You may have heard it before:
The Bible wasn’t really written by God. Besides, why are there so many translations if there should only be one “word of God”? Clearly, it was just written by men, and what we have now is just a translation of a translation of a translation…
But Christians have never claimed that God actually came down and penned the Bible. From a theological standpoint, Christians believe that the Bible was “inspired” by God – that is, he was behind it but used authors and their personalities and circumstances to reveal truths.
Sometimes these were the words of God himself, like in the narrative books that record history where God speaks, or the books of the Prophets who actually record what God spoke to them. Other times, this just means that men were communicating truths that God worked in them to communicate in some form or another.
So, Christians believe God was behind and speaks through the entire Bible, but not that he physically “wrote” the book.
We don’t translate translations…
As for Bible translations, this is another simple misunderstanding.
The books of the Bible were written originally in either Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek, depending largely on the time of writing. Since the beginning of Christianity, however, because people from all different kinds of backgrounds have become Christians, understandably there have been translations of the Bible from its original languages.
However, translations are just that – translations of Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek manuscripts that have preserved the original content. The translations themselves have not been the primary conservers of the information. We have old, good manuscripts of the original languages from which translations are made.
So, the Bible we have today is not “a translation of a translation of a translation…” We take the wealth of old manuscripts which have survived the test of time and make the best translation possible.
There is simply no reason to think that a wealth of translations of the Bible means that it is any less trustworthy. In fact, I think there being translations just shows the cross-cultural power and relevance of the Bible, as well as the intentionality of Christians to actually bother to translate it into so many different dialects across the world. The labours of Christians to do so is very commendable and speaks to their belief that Jesus’ story and teaching are to be given to all people. It also shows that the Christian God meets people where they are at, and doesn’t require his Truth to be communicated in only one language or through some special “exclusive” means, which could lead easily to power abuse on behalf of privileged parties (which it has).
The simplicity of these explanations goes to show that with just a little brain work or inquiry, the surface level objections can be shown to be pretty weak. What other truth claims or ideas have you shrugged off because of a surface level, simplistic objection that might have been baseless?
Keep thinking,
Corey
