BIBLE: The Uninspired Parts

Okay, I confess.  That title is obviously clickbait.  I wanted you to wonder, “What on Earth is YoYo claiming?  Is she about to attack the Holy Bible?”

Not in the least.  Many versions of your modern Bible include parts that are uninspired.  The “Maps” section at the back?  Not God-breathed.  The translators’ introduction page to the King James Version?  Not inspired.  The exhaustive explanatory notes in the Scofield Reference Bible?  Nope, not the Word of God, just opinions about it.

Before you say, “Well, duh, that’s obvious!”, allow me to throw in one more: the names of the books themselves.  The titles.  Not inspired.  Not God-breathed.  Not dictated by the Holy Spirit.

But with interesting stories behind them, nonetheless.

Because "not inspired" doesn't mean "not important."

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

While I was studying for this month’s blog (which was going to be about something else entirely), I grabbed my grandmother’s 1949 Douay-Rheims version of the Scriptures off my bookshelf to do a quick translation comparison.  I was stopped in my metaphorical tracks by the title of one of the Old Testament books: 2 Paralipomenon.

In this sharp-witted noggin of mine, I thought, “Who the what, now?”

I knew that paralipomenon was the Greek word for what we’d roughly term in English as “stuff left out,” so I wondered, “What’s this book of ‘stuff left out’?  And why are there two ‘stuff left out’ books?”

It turns out that it’s all the stuff left out of 1 Kings.  And 2 Kings.  And 3 Kings.  And 4 Kings.  All of which are also found in my grandmother’s 1949 Douay-Rheims Bible.

Perhaps you’re thinking, “Oh, it’s that Roman Catholic apocrypha stuff I’ve heard about!”  Not so.  The four books of Kings and the two books of Paralipomenon are what we today call the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles.  Our current titles for those books aren’t part of the original inspired text.  Neither were the book titles in my grandmother’s Bible.  And neither are the titles in most of our early, ancient manuscripts.

Which is why a still, small voice whispering in the back of my mind said, “Guess what you’re studying and writing about this month?”

LESS THAN OBVIOUS

The names of Old Testament books were added by ancient Bible copyists, commentators, translators, church Fathers, and scribes.  Sometimes the choice of a title was an obvious decision: “This is the second letter we have that Paul is writing to Timothy; let’s call it 2 Timothy.”  Other times, the choice isn’t so clear: “This one says it’s written by a guy called Qoheleth; let’s title it ‘Ecclesiastes’.”

Who made all these additions and changes to titles?  Often it was Jewish scholars themselves.  Some lived a few generations after the original writers, grabbing the first words on the scrolls to act as quick-reference headings.  Others lived long after the first texts were written, developing (over many, many decades) a Greek version of their Hebrew Scriptures, an ancient work that came to be called the Septuagint.  It’s not an insignificant text; when Jesus and the apostles quoted Scripture, they frequently quoted from forms of the Greek Septuagint.

We’ll take a walk through the 39 books of the Old Testament, quickly discussing how each got its name.  Don’t worry, this month’s post isn’t a thirty-nine-page epic.  Sometimes a title’s explanation is pretty straightforward.  But other times, you might raise an eyebrow and wonder, along with me: “Who the what, now?”

 

Genesis: “Genesis” is a Greek word that means “origin,” “beginning,” or “starting point,” just as it does in English.  But since the Old Testament was written in Hebrew (with brief lapses into what older scholars called Chaldean [look it up]), then why does this book have a Greek name?

Answer: The ancient Hebrews didn’t use titles as we know them.  They often referred to their sections of Scripture by the first word or words of the text.  This section they called Bereshit, which translates to “In the beginning.”  As Greek culture spread through the ancient world, Jewish scholars added the title “Genesis” to this part of their Scriptures, probably influenced by the fact that this scroll detailed all the generations (in other words, origins) of the nations and of the world itself.

 

Exodus: Shemot in Hebrew, which means “names,” is the second Hebrew word in this text, and per the grab-a-word tradition, became the earliest title.  The later Jewish translators of the Greek text called this book Ex Hodos, meaning “the way out.”  The book’s topic makes that choice understandable.  We’re already seeing a naming pattern: the earliest Jewish scholars grabbed titles from a text’s opening words; the later Jewish translators leaned more toward the themes of a book to craft a new title.  Thus, Ex Hodos, which became Exodus for us.

Of interest to me is that Christianity was originally called by the same Greek term, Hodos, which means Way (like in Acts 19:9).  I like calling our faith “the Way.”  It connects us to the earliest pages of Scripture.  We, like the early people of God, have to walk out of Egypt, through the age of the Law. And into the age of Grace… walking the Hodos first trodden by Israelites of old.

 

Leviticus: This book was first titled Vayikra, “And He called…”  Filled with regulations about sacrifices, holy days, and worship, it made the later Jewish translators think of the tribe of Levi, those specifically set aside for religious service.  However, this book is misnamed, in a sense.  It’s filled with priestly regulations, and priests were the descendants of Aaron.  All priests were Levites, but not all Levites were priests.  If you ask me, a better title might have been the Aaronikon, latinized in our modern texts as the book of Aaronicus.

 

Numbers: This book details censuses and headcounts in chapters 1 and 26, so the ancient translators slapped the title Arithmoi on it (“numbers”).  You might notice that of the first five books of the Bible, this is the only one shown in plain English.  More on that below.  Personally, I think the earlier Hebrew designation, Bemidbar (“in the wilderness”) captures the spirit of this particular book much better.

 

Deuteronomy: This Greek word means “Second Law.”  That doesn’t mean it’s Part Two of Moses’ laws (although there are scattered new items like laws about kings in Deut. 17:14-20).  It’s basically the law on repeat, a second telling.  Again, we see a Greek word transliterated into English – had all the first five books of the Bible been translated instead of transliterated, their names would be Origins, Departure, Priest Matters, Numbers, and Second Law.

 

Joshua, Judges, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings: Whoa!  That’s a bunch of books at once!  That’s because they were very likely part of one continuous narrative.  Called the Deuteronomistic History, this chunk of Scripture from 1 Samuel through the end of 2 Kings shares similar vocabulary, thematic development, and a unified storyline from right after the death of Moses through to the exile.

So why are they chopped up into different books if they were all part of one story?  One very practical reason: scroll length.  Hebrew scribes could fit roughly thirty- to forty-thousand Hebrew words per scroll.  That’s how many words you find in Judges + Joshua, which many scholars believe circulated as a single scroll.  You get a similar word count for the books of Samuel.  And the next, the books of Kings.  Chances are, these pairs of books were scrollmates (to coin a term).  By word count alone, they'd pair up tidily in single scrolls. 

Then comes the Greek era.  When you translate Hebrew to Greek, your word count and character count (and thus your scroll size) increases.  Greek translations needed significantly more space than their Hebrew originals, and that led to the book divisions we see today.  The translators knew they were breaking up a single narrative.  They kept the pieces unified by calling the scrolls Kingdom 1, Kingdom 2, Kingdom 3, and Kingdom 4.

Aha!  Grandma’s Bible is suddenly making sense!  And we also now understand why 2 Samuel is named after Samuel, even though he died back in 1 Samuel 25:1 and never appears in his own second book.  Originally, it was all part of one scroll.

 

1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles: We actually know who named these books.  As Hebrew texts, these were a single scroll called Divrei HaYamim, “the records of the times.”  The Jewish translators of the Greek text called it Paralipomenon (there you go, Grandma!) and had to break it into two scrolls due to its length.  But, that title, meaning “things left out,” sounded sloppy and undignified to Jerome, the Christian scholar who produced the Latin Vulgate version of the Scriptures in the late 300s C.E.  Jerome renamed the book in Latin: Chronicon Totius Divinae Historiae, “Chronicles of the Whole Sacred History.”  The first word of that name stuck.

 

Ruth (and Esther): Observant readers may have already said, “Wait!  You skipped the book of Ruth!”

Indeed, I did… because Ruth never sat after Judges, the way we have it today.  It was often placed as part of what’s called the Five Megilloth, short writings used as Festival Scrolls.  “Ruth” appears to be the book’s original Hebrew name, a shift from the “use the first words” custom.  Only two books in Hebrew Scripture carry the name of women, Ruth and Esther – one a direct ancestor of Jesus, and the other an orphan who saved Israel.  Interestingly, Esther is one of only two books in the Bible that never mention God.

 

Ezra, Nehemiah: Other books in the “named-after-me” category are Ezra and Nehemiah – again, originally a single scroll, but broken up to accommodate translations and scroll size.  The name “Ezra” bemuses me, since Ezra doesn’t even show up in the story until seven chapters into his ten-chapter book.  When he does arrive, an interesting new genre is showcased – memoir writing.  Ezra introduces one of Scripture's earliest autobiographical extended-memoir sections.  Nehemiah does this genre as well.  Bible scholars like 19^th-century theologian Julius Wellhausen suspect both works may have originally been royal records.  That would make these two works examples of some of Scripture’s earliest autobiographical writings with the authors’ names right up top.

 

Job: Another main-character naming… in a book that never mentions Israel or any Hebrews at all, and where all the action takes place outside of Israel.  All names have an original meaning (my full name, fun fact, translates to “the Purple-Flowered Daughter of Wise Counsel”).  But “Job” is a name whose meaning seems lost to antiquity, probably not etymologically tied to any Hebrew word since he was “a man in the land of Uz,” not an Israelite.

 

Psalms: This collection was called Tehillim in Hebrew, which means “Praises.”  A title like that might be surprising to those who have read plaintive, grief-filled entries like Psalm 88.  Or Psalm 22.  Or 69, or… well, you get the idea.  The Septuagint translators decided to change the collection’s name to “Songs sung to the accompaniment of a stringed instrument.”  In Greek, that’s Psalmoi.  Not kidding, that whole idea is built into a single word.  Latin kept in that spirit with Psalmi, and English settled on Psalms, a term that stays nice and neutral about whether praises or lamentations are being sung. But my mind wanders back to the original title; could my grief-filled calls to God also be tehillim, forms of praise and trust in him?

 

Proverbs: “Proverbs” is a fairly decent translation of the Hebrew title Mishlei.  The Greek translators didn’t mess with it much, but it should be noted that mishlei is its own broad genre – proverbs, sayings, wise instructions, parables, maxims.  Mishlei can be tiny, like “Pride goes before destruction” (Proverbs 16:18), or highly detailed, like the lengthy homage to a good wife (Proverbs 31:10-31).

 

Ecclesiastes: This book was called Qoheleth in Hebrew, after the man whose words it shares.  Qoheleth isn’t really a name.  It means something close to “the speaker at an assembly” or “the teacher of a group.”  Knowing this, the Septuagint translators chose the Greek title Ekklesiastes, meaning “assembly” or “congregation” … or, in New Testament vocabulary, what we call “the church.”

 

Song of Songs: This name perfectly preserves the Hebrew wording that opens the book, Shir ha-Shirim.  The Septuagint translators didn’t mess with it: Asma Asmaton, also meaning “Song of Songs."  The Latin Vulgate translation was just as faithful to the name: Canticum Canticorum.  It was English translations that first started juggling a title that had endured for thousands of years: “Song of Solomon,” “Canticles,” “Canticle of Canticles,” “Solomon’s Song,” or sometimes just “the Song.”  I have a lot to say about this book, but I put it all here to spare you extra reading in this post.

 

AND THE REST OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

You may think I’ll never get through the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures at this rate.  As I mentioned upfront, though, some books are easier to categorize than others.  And in the next batch of book titles, things get really easy.

Books Named After Their Main Character: Jonah and Daniel.

Books Named After the Prophet Whose Words and Visions They Record: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.

Well.  That certainly cleared my plate!  And that leaves only:

Lamentations: One of the Bible’s gloomier books, its original title in Hebrew was its first word: Eikhah, a word that asks “How?”  According to biblical scholars Jill Middlemas (in Lamentations: An Introduction and Study Guide) and Adele Berlin (in Lamentations: A Commentary), any early Hebrew reader seeing eikhah at the start of a sentence knew an expression of grief was coming.  “How?” it demands.  “How did this happen?  How did Jerusalem fall, and how did things get so bad?”

The Septuagint translators gave this book the fitting title Threnoi, a word for “funeral songs,” which are, in fact, laments.  Our English title retains that.  Is the book a downer?  Sure.  But it pairs nicely with the book of Job.  Job rings out an anguished “why?” about personal suffering; Lamentations balances it with a vehement “how?” over the fate of a whole fallen people.

 

SO, WHY ALL THIS TITLE STUFF?

It’s true that we work hard to rightly divide the word of truth (2 Tim. 2:15), but there’s more to deep dives into Scripture (and its titles) than that.  Obviously, I have no way of knowing what you got out of learning things like this.  But I can share what this study built, revealed, and stirred up in me:

• God’s Truth comes through all types of people.  There are book titles named after great warriors like Joshua and royal noblemen like Nehemiah.  But the Hebrew Scriptures also offer me a book named for a widow, Ruth.  For an orphan among an oppressed people, Esther.  For a prophet who does everything wrong and runs away.  For a has-been favorite foreigner of God’s who has lost it all.  People I can relate to, people I might even be some day.
  
  
• God’s Word comes through human history.  With all the changing of titles, assembling of texts, and changes in book order, I realize God’s Word didn’t get delivered, done and dusted, into the laps of humanity.  No.  God chose to use humanity to develop his message through the lives people lived and the decisions they made about preserving his Word.  Decisions they hoped honored him.  Not decisions of “right” or “wrong” titles, but decisions of “good for our times” and “better for our times.”  God does that in my life, too.  The choices, the changes to better, all my daily walk of faith – those things become the Word expressed through me, always growing.
  
  
• I belong to a great cloud of witnesses (Heb. 12:1).  All these titles came to me through countless generations of believers... the changes, the reasons for the changes, and the results that arise in English that encapsulate centuries of reflection on the importance of the Word.
  
  
• God hears me in my language.  I don’t mean English or Spanish or ASL.  I mean the freedom of “language” these titles provide.  God hears my praises, Psalmoi, even when they are loaded with laments; God hears my Eikhah, my laments, not only for myself but for my family, for my nation, for many nations.  I can beg to know How?  I can cry out Why?  And I can deliver my praises to him through all of that.  The titles themselves model it for me.  I am heard.

That’s what I’ve learned this month.  I’m certain more will dawn on me, blessing me as I hold these things in my heart.  As always, I pray the same for you.

Marana Tha,

Cosmic Parx / YoYo Rez