Written By: Clayton Carlson

      Wikipedia tells us that; “nuclear waste can remain dangerous for millions of years: Spent nuclear fuel can remain a radiation hazard for thousands of years, with some isotopes having half-lives as long as 24,000 years. Even 10 years after being removed from a reactor, the surface dose rate from a spent fuel assembly can be more than 10,000 rem/hour, which is much higher than the fatal dose for humans”. 

Those responsible for storing such nuclear waste face a dilemma. To protect future generations from harm, what kind of warning labels do they put on waste that remains deadly for such a long time? If they write a warning message, which language should they use that will stand the test of time? The world has gone through many world-dominating languages over the last 3200 years that are now misunderstood or extinct. How can they be sure the meaning of their words today will not be altered or misunderstood by those in the future? If they use a simple pictogram, will it remain interpreted correctly, or would it be destined to lose much of its meaning like ancient hieroglyphics?

      God faced a similar dilemma when he recorded his words to mankind in the Bible. How to maintain the integrity of his message. Knowing how God inspired his words to be recorded and preserved helps me when I read and study it now. Had God delivered it through an oral tradition there would be no proof of what he delivered originally. Scholars tell us that when God’s prophets and Moses recorded his words, the majority was written in Biblical Hebrew, with only a few sections written in Aramaic. These languages are part of the Semitic language family which was named after Noah’s son Shem. The Hebrews, Arameans, and Arabs are thought to have come from his lineage and they all speak a similar language. A German linguist coined these languages as Semitic in the late 18th century.

      God preserved his Old Testament words by having the Israelites maintain and reproduce them. Although the Israelites did not obey God’s words, they faithfully preserved the words of God exactly as they were originally written. Each new copy was tested by randomly checking several places for what occupied a specific space within the new text. For example, if the 2749 space was supposed to be blank and it wasn’t, then the copy would be rejected as flawed. When a copy was found to contain any error, it would be ceremonially buried so it could not distort future copies. The Israelites honoured the words written in their scrolls as God’s authentic word, but they did not let God’s words penetrate their hearts. Because of their sinful hearts, God allowed them to become willfully blind to him. When Jesus arrived he found them unchanged, they were still just as blind and destined to be punished by God.

Matthew 15:7 New Century Version 7 You are hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he said about you:

Isaiah 29:13-14 New Century Version 13 The Lord says: “These people worship me with their mouths, and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is based on nothing but human rules. 14 So I will continue to amaze these people by doing more and more miracles. Their wise men will lose their wisdom; their wise men will not be able to understand.”

Matthew 15:13-14 World English Bible 13 But he answered, “Every plant which my heavenly Father didn’t plant will be uprooted. 14 Leave them alone. They are blind guides of the blind. If the blind guide the blind, both will fall into a pit.”

      God took a different approach to preserve his word for the New Testament. Jesus personally taught his disciples truths about God that no one else had the privilege of learning. It was important that their first-hand accounts be recorded for those who would follow Jesus and “the way” in the future.

Luke 10:23-25 Easy-to-Read Version 23 Then Jesus turned to his followers. They were there alone with him. He said, “It is a great blessing for you to see what you now see! 24 I tell you, many prophets and kings wanted to see what you now see, but they could not. And they wanted to hear what you now hear, but they could not.”

      With the church being persecuted, the leaders and apostles being killed, there was an urgency for the apostles’ letters and first-hand recollections to be preserved as quickly and plentifully as possible. To accomplish this task, the authenticated manuscripts would be copied as soon as possible. Not by one scribe at a time, but by several scribes at once. Often the text would be read aloud to a room full of scribes who recorded their own copy as they heard it spoken. This inevitably led to some errors being made. The leaders thought that with the sheer number of copies produced, it would make those that were not the same as the original stand out as obvious mistakes. Not wanting to waste their resources, copies would be scrutinized by other scribes and scholars to find and correct any errors. For some copies of the New Testament this scrutinizing process went on for centuries, as attested to by the corrections, over top of corrections, some manuscripts contain.

      Understanding that copies of the New Testament may have had mistakes edited out for decades and even centuries after they were written is critical when I determine which source material I use when building my foundation of Biblical beliefs. When Greek manuscripts that deviate from the majority of other Greek texts are incorrect, I will only trust translated Bible versions whose source Greek texts agree with the majority of early Greek manuscripts. Other translations may not contain many errors, but I dare not trust their infallibility. They may be easily read and understood by my modern sensibilities, but when I am building my faith foundations I can not use them. I want the authentic words of God.

      Most versions of the Bible written since the 1880s have been influenced by the Westcott and Hort theory. Those two theologians believed that the older the New Testament text was, the more accurate it would be to the originals. They championed as correct, the two oldest texts available. The Vaticanus and the Sinaiticus. The Sinaiticus was found in a trash can in 1844 and the Vaticanus was rediscovered in the Vatican library in 1845 after being forgotten there for 370 years. I believe most people will work on a task using the best tools and resources they can acquire. Had those manuscripts been the best, most accurate translations available for the word of God, they would have been worn out from use like their contemporaries. I have found the best-preserved items are the ones that are not used, and that a book left on the shelf will not wear out.

      The development of the printing press in 1440, made handwritten copies and further correction of the old Greek manuscripts redundant. Once an accurate matrix of moveable type was set into the frame of Gutenberg’s press, he could print out 3600 pages per day. Cataloged by the Vatican Library in 1445 there would have been no urgency to continue editing the Vaticanus, as trusted manuscripts could now be produced more quickly and inexpensively with a press. I think the same redundancy is responsible for the Sinaiticus being discarded. Why spend time scrutinizing every word of an old manuscript when you can get a new trusted one, faster and cheaper? It had probably been kept after the printing press became established for sentimental reasons, or as a display oddity. As those who have downsized a household know, it was likely only thrown in the trash once it lost its appeal or storage space.

      Remembering how the original scribes found the errors in their copies, I think it is telling that the overwhelming majority of the surviving New Testament texts differ from the ones Westcott and Hort used to produce their Bible version. Although I am sure those versions following the Westcott and Hort example are mostly correct, the fact that the Vatican copy had been forgotten about, and the Sinaticus had been thrown out as trash, will stop me from placing my full trust in the accuracy of any Bible version using them as prominent source material.

      The lands Jesus conducted his ministry in were multilingual. To communicate effectively with all the ethnic groups there, Jesus undoubtedly spoke several languages. He probably spoke mostly to the crowds and his followers in Aramaic. As there is no evidence Jesus used a translator, he must have been fluent in the other languages of his day. With Aramaic being in the Semitic language family, and Jesus coming from a Jewish culture, the idioms, phrasing and sensibilities that he spoke with would have come from the Jewish Hebrew community.

      Remembering this cultural distinction is important to me when reading the New Testament. It was written in the Greek of the day which used all capital letters with no spacing or punctuation. God inspired which Greek words were to be used and those words should be deciphered by a Greek linguist. However I believe when translating those words into sentences and adding punctuation for a Bible version, it is imperative they be understood from a Hebrew perspective.

      The Greek language was born out of a pagan culture. Its words from beginning to end are washed in Satanic error. For instance, when the Greek word for God, ‘theos’ is used, a Hebrew perspective would understand it to be referring to the God of the Old Testament, while a Greek audience might wonder which one of the many gods was being referred to. To me, reading Bible scriptures through a lens of Hebrew sensibility is imperative to obtain a complete understanding. Idioms and cultural references used in the New Testament come from a Hebrew background, yet they were recorded in the Greek language. Therefore those scriptures should not be understood as other Greek writings of the day.

      When crafting the structure and adding punctuation to translated sentences, I believe the translator should apply the Greek word within the nuances of the Hebrew language and culture. Using a Hebrew perspective helps me discover more of God’s truth from his written word.

      To demonstrate how punctuation and sentence structure can affect even our modern English, let’s look at how seven words can be easily misunderstood and how punctuation plays a vital role in our comprehension.   A woman without her man is nothing. What do those words mean? To clarify what I am trying to say I will add punctuation.   A woman, without her; man is nothing.   I hope this demonstrates why applying Greek words within a Hebrew perspective when translating the New Testament, is as important as understanding the Hebrew words’ meanings and terms of usage are for the Old Testament.

      Some Christians only use specific translations and reject all others as untrustworthy. It can be argued that some Bible versions do not completely convey God’s message. The language they use might have older cumbersome sentences or a modern conversational style. When I read any Bible version, I try to consider its author’s intentions. A paraphrase can make for an easy read while still conveying the overall message of God, but using a word-for-word translation helps me to solve doctrinal questions and establish my beliefs on the accurate words of God. 

Matthew 7:24-27 English Standard Version 24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

      Like those trying to protect people in the future from radioactive waste with labels, gathering all possible truths from God’s message will help keep Christians safe and strong. I have found that using accurate source material, combined with understanding and applying the words used in the Bible through a Hebrew perspective has been key to improving my Bible study and faith. If you apply these principles to your Bible study, I am sure they will improve your biblical comprehension as well.