Res Ispa inquires further:
“I do not subscribe to the literal 100 percent Word of God theory of the Bible. Nor do I understand how anyone who has read more than one English translation of the Bible can hold to it.”
Please explain what you mean/believe more fully.
I had a feeling this might come up. Basically, I’m simply looking at the process with which the Bible was written and applying my knowledge of how translations, even those informed by the writer, tend to depart slightly from the author’s precise text.
I do not doubt that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and I am a Biblical literalist in terms of following its guidelines. That being said, if a man cannot accurately translate a book from English into Italian without some degree of alteration creeping in, how can a man, even one guided by the Holy Spirit, perfectly translate a divine revelation into a human tongue? And then, of course, there’s the obvious fact that one translation will differ from another, even translations into the same language.
But this does not mean that we can pick and choose between what we believe to be error and truth, because this would be tantamount to setting ourselves up as an arbiter of God’s Word. Since we are told that we are incapable of understanding the ways of God, we are likewise incapable of proper discernment in these matters and we should not be surprised if things occasionally do not make sense to our lesser, human logic.