This post is part of a series of posts summarising chapters of the Jehovah Witnesses' booklet, "What does the Bible really Teach?", and seeking to evaluate those chapters against Scripture somewhat briefly. Those posts were introduced at the Introduction, and a contents page will be added to that entry once this run of posts has finished.
Chapter 2: The Bible – A Book from God
When you receive a gift from a friend, it is a good thing because it tells you something of the friend. The Bible is God's gift, in which we learn things we would otherwise not know. It tells us that God wants us to know him. The Bible is available in 2,300 languages (at least in part), and it expresses God’s own thoughts and message
Harmonious and Accurate: Written over 1,600 ears, it tells one story of how paradise lost can be recovered. It is scientifically accurate, and contains details ahead of its time. It is also honest, including accounts of the failures of its heroes.
A book of practical wisdom: Not surprisingly, as God wrote it, it is full of principles on how to live
A book of prophecy: Details such as the fall of Babylon were foretold long in advance.
The Word of God is alive: The Bible is God’s living word. Our claims to love God can be tested against how we react to the Bible.
Evaluation
This is not a bad chapter. There is a slight crass over-literalism in places, such as seeing Leviticus as teaching a food-hygiene standard that was well ahead of its time. But basically, it fairly nicely summarises the Christian view of the Bible.
There was one thing to watch out for: On page 19, there is a picture of the world, with the front covers of different Bible translations superimposed over it. The caption reads: “The New World translation of the Holy Scriptures is available in many languages.” Now that confused me.
One translation can't be available in many languages. Instead, you would say that a work written in one language is available in many languages because it has been translated into many. I would be much happier saying that the Bible is available in many languages, and lots of them have been given a title that means something like the New World translation. Saying that their translation is available in many languages sounds dangerously like their translation is the original thing. That would suggest that "the Bible" equates to one particular translation.
We would want to be clear that inspiration, infallibility and inerrancy apply to the autographs. Those qualities survive translation, but every translation is flawed in ways. A translation is only infallible insofar as it accurately translates the original documents
Watch out for equating “the Bible” with their version of it. Do the claims for infallibility only apply to their translation, or to the autographs?]
Add new comment