Bryan R. Saye's Blog, page 4
April 10, 2021
Chess, Coffee, and God: Conversations with an Atheist (Part 2, Translations)
Welcome back to Chess, Coffee, and God: Conversations with an Atheist. This is the second in a series of articles recounting conversations I had with an atheist friend of mine. We used to meet twice a month to play chess and discuss religion (and drink coffee, for science, of course). While I have tried to remember the specifics of our conversations, my goal is not literal accuracy, but rather a general recounting of the topics we covered. I have fond memories of my friend and our conversations, so it is my hope that I paint him in a favorable light.
I mentioned last time that my friend raised the issue of translations as it relates to the trustworthiness of the Bible. His objection can be summarized like this: “If the Bible has been translated a hundred times over two thousand years, how can we know what it really says?” He is not alone in this objection, as I’ve heard a dozen variations of it when speaking with non-believers from all walks of life. This single objection is really two objections in one. First, how do modern translations come to be? Second, how did the ancient scribes copy their own writings in order to preserve them? The first objection will be discussed in this article, while the second will be come in the near future.
There is a YouTube channel called Twisted Translations that, among other things, takes popular songs and runs them through various languages on Google translate, then back to English, finally singing the results. The lyrics become rather absurd rather quickly (link below for some humorous singing of Disney songs). And, while my friend didn’t reference this channel to make his point, I feel this is a good summary of how he viewed Biblical translation. In his mind, it’s silly for us to read our modern Bible with any sense of clarity, given how many language filters it has gone through.
Turning this analogy to scripture, it assumes that our modern Bible has gone from Hebrew and Aramaic, to Greek, to Latin, to Old English, and finally to modern English (or Spanish or Korean, etc.). This method of translation has the potential to cause all kinds of problems. And, if that is how modern translations came about, we would certainly have issues.
Yet, this is an easy objection to put to bed. All modern translations go back to the earliest manuscripts. What this means is that our modern English Bibles (or Spanish or Korean) are translated directly from the Hebrew and Aramaic of the Old Testament and the Greek of the New Testament. These are the original languages that they were written, and all modern translations use them as their source. There is no Twisted Translation. As an example, let’s quote the English Standard Version’s opening lines:
“Each word and phrase in the ESV has been carefully weighed against the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, to ensure the fullest accuracy and clarity and to avoid under-translating or overlooking any nuance of the original text.”
The second half of the objection (How did the ancient scribes copy their own writings in order to preserve them?) will be discussed in a future article. Obviously, something as complicated and important as Biblical translation is far more in-depth than anything that can be written in a 500-word blog post. For further reading, please see Paul D. Wegner’s Journey from Texts to Translations: The Origin and Development of the Bible, link below. Additionally, if you’re looking for a good laugh, checkout Twisted Translation’s Disney playlist, also below.
Chess, Coffee, and God: Conversations With an Atheist (Part 1, Introduction)
https://www.bryanrsaye.com/post/chess-coffee-and-god-part-1
Twisted Translations:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGnYtw5ezZI-xGhQpR5aUX8T1pdgLMYCy
Paul D. Wegner’s Journey from Texts to Translations: The Origin and Development of the Bible
March 26, 2021
Chess, Coffee, and God: Conversations with an Atheist (Part 1, Introduction)
Several years ago, I worked alongside an atheist who played chess. I also played chess, though I really just knew what the pieces did. Mostly. A beginner, you could say, though that’s probably being generous. He, on the other hand, played chess. Like, really played it.
He also happened to enjoy discussions on religion and philosophy. Religion being one of my favorite topics, I invited him to a local Barnes and Noble, where we could talk religion and play chess. Also, I made sure that there was a Starbucks inside the Barnes and Noble. For, you know, scientific reasons.
Anyway, over the course of the next several months, we would meet two or sometimes three times a month to play chess and talk religion, specifically the area of apologetics. I have a special relationship with apologetics. And, for that matter, with atheism. When I was eighteen, I was an atheist for about a year. The journey from Christ-follower to atheist and back again is a story for another time. For now, just know that I got my hand on some books on apologetics and was pretty much hooked.
I used to believe that if I could sit down with just about anyone, I could re-enact my journey from atheist to Christ-follower and suddenly they would be a believer, too. That I could prove God to someone and that was all there was to it. Case closed, the defense rests. After all, that’s sort of what happened to me. Obviously, my story is much deeper than a quick read-through of Lee Strobel and a couple Frank Turek videos. However, I did believe that it could be that simple.
Suffice to say, it is not. My friend is still an atheist, and he’s still far better than me at chess. I’m assuming this last part, since we’ve not played in some time. He did beat me seventy-seven times in a row before I was able to take home a win (I did say beginner was generous). I learned a great deal from our conversations, and I like to think he did, too. Mostly, I learned you cannot talk someone into being a believer. After all, Jesus says, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 6:44, ESV). Yet we are also told, “how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?” (Rom 10:14).
So, while I no longer think we can talk someone into becoming a believer, I do think we can remove the obstacles they’ve put in their own way. For example, one of the issues my friend had with Christianity was typical of many non-believers: “If the Bible has been translated a hundred times over two thousand years, how can we know what it really says?” I have heard this objection, or a version of this objection, dozens of times during my walk with Christ. In fact, there is a very simple answer to this objection (which I will lay out in a post to come). Once my friend heard what I had to say regarding this, he essentially dropped the objection. Did that make him a believer? No. Is it going to give him one less objection to becoming a believer? Yes.
And that, I learned, is what apologetics is all about. It is not talking someone into believing. It is removing the false objections people have raised for themselves. In the posts to follow this one, I will be recounting our conversations. I will be leaving out names in favor of pronouns. In addition, I will obviously not be able to recount our conversations accurately, since it has been almost three years since they took place. Instead, I will be recounting the topics of our conversation. I hope to paint my friend in a favorable light, since that's the way I remember him.
