October 2 – Hebrews 1:5-14 – Original Language

October 2 – Hebrews 1:5-14 – Original Language

I look back at what I wrote yesterday and almost feel as if I should give you an extra day to get through it.  I wrote a lot!  Sorry about that.  Tearing into scripture gets a little exciting for me and sometimes I might get a little … over excited about it!

The deeper I move into looking at the original language and trying to discern what the author was saying, the more I am made aware that God’s word, while divinely inspired, gives us a lot of opportunity for distortion. Even in the first few centuries after these words were written, people who read in the original language disputed an author’s meaning.  We all listen to a speaker, read an author, watch a movie with our own perceptions and background creating thoughts and interpretations.  I am constantly startled by people’s comments on my Facebook status updates or blog posts that had nothing to do with what was in my head when I wrote them.  But when my words were published they became part of everyone else’s individual outlook on life and they read those words through their own understanding of the world … not mine.

Do you know that in Greek at the time, all letters were capitalized; there were no spaces between words and very little punctuation.  I’m surprised that we are able to comprehend any of the words, much less the meaning behind those words.  There continues be debate regarding passages in the Bible because of these issues.  The other part of that debate is that translation of words tends to get a little iffy sometimes. Just about the time I wanted a word to have a concrete translation, my Greek professor would tell us that it’s translation was firm in most cases, but sometimes …  Let’s just say that it makes it difficult to memorize and learn things with that many inconsistencies.  In Greek, the word ‘dia’ can mean ‘and’ or ‘but.’  Now, I know that those two simple conjunctions can bring an enormous difference to the translation of a sentence.

If you want to take some time today – read through Hebrews 1:5-14.  Notice the number of Old Testament passages the author uses.  You can probably count them in the notes at the bottom of the page in your Bible.  I hope that you will come up with the number seven.  He cites scripture from the Psalms, Deuteronomy and 2 Samuel.  It’s really quite interesting to go back and read those passages in context.  There is every probability that will confuse you, because the author does take things out of their immediate context to offer proof of the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

We’ll talk about that a little more later.  And hopefully tomorrow, I’ll not lecture on translations and Greek and other weird stuff, but will dig down into these verses with you.