Showing posts with label Vanity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vanity. Show all posts

Saturday, May 16, 2020

Time and Chance (36)

As mentioned in earlier studies in Ecclesiastes, the Preacher uses the term “vanity” repeatedly. This is usually read as an expression of disgust, as if Solomon is saying, “Pointless, pointless ... it’s all futile and pointless,” as if the order God has set in place since the fall of man — and it is very much evident he believes God is behind it all — is not worth further investigation.

And yet, on he goes investigating anyway. Can’t be all that pointless, can it?

Saturday, September 21, 2019

Time and Chance (2)

More often than not, the Bible teacher who tells you the thing you are reading does not mean what it says in plain English is telling you sanctified fibs. Odds are he is explaining away the text rather than explaining it.

With a few notable exceptions (by which I mean the hacks who lend their expertise to Bible versions created specifically to push ideological agendas), translators are apolitical, honest and usually quite competent.

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

The Greatest Love of All

Pride is a terrible thing.

I give full credit to translators of the Bible and don’t assume for a second that I know better than the least of them. But I have noticed that if translators come to their job with a predisposition to see a particular thing in a passage, as in every area of life, that’s what is seen.