Experience

VIEW:42 DATA:01-04-2020

EXPERIENCE.—This word, which plays so large a part in modern philosophy and religion, occurs 4 times (including ‘experiment’) in EV [Note: English Version.] . Of these instances only one survives in RV [Note: Revised Version.] , viz., Ecc_1:16, where ‘hath had great experience of’ = ‘hath seen much of (wisdom),’ etc. In Gen_30:27 ‘I have learnt by experience’ (= ‘experiment’) becomes ‘I have divined,’ the Heb. vb. being the same as in Gen_44:5; Gen_44:15, Deu_18:10. In Rom_5:4 (RV [Note: Revised Version.] ‘probation’) ‘experience,’ and in 2Co_9:13 (RV [Note: Revised Version.] ‘proving’) ‘experiment.’ was the rendering of a Gr. word borrowed from the assaying of metal, which signified the testing, or test, of personal worth; the same noun appears in AV [Note: Authorized Version.] as ‘trial’ (RV [Note: Revised Version.] ‘proof’) in 2Co_2:9; 2Co_8:2, and ‘proof’ in 2Co_13:3 and Php_2:22. ‘Christian experience,’ in modern phraseology, covers what is spoken of in Scripture as the knowledge of God, of Christ, etc., and as ‘the seal’ or ‘witness (testimony) of the Holy Spirit,’ ‘of our conscience,’ etc., or as peace, assurance, salvation, and the like. Cf. next article.
G. G. Findlay.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909

eks-pē?ri-ens: This word is employed 3 times. In Gen_30:27 the King James Version, Laban says, to Jacob, ?I have learned by experience (the Revised Version (British and American) ?divined?) that Yahweh hath blessed me for thy sake.? Here it translates the Hebrew נהשׁ, nāḥash, ?to observe diligently,? as when one examines the entrails of a bird or animal for the purpose of divination.
In Ecc_1:16, the writer says, ?I have gotten me great wisdom ....; my heart hath had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.? Here the Hebrew (rā'āh) means ?hath seen abundantly,? and the idea seems to be that of a wide outlook combined with actual trial of the things discovered or known.
In Rom_5:4 the King James Version, the Greek word δοκιμή, dokimḗ (the American Standard Revised Version more correctly ?approvedness?), means the proof or testing of a thing. We rejoice in tribulation because it works out or produces patience, while the latter develops an experience of God, i.e. it brings out as a proved fact His power and love toward us in our preservation in and deliverance from trial.
Thus it is seen the Bible use of the word is not different from the ordinary, which means ?the sum of practical wisdom taught by the events and observations of life,? or, to go a little farther, the personal and practical acquaintance with what is so taught. Heb_5:13 gives a good practical example. the King James Version says, ?Every one that useth milk is unskillful (ápeiros) in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe,? while the Revised Version (British and American) renders ?unskilful? by ?without experience of.? The thought is that he who fails to search out the deep things of the word of God is so lacking in the exercise of his spiritual senses as to be unable really to know truth from error.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.

Experience
(δοκιμή, Rom_5:4, "proof," as elsewhere rendered), approval of integrity as the result of trial. " The three stages of ὑπομονή, endurance, δοκιμή, approval, and ἐλπίς, hope, are considered by the apostle as proceeding from the sufferings; the first denoting the state of moral earnestness implied in patient and faithful endurance, the second that state of approval as genuine which thence results, and bears within it hope as its blossom" (Olshausen, Comment. in loc.).

CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.

FACEBOOK

Participe de nossa rede facebook.com/osreformadoresdasaude

Novidades, e respostas das perguntas de nossos colaboradores