How to Read the Bible in English

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How to Read the Bible in English

Trevor Peterson

2003

1 Basic Tools

The rst and most basic tool of Bible study is, of course, the Bible itself.Since this is a course in English Bible, we will not discuss Hebrew or Greek

editions, or those abominations called interlinears. Suce it to say that

these tools are useless without adequate linguistic training. Fortunately for

English readers, there is a next best alternativean overwhelming array of

English translations, versions, paraphrases, and retellings, most of which

are based in some way on the original language texts. Careful compari-

son of dierent versions will usually reveal most of the problem areas (and

most of the reasonable solutions). Your comparisons will be more useful,

however, if you have a general idea of what kind of Bibles youre using.

Some of the relevant issues are: underlying original language texts, tra-

ditional background, translation strategy, and date. Well tackle them inreverse order.

Date here refers to when the translation was written. Check the preface

and the copyright date(s) for information on both when the translation

was rst written and when it was last revised. The , for instance, was

written in 1611 but has been updated many times since, mainly for changes

in spelling. The English language has changed signicantly since 1611, as

can be seen even in the latest editions. If you decide to use the , youll

probably want to have access to the Oxford English Dictionary, so you can

check older meanings of words.

Translation strategy refers to the approach used by the translator(s). The

Living Bible (as opposed to the ), for instance, is a paraphrase. It waswritten primarily by clarifying the in more modern English. The Book

was a later paraphrase, and The Story was a retelling that didnt even use

verse numbers, because the material was so heavily re-worked. These types

of resources may be more enjoyable for casual reading, but they are not

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normally all that helpful for study. Most actual translations are produced

from Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic documents. Even the , which is arevision of the , was produced through direct reference to the original

language texts. Some translations are described as formal equivalence

versions like the , , , try to translate word-for-word

wherever possible. Where the word order makes no sense in English, it

is adjusted as minimally as possible. Where an idiom is unintelligible, a

looser equivalent is chosen. But generally, they hold strictly to the con-

guration of the originals and strive for a consistent correspondence be-

tween words. Others, such as the , , , strive for what is called

dynamic or meaning-based equivalence. This is sometimes described as

meaning-for-meaning translation. Instead of trying to translate individual

words as consistently as possible, they try to say what the original says ina way that would be normal for modern English-speakers to say the same

thing.

Traditional background refers to the goals of the translators with regard

to already existing versions. The was intended to be a revision of the

. The was intended to be altogether independent. The is a

revision of the , which is a revision of the , which is adapted from

a British counterpart, which was a revision of the . The is also a

revision of the , but with dierent translation strategy.

The underlying original language texts are the hardest factor for the En-

glish reader to deal with. The earliest English versions were based on the

standard Latin text of the Western Church. Shortly before the Protestant

Reformation, the fall of Constantinople sent Eastern, Greek-speaking Chris-tians into exile. They brought with them Greek texts of all sorts, but par-

ticularly for our interests, the Greek Bible that they used in their churches.

This development sparked an interest among Western scholars in philology

(the study of languages and texts). Greek became standard fare in West-

ern education, and Hebrew increased in popularity among biblical schol-

ars. Early Reformers like Martin Luther in Germany and William Tyndale

in England wrote translations of the Bible in their vernacular languages.

They used contemporary copies of the Greek New Testament (GNT) of the

Eastern Churches and the Hebrew Bible of the Jewish Synagoguesa ver-

sion called the Masoretic Text (MT). Over the following centuries, more and

earlier manuscripts were discovered, especially of the GNT. Most of thesemanuscripts were very close to one another and are collectively called the

Majority Text (MajT). A few manuscripts were very early and showed some

signicant dierences from the MajT. In later Bible versions these earlier

manuscripts have taken a more prominent role, while the KJV and NKJV

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are still based on the Greek manuscripts that were available in the 16th

c. Most versions have continued to use the MT tradition for most of theOT, but many have adopted other readings where the MT seems incompre-

hensible or unlikely. In such cases, they have used other, earlier Hebrew

manuscripts (mostly from the discoveries at Qumran) or ancient versions

Greek, Latin, and Aramaic renditions of the OT.

One of the most useful tools after the Bible itself is a concordance. Many

Bibles come with a small concordance in the back, but an exhaustive con-

cordance is worth the extra investment. An exhaustive concordance allows

you to look up all the places where a word appears in the Bible. This is a

useful thing to have if you want to do a topical study or if you want to get a

sense of how a word is used in biblical passages other than the one you are

studying. There are, however, a few limitations to a concordance. It canonly look up individual words, so if you want to nd love of God, youll

need to look up every occurrence of love or God. It also looks up only

by specic words. If you want the general concept love of God, perhaps

a useful passage speaks of Gods compassion, but because it doesnt use the

word love, you wont nd it. Finally, every concordance is specic to the

version for which it is written. Many versions do not have a concordance

written for them, and it can get expensive to accumulate all that do exist.

At some point, you will probably want to get some Bible software.

Most packages come with multiple Bible versions, which saves you the

trouble of having to buy all of them for comparison. More importantly,

most software packages allow you to perform concordance searches for

any version included, and on multiple words at a time. They also al-low you to search the concordance for an underlying Greek or Hebrew

wordprobably the one area where I would recommend using original

language tools without specialized training. If, for instance, you are study-

ing love of God in a particular NT passage, and you want to make sure

that all of the other passages you look at use the same Greek word for

love, you could search on the underlying term, and although some of

the verses that come up may have words like compassion or mercy,

they all use that same Greek word. By looking at the passages in En-

glish, you can begin to get a sense of how the Greek word can be used

and what the range of possibility is in the passage youre studying. Many

software packages also come with a topical index that will allow you tosearch for related terms. http://www.biblestudytools.com/ and http:

//olivetree.com/bible/ have handy Bible search engines with dierent

versions. http://onlinebible.net/ is a shareware program that usually

only costs whatever it takes to distribute it. PC Study Bible is a good, bal-

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anced tool for anyone who is not an expert in languages. Logos produces

not only Bible software but one of the most extensive collections of digitalbooks in theology and biblical studies. I use BibleWorks, and many of my

colleagues like Gramcord.

In addition to the Bible itself and a concordance, you will probably

want a good Bible dictionary. This involves some technical terminology. A

theological dictionary generally contains word studies of dierent Greek or

Hebrew words. A Bible dictionary is arranged by English terms and covers a

wide range of topics associated with biblical studies, including introductory

matters, biblical characters, history, geography, culture, and theological

terms. A Bible dictionary can be as small as one handy volume or as large

as several volumes. Some are more conservative in their approach, some

more liberal. But most of the material that you nd in a Bible dictionarywill not tend to dier signicantly. The most important thing to look for is

that the entries include bibliographic data (lists of other sources to consult).

Like any dictionary or encyclopedia, this is a good starting point, but you

should be able to keep goingto look more closely at some resources that

deal with your topic more fully. A good bibliography will help you do this.

Finally, it is good to have access to some useful commentaries. Under-

stand that there are dierent types of commentaries, written for dierent

purposes. Some are more devotional. They may include interesting illus-

trations or thought-provoking questions; but they will probably be light on

background information to help you better understand what youre read-

ing. Some are nothing more than published sermons. They often contain

more detailed information than devotional commentaries (depending onthe style of the preacher), but they rarely have much in the way of techni-

cal or bibliographic notes. When I speak of a useful commentary, I have

in mind the type that includes such notes. If you are studying a specic

passage, a commentary is a handy place to startjust look up the passage

in question, and see what it says. But because the commentators scope is

broader (the whole book or more), it may not address your question as fully

as you might like or need. Good notes can point you to other resources that

will be more helpful.

The diculty with commentaries is that buying such detailed works

(usually published with a separate volume or more for each book of the

Bible) can get expensive. I would recommend buying a good, intermedi-ate commentary set on the whole Bible (like the Expositors Bible Com-

mentary), then adding at least one in-depth commentary for any book you

choose to study at a given time (like NICOT/NICNT). If you have access to

a good library, you might not need to do this, so check around rst. In any

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event, you will probably need to use a library to follow up with sources you

nd in the footnotes to your commentary or Bible dictionary. In this area,you can use the limited library here at Bethany, the Oyer Memorial Library,

which services Washington Bible College and Capital Bible Seminary, or the

major university libraries and Library of Congress.

2 Interpretation

There is a plethora of words that have found their way into the vocabulary

of biblical studies, all quite close to one another, all dealing in some way or

another with interpretation. One such term is exegesis, which is generally

applied to the study of an original language text (as opposed to translations)

and normally understood to extend no further than strict application oflinguistic (grammatical and lexical) analysis. This line is becoming harder

and harder to hold, as the eld of linguistics itself develops and encroaches

on other areas of study. Hermeneutics generally refers to the study of

interpretive method, including but not limited to exegesis. The term can

apply to any literature, but in later usage it is generally isolated to religious

material. Even what we mean by interpretation is not always clear. Some

use it to refer to the pursuit of the authors intended meaning, others to

an exploration of the readers own reection on literature. The eld of

semiotics (study of signs) and associated postmodern literary theories have

called into question almost every traditional model of interpretation. A

popular term to use these days is simply reading, since that is undeniablywhat we are doing when we try to engage in interpretation or exegesis or

hermeneutics, and all of these other things, whether we realize it or not,

are implicit in the act of reading.

At a very basic level, reading is the simple task of looking at printed

signs on a page and converting them to audible signs that in turn trigger

meaning in the mind of the reader. This process is not intuitive but must be

learned through rules and experience. The elements involved are not easy

to pinpoint, as their interplay generally happens without critical thought.

Better reading comes through further rules, models, and experience. Social

setting, family background, personal traits, and peer inuence can all aect

the way that a person reads, both in terms of the readers own inuencesand perceived inuences on the writer or text. At the same time, texts

have the potential to aect the readerto counteract other inuences and

shift perspective. An often-used descriptive model is that of horizons. The

reader comes with a horizona set of parameters and expectationsand

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encounters a text with its own horizon. When readers buy into what a text

says, their horizons shift slightly, bringing them closer to the horizon ofthe text. The next time the reader encounters the same text, the horizon

is dierent, and the process happens all over again. Gadamer describes

this shifting of horizons as the hermeneutical spiralevery time the reader

returns to the text, the two horizons come closer and closer together. But

what if the reader does not buy into the horizon of the text? What if the

contrast is allowed to stand and becomes a point of reection? Much of

hermeneutics relates to how a reader handles this disparity in horizons.

What I mean to accomplish here is by no means to fully explain the

process of good reading. For that matter, I dont see it as possible for one

person to completely ascertain the best reading strategy for every situa-

tion and every person. I can give you some strategies that I have found inmy journey, but you may already have some of your own that I have not

yet encountered. Hopefully we can learn something from one another in

the process.

One major factor to keep in mind is the array of genres in the Bible.

Without anyone telling you to, you probably read software license agree-

ments (if you read them at all) dierently from magazine articles or novels.

The reason is that these are dierent genres that we encounter in everyday

life. The Bible, although it is all combined into one book (usually), encom-

passes a wide range of literary genres. Books like Psalms and Proverbs are

poetic, while most of Leviticus and Deuteronomy are prose; Ecclesiastes

falls somewhere in between. Job and Proverbs are wisdom literature, Isa-

iah and Jeremiah are prophetic, much of Exodus is legal, most of Genesisis narrative, and most of the books have direct or indirect speech scattered

throughout. There are genealogies, inventories, building instructions, re-

ligious rituals, praises, laments, covenants, and parables. All of these dif-

ferent types of genres have their own qualities and literary features. Some

of the material ts multiple genres, such as proverbs, which are poetry

and wisdom, and many of which probably originated as short, oral sayings

but exist now as part of a compilation. Sometimes there is enough of a

particular genre contained in the Bible to observe common characteristics;

sometimes it is helpful to look at similar literature in the surrounding cul-

tures. But it is always a good idea to keep in mind whatever you do know

about a particular genre when reading, and often commentaries will con-tain discussions of major characteristics. (At the same time, it is important

to realize that genres are a tool for categorizing texts and to be cautious

about forcing them into set patterns.)

Another feature to observe is the shift of speaking voices in a text. Some-

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times this is not an issue, as in a monologue or perhaps a letter. But even

something like a psalm, which we might assume is all written from oneperspective, can exhibit shifting speakers. (In fact, poetic texts like psalms

are most notorious for shifting speakers without telling you what theyre

doing!) Obviously, narrative will tend to involve many dierent speakers.

Often the speakers are clearly identied, but sometimes they are not. Look

for clues in what is said, that will help point you to likely speakers. Some-

times it helps to lay out the text like a script for a play or movie. That way

you can identify speakers, scene changes, non-verbal components, etc. It

might even help to act the whole thing out!

Look for rhetorical clues. Count all the verbs and identify their subjects.

Are they stative (describing a state) or entive (describing an action)? Are

they active or passive? Where is the action in the passage concentrated?Do the same with nouns. Are they abstract or concrete? What does that

tell you about the nature of the passage? Especially in poetic texts, but in

others as well, can you observe a particular mood? Is the speaker depressed,

excited, incredulous, etc.? Is there a notable shift in mood? What reasons

are stated in the text for the mood and what might have changed it?

Try to identify some structure to the passage. In narrative, you can of-

ten nd structure in conjunction with your script layout. Where would you

put a scene change in the narrative? Does the location or time change? Are

new characters introduced? Do any characters leave? What about larger di-

visions that might correspond to acts? In more didactic (teaching-oriented,

such as letters or speeches) passages, look for shifts of topic. One thing to

keep in mind is that the paragraph divisions you nd in your English Bibleare a guess. The original language texts do not have any such divisions.

Are you satised with the way your Bible divides the material? Are there

other ways it could be done? Compare some other editions and see how

they divide the passage. Look at how a few commentaries outline the pas-

sage. If youre feeling especially adventurous, try outlining the structure

of the passage yourself. Put main ideas out to the left and indent subor-

dinate clauses. You might even want to diagram some sentences, if you

know how. Once you have a sense of the structure, identify the main idea

of each section. How do smaller sections relate to one another? What do

they have in common? Group them into larger units and identify the larger

main ideas. Once you think you have a decent outline, read back throughthe passage and see if it makes sense.

How is the passage used elsewhere? If its an OT passage, is it cited

anywhere in the NT? What does the NT writer do with it that you would

expect? What does he do that you wouldnt expect? Are there hymns, cho-

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ruses, or poems that you know use the passage or some of its ideas? Are

there books or stories that build o of it? Any advertisements or news-paper articles? What about artwork, much of which is inspired by ideas

taken from Scripture? On another level, try to think of other literature or

artwork that you can relate to the passage, even if there is no direct ci-

tation. Are there paintings or songs that come to mind when you think

about the speakers mood or experience? Do a little brainstormingyoud

be surprised what can come to mind.

Try reading from dierent perspectives. Put yourself in the shoes of the

speaker, or the speakers enemies, or a rather unconcerned bystander, or a

king, or a beggar, or an animal, or anyone else who might turn up in the

text or in the world it presupposes. Try on some modern identities. How

would an atheist read the passage, or an agnostic, or a liberal, or a conser-vative, or a politician, or a lm producer, or a child, or a senior citizen, or a

member of Bethany Community Church? (These are by no means all of the

possibilitiesuse your imagination!) If you have the time and ambition,

maybe you could even nd some of these dierent types of people and run

the passage by them. Remembereveryone brings something dierent to

the table, and one of the best ways to see our own biases is to gather more

perspectives.

What, then, do we do with all of this informationthese dierent ideas,

perspectives, insights, etc.? Well, one thing is to keep reading. Keep com-

ing back to the text with whatever youve gathered. But presumably youre

reading for a reason. In all of this thinking about the text, dont forget to

think about yourself. What are you looking for? What is your reason forreading in the rst place? If youre teaching others, what do they want

or need to nd? What are you trying to give them? There is a danger in

coming to the text with too much of your own agenda; there is an equal

danger, however, in coming to the text with the assumption that you have

no agenda. This is where trying on some dierent reading perspectives can

help. But dont be afraid to ask the questions of the text that you want

answered.

Throughout most of this discussion Ive been assuming that you are

studying a given passage rather than a topic. Generally speaking, there

is a lot to be said for this approach, since it gives you the chance to see

what a passage has to say that you may not have thought to ask. Butsometimes you will want to talk about a topic in Scripture. You might pick

a key passage that comes to mind as a starting point and use some of the

techniques we have discussed to jump elsewhere. (Concordance studies

are great for this type of thing.) If you cant think of a key passage, you

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might jump right into the concordance by looking up key words that come

to mind. Try a thesaurus, if you dont nd the words you were looking for.Maybe they have relevant synonyms or antonyms that appear in Scripture.

A topical Bible can also be useful, since it does much the same thing that

a concordance would do, except that it is organized by topics rather than

specic words. Of course, like anything else, you will be better equipped

to nd topics in the Bible as you get better acquainted with the Bible itself.

When it comes to teaching others, be realistic about your abilities. Of-

ten, the key to teaching someone else is that youve put in more time on a

topic than they have. Dene your topic carefully, and if discussion veers

too far o the topic, dont be afraid to say so and bring it back to what you

intended to cover. On the other hand, if you dont mind exploring rabbit-

trails yourself, you can prepare for a lot of the sidetracks by letting thetext take you where it will in your preparation. Allow other people to con-

tribute their own thoughts, and relate yours to them. If they say something

you meant to say, be glad that theyve saved you the trouble and go on. If

they say something you disagree with, it might not be a bad idea to politely

table the issue until you can investigate further and bring back some sort of

response. But keep in mind that everyone comes with a dierent horizon,

and if your audience doesnt leave agreeing with everything youve said,

thats okay. At least youve given them something dierent to think about,

and they will have to make their own decisions about it.

Above all, whether reading for personal benet or to teach others, en-

joy yourself! You should never be afraid to admit ignorancewe all have

something to learn from the Bible, and usually the more you learn the moreignorant you feel!

References

[1] Osborne, Grant R. The Hermeneutical Spiral: A Comprehensive Introduc-

tion to Biblical Interpretation. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1991.

This is one of the more comprehensive treatments of both theory and

practice of hermeneutics, although it has a number of shortcomings.

The approach is not as rigid as Robinsons, and greater account is given

to the dierence between genres. Still, much of their methodology isthe same.

[2] Robinson, Haddon W. Biblical Preaching: The Development and Deliv-

ery of Expository Messages. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980. Dont let the

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title fool you. Most of this book is an explanation of Robinsons very

structured approach to biblical interpretation. The method ts best thestructured arguments of Pauls letters, although he (and others who

have adapted the same system) extends it to any biblical genre.

3 Introduction

Denition: Introduction is a technical term in biblical studies that refers

to the stu you would generally nd in the introduction to a commentary.

The best way to learn what the term means is to look at a few samples;

but generally, this section includes issues like authorship (who wrote the

book), date (when the book was written), audience (the intended readers

of the book), canonicity (why/how the book is in the Bible), and an out-line of the contents. What makes the eld somewhat tricky is that, even

though its name suggests treatment of these issues before getting into the

specic contents of the book, its questions and conclusions generally build

upon a thorough knowledge of the book and related material. There are

also issues that relate to multiple books and cannot be placed easily into a

commentary format. These issues are called general introduction, since

they apply to more general features of the biblical material; other issues

are called special introduction, since they apply to specic books.

Relevance: The issues included in introduction may seem superuous

to some people. God wrote the whole Bible and wrote it for all people ev-erywhere, and since he is eternal, what dierence does it make when it was

written or how it got there? In a sense, these observations are legitimate,

and there is a place for simply reading what is there as communication from

God to the individual. But from the Bible itself down to the most current

scholars, there is always an acknowledgment of the human role in produc-

tion of Scripture. This human element is always played out in time and

space, and that means when something is written, who writes it, to whom

it is written makes a dierence. And if the Bible did not fall out of the sky

in a leather-bound edition, we do have to stop and ask how we know which

books belong. All of these factors can have an inuence on the way that

we read.

Sources: The easiest starting point for addressing some of these intro-

ductory issues is the closest to handthe Bible itself. Does the book under

consideration or any other biblical material specify its author? Does it

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say anything specic about the time of writing or the intended audience?

Does it say anything on its own behalf regarding canonicity (divine origin,prophetic authority, etc.)? Do any other biblical writings make remarks

relevant to its canonicity? Try to distinguish between remarks that pertain

to the writing process or the written product as such and those that refer to

material contained within the book. For instance, if God speaks to Elijah,

that does not tell us anything about whether 1 Kings is inspired or not. An

uninspired book could contain truth revealed by God, just as an inspired

book could contain falsehood (like the recording of the serpents words to

Eve in Genesis). Likewise, Elijahs interaction with Ahab may indicate the

timing of his ministry in Israel, but it says very little about when 1 Kings

was written.

The biblical material is only a starting point, because it tends to be spo-radic and incomplete. Many books give no explicit indication of author-

ship or date. Very few books say anything directly pertaining to the issue

of canonicity. What is said often has debatable interpretation or requires

more information to be useful. There are no absolute dates given in the

Bible. (By absolute, historians generally mean a date that ts our cur-

rent BCE/CE or BC/AD system. It would be a bit silly to look for anything

like a BCE date in the Bible!) Where dates are given, they are in terms of

reigns of kings or key events. Historians do the best they can to arrange

all of this material according to a more universal chronology, but there are

dierences of opinion on a lot of points. There are even more dierences

of opinion on how to answer some of these questions when a biblical book

provides little or no help. How much can we determine from looking at thetype of material contained in a book? Is it possible that a given book was

written by more than one person over a long period of time?

Some good places to start looking for questions and answers are works

specically on Bible introduction, Bible dictionaries, and commentaries.

Works on history can also provide useful background for placing a book in

its chronological setting. See the bibliography for some suggestions.

References

[1] Carson, D. A., Douglas J. Moo, and Leon Morris. An Introduction tothe New Testament. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992. This is the only

NT introduction with which Im personally familiar. The authors are

conservative, but they interact to a certain extent with other material.

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[2] Archer, Gleason Jr. A Survey of Old Testament Introduction. Rev. and

exp. ed. Chicago: Moody, 1994. This is probably the most conservativetreatment in print.

[3] Eissfeldt, Otto. The Old Testament: An Introduction. Translated by P.

R. Ackroyd. New York: Harper & Row, 1965. This work is somewhat

outdated but quite standard as far as mainstream biblical scholarship

goes.

[4] Harrison, R. K. Introduction to the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerd-

mans, 1969. This massive tome is probably unsurpassed for its breadth

of treatment. Almost as conservative as Archer, Harrison also interacts

with a wide range of scholarship current in his day. An inexpensive

reprint edition is now available from Prince Press (check CBD).

[5] Hawthorne, Gerald F., Ralph P. Martin, and Daniel G. Reid, eds. Dic-

tionary of Paul and His Letters. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity, 1993.

I have not used the other volumes in this series, but this one is quite

good. The treatment is Evangelical, but extensive coverage is given to

even the most radical viewpoints.

4 Old Testament

I put Old Testament in quotes, because it is important to stop and think

about our use of such terms. When Protestants use the term, we generallymean (whether we realize it or not) the same thing as the Hebrew Bible.

Our translations are based on the Hebrew text known as the Masoretic Text

(MT), which is the same text used in Jewish synagogues. The order of the

books may be dierent, but the contents are the same. For them, it is the

only Bible, so it is simply the Bible, the Hebrew Bible, or the Scriptures.

(It is also called the Tanakh, which is an acronym of the three divisions

described in the next paragraph.) Some scholars prefer to call it the Hebrew

Bible in general use, since the term is acceptable to Jewish and Christian

readers.

The order of books in the Hebrew Bible generally follows a three-fold

divisiontorah, nviim, ktuvim. Torah refers to the rst ve books of theBible in any languageGenesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteron-

omy. (Im using the English Christian names for the booksthe Hebrew

names are usually dierent.) Torah is often translated into English as law

or instruction. (It can also refer to the oral torah, which is not part of the

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Bible but has been written down in the Jewish collection known as the

Talmud.) The next division is the Hebrew word for prophets. Nviim in-cludes two sub-divisionsthe former prophets and the latter prophets. The

former prophets correspond loosely to our collection of historical books

Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. The division between 1 and 2 Samuel

and 1 and 2 Kings became a xture after the Hebrew text was translated

into Greek. Because Hebrew does not use letters to represent vowels, it is

more compact. With the more expansive Greek writing, scrolls became too

large to manage and had to be divided. This is also true of 1 and 2 Chroni-

cles. The latter prophets look very much like our prophetic booksIsaiah,

Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve (the Minor Prophets, as we call them).

The third major division simply means writings and includes everything

else that we consider to be part of the OT. Psalms usually comes rst, fol-lowed by Proverbs and Job in variable order. Also included are the Song

of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah,

and Chronicles. (Ezra and Nehemiah are usually combined into one book.)

The term Old Testament is a Christian label that distinguishes this

collection from the New Testament. Although it is interchangeable with

Hebrew Bible for Protestants, it is generally oensive to Jewish readers

and means something dierent in Catholic and Orthodox churches. The

conguration of the OT that we nd in most European Bibles comes from

the Greek and Latin Bibles that preceded them. The Latin version known as

the Vulgate continues to function as the primary authoritative Bible in the

Roman Catholic Church, while the Greek Bible is still used in the Greek and

Russian Orthodox churches. Other traditions include the Syriac-speaking(Syrian Orthodox, Assyrian, and others), the Coptic in Egypt, the Ethiopian,

and the Armenian churches. All of these traditions have an ancient version

of the Bible in their own language.

There is variation as to which books are included, but most include

the bulk of the Hebrew Bible, usually with some additions. Books such as

the Wisdom of Solomon, 1 Maccabees, and a longer version of Daniel are

found, mostly in Greek at the earliest stage we possess. The denition of

OT canon (the books that belong in it) was left somewhat uid until the

Protestant Reformers raised the issue of scriptural authority. Since that

time, the Roman Catholic Church has ocially included the Hebrew canon

(in the Christian sequence) plus Tobit and Judith (after Nehemiah), Wisdomof Solomon and Ecclesiasticus (after Song of Songs), Baruch and Letter of

Jeremiah (after Lamentations), and 1 and 2 Maccabees (after Malachi).

Early Protestant Bibles retained these books in a separate section, but most

have since dropped them.

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The early versions are valuable for their testimony to the textual tra-

dition, especially regarding the OT. Apart from the Dead Sea Scrolls, mostof our Hebrew manuscripts are from the Middle Ages, and dierences be-

tween the ancient versions and the MT may point to variant readings that

predate the translation process. This is a complicated area of study, since

both the Hebrew text and the version have a history of transmission from

one copy to another. You should be generally aware of the relevance, but

without specialized training, you will have to leave the debates to the com-

mentators. Perhaps more useful is the consideration of diering sequences

of books. Apart from the dierent books that are included in some canons

and not in others, the order in which the books appear diers signicantly

between the MT and the Christian versions. What role the order of books

in the canon plays in our understanding of the biblical material is still de-bated, but it is worthy of some contemplation.

References

[1] Wrthwein, Ernst. The Text of the Old Testament: An Introduction to the

Biblia Hebraica. Translated by Erroll F. Rhodes. 2d ed. Grand Rapids:

Eerdmans, 1995.

5 New Testament

Just as the use of the term Old Testament requires some explanation, thecorresponding New Testament is not altogether straightforward. As a

label, New Testament refers to the canonical books that follow (chrono-

logically) the life and death of Jesus. Conceptually, the distinction between

New Testament or New Covenant and Old Covenant suggests a dispensa-

tional transition from Gods old covenant with Israel to the new covenant

in Christ. What this labeling can obscure is the question of when the New

Covenant really takes eect. The books included in the NT are generally

agreed upon by the major Christian traditions. The Book of Revelation has

been questioned for its entire history, but its omission seems in many cases

to have been a practical matter. Because of its often confusing material, it

has generally not been found as useful for direct application.The earliest manuscripts that we have of the NT books are all in Greek,

although the Syriac tradition does seem to be quite old and perhaps not

altogether dependent upon the Greek. The Gospel of Matthew is often sus-

pected of having been written in Hebrew or Aramaic and later translated

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into Greek, but there is no hard evidence for this idea. (The diculty is in

trying to distinguish between a Greek translation from a lost Semitic origi-nal and a Greek composition heavily inuenced by Semitic culture.) There

are some quite late Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts of Matthew, but there

is no clear evidence to show that they are not translations themselves. Oth-

erwise, the Greek of the NT generally shows Semitic inuence, as well as

terminological background from the GOT. Because the GNT manuscripts

are much closer in time to the originals than is the case with the OT, less

weight is given to the other versions, although the Old Latin, the Syriac,

and the Latin Vulgate are generally consulted by scholars.

Because the study of the NT requires the same basic elements as that of

the OT, they will not be elaborated here in as much detail. The historical

and geographical background overlaps signicantly with that of the OT.The Greek empire is signicant for both, as is the Persian to a certain ex-

tent. Everything that pertains directly to the OT itself provides potential

background for the NT. The geography is essentially the same through the

Gospels, with some changes due to political developments. One dierence

is the westward thrust of missionary activity, especially that of Paul and

his associates. Historically and culturally, classical Greek and Latin liter-

ature becomes more signicant, while Babylonian and Assyrian inuence

fades. Egypt maintains a signicant role, but with a dierent face, as a

major center of Greek culture and thought.

The scope of NT literature is also somewhat dierent. Obviously, the

corpus (the body of literature in question) is smaller than that of the OT,

and there are fewer major genres. There is comparatively little poetry,prophetic material, or wisdom literature, and much of the NT comprises

apostolic letters. There is still a signicant proportion of narrative and

dialogue, and both have apocalyptic literature (Daniel, parts of Zechariah,

and Revelation). Parables appear more frequently, but there is no ritual

and nothing quite like OT legal material. Most of the reading strategies

already mentioned apply in one way or another to NT literature, although

it should be noted that the use of the OT by NT writers is a signicant

element that surpasses any parallel in OT material. For the NT writers,

almost everything can be traced in one way or another to OT ideas. Much

is meant to be continuous with the OT; what is new is fulllment of OT

prophecy. The NT writers lived and moved in an OT world, and nothing cansubstitute for a solid command of the OT material in trying to understand

them.

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References

[1] Aland, Kurt, and Barbara Aland. The Text of the New Testament: An In-

troduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern

Textual Criticism. Translated by Erroll F. Rhodes. 2d ed. Grand Rapids:

Eerdmans, 1989. This is the companion volume to Wrthweins work

on the OT. It is a standard, by two scholars whose names are associated

closely with the major editions of the GNT.

[2] Keener, Craig S. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament.

Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1993. This series provides useful back-

ground information, but instead of a topical arrangement, it is orga-

nized by verse. (Of course, that means the author determines what is

relevant to a given passage, but at least for a while, he will probablyknow better than you anyway!)

6 Context

We often speak of reading something in context or taking something out

of context. What can be a bit confusing is that we dont always mean

the same thing by our use of the word context. At least three types of

context are relevant to biblical interpretationphilological, geographical,

and historical. (And if thats not complicated enough, the three tend to be

inter-related.)

Philological context refers to the linguistic and textual milieu againstwhich the biblical material is understood. This in itself is no easy eld to

explore. In the narrow sense, it can refer to the positioning of a passage at a

particular point in the Bible. The text that surrounds it is its context, but of

course that can be taken to dierent extentsthe paragraph, the chapter,

the book, the division of books, the testament, the whole Bible. To continue

exploring, the Bible is one collection of literature within a literary world.

Later Jewish tradition gives us Rabbinic literature; broader Semitic culture

leads us to Ugaritic, Aramaic, and Akkadian texts contemporary to the bib-

lical texts and the events they contain. Beyond the Semitic cultures, the

Near East was dominated during biblical times by the Persian, Greek, and

Roman empires. Naturally, we would expect literary and linguistic cross-pollenization between these cultures and that which produced the Bible.

In later times, the Bible has made its way into hundreds of languages and

cultures. Since this is a course in English Bible, we must consider the re-

ality of the vernacular Bible as a cultural element. Probably very little of

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Western culture has had any direct relationship to the Hebrew Bible, but

the Latin Vulgate and the modern European versions have engaged withtheir cultures in crucial ways. Modern German is a unied language in

large part because of Martin Luthers Bible. William Shakespeare was con-

sulted on the production of the King James Version. The Western writing

and speaking tradition has been profoundly inuenced by signicant Bible

versions, and this inuence undoubtedly shapes the way that we read.

Here is where I put my plug in for learning biblical languages. Under-

standably, not all have the opportunity or means to do so, but it cannot be

replaced by anything else. Translations can never capture everything that

is in an original text. But students of the English Bible must augment their

resources through extensive reading. At least you should become familiar

with major texts of the ancient world (in translation) and with your ownEnglish literature. Part of better reading is reading better. Expose yourself

to a variety of literary styles. Take a class on literary criticism. Watch for

biblical inuence in the articles you read, the shows and movies you watch,

the music you listen to. Talk to people you know who dont go to church

about their views on the Bible. What do they know about it, and how? If

you want to learn about a person, you talk to the people they have known,

whose lives they have touched or who have touched their lives. The same

is true of a work like the Bible.

The second type of context is geographical. The Bible is written against

a Near Eastern backdrop. Whether in captivity in Babylon, conquering in

Canaan, or traveling about the Eastern Mediterranean, the biblical char-

acters, writers, and earliest readers nd themselves at home in this worldthat most of us have never seen. Take some time to acquaint yourself with

the territory. If you can visit the Middle East, do so. If you cant, get some

good atlases, look at pictures, read about travels through that part of the

world. Find out about the plants and animals of the regionthey appear

often in poetic imagery but mean nothing if you cant picture them your-

self. Get a sense of distance. How far did the exiles have to go? What could

be seen from the Temple Mount? What was the terrain like? Where was

water available? The more you can immerse yourself in that world, the

better grasp you will have on what is said and what is not said in the text.

Finally, there is historical context. What we mean by history may

need some explanation. History is not just a series of events. If it cannotbe known after the events are over, it will never become history. History

requires something that remains, usually written or oral materials of some

sort. This is how the distinction is made between history and prehis-

tory. Prehistory pertains to what only archaeology or paleontology can

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reveal to us. When written texts are added, we have the possibility of

history. The earliest writings we have are in cuneiform script, so calledfor its production with a wedge-shaped stylus on clay tablets. This was

the script used to write Sumerian and Akkadian, which existed side-by-

side in Mesopotamia, even though they are otherwise unrelated linguisti-

cally. Akkadian was the Semitic language of Babylon and Assyriaa dis-

tant cousin of Hebrew, in which much of the Bible was written. Not long

after, we nd Egyptian texts that used a dierent writing system called

hieroglyphics. Eventually, probably sometime around 2000 BCE, Semites

living in Egypt appear to have developed a simplied writing system that

represented each consonant with a single sign. It is this system that eventu-

ally gave birth to the major alphabetic systems, including the Latin script,

which we use today.Early forms of writing in Mesopotamia and Egypt were cumbersome and

required years of training. Literacy was limited to the elite scribal classes.

Still, writing became an integral part of daily life. With the decipherment

of these ancient scripts, we have been able to look at epic tales and reli-

gious rituals, as well as receipts of sale, contracts, and laws. The work of

the historian is to study the material from these ancient texts alongside ar-

chaeological ndings and try to reconstruct the shape of long-dead cultures

and forgotten events. Within the relatively short time since these texts have

become available to us, our knowledge of the ancient world has exploded.

Where before we had almost nothing but the Greek classics and the Bible,

we now have access to whole cultures that were barely known to exist.

While all of this discovery has provided biblical scholars with a wealthof historical context, it has also raised some critical questions about the

nature of the biblical material. What do we do, when the evidence seems

to disagree with the Bible? Is the Bible wrong? Have we simply not read it

right? Have we misinterpreted the other material? Is it possible that were

just missing some pieces that would help us sort it all out if we had them?

What must be made clear is that, as much as has been discovered, we still

have only very small pieces of the historical puzzle. Most of it is outside

of the immediate area where the major biblical events take place. Only a

fraction of what actually existed has survived, only a fraction of that has

been discovered, and only a fraction of that has been adequately analyzed.

The more we uncover, the more we have to re-think. This is not to saythat we should simply sit back and say the Bible is right, no matter what

is discovered. But the fragmentary nature of historical investigation does

mean that results are far from conclusive. In the meantime, we do the best

that we can with what we have and keep pressing on.

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References

[1] Bright, John. A History of Israel. 3d ed. Philadelphia: Westminster,

1981. I believe there is at least one edition more current, but this is

the copy I happen to own. Bright represents what has been called the

biblical archaeology movement, associated closely with the work of

W. F. Albright and his students. In the broad scope of biblical schol-

arship, it is a relatively conservative position that accepts much of

the biblical material as more or less historically accurate and nds

general conrmation in archaeology. If the so-called minimalists

(see below) respond directly to anyone, it is generally to this group.

As far as they are concerned, no one more conservative qualies as

legitimate scholarship.

[2] Cleave, Richard L. W., ed. The Holy Land Satellite Atlas. 2 vols. Nicosia,

Cyprus: Rhr Productions, 1999. This up-to-date satellite atlas con-

tains detailed maps for dierent historical periods, divided regionally

across the area known as the Levant (chiey Israel). It includes verti-

cal satellite images, as well as oblique (images taken from an angle)

and aerial photographs, with extensive written remarks on historical,

geographical, and biblical matters. The set also includes an applica-

tion on CD-ROM to view much of the same material more interac-

tively.

[3] Davies, Philip R. In Search of Ancient Israel. Journal for the Study

of the Old Testament: Supplement Series 148. Sheeld: Sheeld,

1992. This is a seminal text for what has been called (pejoratively)

the historical minimalist position. I include it here not as an en-

dorsement of its contents but because of its signicance in the study

of biblical history.

[4] Frank, Harry Thomas, ed. Atlas of the Bible Lands. Rev. ed. Maple-

wood, NJ: Hammond, 1997. This is a very basic Bible atlas. Its price

is probably its greatest asset, but in the absence of anything better it

can be a handy tool. (It is also fairly easy to transport, so there is less

obstacle to regular use.)

[5] George, Andrew. The Epic of Gilgamesh: The Babylonian Epic Poem and

Other Texts in Akkadian and Sumerian. London: Penguin, 1999. This

is the most up-to-date English translation of the earliest literary epic

discovered.

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[6] Gottwald, Norman K. The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Reli-

gion of Liberated Israel, 12501050 BCE. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1979.Repr., Sheeld: Sheeld, 1999. Where Mendenhall left o (see be-

low), Gottwald pushed further into sociological theory. Later scholars

generally disagree with their conclusions and much of their method-

ology but acknowledge their pioneer work as laying a foundation for

further work.

[7] Hoerth, Alfred J. Archaeology and the Old Testament. Grand Rapids:

Baker, 1998. This book discusses archaeology particularly in relation

to Israelite history from a conservative perspective. There is a com-

panion volume for the NT.

[8] Mendenhall, George E. The Tenth Generation: The Origins of the BiblicalTradition. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973. Menden-

hall took things in a little bit dierent direction from Bright and is

known as one of the rst biblical scholars to move in the direction of

sociological models.

[9] Merrill, Eugene H.Kingdom of Priests: A History of Old Testament Israel.

Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987. This book takes a very conservative ap-

proach and is more an exposition of the biblical historical books than

anything. It also ties in some archaeological issues and establishes an

absolute chronology.

[10] Parpola, Simo, and Michael Porter, eds. The Helsinki Atlas of the NearEast in the Neo-Assyrian Period. The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project.

Finland: Casco Bay, 2001. This project uses navigational maps pub-

lished by the USNIMA and places as accurately as possible the lo-

cations known from Akkadian texts of the Neo-Assyrian empire. Its

scope is the Near East, except for Egypt. The atlas is a work in

progress, but it represents the most current knowledge based on the

hardest evidence we have.

[11] Pritchard, James B., ed. The Ancient Near East: An Anthology of Texts

and Pictures. Vol. 1. Princeton University Press, 1958. This book and

its sister volume are abridged from longer, more expensive works by

the same editor. They contain English translations of many of the

more important ancient Near Eastern texts.

[12] Roth, Martha T. Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor.

2d ed. Society of Biblical Literature Writings from the Ancient World

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6. Atlanta: Scholars, 1997. This series publishes transcriptions and

English translations of major texts. The scholarship is generally morecurrent and more detailed than Pritchard, but for the purposes of

the English reader that may not be necessary. This particular volume

includes the famous laws of Hammurabi.

[13] Sasson, Jack M., ed. Civilizations of the Ancient Near East. 4 vols. Farm-

ington Hills, MI: Scribners, 1995. Repr., Peabody, MA: Hendrickson,

2000. This collection of essays, now published in two massive vol-

umes, covers a wide range of topics associated with the history and

culture of the ancient Near East. At the much more aordable price

charged by Hendrickson (dont buy the original set), its a worthwhile

investment.

[14] Snell, Daniel C. Life in the Ancient Near East, 3100332 B.C.E. New

Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997. This book has much the same

scope as CANE but is generally less technical and more cohesivea

handy synopsis of ancient Near Eastern culture, including but not

limited to Israel.

[15] Yamauchi, Edwin M. Persia and the Bible. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996.

Yamauchi is one of the better-known conservative historians in the

eld. This work focuses on the Persian empire and its inuence on

the biblical world.

7 Sample Study

Lets try out some of this stu on a sample verse: sent messengers to

summon Balaam son of Beor, who was at Pethor, near the River, in his

native land. Balak said: A people has come out of Egypt; they cover the

face of the land and have settled next to me. (Num 22:5, NIV) If we think

through each word of the verse, right away some questions arise. Who is

this Balaam? What river is meant, and why is it capitalized? Whose native

land is meant? Who is this people that has come out of Egypt? Why should

Balaam care that they have settled next to Balak? Where is Balak? Other

things to think about after comparing with some major English versions(, , ) include: How does this verse relate to v. 4? Where is

Pethor? What does behold mean? What exactly is this people doing?

Most of the words in this verse are quite common, but the personal and

place names are worth checking in a concordance, to see if they appear

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elsewhere. Amaw, which appears only in the NRSV, is not found outside

this verse. Pethor is mentioned in Deut 23:4, specically in connectionwith Balaam, where it is located in Aram-Naharaim () or Mesopotamia.

Beor is almost always mentioned as Balaams father, except in Gen 36:32

and 1 Chr 1:43, where he is the father of Bela, an Edomite king. There is

no particular reason that they would have to be the same person, although

it is interesting that Bela looks somewhat similar to Balaam. As for Balaam

himself, a good deal can be found out by searching for his name. Most

occurrences are in Numbers 2224, which is the main episode in which

we seem to nd him. He reappears in chap. 31, where he is killed (v. 8;

cf. Josh 13:22) in a war with the Midianites and implicated (v. 16) in the

events of chap. 25 (cf. Rev 2:14). In Deut 23:45; Josh 24:910; Neh 13:2;

and Mic 6:5, the events of the main episode are briey referenced. 2 Pet2:1516 and Jude 11 also set him up as an example of wicked men.

The New Oxford Annotated Bible notes this passage (vv. 520): Balaks

two missions to obtain the services of Balaam who was in Pethor, located

south of Carchemish which is on the Euphrates. In antiquity Babylonia was

famed for the art of divination. Apparently, then, the exact location of

Pethor is known (or at least guessed). The note also connects Babylonia

with the passage, even though its not specically mentioned in the passage,

so that connection may be worth pursuing. Divination would be good to

look up in a dictionary.

The immediate context reveals some answers but also raises more ques-

tions. V. 1 tells us that the people in question is Israel, and they are camped

in the plains of Moab across the Jordan from Jericho. Balak is the king ofMoab, which is somehow connected with Midian (v. 4). Perhaps more con-

text would give even more relevant information, but this is at least enough

to ll in some gaps. For relevant Near Eastern literature outside the Bible,

as well as historical and geographical context, our next stop is the Bible

dictionary.

7.1 Versions

He sent messengers therefore unto Balaam the son of Beor to Pethor, which

is by the river of the land of the children of his people, to call him, saying,

Behold, there is a people come out from Egypt: behold, they cover the faceof the earth, and they abide over against me: ()

So he sent messengers to Balaam the son of Beor, at Pethor, which is

near the River, in the land of the sons of his people, to call him, saying,

Behold, a people came out of Egypt; behold, they cover the surface of the

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land, and they are living opposite me. ()

He sent messengers to Balaam son of Beor at Pethor, which is on theEuphrates, in the land of Amaw, to summon him, saying, A people has

come out of Egypt; they have spread over the face of the earth, and they

have settled next to me. ()

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Documents

How to Read the Bible in English