Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
To me, if a somewhat large group of scholars from various backgrounds join to provide the best wisdom on the original languages as spoken and written at the time of the writing, then I have more certainty that what I read in whatever is my native tongue is more likely to bring the original writing to me. If left to my own devices, I may like what I create better than what the scholars would provides, but I have much less certainty that it is a faithful rendering of what was originally there.
In other words, relying on my own translation skills makes the actual Bible much less accessible than relying on the work of qualified scholars....
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This is the genius of the assembly: no one has the ultimate voice. Eventually, in the give-and-take, with a spirit of mutuality and accord, a rough consensus can be ascertained, but nobody expects every last jot and tittle to be solved for each member's satisfaction. God has made us different, and that is okay. But we each have an opportunity, as we are able and interested, to take advantage of the skills of the trained linguists, as well as the experiences of our battle-tested veterans (the proverbial 'elders') as well as the fresh perspectives of the so-called 'newbies'. Each one can contribute to the dialog. Coming to some hard-and-fast "this means that" is not the end-all. The certainty that we have is not in one definitive meaning as much as the pleasure and comfort that we're in a mutually edifying, interesting, and satisfying exploration of something of shared relevance. Good enough.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
... presuming that we should be second-guessing everything and presuming that we can do better than the scholars is a hold-over from our days in the LRC where everyone but the untrained Lee was getting it wrong. Somehow the little Chinaman doing better exegesis than well-trained biblical scholars seems more American because it has that rugged individualism, "by the bootstraps" feel to it.
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Lee did have a 'do-it-yourself' attraction to his work; if he could tackle the Bible armed with little more than Kittel and Alford and Vine and Wuest, then surely we could as well. And we did. But 20 years later that was gone. Then it had become, "Maximum Brother has spoken." The definitive word was in some footnote; why waste your time exploring? Especially if your exploration runs afoul of the Deputy Authority. Lee took advantage of the rugged American individualism and "do-it-yourself-ism" but he merged that into his culture of Asian conformity. It then became: the Bible says we are all one, and Lee has spoken, so we all have to be one (with what Lee has spoken). The only self left was the self of Lee (who according to RK didn't exist anymore).
Here are some of his main sources:
Gerhard Kittel 1888-1948
Kenneth Wuest 1893-1962
Henry Alford 1810-1871
W.E. Vine 1873-1949
As I said earlier, Lee used scholars who couldn't talk back. They were gone, and thus he wasn't subject to peer review from without. Certainly nobody could examine his work critically from within. Lee didn't have to be subject to the indignities of a conversation, and could continue his monologue uninterrupted. I remember hearing him say that nobody (else) had produced anything informative since 1945. It had become, "Witness Lee said," and the conversation in the assembly was effectively over.