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Translating the Bible—Some Scriptural principle that are handy to be familiar with

Source: https://www.abarim-publications.com/Translating_Bible/Principles.html

Translating the Bible

— 5. Some handy-to-know Scriptural principles —

🔼Not temporal

According to analytical studies, the Book of Genesis, and likely also the sequential Scriptures, does not progress along a time-axis but along a complexity axis, which yields space-time like a fruit. Time is associated with cause and effect, with past, presence and future. Time exists on the merits of massive particles that interact and pass on pulses without decaying immediately. According to the Inflationary Hot Big Bang model (a very strong cosmological model) time began when particles began to interact, approximately 300,000 extrapolated years after the Bang itself. Complexity does not really need interaction but looks at the amount of behaviors and the ways these may be organized.

The universe began as a homogenous and structureless dot (void and formless) which then proceeded to increase in complexity. Somewhere down the complexity-line regular space-time commenced, like a wavy ocean that rained down from clouds, composed from mist that condensed out of vapors of energy.

In the very same way clouds of human minds will connect and form a new kind of mental continuum. These are the clouds upon which Truth will appear.

Scriptures as well as the universe develops like a zygote, initially singular, then increasingly complex until the blood circulation begins and the child grows and eventually is born. Time cannot spawn itself and cannot begin at a point in time, or end at a point in time. Beginning and end of time are both asymptotic borders of eternity, pertaining to the event horizon of space-time.

🔼Complexity

The Bible covers an area larger than that of time and may thus speak of things before and after time, or better yet: above and below time. The Creation-week is not a segment of time but a sequence in complexity. This becomes evident when we realize that all units of time have a cosmological origin: In one year the sun travels from Capricorn to Cancer and back; In one day the sun travels from night to day and back; In one month the moon grows full, diminishes completely and comes back again. There are 12 hours in a Biblical day (not 24!) just like there are 12 months in a year. But the week has no cosmological significance. The creation week has no chronological relevance but describes a rise in complexity.

Like an organic system the Bible works by a few fundamental principles that show up in all kinds of applications. For instance, the Bible seems to maintain a fundamental rule that dictates that reality is always the result of the relation between two or more entities. Absolutes are not considered and essence is dictated entirely by practical application. Some advanced, secular philosophies demand that an object changes along with the mood of an observer, and we Westerners like to believe in an underlying, Platonic reality separate from any moody observer, but the Hebrew idea is that reality is seated in the span between object and observer. Together the two make the one reality in which they operate and by which they are defined.

The singular reality described in the Bible covers the growing relationship between God and creation, without severing God and creature or even observing them apart. We have no business or even ability to be guessing at the parts of God that are hidden from us, and those parts of mankind that are not engaged in a relationship with the Living God are doomed and not even worth considering. In Abraham truly a whole new reality commenced since in him God and man became intertwined and man crossed the Planck-level of existence, and became truly real. When Jesus says that where two or three are gathered in His Name He will be there, He means exactly that.

🔼It takes one to know one

Another very important rule in Scripture is that it takes one to know one. We cannot recognize something outside of ourselves that is not also inside of us. Jesus elaborates on this essentiality in the Sermon on the Mount: the splinter in our brother's eye argues nothing but a log in our own; whoever receives a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet's award; knock and you will be opened. When God wants us to be holy because He is holy, He indicates His desire to be known and to be acknowledged.

Scriptures reckons entities only after their relative behavior. The Second Commandment taps into this concept: all reality is behavior and all graven imagery is false. Matthew writes that even wisdom is vindicated by her deeds, and when God wants Himself be known He exhorts us to view His mighty works. When John asks about the identity of Jesus, He sends him word to look at what is going on: the lame walk and the blind see. And James says in his letter: faith without works is dead. These are all manifestations of the same general rule.