Give Bibles, not condoms, to schools

THE EDITOR: The Bible is highly recommended to parents for children to study. I am in support of the article written by Ian Cross of Arima and I further add that the Bible should be handed out in schools more than condoms. The Bible should be allowed to enter schools at a higher rate than guns, knives and drugs. May I point that the Bible is not a systematic treatise on theology, or morals, or history, or science, or any other topic. It is a revelation of God, of the fall of man, the way of salvation, and of God’s plan and purpose in the ages. It deals with four persons: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit and Satan. Its activities occur in three places: heaven, earth and hell. It is directed to three classes of: Jews, Gentiles and the Church.

The scripture was given to us “piece-meal”, at “sundry times and diverse manner” (Heb 1: 1). Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, during a period of 1600 years, extending from BC 1492 to AD 100. About 40 authors wrote these 66 books of the Bible. By kings such as David and Solomon; by statesmen, as Daniel and Nehemiah; by priest, as Ezra; by men learned in the wisdom of Egypt, as Moses; by men learned in Jewish law, as Paul. By herdsmen, as Amos; a tax-gatherer, Matthew; fishermen, as Peter, James and John, who were “unlearned and ignorant” men; a physician, Luke; and mighty “seers” as Isaiah, Ezekiel and Zachariah. It is not an Asiatic book, though it was written in that part of the world. Its pates were penned in the wilderness of Sinai, the cliffs of Arabia, the hills and towns of Palestine, the courts of the Temple, the schools of the prophets at Jericho, in the palace of Shushan in Persia, on the banks of the river Chebar in Babylonia, in the dungeons of Rome, and on the lonely island of Patmos, in the Aegean Sea.

Imagine another book complied in a similar manner. Suppose, for illustration, that we take 66 medical books written by 40 physicians and surgeons during a period of 1600 years, of various schools of medicine, as allopathy, homeopathy, hydropathy, osteopathy and other fields, and bind them together. We then undertake to “doctor” a man according to that book, what success would we expect to have, and what accord would there be in such a medical work? While the Bible has been complied in the manner described, it is not a “heterogenous jumble” of ancient history, myths, legends, religious speculations and superstitions. There is a progress of revelation and doctrine in it. The Judges knew more  than the Patriarchs, the Prophets than the Judges, and the Apostles than the Prophets. The Old and New Testaments are not separated and distinct books, the New taking the place of the Old; they are two halves of a whole. The New is “enfolded” in the Old, and the “Old is unfolded” in the new. You cannot understand Leviticus without Hebrews, or Daniel without Revelation, or the Passover or Isaiah 53 without the Gospels.

While the Bible is the revelation from God, it is not written in superhuman or celestial language. If it were we could not understand it. Its supernatural origin however is seen in the fact that it can be translated into any language and not lose its virility or spiritual life giving power, and when translated into any language it fixes that language in its purest form. The language, however, of the Bible is of three kinds: figurative, symbolical and literal. Such expression as “harden not your heart”, “let the dead bury their dead”, are figurative, and their meaning is made clear by the context. Symbolic language, like the description of Nebuchadnezzar’s “Colossus,” Daniel’s “Four wild beasts,” or Christ in the midst of the “Seven Candlesticks,” is explained, either in the same chapter or somewhere else in the Bible. The rest of the language of the Bible is to be interpreted according to the customary rules of grammar and rhetoric. That is, we are to read the Bible as we would any other book, letting it say what it wants to say, and not allegorise or spiritualise its meaning.

It is this false method of interpreting scripture that results in finding faults with the Bible. Clearly this is the position of Mr Kevin Baldeosingh in his article on the Bible. I can see that he has no training in the field of hermeneutics, which is the art and science of itnerpreting ancient writings. Each specialist wrote to his audience in a language that was “accommodative” to their “thinking pattern”. For example, when I am teaching subjects like biology the audience will understand what a “mouse” is. In my computer class they also understand what a “mouse” is. To the students of biology the “mouse” is a small creature but to the computer student it is an apparatus for the computer. There is no conflict once you understand the writer’s original intention to his original audience. The same is true for all books written of different cultures such as the Bible.

ISAAC SHADRACK
Palo Seco