Re: "Church" is not in the Bible!

awareness · 10-19-2019, 12:28 PM

I would enjoy to banter -- take away, or add to -- with your fine post left below. But it's not allowed on the open forum to question the Bible in any way but supportively.

So with your permission I'd like to drrrraaaaaagg it dooowwwnnn to Alternative Views.

Or better yet, since it's your post, you should do it. That way you would properly be displayed as the OP.

Thanks ... maybe ... I guess ... hopefully yours.
Harold
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Quote:

Originally Posted by UntoHim

Fact #1 Every translation of the original NT manuscripts (mostly Koine Greek, some Aramaic) is AN INTERPRETATION of the original manuscripts. There are a myriad of Greek words which have multiple meanings but can only be practically translated to one English word. The best example that comes to mind would be the Greek words Philia, Agape and Eros - All of which are translated by most English versions as "Love". This is one of the main reasons why any trustworthy Christian theologian, teacher, minister or apologist should be at least mildly competent in Koine Greek. If you can't read and comprehend the original language, you have absolutely no business teaching people about what the original writers of the NT meant, and what it might mean for us today. (My Personal Opinion!)

Fact #2 God has only had the human language(s) to work with. If he wanted to get his Word to us mortal humans, the most effective and expedient way was to communicate in our spoken and written languages. So of course that is just what he did. Over the ages God has seen fit to use all sorts of people who speak and write in all sorts of languages to communicate to us humans. The two main languages God has used to communicate his Word to us happen to be Hebrew and Koine Greek. (It is likely that the Lord Jesus and the original apostles spoke Aramaic, but for practical reasons God saw fit to see that the Gospels and Epistles where written in Koine Greek)

Fact #3 The Greek work "ekklesia" is properly translated into English as "Assembly", "Congregation", "Assembly of called out ones", and yes, even "Church". To say that "Church is not in the Bible" is the same as saying that "Love is not in the Bible" or that "Grace is not in the Bible". To put a finer point on this - Ultimately, the word "Church" has it roots in Greek and traces its origin to a Greek term kūrikón, which was related to kurios, “Lord.” The phrase kūrikón oikía meant “the Lord’s house.” At some point, the Greek term for “house of worship” was shortened to kūrkón. And that’s the word that was transliterated from the old German to kirika, and eventually to Old English as cirice (which eventually got transliterated into "church") Many English words, especially those related to Christianity, came from Greek and passed through some of the earliest German dialects. The word "church" is one of those words. Other English words that share a Greek origin include Christ, angel, evangelism and baptize. I doubt that many of those who have a problem with "Church" have a problem with these other words.

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awareness · 10-20-2019, 04:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Untohim

Fact #1
Fact #2
Fact #3

Firstly, hopefully with Aron's blessing, I'd like to copy his response to Sons to Glory from the thread with the same name on the open forum.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sons to Glory

... just translate ekklesia into a directly corresponding word, which would be "assembly" or "congregation"?

Quote:

Originally Posted by aron

Not sure you can do that. The word may have been "morphing" even as it was being used. Like the early meaning was "a meeting" or "any group or collection of people". But by the end of the NT, it had a new meaning. Like, you know, The Church... a standing body with some emerging organizational structures, which transcended actual gatherings.

Think of a word like, "the way", meaning a path or route. But in the NT, the Way meant being a disciple of Jesus and following all his commands or something like that. It took on new meaning to a certain in-group.

Or White House.... if someone in 1244 France said, "I'm going to the white house" that meant nearby there was a house painted white. But in 1944 Iowa, if someone said, "I'm going to the White House" it meant they were going to Washington DC to meet with the President of the USA.

So we shouldn't transpose our meanings, or what we (naively, and hopefully) think were their meanings, upon others' words. The truth is, we simply don't know. So "church" shouldn't be waved away like it is some make-believe word. It has a history. It may have actual connection with initial usage. Maybe not what some think it did, but still, connection nonetheless. The problem with Church History as we practice it, is we always want to go back to the Year One, where everything was so clear and pure. But maybe it wasn't. Maybe there were multiple ideas floating around, even then. Or, things we think should be fixed by convention, were morphing due to new conventions coming on board.

Look at the loaded words "normal" and "proper" and "genuine" as used by Nee and Lee. They railroaded us with their concepts that matched those words in their heads. But there's no guarantee that what was normal to Nee in 1932 China was normal to John in 62 AD Judea. And, history occurred for a reason. We shouldn't just blithely wave it away and pretend we can go back to the Early Church days. We are here, now, for a reason.

awareness · 10-20-2019, 08:08 PM

Some comments on Untohim's 3 fact post.

First, Untohim teaches "as one having authority, and not as the scribes," at LSM.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Untohim

Fact #1 Every translation of the original NT manuscripts (mostly Koine Greek, some Aramaic) is AN INTERPRETATION of the original manuscripts.

And also a selection is necessary of what manuscripts to translate from. There are around 5700 copies of manuscripts, some the size of a credit card, and none of them agree with each other. It's a tough job for a translator to put it together. KJV was easy. They were working from 12th c. manuscripts.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Untohim

here are a myriad of Greek words which have multiple meanings but can only be practically translated to one English word. The best example that comes to mind would be the Greek words Philia, Agape and Eros - All of which are translated by most English versions as "Love".

Philia=brotherly love ; Eros=physical love ; and Agape, I've always been told is God's love. But not always :

2Ti 4:10* For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved/Agape this present world.

So it is hard to determine just what the authors meant by the words they used.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Untohim

Fact #2 God has only had the human language(s) to work with. If he wanted to get his Word to us mortal humans, the most effective and expedient way was to communicate in our spoken and written languages. So of course that is just what he did.

God was not limited to just languages, He was also limited by culture and world view understandings back then. God certainly couldn't have told them E=mc². Nor could He have explained to them the cosmology as we know it today. They wouldn't have been able to comprehend it. They saw only 7 objects in the sky that weren't stationary, like the stars : Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon ... and the earth was the center of it all.

Face it, God was limited not only by languages, but also by their ignorance, and unavoidable limited understandings.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Untohim

Fact #3 The Greek work "ekklesia" is properly translated into English as "Assembly", "Congregation", "Assembly of called out ones"

More precisely, the word is a compound of two segments: "ek", a preposition meaning "out of", and a verb, "kaleo", signifying "to call" - together, literally, "to call out".

Quote:

Originally Posted by Untohim

To say that "Church is not in the Bible" is the same as saying that "Love is not in the Bible" or that "Grace is not in the Bible". To put a finer point on this - Ultimately, the word "Church" has it roots in Greek and traces its origin to a Greek term kūrikón, which was related to kurios, “Lord.” The phrase kūrikón oikía meant “the Lord’s house.” At some point, the Greek term for “house of worship” was shortened to kūrkón. And that’s the word that was transliterated from the old German to kirika, and eventually to Old English as cirice (which eventually got transliterated into "church") Many English words, especially those related to Christianity, came from Greek and passed through some of the earliest German dialects. The word "church" is one of those words. Other English words that share a Greek origin include Christ, angel, evangelism and baptize. I doubt that many of those who have a problem with "Church" have a problem with these other words.

Good points. Thanks for clarifying.

OBW · 12-04-2019, 10:39 AM

A,

This whole discussion (in the greater forum and here) is a waste of electrons. Whether you like the word that we now use to refer to the collective of the followers of Christ, in assemblies and universally, in time and over all time, it is really not important.

And then there is the following statement:

Quote:

Originally Posted by awareness

More precisely, the word is a compound of two segments: "ek", a preposition meaning "out of", and a verb, "kaleo", signifying "to call" - together, literally, "to call out."

This kind of statement presumes that a word that is made up of two smaller words simply means, in a single word, what the two words would mean if spoken together. It eliminates the possibility that it could mean something similar (whether nuanced or not so much so) or even quite different with only tangental connection to the original words.

Further, just because you find two smaller words to make up a larger word does not mean that the word is simply made up of those words. It might be that it does, or had come to mean, something related to, but no the same as, the smaller words. It also could have little or no resemblance to the separate words.

Instead, you have to look at the actual usage of the word at the time in which it was being used. The more common usage at the time would be the more likely meaning. But context might suggest other possibilities.

The point is not to support any particular meaning of the Greek word "ekklesia" (not the language in which most of the original statements were made, therefore itself a translation, even though our only hard source) or to declare that "church" is the best English word to use. Rather, it is the whole idea that nit-picking over words is more important than the whole of what is said. I cannot think of a single situation in which changing which English word to use in place of "church" would have any material impact on the understanding of any passage (paragraphs, not fortune-cookie verses).