In teaching the Bible my Grandfather used to hammer home a very important point, usage determines meaning. This simply means that regardless of the word or phrase, what the author meant at the time the words were spoken or written determine what the meaning of the word or phrases were.
You can no more automatically attribute modern meaning to ancient words than you can attribute modern social norms to those of the past. Just as social norms and traditions evolve and change so too do words.
In understanding the Bible you must not only know what was meant by the author when it was written, you must also realize that it has gone through numerous translations. Most people know that the Old Testament was written in Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek, but that is just the beginning of the Bible's confusing journey.
For one, these two ancient languages besides changing as all languages do over time, were translated to other languages most notably and at first mainly to Latin.
When thinking about the Bible that has reached us you must remember that for literally hundreds of years very few people actually had a Bible to read. The Bible was controlled by the educated and elite and used and abused not only to evangelize but to control people.
During most of the time that the Bible has been with us, the idea of translating it for the common man was not only an extremely difficult task, to do so was considered heretical. Even when the Bible began to be translated to different languages, it was done more for the convenience of kings as a means to bolster their claims than as a way to enlighten the masses to the Grace of God and the truth of Christ.
This is not to say that there were not leaders that truly "believed" in God and Christ and did good, but a history of even the modern Christian church is filled with "good" Christian leaders brought low by the desires and temptations of this world.
The Bible may be the Word of God, but it has been in the hands of men since the beginning. Perhaps this is why the Bible warns us that "the letter kills but the spirit gives life."
All of this is easily identifiable by a simple fact which even the most fervent Christian cannot deny. There is no one single "theology" which all Christians follow and believe to be the "truth."
The multitude of denominations and now "non-denominations" exist due to the myriad of differences that exist within the over all Christian church. All of this diversity of beliefs is a direct result of the many interpretations of the meaning of words. Words which not only have been used to subjugate peoples over the centuries but to indoctrinate them to beliefs that may benefit princes and potentates but may not necessarily get us to a closer understanding of God.
That is briefly how we got to where we are now. Now we are lost in the wilderness of a forest of beliefs and dogma beyond any one persons ability to comprehend.
If you wish to understand where this strange yet obviously God inspired evolution of Christian thought and theology has taken us and what has caused it, you need only visit a Bible aggregate service like Bible Gateway and look up a Bible verse. Then look up the different translations. Last I looked there were over sixty different translations of the Bible available for your viewing and theological preference-in English language versions only.
Literally you cannot see the forest for the trees.
To show how far afield words can take you, let us look at the word gospel itself. The first thing we need to understand is that the word gospel is now a noun regardless of its original use. If you look it up you will find it to mean one of the following. In the religious context, either one of the first four books of the New Testament, or the teachings of Jesus Christ. In a less religious context the definition say that it means that it is an expression of absolute truth or a set of principles or beliefs applied to a particular field. Then, of course, it can also denote a particular form of music.
As we said at the beginning, words change, usage determines meaning. The authors of "The Gospels" did not label their writings. As time has passed we have just come to refer to their writings as "The Gospels" So what does the word gospel actually mean?
How many times does the word gospel actually appear in the New Testament? Which version? Without going through every version I found as many as 138 uses (King James Version) and as few as 0 (Names of God Bible) uses of the word gospel in the Bible. In case you think I was looking up strange off the wall bibles to come up with this, I admit I had never heard of the Names of God Bible either, but there are multiple Bibles where the word gospel only appears once. Interesting enough not all of them are the same verse either.
The word gospel is used in some places by some Bible translations and not in others. Did the original writers actually write something or didn't they?
How can this be? How can sixty different Bible versions have the same word in them anywhere between 0 and 138 times? Well for one thing usage determines meaning. Once you change the usage of a word, the translation of that word becomes acceptable. Even if what was originally intended is, forgive the pun, lost in translation. It almost seems as if rather than trying to faithfully "scribe" the "Word Of God", translation are done to further some particular belief or doctrine.
I will fairly quickly explain what the word gospel actually meant when originally written and what happened.
The word gospel comes from the original Greek word euganelion which means good news. This was translated to Latin and later to old English. When it was translated from Latin to English a vowel was inadvertently dropped and instead "good" spel (news) it was changed to "god" spel (news). Regardless of this mistake in translation from good news to god's news the actual Greek word written meant good news.
Again it must be noted that if you look up the word gospel in a regular dictionary the definition is not "good news " as was originally written.
Usage determines meaning.
For most people, religious or not, the word gospel now means truth or a message or if you like a message of truth. Now you may believe that it is a message of truth but the word itself has come to mean something that is not truthfully what it was intended to mean.
Is this important? Well consider over a thousand years of doctrine built around the belief in a true message versus a belief in one of good news. Consider also that the word (gospel) that has come to mean truth and message does not really mean that at all, at least it didn't to the people we revere for having written the "Gospels" to begin with.
This is just one small example of how translations and words have shaped peoples beliefs. I know many will think that it doesn't really matter, we know the basics. Well what could be more basic to Christians than the Gospel(s)? Besides what are those basics and what is the foundation for those basics? The words in your Bible? Which Bible, which words, which translation?
And how can someone tell them if he is not sent? The Holy Writings say, “The feet of those who bring the Good News are beautiful.”
That's biblical by the way.
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