Bible language and gazing into space

I’m glad that Luke kept writing after he’d finished the first part of his story (see the Gospel of Luke). 

 

My favourite passage in Chapter one of Acts is in verse 11 when "two men...in white" (presumably angelic messages from God) ask "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?"  I might paraphrase: what are you doing gazing into space?  There was work to be done, and although their Master was no longer with them in human form, they would not be without the power of God he taught them and embodied, so they should get on with it!

 

I find that just reading from the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible of 1611, with which I am most familiar, does not always make me stop and ask exactly what is going on.  The language is so beautiful and satisfyingly familiar to me that it carries me along happily.  But of course, we need a close reading of the Scriptures to gain a real understanding, both historically and then spiritually.

 

Some readers may be familiar with The Essential Evangelical Parallel Bible (Oxford University Press).  It may still be available in Reading Rooms.  In the Introduction, we read: “...you will be able to see how gifted translators try in various ways to help the writers of the Bible speak to men and women today”.  Isn’t that nice?  And it quotes the “great Christian thinker Augustine” as saying “Variety of translations is profitable for finding out the sense of the Scriptures.”

 

I LOVE to read from it after I’ve read from KJV, because you can read four versions at once and thus get a variation in presentations.  The four Bibles given are:

1.      New King James Version (NKJV)

2.      English Standard Version (ESV)

3.      New Living Translation (NLT)

4.      The Message (Message)

 

Of course the New Testament books were written in what is now ancient Greek so we English readers will always be reading a translation.  And it’s interesting to read in The Essential Evangelical Parallel Bible that “The New Testament was written to speak to every human being in the known inhabited world.  The language that would reach the widest circle of people was Greek—so the NT writers used it.”  

 

I love the way we read about the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost here.  The KJV gives us:

v. 2: he (Jesus) through the Holy Ghost had given commandments

v.5: ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost

v.8: ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come

v. 16: the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake

 

God’s power and presence were acknowledged, and felt.

 

Julie Swannell