Hi Chris,

I can go along with what you just said.  I think that you're right, the essence does in fact transcend legitimate translations.  I think this has to do with the Scriptures being very much alive.  I would be perceived differently by different cultures, but since I'm alive, I would have some definite impacts that were generally speaking, more or less common.  However, to really get to know me, I mean, really get to know me, you'd have to learn my language.  You'd have to know where I came from and where I am now and how I got from one to the other.  You'd have to invest time seeking clarification of my more ambiguous comments.  Even if I was speaking perfectly clear, one's own knowledge or background might stand in the way of understanding what I was actually saying.  At no time would a sane person figure that just because there were times when things were 'lost in the translation' that I was an intelligible person and my statements unreliable.  It would be seen for what we already know in our ordinary dealings with people:  it takes hard work to understand, really understand, the people around us- even the ones we know most intimately.  It's wrong for people to hold the Scriptures to a different and higher standard then we hold ourselves in our normal dealings.

Still, certain concerns do emerge.  People who put a tremendous amount of weight on certain interpretations of the Scriptures in English (for example)... say, your average atheist scouring the Bible for flaws.... who never think to look and see if maybe the original languages may eliminate that flaw, are also being quite irrational.  I mean, maybe it will eliminate the flaw or maybe not, but at least have the integrity to check it out!  And if it requires a bit of research to do so, that's not my fault!  At the very least, I have discovered that going to the original language or other deeper levels of inquiry yield numerous other possible explanations for the 'flaw.'  You may discover that there are three legitimate interpretations, only one of which reflects a 'flaw.'  The translator may not have been trying to sanitize the Scriptures from the ever cynical eye of the roving skeptic and was not concerned to resolve every objection atheists might raise over hundreds of years.  So why fixate on the one problematic interpretation and make your case solely on that one, as if it was the only one, while there are two others that are just as legitimate that pose no problems at all?  I suppose if your worldview depends on it...

And as Christians, trying to grasp the truth as well as we can, we ourselves should be careful to cling to particular doctrines only as well as the weight of a full examination of the issue will bear.  A case in point within my own 'denomination' would be 1 Cor 11:29, which is often put forward as a 'proof text' for closed communion, and the insistence that the person who partakes recognize that Jesus' body is truly present in the elements.  However, the text will equally bear the view that by 'body' the passage is referring to the body of believers who are the body of Christ, whom Paul has just pointed out have been marginalized by other Christians in their race to the feast (vs 20-22).  In fact, I think this is a better interpretation.  Still, either reading is legitimate, so you can't really go to war based on either of them.  :)

We Christians would do well to remember 1 Cor 4:6, and proportion our confidence in our interpretations accordingly.  I think that ties into the same 'translation' issue.

Thanks for your comment!