The Language of the Bible with Reference to Natural Things
Notes and extracts from Bernard Ramm, The Christian View of Science and Scripture, 1954 p. 45 NB: this page briefly summarises ten pages of the book, and leaves out a lot of detail.
"Genuine relevant thinking cannot be accomplished in the realm of Bible-and-science until the nature of Biblical language has been deeply probed. . . ."
". . . [It is] necessary to dig deeply to understand the precise nature of Biblical language. Much hyper-orthodox literature on the subject is extremely wooden in its approach. At times its writers have been accused of being too literalistic, but the trouble is deeper than that. The approach seems to rest on the unwritten assumption that if a record is inspired its meaning is always obvious, and if we seek any subtlety in the meaning or in the literary form of the narrative we are accused of trifling with the inspiration of the Bible. But after poring over the literature on the subject of Bible-and-science, the author is assured that no real grappling with the issues is possible till one has worked out his own theory as to the nature of Biblical statements about natural matters."
The language of the Bible with reference to natural matters is popular, not scientific
"By popular we mean ... of the people. Popular language is the language in which people converse. ... the language of the market-place, of social gatherings, and of the chance conversation. It is that basic vocabulary and style which the masses use to carry on their daily communication. By scientific we mean ...jargon... of the various sciences, which enables men of that science to communicate more accurately, conveniently, and economically. ... Their fellow scientists know exactly what the terms mean. ..."
"The Bible is a book for all people of all ages. Its terms with reference to Nature must be popular. Perhaps in the medical and nautical language of Luke there are some technical terms, but most of the vocabulary of the Bible with reference to Nature is popular. It is therefore highly improper for scientists to seek technical terminology in the Bible. It is also reprehensible for exegetes to try to find redondite references to modern scientific terminology in the Bible. The first is unfair in expecting a popular treatise to speak the language of science, and the second is undiscerning in making the Bible speak that which it does not propose to say."
The language of the Bible is phenomenal
"By phenomenal we mean "pertaining to appearances."' or ' The Bible uses a language that is not only popular but restricted to the apparent. For example it speaks of the four corners [wings] of the earth (Isaiah 11:12) because the division of something into quarters is a frequent human operation and a convenient method of indicating place. ... popular expressions: ... from every corner of the earth or from all quarters of the globe. Such expressions are neither scientific nor anti-scientific, but the popular and phenomenal expressions of daily conversation. Consider the language of Genesis ch. 1. Astronomically, it speaks of the earth, the sun, the moon, and the stars. It does not mention asteroids, comets, nebulae or planets. The astronomical classification of Genesis 1 is phenomenal. It is restricted to what the greets the eye as one gazes heavenward. The same is true of the biological and botanical terms of Genesis 1. It speaks of fish, fowl, cattle and birds; of grass, herbs, and fruit trees. It does not classify amphibians or sea-going mammals. Genesis 1 is the classification of the unsophisticated common man."
[Ramm quotes from Pratt, John H., Scripture and Science not at Variance, 1872:]
... The terms [sunrise, sunset] are, I conceive, equally true, whether the Ptolemaic or the Copernican system be adopted. They are the description of phenomena strictly according to appearances, that is, according to what is seen, and involve, as I hope now to show, no assumption whatever regarding the sun or earth being the centre of the system ... the description, recording appearances, or what is seen, will stand, so long as men's senses remain the same.
The Bible does not theorize as to the actual nature of things
- i.e. “the language of the Bible is non-postulational with reference to natural things”
... there is no theory of matter in the Bible ... nor of astronomy, geology, physics, chemistry, zoology and botany. These matters are dealt with according to popular and phenomenal terms, and are free from scientific postulation.
[Ramm quotes from Dawson, W. B., The Bible Confirmed by Science (n.d.):]
"A remarkable point in Biblical references to nature is that we find no definite explanation anywhere of natural things. The writers of the Bible do not go beyond the description of what they actually see around them, and the correct way in which they describe what they do say is beyond praise ... The writers of the Bible show ... self-control, and must indeed have been divinely guided, in thus keeping to description and avoiding theoretical explanations of natural things."
The language of the Bible employs the culture of the times in which it was written as the medium of revelation
"... (i) The position of the radical critic or modernist is wrong who imagines that the Bible is filled with errors and mistakes of these ancient cultures, and so scientifically the Bible must be considered as filled with blunders. (ii) The hyper-orthodox is wrong who expects the Bible to contain modern science."
"... the true position is that the revelation of God came in and through the Biblical languages and their accompanying culture. ... In view of what we know of pre-scientific cultures, ancient and contemporary, it appears miraculous that the writers of the Bible are free of the grotesque, the mythological, and the absurd."
The vocabulary for time in both Old and New Testaments
“The vocabulary for time in both the Old Testament and the New Testament is not strict scientific time but the time-reckoning methods and units of the cultural period of the Bible writers.”
... seasons ... light and darkness mark out the day; the phases of the moon, the month; and the cycles of the seasons with the movements of the stars, the years. The day itself is divided into watches or hours. ... They repeatedly had to amend their calendar ...
The psychological terms of the Bible are terms of ancient cultures
"The psychological terms of the Bible are terms of ancient cultures and not the terms of strict scientific psychology. The Bible uses such terms as heart, liver, bones, bowels, and kidneys in its psychology, attributing psychic functions to these organs. It is a physiological psychology. Can the heart actually believe (Romans 10:9-10)? Can our liver be greatly distressed (Lamentations 2:11)? Does Paul actually have his spiritual love in his bowels (Philippians 1:8)? Are the kidneys part of our psychical structure (Jeremiah 11:20; Revelation 2:23)? Are we to gather from the New Testament that we each have a soul, a spirit, a mind, a heart, a strength, a body (soma and sarks)?
"If we insist that the psychology of the Bible is to be taken in a strict literalistic sense then there is no other conclusion than to confess that the psychology of the Bible is not capable of rational defence. But if we agree that the truth of the Bible is expressed in terms of the prevailing culture of the times during which the Bible was written, then we have no problem. Our task is to decipher from the Bible its basic theological psychology. A heart and kidneys are physiological ways of representing our deep emotional and volitional life, experiences and feelings."
The medical language of the Bible
[The medical language of Luke] was the medical language of the men of medicine of that place and period when Luke wrote, but it is not the language of modern medical textbooks. It would certainly be a rash effort to try to get modern medicine to use the medical language of the Bible on the grounds of its supposed scientific impeccability.
- [An exhaustive treatment of Luke's medical language in 376 pages, The Medical Language of St. Luke: A Proof From the Internal Evidence That the Gospel According to St. Luke And the Acts of the Apostles Were Written By the Same Person, and that the Writer Was a Medical Man by William Kirk Hobart, is on line at archive.org.
- Two examples from Hobart's book are at Luke 7:21 and Luke 13:32.
The mathematics and measuring systems of the Bible
"... numbers were frequently used in the same way we use the words many, some, or few. ... three stood for few; seven, ten, and one hundred stood for completeness; ten in other connections meant several; forty meant many; seven and seventy meant large but uncertain numbers. ... God never gave infallibility to the measuring systems of the Bible. They were used in the Bible because they were the customary and familiar units of the people of that time."
The geographical terms of the Bible
"The Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament use the terms common to their cultures to describe geographical matters.
... we expect theologians to conform to the theological truth of Sacred Scripture, and we expect Christian philosophers to create their systems within the confines of the Christian religion. But we do not expect physicists, chemists, geologists and geographers to take the various systems of natural things taught in the Bible and teach all these sciences in these terms, concepts and standards of measurement. ... Why not? Because the message is in and through these matters; these matters are not themselves the message."See The waters above and below and Between Mesopotamia and Egypt.
Conclusion
"... the language of the Bible ... is the terminology of the culture prevailing at the time the various books were written. It is a matter of the Spirit of God speaking through these terms so that (i) the terms are not themselves thereby made infallible science, and that (ii) the theological content is in no wise endangered.
- ... advantages: ...
- ... understandable and meaningful ...
- ... pre-scientific not anti-scientific ... and therefore
- is a Bible for all ages and stages of human progress
"A Bible peppered with scientific jargon would be most inappropriate for the religious instruction of humanity."
How do we tell what is cultural and what is trans-cultural?
"The truth is somewhere between ... writing too much off as cultural and making no room for the cultural, and no simple rule can be devised to divide one from the other. ...
general guide:
(i) Whatever in Scripture is in direct reference to natural things is most likely in terms of the prevailing cultural concepts;
(ii) whatever is directly theological or didactic is most likely trans-cultural; and
(iii) by a clear understanding of the trans-cultural element in Scripture, and by a clear understanding of the sociology of language ... we can decipher what is trans-cultural under the mode of the cultural
See also brother Wilfred Lambert's comments on the ancient myth of Leviathan in the Old Testament context here.
