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TOOLS TO HELP

Richard Mellowes

THE OBJECTIVES of Bible study may be defined primarily as to enable a man or woman

• to know the mind and purpose of God
• to understand the manifestation of the character of God so that it may be imitated in daily living.

The primary book in working towards these ends must always be the Bible itself. Robert Young, the compiler of the concordance that bears his name, concluded his introduction to the first edition of 1879 with this statement: "In sending forth this ‘ANALYTICAL CONCORDANCE’ for the benefit of the... student of Holy Writ, the Author trusts that, as it is only the practical outcome of all his previous Biblical Studies, many of his readers... may give themselves more to the study of the ORIGINAL Scriptures, which have ‘God for their Author, Truth without mixture of Error for their Matter, and Salvation for their End’" (emphasis as per original).

We wholeheartedly endorse these sentiments. Any other book can only ever be a ‘tool to help’. But we must always remember that the essential truths, which if believed and obeyed will lead a man or woman to salvation, can be discovered by any honest reading of a reputable translation of the Bible itself (assuming that the knowledge to read it in its original languages is not present).

Tools such as those discussed below, which are absolutely invaluable, and are cherished by sincere Bible students, fulfil perhaps two main functions:

• to assist memory regarding the location of words and phrases in such a large book as the Bible
• to help the reader overcome the disadvantages of reading the Bible in translation.

Principles of assessment

In carrying out our assessment of a number of tools for Bible study we have used the following objectives as measures against which to set the tools in order to arrive at their relative values. Inevitably these principles are to some extent subjective, but we trust that they meet a need. Each tool is judged according to whether it is able to

Concordances

Fulfil all three objectives

In the view of the present writer a good concordance is an indispensable tool to assist in worthwhile Bible study. Once again Robert Young’s own words express the case succinctly. In the 1879 Preface to the First Edition of his concordance he wrote that "Its great Object, as Tyndale said of his New Testament, is to enable every ‘PLOUGHBOY’ to know more of the Scriptures than the ‘ancients’, by enabling him at a glance to find out Three Distinct Points—First, What is the original Hebrew or Greek of any ordinary word in his English Bible: Second, What is the literal and primitive meaning of every such original word: and Third, what are thoroughly true and reliable parallel passages" (emphasis as per original).

The reference points of Young’s Concordance are the English words of the AV. For each English word all the Hebrew or Greek words so translated are listed separately, together with the reference and context of each occurrence. The Index Lexicon then gives a list, sorted by Hebrew and Greek word, of all the alternative translations and the number of occurrences of each translation, also identifying non-literal translations and rare and frequently occurring words. In this writer’s view this Index Lexicon is possibly the single greatest benefit in any concordance, although some students may disagree with this view.

Strong’s Concordance [James Strong, The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible.] is organised slightly differently from Young’s. Firstly, note that it is exhaustive, and fills in the occasional gaps to be found in other concordances. Once again, the reference points are the English words of the AV. Strong’s has a single list for all occurrences of an English word, regardless of the original. Each occurrence has a reference number to a Hebrew/Chaldee or Greek Dictionary, which lists the various translations of the word, its meaning and the linguistic derivatives of the word. This writer’s edition also has a Comparative Concordance to the KJV and RV, a little-known feature of Strong’s. [London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1939.]

Marginal references

Partly fulfil objective 1; do not fulfil objective 2; assist with objective 3, though only rarely identify the original word.

Bible margins of reputable translations fulfil two purposes. Firstly, they provide references to other related passages. However, the student should note that there is no standard set of references for any given translation. Marginal references will vary for the AV, for example, according to the publisher. Also, there is a variety of criteria used to determine the inclusion of a reference. Use will quickly reveal that a criterion may be the occurrence of the same Hebrew or Greek word, or it may more loosely be determined by the occurrence of the same English word elsewhere, regardless of the original. Sometimes the relationship is even looser, being only thematic or contextual, but not verbal. It must therefore be recognised that marginal references are useful, but certainly not comprehensive, and not necessarily tied to the original.

The second purpose of the margin is to include the notes of the translators, usually where there was a textual point or perceived difficulty to which they wished to draw attention. These notes are standard by translation. Thus every RV, for example, will have the same marginal notes. These can provide useful insights into valid alternative renderings, but it should be recognised that they were determined only by the translators, and may simply be a reflection of their problems or prejudices.

The use of a Bible with marginal references is always to be recommended, provided that the student does no more than regard these as a handy tool when nothing else is to hand. A fuller extension of marginal notes is an interlinear version, which may collate two translations (for example, AV and RV), and once again these have a place, though the student who uses one should be careful not to become too dependent on it.

Alternative versions

Do not fulfil either objectives 1 or 2. Assist in fulfilling objective 3, especially if used with a concordance.

Inevitably the first question is, Which versions should be compared? Firstly, the principles which define a ‘good’ translation need to be understood. This strictly falls outside the scope of this article, and the reader is therefore referred to two excellent recent articles by Brother Richard Purkis. ["Is Your Bible Complete?", The Testimony, Aug. 1996, p. 321; Sept. 1996, p. 361.] Three principles should be paramount:

All translations fall short of being able to replicate perfectly the meaning of the original inspired texts, but these principles, when applied, bring a translation tolerably close to that standard. The AV in general does meet all these principles, whereas most modern translations, in various respects, do not. There is not the space here to rehearse the reasons for respecting the Majority Text above other, sometimes older, manuscripts, but it is proper to reiterate the eclectic principles used by modern translations. Where there are variant readings they will compare the alternatives and adopt what they feel to be the reading closest to the original, which of course is not always the reading of the Majority Text. The principles by which the selection of alternative readings is made may be purely subjective, or may use accepted textual critical methods, which of course are sometimes open to legitimate question by those who understand the Truth.

This modus operandi is openly acknowledged by the NIV translators, who say in their preface, regarding the Masoretic Old Testament text: "Sometimes vowel letters and vowel signs did not, in the judgment of the translators, represent the correct vowels for the original consonantal text. Accordingly some words were read with a different set of vowels". With breathtaking honesty (or dishonesty) they go on: "These instances are usually not indicated by footnotes" (my emphasis). [The Holy Bible, New International Version, London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1993. Preface, pp. 3-4.] In other words, they have changed the accepted reading of the text and not acknowledged the fact within the translation. With regard to the New Testament text, the same translators say: "The Greek text used in translating the New Testament was an eclectic one... Where existing manuscripts differ, the translators made their choice of readings according to accepted principles of New Testament textual criticism". [Ibid.]

The key point about this methodology is that, in practice, it allows translators to adopt those readings which most closely match their own preconceived and, doctrinally speaking, erroneous views. It does little to assist in achieving a rendering as close as possible to the original text, in terms of literally translating the original words, reflecting the context, and carrying over original idioms into the modern language. The translators of the Revised Version New Testament adopted the same eclectic principles, but acknowledged the weakness of the method in their own Preface: "Textual criticism, as applied to the Greek New Testament, forms a special study of much intricacy and difficulty, and even now leaves room for considerable variety of opinion among competent critics". [The Holy Bible, Revised Version, Cambridge University Press, 1911. Preface to the New Testament, 1880, p. 9.]

The foregoing comments mean that the use of even respected modern versions should be with considerable caution. Nevertheless, no translation is perfect, and alternative versions can

• give a clearer rendering in more up-to-date English of an undisputed passage
• present alternative readings of both disputed and undisputed passages to assist in allowing the context to indicate the true meaning
• challenge the student to consider his own assumptions about the meaning of a passage which may be incorrect.

There is always a danger with Christadelphian speakers and writers that alternative versions are used simply in an attempt to sound scholarly, when nothing is in fact added to our understanding by their use. With this and the other caveats above, two particular recommendations may be made.

The RV margin can sometimes shed further light on the Majority Text. One of the principles underlying the RV marginal notes is "That the Text to be adopted be that for which the evidence is decidedly preponderating; and that when the Text so adopted differs from that from which the Authorised Version was made, the alteration be indicated in the margin". [Ibid., p. 8.]

The other recommendation is the Amplified New Testament. This can be useful in allowing shades of meaning in the Greek to be brought out by a number of different English words, where one does not suffice. It is also worth noting that, although it acknowledges some eclectic methodology, it also explicitly states that the Bible "was originally verbally inspired and infallible" [The Amplified New Testament, fourteenth edition, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Zondervan Publishing House, 1958.] (emphasis original).

Bible dictionaries

Do not fulfil objective 1. Partly fulfil objectives 2 and 3.

To these may be added specialist writings on matters such as Biblical history and archaeology. Such reference sources do clearly have a role to fulfil, but chiefly in so far as they convey factual data about Biblical matters. Great care needs to be exercised where such tools offer interpretations of factual data, even when the interpretations are those of the ‘experts’. Their views will almost always be subjective, and probably will not be guided by Biblical principles. They are useful in disciplines such as the geography, topography, climatology and natural history of Bible lands, and the history and archaeology of Bible places, people and events. Usage beyond these narrow boundaries is not advised. Opinions will usually be coloured by un-Biblical ideas which may or may not be obvious to the reader.

Commentaries

Do not fulfil objectives 1 and 3. Sometimes partly fulfil objective 2.

Commentaries are almost always written by those with orthodox doctrinal views, and, given that their primary role is interpretation, they are usually thoroughly flawed. Sometimes they convey useful factual information, but almost always this can be gained from other sources. There is rarely any need for the Christadelphian Bible student to utilise a commentary.

Computing aids

Fulfil all three objectives.

These have been reviewed in detail on other occasions in The Testimony. ["Bible Study on Computer", Ewan MacLeod, Aug. 1993–Jan. 1994.] Those tools that are fundamentally on-line Bibles and concordances fulfil all our defined objectives, and are able to perform a variety of tasks very rapidly that would be so slow and tedious to do manually as to be impracticable. One such feature is their ability to carry out word adjacency searches (the area of adjacency specified by the searcher; for example, five verses) within seconds.

I will conclude by sharing with readers some data that this kind of computer search highlighted for me. It is true that it is perfectly possible to discover this manually, and readers may already have done this, but for me it was through the On-line Bible. It is well recognised that one of the Old Testament sources for the theme of Revelation 18:2, "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen", is Jeremiah 50, 51. But an adjacency search on ‘Babylon’ and the word stem ‘fall’ reveals just how true this is. ‘Babylon’ occurs fifty-four times in those two chapters. ‘Fall’ or ‘fallen’ occur seven times, always in relation to Babylon (50:15,30,32; 51:4,8,44,49). It is as if these seven occurrences act as focal points for the refrain of "Babylon... is fallen", pointing up the message that Babylon was to fall. And over the two chapters of 110 long verses, the word ‘Babylon’ is never more than sixteen verses away from the word ‘fall’, and usually much less.

In conclusion, let us remember that, with the rich variety of study aids at our disposal, we have no excuse for not acting upon the instruction of Paul to Timothy:

"Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness" (2 Tim. 2:15,16).