Page 74 - Bibliology - Textbook w videos short

For example, in Mark 4:1 the second gospel writer states that in order to speak to a large multitude,
Jesus sat in the sea: “And he began again to teach by the sea side: and there was gathered unto him a
great multitude, so that he entered into a ship, and sat in the sea” (KJV - translated exactly as Mark
wrote it). Did Jesus sit down in the boat or in the water? Admittedly, this matter would be irrelevant for
a translation following the methodology of Dynamic Equivalent. Either using a dynamic or formal
approach, each would predictably discard the troublesome phrase and make the sentence convey the
meaning that Jesus sat down in the boat.

To highlight these questions even further, another troublesome passage which has plagued scholars,
commentators, and translators for centuries is Isaiah 15:5 where the Hebrew words “...Eglath-
shelishiyah” are simple to understand yet make absolutely no sense in the context of the passage. There
is no linking adverb or preposition or conjunction nor general syntax, or anything else that even
attempts to suggest how they should be translated - nothing! The words simply mean a female cow that
is three years old.

The Rule of thumb: If the literal sense makes sense, seek no other sense.”

Writing the Words down…

In translating the Bible, the translators had to write on some sort of material. The OT was written
mainly on animal skins which were sewed together in long strips and rolled up to form scrolls. The
scrolls were read from back to front. This is what Jesus read in the temple when reading from Isaiah.
The scrolls were kept in the synagogues or temples and very few people had possession of a copy.

The New Testament was written on papyrus using
the book style (codex) we are used to today.
Papyrus was relatively inexpensive, but did not last
long as it easily decayed as most plant material
does. Copies of the original manuscripts and
letters were made on papyrus and distributed
among the churches. People of means sometimes
had a copy made for their library, however, most
Christians were poor and so most all copies were
made on papyrus. The church was persecuted for
almost 200 years by Rome.

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In the 4 century, things changed. Christianity was
recognized as the state religion of Rome and
became more affluent. While Vellum, mostly
made of animal skin, was expensive, it was the
material of choice and the books would last
hundreds of years.

For almost 800 years, the copies of the NT were
written in “Uncial” (Un’ she el) format. That is, the copyist used all Upper Case letters and did not divide
the words with spaces, as we do in English. To the left is an example of a uncial of Book of John from
the early 2 century. It’s called papyrus 66 (P66).
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