Confusion with the Written Word

It never ceases to amaze me how easily the written word can be misinterpreted. Usually when you look at it again in the light of a misinterpretation it’s easy to see how it happened. Once in a while though you just shake your head and wonder where the hell they got what they got out of what was written.

Have four or five people read the same fairly complex page and it wouldn’t be unusual to get multiple opinions on the precise meaning associated with different parts of the page.

Make it something controversial, and bring in various partisans, and you could get widely varying opinions. No wonder we have so many lawyers.

And this is the case when the damn thing is written in the reader’s native language and by someone who is a contemporary of the reader. Now hop forward a little bit and consider something like the bible.

The overwhelming majority of people are reading a translation, and a translation very likely influenced by previous translations and interpretations. For instance, the New International Version (NIV) makes no secret about the fact that some of the Hebrew Bible translation choices that were made were intended to maintain consistency with interpretations in the New Testament. The most famous of these is the translation of Isaiah 7:14.

The NIV renders this verse as:

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”

This is consistent with Matthew 1:22-23.

“All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”

The problem is that Matthew is quoting from the Greek Septuagint which does in fact use the Greek parthenos which specifically means virgin. In the original Hebrew however, the word is almah, which some would argue simply means “young woman” and not necessarily a virgin. If Isaiah meant “virgin,” these folks point out, he would have used the Hebrew betulah which he uses elsewhere and which can only mean virgin. There are also some disagreements about tense.

In the Jewish Bible Yisheyah (Isaiah) 7:14 reads:

“Therefore the L-rd Himself shall give you a sign: behold, the young woman shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”

The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), claimed by some to be the most accurate English translation, and which doesn’t concern itself with maintaining consistency with the New Testament, translates the passage as:

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.”

In the NRSV the woman is already pregnant which sort of eliminates any question about her virginity.

I’m not getting into which of the various translations is right but I think it’s pretty obvious that it makes a big difference.

Another problem is that the bible was written in a cultural context that most people, including myself, have absolutely no conception of. Even supposed experts can only have a vague understanding of a culture several millenniums in the past. Consider 2 Kings 23:10 from the NIV.

“He (King Josiah) desecrated Topheth, which was in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, so no one could use it to sacrifice his son or daughter in the fire to Molech.”

Seems fairly straight forward right? The most common interpretation is King Josiah destroys a pagan altar to prevent it being used for the burning of children as a sacrifice to the pagan god Molech.

Perhaps that’s correct, but there are a few problems with that interpretation. The first is that the Hebrew text doesn’t actually say “sacrifice.” It says “pass through the fire.” The NIV is interpreting that to mean “sacrifice.” Others have suggested that it might actually mean having children pass through two lines of fire as a sort of consecration ceremony. Dangerous perhaps, but not intended to be fatal.

The other problem is the word “Molech” itself. While traditionally interpreted as the name of a god, what you actually get in the Hebrew are just the consonants mlk which in other places are interpreted to mean “Melek” or king. This is a term which can apply to Yahweh himself.

So what did King Josiah put an end to? A, perhaps dangerous, consecration ceremony to a foreign god called Molech, a, perhaps dangerous, consecration ceremony to the Hebrew god Yahweh, the sacrificing of children to a foreign god called Molech, the sacrificing of children to the Hebrew god Yahweh or something totally different that no one has identified yet?

I’m not going down this road either because my opinion is utterly meaningless. Whatever the practice was it is clearly identified as an “abomination unto HaShem” (Jewish Bible Devarim 18:10) or a “detestable practice” (NIV Deuteronomy 18:10).

But without the cultural context it’s not all that easy to say exactly what’s being described nor exactly why Josiah felt extreme measures were justified.

Yet we have so many people that claim to know precisely what every word and phrase in the bible means and they’re willing to shove that interpretation down everyone else’s throat. I find that laughable.