Linguistic Criticism of the Bible

One of the many issues that people ignore when they read and study the Bible is that of language.
They disregard or ignore the fact that the Bible was not written in the language in which they are reading.  They also fail to take into account that biblical language comes in a variety of ways.

In this article, I would like to call the attention of the reader to the issue of language in the Bible.
Let me begin by focusing on the biblical languages themselves.

1.  The bulk of the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, the language of the Jewish people.
There are isolated passages in the Old Testament which were written in Aramaic.  Aramaic was the language spoken in Babylon, and without any doubt, the Jews were exposed to it during their seventy year captivity in Babylon.  Aramaic, just like Arabic and Hebrew, was part of a family of languages
known as "Semitic."  The similarity between them is the same as the similarity of the Romance languages, i.e. French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish.

2.  The New Testament was written in Greek.  At the time that the New Testament was written, there were two types of Greek.  One was referred to as "Attic" Greek which was spoken by those who were members of the upper echelons of society.  The other was known as "Koine" Greek, and was spoken by the average every day person.  The words "Koine" means common, and accurately reflects the fact that the common person spoke Jesus's time spoke it, as a result of the Greek Empire's military conquest and cultural influence in the Middle East.

Some may want to ask as to why it is important for us to know about the linguistic origin of the Bible.  The major reason, I would say, is because in many instances, there is a gap between the original languages and the languages in which we read the Bible today.  For example, in the translations which we read in English, Spanish, German, and other languages, we are told in the first chapter of Genesis that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  In our modern day translations, "God" appears as singular.  But in the original Hebrew, the word for God is "Elohim" which literally translated means "gods."  Why does the name God appear as plural in Hebrew and the other Semitic languages?  It is because Semitic people spoke of God in terms of God's many attributes such  as glory, majesty, power, and sovereignty.  The uninformed and unstudied person could easily arrive at the conclusion that the Old Testament supports the idea of belief in many gods.

Another example of the language gap is the twenty-third Psalm.  Most of our English translations begin with "The Lord is my Shepherd."  The original Hebrew begins with "Yahweh is my shepherd."
The reason why the English language translators used the word "Lord" instead of "Yahweh" is because they knew that the Hebrew/Jewish people were reluctant to pronounce God's name, because of the fear of taking God's name in vain.  So even though they read the name "Yahweh," they would not pronounce it and instead replaced it by the Hebrew word "Adonai," which is translated as "Lord."
That is the reason why the word "Lord" appears in the English and other translations.

One final example of the importance of language is the word "first-born" which we find in the first chapter of Colossians.  We find Jesus referred to as the "first-born" of all creation.  Some faith communities, such as the Jehovah's witnesses have used this passage to try to prove that Jesus was created by God, and did not always exist as believed by the vast majority of Christians.  How do we then solve that problem?  In this case it is solved by looking at the Greek language.  We find that there are two words for "first-born" in Greek.  One is "protogenes" which literally means "first-born," or the "oldest."  The other word for "first-born" in Greek is "prototokos" which means "inheritor"
The word which appears in Colossians 1 is "prototokos," in which Paul is clearly stating that Jesus is the "inheritor" of all creation.

The importance of language in Bible study then is clear.  We must be familiar with what the Bible says in the original languages and how that is translated or possibly even mis-translated into the languages we speak today and read the Bible in.  If we are honest and serious students of the Bible, we will make every attempt to become familiar with the Bible in its original language, so that we can then determine how the biblical message is applicable for our time.  If we do not have the to opportunity to take a course or engage in extensive study of the biblical languages then we can do either one of three things:

1.  Obtain from a Bible or other religious book store a Hebrew and Greek lexicon so that we can look up biblical words in their original languages and see the meaning and translation of these words.

2.  Examine the various translations in English or other language in which we read and study the Bible.  The comparison of these translations will give us a broader picture of how we can understand the biblical message.

3.  Obtain different copies of Bible commentaries.  When we compare the various approaches and perspectives of the commentators, we can also look at the Bible in a broader context.  A word of caution would be not to take any commentator's word as "Gospel truth," but at the same time,
reading the commentaries will make us the beneficiaries of the research of Bible scholars.

I hope you have fun as you engage in studying the Scriptures in their original languages.
Bon voyage!

Grace and peace,
Juan Ayala-Carmona