The Bible is not what you probably think or say it is!

There are Many Different Books Call a “Bible”

Building a Biblical Vocabulary Series

If you participate in Biblical Heritage Center or TOV Center discussion groups you will be asked to follow the guideline below:

My Belief System will be large enough to include all of the facts.

I will allow my Beliefs to be examined and questioned.

I will change my Beliefs if errors or new facts are discovered.

The reason we ask all participants to agree to follow it is a bunch of people in a room that ignore facts, refuse to allow their beliefs to be questioned and will not change what they believe even after they know contain errors isn’t a discussion group – it is formula for chaos.

Instead of having open discussions, meetings between people like that turn into groups of polarized people blindly defending their beliefs and verbally attacking anyone that happens to disagree.

The bottom line is that by agreeing to follow the above guideline, participants create an open safe environment in which everyone can engage in self-discovery of their own beliefs and explore other beliefs that not only profoundly influence lives – but are important parts of individual and group identities.

As a former Christian pastor, “The Bible” was definitely an important part of my life, my identity and my vocabulary. My beliefs about “the Bible” were summed up in a bumper sticker you may have also seen:

The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it.

I was very much like a guy I heard on a talk radio program the other night – “I don’t care what you say! I am not going to change what I believe!”

Using the above Guideline is the first step to bridging conflicts over beliefs. The second step is building the biblical vocabulary required to have discuss our beliefs. Let’s begin by making sure that we have the same meanings for the vocabulary terms below:

● Facts are things that exist independently of people and are sensory perceivable by anyone regardless of their beliefs.

● Beliefs are memes, pieces of information that only exist in human brains.

● Institutional Truths are beliefs created by institutions and backed by authority.

The next skill we need in order to benefit the most from our discussions is making clear distinctions between facts, beliefs and institutional truths. The way we do that in a group is by simply asking people that use a word or phrase which one it is --  a fact, belief, institutional truth or something else.

For me “The Bible” was an institutional truth, but I treated it as if it was a fact. It seemed like an absolute fact to me. I was surrounded by institutions and people who all treated it like a fact. Hey, what else could I think in that environment – I am just human! But, when I begin hearing about some very real facts, they began to change my beliefs.

1. The term “The Bible” is an institutional truth. The factual answer is that I was actually referring to just “my Bible.”

2. “My Bible” was the 1769 edition of the King James Translation. The original King James Translation was made in 1611 under the authority of King James I of England for political not religious purposes.

3. Another fact is that since “my Bible” is a translation, that means that someone had to translate something else that existed before “my Bible” was created and it was written in a different language.

4. “My Bible” has two sections, Old Testament and New Testament. The facts are that my Old Testament was the Jewish Scriptures called “The Tanakh” originally. Another fact is that the Old Testament of Roman Catholic Bibles and the original 1611 King James Translation contain additional books called the Apocrypha. The Roman Catholic Church added the Apocrypha to the Jewish Scriptures and Protestant translators of “My Bible” removed it.

5. Another fact is that the New Testament in “My Bible” is one many New Testaments that have been part of Christian Scriptures over the past two-thousand years. The primary difference between them is that they contain different books.

6. Still more facts are that thousands of Greek, Hebrew and Latin manuscripts exist that contain the books in Christian and Jewish Scriptures. Those manuscripts do not all contain the same words for the same book. Someone had to make decisions about which words would be includes or excludes from “my Bible.”  

7. Another important fact is that hundreds of English translations of Christian Bibles and Jewish Scriptures now exist because translators chose different meanings for some very important words in their translations.

So, “My Bible” was one of many Bibles that have existed in the almost two-thousand years of Christian history. Bibles differ based on the books they contain, the ancient manuscripts translators chose to translate or ignore and different choices of English words they chose to translate Greek, Hebrew and Latin words.

In addition to the above facts about the many Bibles that exist today, there are also four primary institutional truths about Bibles:

1. The Bible is a book that contains the inerrant infallible word of God.

2. The Bible is a book that was inspired by God.

3. The Bible is a book that contains legions and traditions.

4. The Bible is a book of fiction.

  

The one fact that everyone seems to agree on is this -- “the Bible is a book.” Obviously people with belief #1 view the words of their Bibles in very different ways from people with belief #4. Disagreements over what the words of their Bible mean between people with belief #1 produce very different biological and emotional responses than disagreements between people with belief #4.

However, in or discussion groups, after we become aware of our different beliefs we are able to take the next steps:

We work together to discover their origins, identify institutions that made them institutional truths and track how they evolved over time.

The bottom line is that the BHC/TOV Center Guideline and a common vocabulary of biblical terms create transparency.

Everyone knows “there are some big elephants in the room,” but instead of trying to avoid mentioning them, we want everyone to be able to see them as clearly as possible so we can openly and safely discuss them.

We believe that this is an important and worthy goal. What do you think? I f you agree, we encourage you to learn more – and begin applying what you learned today now!

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This blog has the power to impact how Americans interact and communicate with each other about “one of the biggest elephants in the room” – an elephant that is literally influencing billions of lives around the world right now.

1. Do you think this elephant needs to be transparent?

2. Will help make it transparent?

3. Or will you robotically scan through this message like you scan though hundreds of others that happen to pop-up on your screen, do nothing and keep the elephant hidden behind a curtain of institutional truths?

We believe there are a lot of people who know what we are talking and who to do something! If you are one of those people, below are three options for taking actions now.

1. Share this blog with at least one person and then, after both of you agree to follow our Guideline above, discuss it.

2. Show that this blog has real value to you by making a donation. This will also help us produce future blogs like it! For donation options Click Here.

3. Make this blog go viral and create a tsunami of people “begin talking about this elephant in the room in a new way” by “Liking” the BHC’s Facebook Page and the TOV Center’s Team Up Facebook Page” “Sharing it” too.

Thank you for reading this, taking actions and making a difference!

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