Personal Jesus
“Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ”
-St. Jerome
Today we celebrate the feast day of St. Jerome, the man who is responsible for the translation of the Bible into Latin, giving Christians the version of Scriptures known as the Vulgate. The Latin Vulgate version of the Bible is arguably the most influential translation of the Scripture in the history of the Church. I often like to refer to St. Jerome as a caveman, as he spent a large part of his life translating the Scriptures in the cave in Bethlehem where Jesus was born. It always seems appropriate that he would give birth through his writing to a translation of the Word of God that would enlighten so many Christians in the very place where the Word of God was born and took on flesh.
One blessing of the modern world is our easy access to books. It is common knowledge that the Bible today is a perennial best seller. Unfortunately it also seems that even though many bibles are printed and sold each year, there are too many who simply buy a copy that will be placed on a shelf or a coffee table where it is not regularly read. Too many Christians simply have their own personal version of who Jesus is today and opinions of what he would and would not have said and done on earth that does not always correspond with Sacred Scripture. There often seems to be a large group of Christians who simply want to caricature Jesus as a “nice guy” who talked about love and caring for others within one’s comfort zone.
The Gospels paint a different picture of Jesus, and rightfully so. It hardly seems like anyone would ever want to crucify a “nice guy”. It usually takes a person who is regularly challenging the powers that be to push someone to murder that person. Jesus challenged the people of His day and continues to challenge us to live very differently than the way we currently live. He challenges us to love and care for others, but as Staretz Zossima of The Brothers Karamazov reminds us,
…love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in the sight of all. Men will even give their lives if only the ordeal does not last long but is soon over, with all looking on and applauding as though on the stage. But active love is labour and fortitude, and for some people too, perhaps, a complete science. But I predict that just when you see with horror that in spite of all your efforts you are getting farther from your goal instead of nearer to it- at that very moment I predict that you will reach it and behold clearly the miraculous power of the Lord who has been all the time loving and mysteriously guiding you.
May each of us remember to spend some time with the Sacred Scriptures each day so that we will not be ignorant of Christ, but will daily encounter His challenging presence in our lives.
About The Author
Good post, Father, and I LOVE Johnny Cash’s rendition of this song (though I still really like Depeche Mode’s original…) Cash’s “American” songs CD’s are the best.
I like the original too….and almost posted it here, but I never miss a chance to promote Mr. Cash.
I never knew Johnny Cash did a rendition of this!
I started thinking that Depeche Mode had done a remake of his song, but then I read S-P’s comment.
Anyhow, the main reason I’m posting is to say that I love that viewpoint.
Jesus wasn’t crucified because he was a nice guy!
He probably annoyed the heck out of a lot of people who did not want to give up their old ways. Especially, it seems, with the Pharisees.
Just spending time, I find, is not enough. It really helps to have someone with whom you can discuss them. Translations are never fully true renditions of the original, so it helps to have someone who is well read on many versions to assist with interpretation. (I consider myself a fairly good translator of several languages, but especially of Russian — have translated professionally and even worked with a fiction author on trying to get her rendition 100% as intended, but it is not possible because culture affects word meaning; very little is translated only linguistically; we have to account for culture as well, and in many cases, we cannot.reflect the culture. For example, in translating one work from Russian, the author had a kidnapped victim wake up in blue pajamas; that would be terrifying to a Russian reader for it would mean that the victim is now in one of the dreaded psychiatric hospitals from which there was no exit; in English, blue pajamas is meaningless and straitjacket gives both a different feeling from physical restriction and from psychological perspective; this is just a minor example in the physical realm; metaphysics is even harder to approximate meaning through translation). I am fortunate in having a Bible Study group I can attend that does a study of comparative translations to try to ferret out the original meaning and in having a friend from Israel who is almost native in English and is a language teacher of Hebrew, so he can often explain what the original Hebrew meant better than any current translation of the Bible that I have.
And that’s my two cents for an early Thursday morning — time for bed! Thanks for the post.
I like your two cents Elizabeth! Maybe I can write a post soon about translations as you are right on the mark!