[this post is still a rough draft ... developing]
Ever heard somebody say he is a “visual learner” not a “audio learner” ?? Well that means the person is not using his brain the way God designed it to be used.
God uses words – not images, pictures, and logos.
God is against images, including pictures:
“Then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places:” Numbers 33:52.
Many problems are inherent with visual imagery. They say a picture is worth 1,000 words – but what does that mean? It means one deceptive picture can undo 1000 words of truth. It means the truth can be subverted by the emotion a picture creates. It means a man whose mind is filled with pictures is inoculated against hearing thousands of words that would dissolve his imaginations and make him understand the truth.
“(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;” 2 Cor 10:4-5.
Here could be mentioned that many times that a look with the eyes led a person into sin. Eve looked at the fruit; Lot looked toward Sodom; David spied Bathsheba, etc.
And we can also mention that the devil operates in the realm of optics. He appears as an angel of light, and his name “Lucifer” means light bearer and he was noted for his brightness (Ez. 28:17) and fell from heaven like lightning. And he was able to create a visual mirage showing all the kingdoms of the world seen from a single mountain top.
The Bible is comprised of words – spelled out in sound by the letters of the language used. But Egyptian hieroglyphics are images – they are pictures that represent a mix of sounds and concepts.
Chinese and Japanese are basically the same thing. The Chinese have several different languages that were united by the images of the characters. So a character drawn to represent a “house” would mean house to all Chinese – but they would have 6 or 7 different ways to pronounce the word in each language of China. In fact, the word order and grammar of the Chinese languages is different – yet they are all stuck with one “alphabet” – the picture-symbols that they hold in common.
The Japanese have the same situation – they too adopted the Chinese pictures to stand for words despite they fact that their spoken language was very different from any Chinese alphabet.
The Koreans rejected the ancient Chinese picture-character model and adopted a manner of writing out their language via symbols that easily represent the sounds only. This sound-based alphabet is called Hangul.
The use of picture-based symbols for Bible translation is inherently untenable. No wonder that today, the Koreans are predominately Christian – but the Japanese and Chinese are not.
Those printing new Japanese Bible not only need to use the King James Bible as the source, they need to print it exclusively in the phonetic Japanese alphabet.
[to be continued]
Posted on September 11, 2012