Biblical editors. What connotations do you have with that concept? Generally when I think about people messing around with Scripture, I think of it in harsh, critical terms. Editing often means deleting. Deleting Scripture is bad, harmful, lacking trust in God’s wisdom while lauding our own. Tweaking text? Also problematic when considering the Word of God! At the same time, the Bible was assembled into a collection. There were probably ink stains and that says nothing about whether the content was authoritative. But, imagine with me, there was likely at least one original human editor of the Bible!
I’m not even going to add a hardy har har and say it was Jesus.
Did you know that Ezra may have compiled and edited the Psalms? I want to know more about that! And any other copy editors/publishers/librarians tucked away in Scripture! It really turns my earlier concept of biblical editors over on its head in that now I have another reason to give thanks and praise!
I don’t personally want to wonder whether God worked through men’s drafts to get to finalized form, but I’m also surprisingly pleased to think of the “librarians” who took care of the scrolls, those who copied them, and, yes, for the great priest and prophet Ezra and whatever work he did, literary or otherwise, which was clearly to the glory of God and betterment of man.
Biblical editors still work toward translations and study notes. I shouldn’t be hard-hearted against them just because sin is so set to twist, mangle, and corrupt God’s good gifts. Theirs is a tremendous responsibility and burden.
Back to Ezra. One problem with modern biblical scholarship being so loaded down with assumption and hat-tipping to scholarly assumers of the last one hundred years is that a person can hardly know what books to trust. A good editor like Ezra would have caught that and nipped it in the bud.
Anyway, I’m curious about some of that behind-the-scene stuff in Scripture. Let me know if you recommend a book that covers that sort of thing. The Lutheran Bible Companion is on my to read list, but I haven’t made it that far yet.
PS. Have I mentioned that I moved the list of Freelance Writer Support to its own page? I think it’ll be easier to use this way.
