"God's Word in Common Language" May 1, 2011

James 1:1-9
John 20:19-31
According to a survey which has been repeated time and again, in every different denomination, ¼ of the Church believe the Bible to be the Literal Word of God, while another ¼ believe the Bible to be the Inerrant Word of God, another ¼ believe the Bible to be the Inspired Word of God, and the fourth ¼ believe the Bible to be the Word of an Inspired People of God. When asked “What are the Laws of the Covenant, some will respond The 10 Commandments, some will reply the Book of Leviticus, some will respond the Five Books of Torah, and others will reply the whole First Testament. It appears as though as Christians we have are hard time agreeing about anything!

With the excitement of Prince William and Kate Middleton, becoming Princess Catherine, to be wed this week, we remember an earlier time in the history of Great Britain, and the origins of the Church of England and Church of Scotland, from which arose the Anglican and Presbyterian Churches. In the 1500s, Martin Luther, called for Reforms within the Church, correcting the traditions that had grown over time, correcting the Sale of Indulgences, correcting that the preaching of the Worship service be in the language of the Nation rather than only in Latin or Greek. For which Luther was Excommunicated as a Priest, and over the next 100 years, an Orthodox Church and a Protesting Reformed Church began to arise. When Henry VIII was monarch, he broke with The Church at Rome, not over theology, faith in God or the Church, but over POWER, over SEX and the AUTHORITY of the Church versus that of the GOVERNMENT. Today, we have made it common, but when Henry wanted to be divorced and wanted to change from one denomination to another, this was monumental. His son Edward ruled a very brief time, then Henry's daughter Mary became Queen, taking the Church back to Catholicism and executing Protestants who were found, causing many to go to Scotland where John Calvin and John Knox developed the community of believers into the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. When Mary died, her sister, Elizabeth, daughter of Anne Boleyn took the Church back to the Church of England. Decades later, when James I of Scotland became King, he sought to end this persecution of both sides against the other, by calling for a fresh translation of the Bible.

We know from history, that the Scriptures of the Jewish people were written in Hebrew. When conquered by the Greeks, the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek as the Septuagint. When the Canon of the New Testament (Gospels and Epistles), originally written in Greek, were added to the Septuagint, the whole Bible was then translated from Greek into Latin as the Center of the Church was at Rome. What was once referred to as the Catholic Bible was actually an English translation of a Latin Translation, of a Greek Translation, which in Old Testament was written in Hebrew as the Scriptures. In establishing a new foundation for The Church, King James sought a fresh translation of the Old and New Testaments, without going through Latin, directly from Hebrew and Greek into English. But how do you go about translating the whole Bible? First you need scholars who can read Hebrew and Greek. But is there any competition between scholars and between Universities? Say between Penn State and Syracuse University? Or between Dartmouth and Harvard? SO on the 2 and 20th Day of July in 1604, King James commissioned 4 and 50 Scholars from Cambridge, Oxford and Westminster to each translate the whole of the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into English. Then once we had three translations the Oxford, the Cambridge and the Westminster, to sit down with these and their notes, to formulate one Holy Bible. The translations were completed in 1608, and on the 5th of May 1611 three years later, the King James Bible was created. None was paid for the task, all were given letters of reference that they should be given every honor for having committed to this task. For seven years, from 1604 to 1611, translating, interpreting, arguing for what the Bible says. Not about personal beliefs but literally about what the Bible, the Word of God says and means. Their wording, simple phrases and poetry and rhyme, became the foundation for Shakespeare, became the basis for our Declaration of Independence, for Lincoln. In the last 20 years, differing publishing houses selling Bibles have each put forward new translations and transliterations. How different this from the practice of the making of the King James' Version of the Bible.

More than a simple task of translation, Hebrew and Greek each are filled with words that can have multiple meanings. When Jacob fell in love with the younger sister Rachel instead of Leah, according to the King James Bible it was because Leah had “Weak eyes”, yet the same Hebrew phrase can also mean “Tender and Beautiful”. At the reading of the prophecy of Amos, we have described that Hebrew had no word for Plumb-line, that this was a Syro-Phoenician phrase, but that Hebrew had a word that sounded like “Anah” which meant a “Sigh”, so do you translate the prophecy as Hard and fast and straight and narrow as a Plumb-line, or God's Sigh? In the most familiar passage of I Corinthians 13, the King James Bible did not translate the verb as Love, but instead as COMPASSION. How different all of our marriages might be, if instead of believing in the power of LOVE, as being greater than Faith and Hope and Prophecy and Generosity, instead we had heard “Faith, Hope, Compassion, Abide these three, but the greatest of these is COMPASSION.” Imagine every passage of Scripture, having these multiple meanings, and your task as the King's Translators is to publish the Word of God without error in the language of the Common People.

Getting it wrong is our principle concern, isn't it? If this is the literal Word of God, then to change it, to corrupt the Word, would be blasphemy. Funny the way, familiarity effects us. Will Rogers once claimed that “Rumor spreads faster, but doesn't stay put as long as the Truth.” Today, we are effected by the rumors of the day, by believing what seems to be true, what is repeated the most often.

Universally, this passage from John is accepted as being about “Doubting Thomas.” Thomas did not want to get it wrong, having witnessed Jesus' death, having had his heart broken, Thomas claimed he needed proof in order to believe. Actually, what he voiced, was no different than the doubts of each of the disciples, and the doubts we all feel at times. This is not a passage about the Doubts of Thomas, so much as it is about the Commitment of Jesus to meet those reservations. Thomas claimed, UNLESS I PUT FORTH MY FINGER AND TOUCH AND FEEL, I SHALL NOT BELIEVE, and seven days later Jesus stood among them and said “Thomas put forth your finger and touch and feel.”

Thomas should have been able to believe the Resurrection stories of the Disciples,
the Disciples should have been able to believe the resurrection stories of Mary,
without God taking on human form to become one with us, we should have been able to believe... but knowing we were not able, God became Christ, Christ died for us and was buried, Mary was called by name and her heart turned, the disciples were locked away in anxiety and fear when Jesus stood among them and breathed upon them, Thomas touched the wounds and believed.

The challenge of faith is not that we will get it wrong, in all likelihood, we will, the challenge of faith is whether we then give up, or persevere and try? The Letter of James is about perseverance. Human hope is not to be spared love, or challenge, but instead, when persecuted, when our hearts are broken, when we are overwhelmed with anxiety, shall we give up or shall we reconsider and believe anew?