than those that received canonicity. The materials to justify such statements are found mainly in the Apocrypha and the Pseudepigrapha. These works, although presented pseudonymously, are of lasting significance to the Biblical student.”

King’s views on the person of Christ:

“But if we delve into the deeper meaning of these doctrines, [Christ’s deity, virgin birth, and physical resurrection] and somehow strip them of their literal interpretation, we will find that they are based on a profound foundation. Although we may be able to argue with all degrees of logic that these doctrines are historically and philolophically [sic] untenable.”

“It seems downright improbable and even impossible for anyone to be born without a human father.”

“First we must admit that the evidence for the tenability of this doctrine is to [sic] shallow to convince any objective thinker. To begin with, the earliest written documents in the New Testament make no mention of the virgin birth.”

“From a literary, historical, and philosophical point of view this doctrine [the resurrection] raises many questions. In fact the external evidence for the authenticity of this doctrine is found wanting.”

After reading Boys’ article, I have mixed feelings about his conclusions concerning Martin Luther King’s views on the Bible and Christ.

First, since I am unable to read King’s paper personally, it is difficult to know whether the quotes were taken out of context. A closer reading of how Boys uses King’s quotes seems to indicate that some of the quotes may be rhetorical statements of what other people believe about these doctrines. Frankly, based on these and the other quotes, it is hard to come to a definite conclusion about King’s doctrinal views because I have not read the original papers.

Second, it is clear that Boys writes from a very conservative perspective and it is possible that this conservative bent influenced the way he interpreted what King wrote. Again, only a review of the original statements can reveal whether Boys’ interpretation of what Martin Luther King wrote is correct.

I invite you to read Boys’ article. You can read the article here. After reading this article, you will have to make your own decision about Martin Luther King’s views on the Bible and Christian doctrines.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Bible, Christian Doctrines, Don Boys, Martin Luther King

Give a Bible for Christmas

Arion Press is announcing a special printing of a folio Bible. Here is their ad:

In the tradition of grand printed lectern Bibles, the Arion Press Folio Bible is a monument to the scriptures, to fine typography, and to fine bookmaking.

If you treasure beautifully made books, read on to discover a unique, handcrafted edition of the Good Book.

Following in the tradition of Gutenberg and other fine printers over more than five centuries, Andrew Hoyem and his skilled artisans at Arion Press in San Francisco have created an oversize, Folio Edition of the Holy Bible using traditional letterpress techniques and the finest materials and craftsmanship.

“This Bible is unique because this place is unique. It’s one of the last shops in the world where all the work on a book is done under one roof”, notes Elizabeth Farnsworth of the PBS News Hour.

This special Bible is handbound in full leather, in linen box.

The price: a mere $8,500. Give several of these Bibles for Christmas

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tag: Bible

A New Translation of the Bible

Do we need a new translation of the Bible? There are several translations of the Bible available today and new ones are being published almost every year. A Bible translation should accurately reflect the original text and help readers understand the true ideas of the author.

In order to make the Bible more reader-friendly to gays and lesbians, a new translation of the Bible will be published soon that is designed to address the needs of the gay community.

Writer and producer Max Mitchell has announced that Revision Studios will publish a pro gay translation of the Bible to be called The Princess Diana Bible. The reason for this Bible is because Mitchell believes that “There is solid evidence that Adam and Eve were both women.”

The following are a few excerpts from the Book of Genesis taken from The Princess Diana Bible:

Ge 1:26 And God said, Let us make woman in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Ge 1:27 So God created woman in his image, in the image of God created he female.

Ge 2:7 And the LORD God formed woman of the dust of the ground, and breathed into her nostrils the breath of life; and woman became a living soul and God named her Aida.

Ge 2:8 And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put Aida.

Ge 2:15 And the LORD God took Aida, and put her into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

Ge 2:16 And the LORD God commanded Aida, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:

Ge 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Ge 2:18 And the LORD God said, It is not good that this woman be alone; I will make her a mate.

Ge 2:19 And the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Aida to see what she would call them: and whatsoever Aida called every living creature, that was the name.

Ge 2:20 And Aida gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Aida there was not found a mate for her.

Ge 2:21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Aida, and she slept: and he took one of her ribs, and closed up the flesh thereof;

Ge 2:22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from woman, made he another woman, and brought her unto the first.

Ge 2:23 And Aida said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Eve, because she was taken out of me.

Ge 2:24 Therefore shall a woman leave her mother, and shall cleave unto her wife: and they shall be one flesh.

Ge 2:25 And they were both naked, Aida and her wife, Eve, and were not ashamed.

Ge 4:1 And Eve conceived, and bore Cain, and said, we have created a child in God’s image. And God said the male was different than the woman because he was fathered by the serpent. The man’s member is different than the woman’s because it resembles the head of his father, the serpent.

Ge 4:2 And Eve again conceived with the serpent and bore Cain’s brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.

What can one say about The Princess Diana Bible? Maybe here the words of the serpent are relevant to the aims of this translation: “Did God really say these words?” (Genesis 3:1).

William Blake, in his poem “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” when writing about the 17th-century English poet John Milton, author of Paradise Lost, said: “The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devils party without knowing it.”

Like Milton, it is possible that the authors and publishers of The Princess Diana Bible may be members of the same party “without knowing it.”

Let me know what you think about this new translation of the Bible.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Bible, Gay Bible, Princess Diana Bible, Translation

How Would God Vote?

According to David Kinghoffer, the Bible commands you to “vote conservative.” David Kinghoffer is the author of the book How Would God Vote? Why the Bible Commands You To Be a Conservative.”

Klinghoffer charges the “liberal-Left” with views that contradict the Bible.

Read a brief survey of the book here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Bible, Conservative, David Kinghoffer, Election, Liberal

The Surfers Bible

Six years ago, the Christian Surfers International (CSI) published the first Surfers Bible. It was an instant hit on the surfing scene with some remarkable results.

Read more about the Surfers Bible here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


Tags: Bible, Surfers Bible

The Voice: A New Translation of the Bible

Thomas Nelson, a Nashville-based Christian publishing house, is announcing the release of a new translation of the Bible called The Voice. The complete New Testament will be released next week and the complete Old Testament will be released by fall 2010.

Here is how David Capes, one of the editors of The Voice, describes the intent of this new Bible in an article published in HoustonBelief.com:

“What we're looking for is almost like the King James version,” he says. “We're looking for a more literary rendering that will stand the test of time. Our take is, if it's written beautifully and calls you into the narrative, that when you finish a chapter you really want to read the next chapter to see what's going to happen, then more people in their 20s and 30s will end up reading the Bible.”

The article continues describing the intent of The Voice:

To ease the reading experience The Voice's translators have introduced several elements. They set up dialogue in screenplay format, with the speaker's name, then his spoken words without quotation marks. That eliminates the “Jesus saids” and “Peter saids.”

Sprinkled liberally throughout are boxed notes that elucidate in non-academic language what a “pharisee” is, for example, or why Jesus sought to recruit disciples. “It helps fill in the blanks for ... people who've never been to the text before,” Capes says.

Here and there the translators add words and phrases not in the original to clarify something. The introduced language is italicized so readers can recognize it for what it is.

The article then describes how The Voice came into being:

The Voice's New Testament project brought together 11 Bible scholars and more than a dozen writers. Contributors communicated sometimes in person, often via e-mail or videoconference. The writers include Brian McLaren and Lauren Winner, best known for their popular books on religion and spirituality, as well as Greg Garrett, who has written secular fiction. Capes and Seay are also contributing writers.

Surprisingly, the writers rather than the scholars were tasked with producing the first draft. "We asked the writers to get started, to work from the original if they could, or if they couldn't, to work from translations, and to provide their own version," Capes says.

Then a scholar, working from the Greek or Hebrew, adjusted the translation to capture the nuances of the original. The draft went back and forth several more times between scholars and writers and reviewers. Typically more than 14 people looked at a book before it was pronounced ready for print.

What is interesting about this new translation is that “writers rather than the scholars were tasked with producing the first draft.” Then, scholars, “working from the Greek or Hebrew, adjusted the translation to capture the nuances of the original.”

This process of translation says a lot about The Voice. However, one has to wait until the release of this new translation to pass judgment on its merits.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Bible, David Capes, The Voice, Translation

Angels, Angelina Jolie, and the Bible

In the Bible, the Hebrew word translated “angel” literally means “a messenger.” An angel is sent by God to execute his divine purposes.

Angelina Jolie, the famous actress known for her role as Lara Croft in “Tomb Raider,” has served as the Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. In a sense, she is a messenger or an angel of good will.

The name “Angelina” is a form of “Angela,” a name derived from “angel.” Some people think that Angelina Jolie is an angel because now her picture adorns the pages of the Bible. The Bible Illuminated: The Book was first published in Sweden last year. The Bible Illuminated is a glossy fashion magazine-style Bible that includes a picture of Angelina Jolie. The publisher said that the mixing of the biblical text with Angelina Jolie is designed to reach people who have never read the Bible. This is the reason the publishers hope this Bible will become a bestseller.

I have mix feelings about this new edition of the Bible. I think this Bible can be a success if the following caption appears with Angelina Jolie’s picture:

“Hear now my argument; listen to the plea of my lips” (Job 13:6).

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Angels, Angelina Jolie, Bible, Bible Illuminated

Food in the Old Testament

Nathan MacDonald, a Lecturer in Old Testament at the University of St. Andrews has written a new book in which he examines some of the rich imagery about food and drink in the Old Testament. MacDonald’s book, Not Bread Alone: The Uses of Food in the Old Testament will be published by Oxford University Press in January 2006.

According to a press release reviewing the book, MacDonald’s work is designed to “contribute towards a better appreciation of the lives and ideas of ancient Israelites, as well as shedding new light on many parts of the Bible.” MacDonald said:

Too often the Bible has only been read for its profound intellectual and spiritual ideas, and the apparently mundane matters relating to food and physical appetite have been overlooked. But for the ancient Israelites most of their lives were spent in growing and processing food.

As a result different foods and the acts of eating and feasting become some of the most important symbols in the Bible. There is hardly a page in the Bible that does not mention food in some way.

This is another book that I want to add to my reading list. I enjoy reading about the social life of ancient Israelites. The sociological study of ancient Israel helps us gain a better understanding of what we read in the Old Testament.

Buy the book at Amazon.com.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tag: Bible, Food

Visualizing the Bible

Image: Courtesy Chris Harrison, Carnegie Mellon University; Christoph Romhild, North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church/Science



National Geographic News has published the best science images of 2008. Among them, an image that received the honorable mention in the category of “Illustration” was “Visualizing the Bible.”

This is how National Geographic News describes the visualization of the Bible:

A colorful rainbow brings to light the interconnected nature of one of the world’s most familiar books.

The Bible’s 1,189 chapters are plotted along the horizontal axis at the bottom of the image, with each bar's length determined by the number of verses.

The arcs above the graph show the 63,779 cross-references between each chapter.

“It almost looks like one monolithic volume,” said Carnegie Mellon's Chris Harrison, who--along with Christoph Romhild of North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hamburg, Germany--won an honorable mention for illustrations in the 2008 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge.

I never though a visualization of the Bible would be as beautiful and as colorful.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Bible, News, Science

The Search for the Missing Pages of the Aleppo Codex

The Telegraph Journal, in an article published on Saturday, September 27, 2008, describes the search for the missing pages of the Aleppo Codex. The following are a few excerpts from the article:

A quest is under way on four continents to find the missing pages of one of the world's most important holy texts, the 1,000-year-old Hebrew Bible known as the Crown of Aleppo.

Crusaders held it for ransom, fire almost destroyed it and it was reputedly smuggled across Mideast borders hidden in a washing machine. But in 1958, when it finally reached Israel, 196 pages were missing - about 40 per cent of the total - and for some Old Testament scholars they have become a kind of holy grail.

The Codex, on 491 parchment pages about 30 centimetres by 25 centimetres, was transcribed sometime around 930 A.D. by Shlomo Ben Boya'a, a scribe in Tiberias on the banks of the Sea of Galilee. It was edited by a renowned scholar of the time, Aaron Ben-Asher. Its completion marked the end of a centuries-long process that created the final text of the Hebrew Bible.

According to the news report, the Codex is missing entire books, including most of the five books of Moses, the book of Esther, and the book of Daniel.

A study of the Codex will help scholars ascertain the accuracy of the biblical text and the Masoretic use of vowel signs and letters that could slightly alter pronunciation of some words.
According to Rafael Zer, of the Hebrew University Bible Project in Jerusalem, the Codex will be used to create what probably will become the authoritative text of the Old Testament.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Aleppo Codex, Bible, Manuscripts

The Bible’s Buried Secrets

On November 18, PBS will air “The Bible’s Buried Secrets,” the controversial program that seeks to present a new theory of how the Bible was written. According to comments made by those who are critical of the program, the documentary will present a minimalist view of the Hebrew Bible. The following conclusions will be presented in the documentary:

• The Old Testament was written in the sixth century BC and hundreds of authors contributed.

• Abraham, Sarah and their offspring did not exist.

• There is no archaeological evidence of the Exodus.

• The Israelites were actually Canaanites.

PBS has released the trailer below for the two-hour television special.




People who have been following the minimalist/maximalist discussion probably will learn nothing new from this program. I am sure the documentary will present the same arguments that have been discussed before. Those people who have a low view of the Bible probably will be re-affirmed once again in their view that the Bible presents an invented history of Israel.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Archaeology, Bible, Nova, PBS

On Bibles and Manuscripts

A few days ago, I wrote a post on “How To Dispose of Old Bibles.” n that post I quoted the words of a Rabbi who wrote the following:

Old deteriorated Bibles still bear the word of God and the name of God in them. They are old and worn, but they are still vessels of the holy, and so they cannot be disposed of in the garbage with yesterday’s green bean casserole.

Because old Bibles “still bear the word of God and the name of God in them,” the Rabbi suggested that old Bibles should “be covered and buried respectfully though not necessarily in a cemetery. They should be covered and then buried. ‘Dust to dust’ refers to the disposal of all holy vessels.”

The act of giving a proper burial to sacred texts was an ancient practice of Judaism. Jewish synagogues had a store-room called “the genizah” where old and deteriorated sacred texts were kept for proper disposal. The role of the genizah in Judaism is explained in an article in the Wikipedia:

A genizah is the store-room or depository in a synagogue (or cemetery), usually specifically for worn-out Hebrew-language books and papers on religious topics that were stored there before they could receive a proper cemetery burial, it being forbidden to throw away writings containing the name of God (even personal letters and legal contracts could open with an invocation of God).

The writing of Sacred Scriptures in Judaism was done with much reverence and care. Manuscripts were written by scribes trained for this special ministry. One article describing the making of a scroll of the Torah says that scribes must use sheets of parchment that come from a kosher animal and must use quills for writing the manuscripts and the quills must come from a kosher bird. The writing of the manuscript begins after the scribe “visits the mikveh in preparation for such holy work, and prays that the holy work about to be undertaken will be imbued with the sanctity in the scribe’s heart.”

A scroll of the Torah “may contain no errors whatsoever. While some mistakes may be corrected by scraping off the ink of a letter made in error and rewriting it, if a mistake is made in writing any of the names of God, no correction may be made because God's name may not be erased. The entire sheet of parchment must be buried or placed in a genizah, and the scribe must begin that section of the Torah again.”

All this reverence and sacredness in Judaism for the written Word of God brings me back to my original question: how to dispose of old Bibles?

I have an old Bible that I have used for more than 25 years. It is my teaching Bible. The Bible has been rebound because its covers were falling apart. I have marked the Bible with red, blue, and black ink. I have underlined the text and written notes in the margins. This old Bible bears the word of God and carries the name of God in it. Is writing on and marking the Bible desecrating God’s Word? Is the printed Bible as sacred as the written manuscript? If old Bibles need to be disposed of, should these Bibles “be covered and buried respectfully”?

I have a copy of the Revised Standard Bible on cassettes. Is the Bible on cassettes still the Word of God? The magnetic tape in one of the cassettes is broken. Should I also bury the cassettes because they bear God’s Word?

The other day I bought a new Bible and inside the Bible there was a CD containing the Gospel of John. Since I did not want the CD, I threw the CD away in the trash can, not with “yesterday’s green bean casserole,” but in the garbage with other garbage. Is the Bible on CD still the Bible? Should I have buried the CD?

These questions are not meant to ridicule the Bible because I believe that the Bible is the Word of God. And I believe Christians should treat the Word of God with respect. However, when disposing of an old Bible, should I bury the book? Is the book holy because it is the Bible? Where should I bury old Bibles? In my backyard? Behind the church? In a cemetery?

This question became relevant a few days ago, when about 200 New Testaments were burned by some Jewish teenagers in Or-Yehuda, a city near Tel-Aviv. A news report circulated by CNN says that “News accounts in Israel have quoted Uzi Aharon, the deputy mayor of Or-Yehuda, as saying he organized students who burned several hundred copies of the New Testament.”

Burning New Testaments is not a demonstration of respect for books that bear the word of God. The Jewish Anti-Defamation League has issued a statement criticizing the burning of New Testaments. The statement reads: “We condemn this heinous act as a violation of the basic Jewish principles and values. It is essential that we respect the sacred texts of other faiths. The Jewish people can never forget the tragic burning of sacred Jewish volumes at many points in history.”

Aharon told CNN that he collected New Testaments in order to dispose of them. I wonder whether he was planning to give those New Testaments a decent and respectful burial.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Bible, Genizah, Manuscripts

How to Dispose of Old Bibles

How to dispose of old Bibles? Many Christians have old Bibles they no longer use. How to dispose of them? Here is a Rabbi’s view of old Bibles:

Old deteriorated Bibles still bear the word of God and the name of God in them. They are old and worn, but they are still vessels of the holy, and so they cannot be disposed of in the garbage with yesterday’s green bean casserole

Read what he recommends about disposing of old Bibles by clicking here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


Tag: Bible

God Saw Good

In a previous post, I criticized a new translation of the Bible, The Ancient Roots Translinear Bible (ARTB). My colleague Blake Water, commenting on what I wrote, called my attention to the first 11 verses of Genesis. To show how awful this translation is, I am quoting Genesis 1:1-11 from the The Ancient Roots Translinear Bible.

The title of this post is taken from Genesis 1:10:

Genesis 1:1-11 (The Ancient Roots Translinear Bible):

Gen 1:1 First, God created the heaven and the land.

Gen 1:2 The land was a chaotic abyss, with darkness over the face of the abyss. The Spirit-wind of God fluttered over the face of the waters.

Gen 1:3 God said, "Light, be!" And light was.

Gen 1:4 God saw the light was-good. God separated between the light and the darkness.

Gen 1:5 God called the light "Day", and he called the darkness "Night". Evening was and morning was; day one.

Gen 1:6 God said, "Expanse, be amidst the waters! Be the separation between the ||waters||!"

Gen 1:7 God made the expanse to separate between the waters with waters under the expanse and above the expanse. So it was.

Gen 1:8 God called the expanse 'Heaven'. Evening was and morning was the second day.

Gen 1:9 God said, "Waters under the heaven: Wait at one place, to see the dry-land!" So it was.

Gen 1:10 God called the dry-land "Land", and the pool of waters he called "Seas". God saw good.

Gen 1:11 God said, "Land, spring-up grass! Cereals, sow seed! Fruit trees, make the kinds of fruit with seed in it over the land!" So it was.

Maybe “God saw good” (v. 10) but I doubt he is very happy with this translation.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Bible, Strong’s Concordance, Translation

A New Translation of the Bible: The Ancient Roots Translinear Bible

As most biblical scholars and translators know, translating the Bible from Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek into English or any other language is not easy. How does a translator clearly communicate the meaning of Hebrew words to English speaking people? Because the task is difficult, the result is that today we have many different translations of the Bible.

Now the problem has been solved. Let us welcome a new translation of the Bible: the Ancient Roots Translinear Bible. The aim of the Ancient Roots Translinear Bible is to solve the problem that different translations of the Bible create for the average reader.

The following press release explains the aim of the Ancient Roots Translinear Bible:

The "Ancient Roots Translinear Bible (ARTB)" is a completely new concept designed and patented by a scientist and bible-lover who asked the basic question: Why do we have to interrupt our reading of the bible to look up the original meaning of the Hebrew text in a separate book or footnote? Why don't English bible translations match the ancient text?

Author and scientist A. Frances Werner has done her homework. She has documented exactly why you have required to have the extra (and sometimes expensive) tools such as concordances, bible dictionaries and cross-referenced study bibles to decipher most English bible translations. By counting up all the word variations in the Old Testament in over 20 bibles, Werner has demonstrated that translators have unnecessarily complicated matters by not keeping the English consistent with the original Hebrew.

A. Frances Werner designed the Ancient Roots Translinear Bible (ARTB) to be 100% consistent with the ancient texts to simplify bible study. "The word "translinear" has been created to let you know that it is completely consistent between Hebrew and English. Thus, every unique English word matches every unique Hebrew word. Even thought the concept seems incredibly obvious and simple, it hasn't been done in 1500 years of English bible translations. That's why the ARTB is patented. Now you can save some time and money. You don't need to stop and reach for expensive reference books to be assured you finding the accurate word of God."

How did this translator produce a Bible that solved the problems translators have struggled for centuries to solve? How was this done? It was easy! The translator, A. Frances Werner, used Strong’s Concordance to make sure that every Hebrew word was translated in the same way in English. Here is what she says about the Strong’s words number 120 [adam] and 376 [ish]:

What you see is that there are two very distinct words in Hebrew designated by two different Strong's numbers 120 and 376. The major versions primarily reuse the word man for both. The ARTB utilizes the word human for 120 and man for 376 because they are different words.

But the confusion goes deeper. If you look up Strong's number 376 for the NASB, you'll find that not only did the NASB utilize the word man in 66% of the cases, but also words like husband, one, persons, and each, to words like tiller, soldier, tradition, and father for the remaining 33% of the cases--close to 1500 references. This is typical of all modern bible translations.

The Ancient Roots Translinear Bible (ARTB) began as a project to see what the Old Testament really looked like with all the missing words restored. But as they were restored, they were always applied with the rule of 1:1 correspondence to the ancient word. So in ARTB, the word human is utilized 100% of the time for Strong's number 120 [adam] and no other Strong's number.

Any one who has translated from Hebrew to English will agree that the approach taken by Ancient Roots Translinear Bible is very simplistic. Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible was first published in 1890. Strong’s Concordance is an index of the Bible based on the translation of the King James Version. The index is designed to help students find a phrase or a word and compare how the same word was used in another section of the Bible.

The major weakness of the Ancient Roots Translinear Bible is its dependence on Strong’s Concordance:

Since Strong's Concordance identifies the original words in Hebrew and Greek, Strong's Numbers are sometimes misinterpreted by those without adequate training to change the Bible from its accurate meaning simply by taking the words out of cultural context. The use of Strong's numbers does not consider figures of speech, metaphors, idioms, common phrases, cultural references, references to historical events, or alternate meanings used by those of the time period to express their thoughts in their own language at the time. As such, professionals and amateurs alike must consult a number of contextual tools to reconstruct these cultural backgrounds.

It seems to me that this new Bible will be consistent in translating the same Hebrew words into English, but it will be a Bible which will fail to communicate the beauty of the biblical message and the intricacies of the Hebrew language to its readers.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Bible, Strong’s Concordance, Translation

Mario Liverani, the Bible, Jim West, and the Unicorn

My review of Mario Liverani’s book, Israel’s History and the History of Israel has been received in different ways by different people (see Jim's blog). It is possible that my post failed to communicate clearly my objections to Liverani’s book or else people misunderstand where I stand on the issue of history and the Bible.

Let me begin by saying that I am not a maximalist nor a minimalist; maybe I am a medialist, as Kevin has suggested. I am not a fundamentalist, I do not believe in inerrancy, and I am not a literalist. I believe that the Bible is sacred Scripture, that God has revealed himself in the history of Israel and in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, and that the Bible is a record of that revelation.

I do not adopt a literal interpretation of every fact and statement in the Bible. In my study of the Bible I use historical criticism and a literary approach to the text. I believe that the biblical narratives are based on historical events but it does not mean that history has to become the arbiter of faith.

As a Christian, I believe that the ultimate source for knowing what God has done in history and in the person of Jesus Christ is the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments. Everything we know about God we find in the Bible. In fact, without the Bible, our knowledge of God and what he has done would be minuscule. It is because of the Bible that we know the mighty acts of God in the events associated with the Exodus from Egypt and how they became the central focus of much of the Old Testament in the same way that the death and resurrection of Christ became the central focus of the New Testament.

However, the radical criticism and modern skepticism of biblical scholars have removed any possibility of historicity behind these events. To many scholars, these stories are only narratives that are metaphorically true even though they are not literally or factually true.

Marcus Borg, in his book Reading the Bible Again for the First Time (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2001), pp. 15-18, said that modernity has influenced the way most people read the Bible today: they know something to be true only when there is valid verification. Thus, one consequence of modernity’s impact on reading the Bible is that modernity has made people skeptical about spiritual realities.

It is this skeptical spirit that has impacted the study of Israelite history. The skeptical understanding of reality has influenced the way the Bible is read and has made the understanding of God and his work in the world a problem that goes against the very core of orthodox Christianity.

According to Borg, the logical outcome of this modern worldview is the kind of skepticism that leads to the rejection of the supernatural and eventually creates what has been called “the death of God theology.”

To me, it seems that biblical scholarship today has rejected the supernatural and developed a non-biblical view of God because of its preoccupation with factuality, that is, that for something to be true or historical it must be scientifically and historically proven by reliable evidence. In criticizing this view, Borg said that “modern Western culture is the only culture in human history that has identified truth with factuality.” He said Christian liberals are “fact fundamentalists,” that is, if a statement cannot be proved scientifically or historically, then that statement is not true.

Many biblical scholars are influenced by a postmodernity understanding of the Bible. This view affirms that historical events are culturally conditioned and in general, are historical reconstructions of the past. This is the view espoused by Liverani when he writes that the early history of Israel is an “invented history,” a reconstruction of the past in order to meet the political and ideological needs of the post-exilic Judean community.

It is the same view that led Borg to say: “The way of seeing and reading the Bible that I describe in the rest of this book leads to a way of being Christian that has very little to do with believing” (p. 18). Borg sees the Bible as the human product of two communities: Israel and the church. What the Bible says is the words of those two communities, not the word of God. Thus, the Bible as a whole does not have divine origin. The Bible is not divine in some parts and in some part human; the Bible is all a human product.

If the biblical narratives are invented history, then the Bible is no better than the Baal stories. If the Bible is only a human product, a work without divine origin, then there is no difference between the God of the Bible and Baal or Marduk.

The matter has to do how we teach and preach the biblical narratives. Now, here is where I need Jim West’s help and this is a sincere request since Jim teaches seminary students (as I do) and he pastors a church where he preaches to his congregation (as I do).

Let us suppose that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and David never existed, that they were part of this invented history created by a group of Zionists to justify their right to take the land from poor peasants who lived in Palestine in the sixth or fifth centuries BCE. My question is: how is the fact that these people did not exist, the fact that they are literary creation, the fruit of a fertile mind, how does this fact affect our understanding of the New Testament? Here are four examples:

1. In Exodus 3:6 God said: “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” This statement was quoted by Jesus when speaking about the resurrection: “But about the resurrection of the dead-- have you not read what God said to you, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living” (Matthew 22:31-32).

If Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob never existed, how can this statement be true, even metaphorically true? Or does it matter?

2. During the transfiguration of Jesus, Matthew 17:2-3 says that Jesus was talking to Moses. I know that this is only a vision but one that even Peter saw. However, how could Jesus speak to Moses if Moses was just an invention of a creative writer?

3. In John 8:58 Jesus said: “‘I tell you the truth,’ Jesus answered, ‘before Abraham was born, I am!’” This verse says something special about Jesus and in the process says something important about Abraham.

4. In the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1:1, Jesus Christ is called the son of David, the son of Abraham. However, how can this be true if David and Abraham never existed?

How do minimalists explain and understand these statements of the New Testament if these people never existed? Do we take the approach used by the people at the Jesus Seminar? How do Christians proclaim the truth of the gospel when these statement are based on a fictive history that tells the actions of people who never existed? I hope Jim (or any biblioblogger) has a good answer for me.

It is easy to say that Jesus was just quoting from the “invented history.” It is also easy to say that Jesus was accommodating himself to the knowledge of the people of his day, or that in his humanity he did not know everything, or that this is just metaphorical language, or that this is just the way the early church believed these things to be.

If the Bible is just a human book, the product of ancient Israel and the early church, then these four statements are only what those human writers believed these things to be. So, nothing needs to be historical because human beings can invent a history to provide political and religious legitimation to an ideology or a community either in the sixth century (ancient Israel) or the first century (the early church).

However, if the Bible is a record of God’s revelation in the history of Israel, if the Bible is the Word of God transmitted through human agents, then a metaphorical truth will not be sufficient to explain the biblical narratives. Contrary to what Borg wrote, reading the Bible from a Christian perspective has a lot to do with believing.

Whether one believes the history of Israel is based on historical events or is an invented history depends on whether the Bible is only the words of human beings or whether it is the word of God. I know where I stand and I can do no other.

In the end, Mario Liverani, Jim West, and Claude Mariottini may not amount to much. Some of my paranoid readers believe that the Second Coming of Christ will be in 2012. If Jesus does not come in 2012, then in one or two generations Liverani, Jim, and I will be history (whether invented or real the Lemches of the future will decide), but the truth of the Bible will remain.

Until now I have talked about Liverani, the Bible, and Jim West. But, how about the unicorn? As for the unicorn, we all know they never existed (read Duane’s post).

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Abraham, Bible, Marcus Borg, Mario Liverani, Revelation

What Would Jesus Do? : Politics and the Bible

The Republican presidential debate on November 28, 2007 in St. Petersburg, Florida focused on the role of the Bible on the life of the candidates.

Two questions reflect the mood of the audience: “Is every word in the Bible true?” and “What would Jesus do?”

To the question, “What would Jesus do?”, Mike Huckabee said: “Jesus was too smart to ever run for public office.’’

Do the candidates believe that the Bible is true? Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee offer their views about the Bible here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Bible, Politics

The Inadequacy of the ETS Doctrinal Statement

In response to Doug Chaplin’s question, “Is this to keep the Catholics out?”, my former student, Joe Matos, wrote a response to my post on the proposed revision of the ETS doctrinal statement. He mentioned that the proposed revision of the ETS doctrinal statement is intended to strengthen the doctrinal statement of the association. Joe wrote:

The proposed amendment may be aimed to limit membership, but I don't think it is in direct response to Beckwith.

Van Neste published an article in the Winter 2004 Southern Baptist Journal of Theology titled, "The Glaring Inadequacy of the ETS Doctrinal Statement."

It should be noted (in light of the comment about Beckwith above and in a previous comment) that Van Neste concludes that Catholics (and Orthodox for that matter) could conceivably sign the current ETS statement. His paper goes so far as to say the the current ETS statement is broad enough in nature to have included heretical groups (like the docetists, who denied the incarnation) because the ETS statement affirms the deity of Christ (as would docetists) but it does not address the Jesus' human nature, and Pelagius (who affirmed the Bible and the Trinity) because the ETS statement does not address the nature of the Atonement or Resurrection.

Joe also mentioned an article by Van Neste published in the Winter 2004 Southern Baptist Journal of Theology titled, "The Glaring Inadequacy of the ETS Doctrinal Statement."

In that article, Van Neste wrote about the Roman Catholics:

I began this project with the hunch that a conservative Catholic could sign this statement. Catholics are clearly Trinitarian so there is no problem with the second sentence of the ETS statement. It has been suggested to me that the statement on Scripture, however, would exclude Catholics, because the statement upholds Sola Scriptura. However, this is not entirely clear. The statement only says, `The Bible alone . is the Word of God written.' Catholics could easily consent to that. It does not say that the Bible is `the supreme authority in all matters of belief and behaviour' as the UCCF statement does. The UCCF language places Scripture above tradition, reason and the Magisterium, but it is not found in the ETS statement (nor does the statement define the Bible as excluding the apocrypha). Since there is no discussion of the gospel, the key sticking point with Roman Catholicism, I believed there was no compelling reason why a Roman Catholic could not sign the ETS statement.

Read Van Neste’s article in its entirety by clicking here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Bible, ETS

The ETS and Its Doctrinal Statement

The Baptist Press is reporting that two Baptist college professors are spearheading an effort to amend the current doctrinal basis of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS).

The current ETS doctrinal basis reads: “The Bible alone, and the Bible in its entirety, is the Word of God written and is therefore inerrant in the autographs. God is a Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each an uncreated person, one in essence, equal in power and glory.”

Ray Van Neste, Professor of Christian Studies at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee and Denny Burk, Professor of New Testament at Criswell College in Dallas are proposing that the Evangelical Theological Society adopt the doctrinal basis of the United Kingdom's Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF), with the current ETS basis added to it. According to Van Neste, the UCCF document is “a much more complete document” that addresses such theological concepts as the humanity of Christ, the virgin birth and Christ’s return.

To read the proposed amendments, visit www.amendets.com.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Bible, ETS

Singing the Praises of the NIV

In my last two posts, I have pointed out inconsistencies in the way the NIV translates some Hebrew words (check here and here). These inconsistencies are not helpful to pastors who preach and teach from the NIV. They are also not helpful to lay people who use only one version of the Bible and do not use other versions to compare translations of specific verses.

Today I want to sing the praises of the NIV. I do not do this very often because in many places, the translation of the NIV does not reflect the intent of the original writers of the biblical text. In previous posts, I have pointed out some of the problems I have with the NIV.

One place where I believe the NIV is superior to the NRSV, the RSV, and the ESV is in Isaiah 40:9. The verse in these three translations reads as follows:

Isaiah 40:9 (NRSV): “Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, ‘Here is your God!’”

Isaiah 40:9 (RSV): “Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, ‘Behold your God!’”

Isaiah 40:9 (ESV): “Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news; lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, ‘Behold your God!’”

Isaiah 40:9 (NIV): “You who bring good tidings to Zion, go up on a high mountain. You who bring good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the towns of Judah, ‘Here is your God!’”

In the NRSV, the RSV, and the ESV, it is Zion (Jerusalem) who is commanded to go to a high mountain, and it is Zion (Jerusalem), who, as the herald of good news, is commanded to proclaim to the cities of Judah the advent of YHWH.

These three translations differentiate between the messenger who proclaims good news on God’s behalf in verse 6 and Zion as the messenger who proclaims good news to the cities of Judah.

In Hebrew, the construct form of the verb is difficult to understand. It literally means: “Messenger of Zion.” The Greek Septuagint translates: “The one bringing good news to Zion.” The Latin Vulgate translates: “You who evangelizes Zion.”

The verb mebasseret is a participle feminine. In Hebrew, the participle feminine form of the verb is used to denote an office or an occupation such as sophereth, the office of the sopher or scribe (Ezra 2:55; Neh. 7:5). Thus, the mebasseret in Isaiah 40:9 is a title that should be applied to someone who was appointed to proclaim good news to Zion and not to Zion as the one appointed to proclaim good news to the cities of Judah.

Thus, I believe that the NIV translation, which regards Zion as the receiver, and not the proclaimer of the good news, is a better translation.

The text in Isaiah is not calling upon Jerusalem to make known the good news to the cities of Judah. Rather, the messenger of God is to proclaim the good news to Jerusalem; he is to announce to Jerusalem (and in a sense, to the people of Israel), that after many years of lying desolate and waste, that her time of servitude has come to an end and that the time of release would soon come to pass (Isaiah 40:2).

The translation found in the NRSV, the RSV, and the ESV is awkward, because it gives Jerusalem the duty to proclaim to the other cities of Judah that the exile was over for the nation. It is also awkward to believe that the city of Jerusalem was called to go up to a high mountain and proclaim to the other cities of Judah that the Lord was about to bring the people back to the land.

Thus, when it comes to Isaiah 40:9, I have to sing the praises of the NIV. And this commendation of the NIV has something important to say about Bible translations. Every translation of the Bible has its strengths and weaknesses. No translation of the Bible is perfect, not even the King James Version.

Serious students of the Bible must learn how to use more than one version of the Bible and compare translations to gain a better perspective of the intent of the original writer. When translations differ, and they will differ, Bible students must consult good exegetical commentaries to gain a better perspective of what the biblical writers were trying to communicate to their readers and to us.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Bible, Exegesis, Isaiah 40:9, NIV, Translations, Versions

Atheists and the Bible

In my interview with Jim West published in Biblioblog, I said a few words about atheists that caused Duane Smith’s heart “to skip a beat.”

In response to what I wrote, Duane wrote a post, “Who Can ‘Fully’ Interpret the Bible?” in which he takes issue with what I said about atheists and biblical interpretation. Read his post and learn the full scope of his argument.

Jim West comments on my statement and Duane’s response in a post titled “Duane Smith v. Claude Mariottini” and presents the dialogue as an adversarial argument between atheist Duane and Christian Claude. Jim concludes his post by saying that “in some respects Claude is right. In some respects Duane is right.”

I will begin this post by responding to some of Duane’s arguments. It is possible that I made a mistake by putting all atheists in one group. Duane classifies himself “as a secular student with an interest in the Hebrew Bible.” Thus, his position on the Bible makes him different from the strident atheist whose sole aim is to ridicule the Bible.

Duane is a secular person who believes “that the Bible has had a tremendous influence on Western civilization.” His view is completely different from Bertrand Russell who believed that every bit of human progress in law, morality, and science has been opposed because of the teaching of the Bible. In his lecture “Why I Am Not A Christian,” Russell wrote: “A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men.”

Atheists like Bertrand Russell, Robert Ingersoll, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens approach the Bible with such a negative view that for them, the Bible is a book of lies and contradictions and the work of a demon. Strident atheists share Voltaire’s view of the Bible. Voltaire defined the Bible as “what fools have written, what imbeciles command, what rogues teach.”

So, how can strident atheists interpret the Bible when they do not believe in God, deny the possibility of revelation, reject the concept of inspiration, do not believe in divine intervention, faith, prayer, the possibility of miracles, or the concept of divine justice?

I agree with Jim West when he said that atheists “can be extraordinarily good historians and philologians.” Atheists can relate some historical events of the Bible to Assyrian and Babylonian histories, but the Bible is more than just a book of history. It is a religious book written by people of faith who believed that God had entered human history.

Atheists can study the words of the Bible (either in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek) and understand precisely what the words mean and what the words communicate. But the Bible is more than just letters: “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:6).

Duane has two criticisms which he believes disprove my argument. First, he said that “in order to provide as full an interpretation of a text as possible, the interpreter must be part of that text’s living tradition.” By this he means that for a proper interpretation of the text the interpreter must be alive when the text was written.

But this argument is not true. Albert Einstein's theory of relativity is very complicated but scientists can understand the theory of relativity today even though many of them were not alive when Einstein developed it. In addition, the Bible is different. “The word of God is living and active” (Hebrews 4:12). Because the word of God is living, then the believer does not need to have been alive when the word was written because the word is alive today, at a time when the believer is alive. The word of God makes itself contemporary with the believer. Thus, the believer becomes part of the text’s living tradition.

Second, Duane said: “Claude would be justifiably upset if I claimed he couldn’t fully understand Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens because he isn’t an atheist.”

But the fact is that I can. The works of Dawkins and Hitchens are only words and anyone can read words and understand precisely what the words mean and what the words communicate. Notwithstanding all the enthusiasm and the bravado in Dawkins’ and Hitchens’ words, they are, after all, only words.

The Bible, on the other hand, is the living word of the living God. And, that word became human and lived here on earth among us (John 1:14). This truth is hard for atheists to accept.

It is God who teaches us to understand his word. This is the reason the Psalmist prayed: “Teach me” (Psalm 119:12). So, the proper understanding of the Bible requires divine instruction. But how can people call on him in whom they have not believed? And that is the dilemma atheists face.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Atheists, Bible, Interpretation