A. We believe the Bible to be the word of God
B. Unless we don’t like what it says.
I think that you are deliberately missing the point.
Here is the
Good News Bible version of Genesis 2:1-2:
*And so the whole universe was completed. By the seventh day God finished what he had been doing and stopped working. He blessed the seventh day and set it apart as a special day, because by that day he had completed his creation and stopped working. And that it how the universe was created. *
Here are the same two verses in the **New International Version:
**
- 1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.
2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested [a] from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
*
From
"The Message"
*1 Heaven and Earth were finished, down to the last detail.
2-4 By the seventh day
God had finished his work.
On the seventh day
he rested from all his work.
God blessed the seventh day.
He made it a Holy Day
Because on that day he rested from his work,
all the creating God had done.
This is the story of how it all started,
of Heaven and Earth when they were created. *
The
KJV:
*1Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
2And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.*
From
'The Contemporary English Version"
- 1So the heavens and the earth and everything else were created.
The Seventh Day
2 By the seventh day God had finished his work, and so he rested.
From **
*1And the heavens and the earth are completed, and all their host;
2and God completeth by the seventh day His work which He hath made, and ceaseth by the seventh day from all His work which He hath made. *
From "**Today’s New International Version:
**
*1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.
Code:
2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. *
From
Douay-Rheims:
*1 So the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the furniture of them. 2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made: and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done.
*
(I like this one; 'all the furniture of them…"…has a
sound to it.)
New World Translation: (very martial version, this one, for a very pacifist people)
1 Thus the heavens and the earth and all their army came to their completion. 2 And by the seventh day God came to the completion of his work that he had made, and he proceeded to rest on the seventh day from all his work that he had made
Ok, I picked two verses that every body pretty much agrees on…except, of course…DO they?
Looking at these, which would you go with? Are these verses talking about the solar system or the entire universe? Furniture or armies or hosts?
When we are talking about scripture, exegesis is important; the words are important; the meaning behind them is IMPORTANT. If the translator reads something into what he sees, and puts what he read into the words that he writes, the meaning of the passage changes; perhaps a little.
Perhaps a lot.
The Johanine comma is a very big case in point.
So yeah, it’s “we believe the bible to be the word of God as long as it is translated correctly,” NOT “we believe the bible to be the word of God unless we don’t like what it says.”
The problem being, of course, that just because you claim it says one thing, it doesn’t mean that it actually does say what you think it does. You could be wrong–and in that case it wouldn’t be US who are ‘not liking what it says,’ is it? In fact, the reason that there are Protestants today is because a great many people decided that the Scriptures didn’t really say what the Catholics think they did.**
