Authorial Education

MSK asked:

I've always wondered about the authors of the various texts. In the past, there have been occasional references to the quality of the "text" of the gospels, and other old and new testament verses. Education, in our modern ethnocentric view, was not widespread and references have been made to God providing enlightenment and knowledge to the various authors of scripture. Knowing that the bible has gone through numerous translations of old Hebrew and Greek texts, what (if any) is the common assumption about how the "authors" gained reading/writing abilities? I read through the flow of John 1, and wonder about how much of the phrasing is skill, how much is language structure differences, etc. We know that some of the disciples wrote "letters" that have been placed in the Bible and other letters have not. I had a former pastor indicate, when discussing the gnostic text, how easy it is to see a difference in quality between early "biblical" verses and other "pretenders" to be of similar quality. With your studies of Greek and Hebrew, have you seen such differences?

What a loaded question. I'll jump in. To my knowledge, all of the Bible authors were literate. I have never heard of God using someone who couldn't write to author these documents. These people did not know they were writing the Bible, they were writing for a myriad of other reasons.

There are definite skill differences in the Biblical authors. Some use poetry more effectively, some use language more beautifully, and some use multiple languages. They all even use references to other scriptures or documents in their own unique ways. There is no suggestion that God created a "biblical" style which is common among all the authors of the individual books.

"How easy is it to see differences between early 'biblical' verses and other 'pretenders' to be of similar quality?" I don't speak with an exhaustive amount of knowledge on this subject, but I've never heard of writing skill as a way to discount a non-biblical text from a biblical one. Most often, authorship (meaning people wouldn't proclaim who wrote something) and obvious heresy are the reasons that other texts were not included. Date of writing was also a key factor. As stated above, there are texts written in common Greek, more elite Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew, with some authors weaving in and out of style at points. There does not seem to be a criteria that makes one "biblical" and another "gnostic." (Though I don't know what exactly you mean with the term gnostic, because i don't know that it fits here exactly.)

"With your studies of Greek and Hebrew have you seen such differences?"

The main differences I have seen from studying these languages (as any foreign language) is the limitations that translation puts on us. No two languages translate perfectly. There is often no 1 to 1 relationship between languages and thus every translation is its own interpretation. The other are style differences. I'll give one example from each language.

In Greek, there is no such thing as a double negative. In fact, there are Bible verses that are one sentence but have 5 negatives in them. The strength of this negative is much more obvious in its original language.

In Hebrew, there is no alteration to say things like holy, holier, and holiest. They substitute repetition for this point. Thus, the angels singing "holy, holy, holy" is not mere repetition for vocal remembrance or song value, it is a declaration of what is most holy (3 repeats would be the most of something, two would be for added emphasis).

Language differences are more style and limitation that beauty, though understanding the original allows for a great sense of beauty in reading them.

We are lucky as English speakers to have as many good translations as we do. If any of you are curious about how well your translation does at treating the original text, I can comment about that if you ask.