I’ve been thinking about the idea of translation and interpretation and how ultimately Christ is the Word of God (1). The Bible is an expression of that Word – the on-ramp, main-event and off-ramp, and contains some of those ‘words’ literally, as spoken dialogue, laterally – as lived out experiences, and abstractly – as poem, or metaphor, or narrative arc.

I’m starting to see the Bible a container of truth and there are multiple expressions of that container, which leaves us with a tension between the ‘truth’ as inerrant expression and truth as something buried within – waiting to be eternally discovered. I think the latter rests in my spirit more comfortably – that as John or Paul or Ezekiel or whoever write, they are capturing a unique facet of that truth (in fact ‘they’ may not even be capturing it, someone else might be capturing it on their behalf). Either way, it is part of a broader process and the individual inevitably shapes the content with their context (the four gospels are an obvious case-in-point). Rolled into that, the subsequent scribes and theologians and politicians and military leaders and kings who shaped and collated what we now know as the Bible had their own agendas, so there has to be a degree of bias and interpretation written into the fabric of the actual texts. The written word, as a signpost to the Word, and the living Word as the centre of it all.
 
But (and this may trump any sense of earthly might or the inaccuracies of translation), somehow, the truth within the word transcends all of the bias and reveals a part of the nature of our relationship with God; to connect with his/her/their heart, and as a shared journey, unravel that truth together.  
 
We are experiencing the texts through a 21st century, western, commercially driven, capitalist lens, and we see ancient Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek ideas & experiences rolled into Jewish traditions, and then filtered through centuries of translation. There is so much going on. Perhaps, when the Bible talks about God confusing their (our) language, that is (in part) what is still unfolding. We can never fully understand the words on a human level because we are Hebrew to Latin to English and the translation can never be perfect. The truth can only sit between the lines.

Spoken Hebrew dialect – where the phrasing and cadence and inflection somehow shapes meaning, then gets translated into a written expression that seeks to capture both the words and aural dynamics as best it can. This then gets duplicated and replicated and added to and taken away from and shaped by culture and history and so on, and we end up with something that is beautiful and profound and challenging and has influenced and shaped billions of people for thousands of years. The truth, for me, is under the surface and it takes time (a lifetime?) and patience and humility and a willingness to grow in our faith.
 
So, when it comes to very specific do and do-not’s, we need to weigh up those ideas in the light of what Jesus (as the living Word) specifically said, how he treated and engaged with the world around him. We need to remember that ultimately, it was, and is, all driven by an engine called love – seeking the God-image (the good) in every person. Without this, we create dogmatic laws and rules – setting ourselves up much as the Pharisees did, creating obstacles that get in the way. If Kingdom is built up living a life that keeps rules, were missing the heart of it – that EVERYTHING is given by grace. No body earns it. No longer about the rights or the wrongs, rather a belief that my heart and my spirit and my body is made stronger as I step into the truth as it’s revealed to me by Spirit.

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
John 1: 1–3 NIV