wordsout by godfrey rust
The
sailing of the ark < 20
of 45 >
20
God had the choice of technologies. We could
have received
the perfect, unambiguous written Word,
no
missing Hebrew vowels or doubtful
readings, no variant manuscripts, disputed authorship—
the
letters clearly signed by Paul or John
(or maybe Barnabas)—translated into
every
language, with second copies placed
in safe deposit in case of accidents:
but
this
way he has given us his commandments
without tripping us up at the first—
or
should we seek out some Aaron to re-cast
the golden idol of inerrancy,
and
set it up and worship it amongst
the anachronistic stones of Jericho and Ai?
Missing
Hebrew vowels.
The
original Old Testament
Hebrew texts do not include vowels, sometimes rendering their sense
obscure or
ambiguous.
doubtful
readings
In a
significant number of OT
passages scholars are unable to agree with any certainty on the meaning
of one
of more words, or the apparent meaning does not seem to make sense in
the
context, or letters have “dropped out” in transcription and
the original
meaning(s) have to be reconstructed. These are indicated by footnotes
in many
Bibles eg Leviticus 25:33, Numbers 12:6, 1 Samuel 17:12, Job 41:11,
Psalms 58:9
etc.
The first [commandment] “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3).
golden idol cf Exodus 32, the story of Aaron and the golden calf.