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In progress...
1
Tim 3:16-4:4 2
Pet 1:16-2:3
Can We Trust the Bible as a Source of Truth?The issue we would like to
address here is the trustworthiness of the Bible. Can what
Christians consider the infallible, inspired Word of God (2 Tim
3:16-17 KJV
NASB)
be trusted as a source of truth about God, man, creation and
salvation? This is important, because the extent to which we
can consider the Bible trustworthy and reliable is the extent we
can hold it as an authority over what we believe about God.
Joseph Smith called the Bible into question as an authoritative
source by declaring in his
Articles
of Faith (#8) that he believed "the Bible to be the
word of God as far as it is translated
correctly." In other words, the Bible can only be
trusted as authoritative in as much as it is 'translated
correctly', and he and the other prophets of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-Day Saints determine which parts of the Bible are
trustworthy (and thus authoritative) and which parts are
not. In essence, this teaching makes Joseph Smith and the
subsequent prophets an authority over the Bible.
This leaves us with questions and dilemmas, however. First
of all, are there indeed translation problems with the Bible so
that some parts of it are not the Lord's
words? Also, it leaves us in a quandary of the 'chicken and
the egg' sort: are Joseph Smith and later prophets an authority
over the Bible, or is the Bible an authority of later
prophets? How can we know which one governs the other, which
is the supreme authority? (This question will be more
thoroughly addressed on our Truth
page.) Does the Bible itself give an answer to these
questions?
Use the list below to navigate to your issue of interest, or
simply read straight through by scrolling:
From Where Did the Bible
Come?
Coming soon...
How Did the Bible Come
to Us and Was that Process Trustworthy?
There are two aspects of
the Bible's journey from its original penning to the books we have
today - 'transmission' and 'translation'.
Transmission is the copying of the original document onto another
document in the same language, which does not involve translation.
Translation, however, is copying the original document and writing
it on a second document in a different language than that
of the original document.
For example, a secretary would be expected to write exactly what her boss would
dictate (without any interpretation). However, that same boss, who only
spoke English and was meeting with a Spanish client, would expect his
Spanish-speaking
secretary to interpret his/her words - to try to accurately
convey in a second language the originally-intended meaning of what he/she said to the
client in the first language.
It is important to understand these two functions, as both of these took place
in the handing down our Scripture to us today. One common
misconception, however,
is that translation is the primary vehicle by which the Bible was brought to us.
What
Does the Bible Say about Itself as an Authority?
Page last updated on September 26, 2003.
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