From: "Richard Hong" 

>> But how am I supposed to trust or understand what the translations really
mean?

Randall,

First of all, I don't think you appreciate the reliance that preachers
place on scholarly works for word studies.  When a preacher says that this
word means such-and-such in Greek, I assure you that he's repeating what he
read in a scholarly work, not giving you his own word study.  (And yes,
he'll do it without atttribution.  It is standard practice NOT to give
attributions in sermons on allegations of fact.  So he won't say something
like "Barclay says that the Greek word 'xyz' means 'abc'," but he
would give attribution on opinions,  such as "Barclay says that this
passage is talking about being a nice guy.")  Plus, most preachers shy
away from word studies most of the time anyway.

As a practical matter, you should just buy a parallel Bible.  These will
typically have 4 (some as many as 8) translations, arranged in parallel
columns, in one big book.  Then you can read multiple translations
side-by-side.  Where a single English word causes the whole meaning to
shift from one translation to the next, you can bet that it's time to pull
out a scholarly text which will discuss word studies in that passage.


>> A) the Bible really does hold positions that are wrong in my view.  (if
this is the case then the liberal theologians of today are trying to ignore
pieces of it in order to make other pieces more palatable to the modern
mind - I strongly suspect this to be the case btw). <<

The Bible doesn't hold positions.  It is a book.  God holds positions, not
a book.  The Bible is a book of stories and of wisdom, detailing God's
relationship with man.  From it we may infer how God wants us to live today
-- which may not be what God wanted in the different societal context. You
don't ignore any of it, but you have a responsibility to place all of it
social context.  It's like the "cruel and unusual punishment"
phrase; do you think that this should only be interpreted in light of what
was considered cruel or unusual in 1789, or was the intent that "cruel
and unusual" would (and should) be continually redefined in light of
the state of society?

Rich

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5