• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Bible - Translation Accuracy

paximperium said:
"O, therefore thou shalt cooketh the sirloin with salt and pepper. Thou art forbidden in pan frying but must cooketh under warm charcoals and only until medium rare thus commandeth the lord."
Click to expand...


Nah, I cannot be bothereth. 'Tis offeth to the temple of Ronald I goeth."


M.
 
Delvo said:
Evangelical people, when talking about religion and not even quoting anything but just expressing themselves, often switch into talking like the KJV. In their minds, it seems to just be what religious speech is supposed to sound like. To them, religious speech is apparently supposed to sound different from the way we talk about other things, so a more direct translation would sound too plain and ordinary.
Click to expand...

Thus the Book of Mormon (reads like written by someone trying to imitate biblical language).

Bart Ehrman (mentioned above) suggests RSV or NRSV as being most accurate...that is, as far as we know & can tell from the multi-generational copies we have of any of the books.
 
Scott Bidstrup gushes about Richard Lattimore's translation of the New Testament. I'm just throwing it out there, I haven't read it nor have I read any scholarly reviews of it (although it's on my book list). Perhaps someone can provide some opinion or insight.
 
Bikewer said:
In his book Misquoting Jesus, author Bart Ehrman goes in some detail into the very many ways that our present idea of The Bible differs from the earliest texts, which in themselves are the product of long oral traditions....
Mistranslation, editing and redaction, deletion and addition...One can go on and on....
Click to expand...

I enjoyed reading Bart Ehrman's book about The New Testament too.

With all the different versions of copied texts so far discovered, it is very difficult to know which ones are closest to the original. He discusses some of the tools scholars use to make their best guess, but they only go so far.

Interestingly, there are some passages that scholars do agree were clearly inserted much later(probably by scribes in charge of copying the texts). Yet despite this, believers still cling to these added passages as "the inspired word of God" and none of the New Testament versions so far discussed has deleted them.

(The ending of Mark is one such example.)
 
Last edited:
Cainkane1 said:
I'm of the opinion that even if the original manuscripts were available it would still be nothing more than superstitious nonsense. What difference would it make?
Click to expand...

How can you say that?:boggled:





Is it because of all the contradictions?

Is it because of the lack of historical evidence (such as Roman records of the alleged events)?

Maybe it is the conversation that makes sense in Greek, but would absolutely make no sense in Aramaic, the language the conversation was alleged to be in.

Or maybe you simply wonder why Jesus didn't return in "a generation" as he clearly was reported to have said he would before his death.

/Sarcasm :)
 
Wildy said:
I'm putting it here because it seems better to. If the mods disagree then put in in the literature section.

Ok some background. When I'm talking about the Bible I like to have a physical copy in front of me. I don't know why I just do. The bible translation that I use is the NRSV.

As far as I know the only real criticism of this version is that the translation loses the literary techniques that appear in the original versions of the OT.

I've been told that the KJV (or NKJV) is more accurate.

I was under the impression that this wasn't true.

Does anyone know whether this is right or not?

And of the two which is the more accurate?
Click to expand...

King James is highly problematic. Lots o' errors.

I haven't gone Bible shopping in some years, but I can do some digging if you'd like.

Our translations get better all the time.

But if you're interested in accuracy, you're going to want a thoroughly annotated edition, because in many cases we have more than one possible translation for a piece of text and we simply don't know which is accurate.

For instance, does Genesis start out "In the beginning God created" or "When God began to create"? It makes a difference. I think the latter is more likely, but the traditional English translation is the former.

In other cases, we just have no idea what a term refers to, such as references to the "people of the land". Who were these guys? We don't know. Maybe never will.
 
Cainkane1 said:
I'm of the opinion that even if the original manuscripts were available it would still be nothing more than superstitious nonsense. What difference would it make?
Click to expand...

It is one of the oldest and most influential texts in the world. That's why it makes a difference.
 
Wildy said:
It's not that I want a bible for a reference, it's that I already have one but I don't really know which one is better from the two mentioned already.
Click to expand...

Use your NRSV.
 
paximperium said:
The NAS is translated by Evangelical Fundamentalists and they are very very anal about their literal reading of the original texts.
Click to expand...

In my experience, EFs are highly unreliable because they tend to consistently interpret any ambiguity to align with their modern beliefs, even if they have to rely on sloppy scholarship. They do not respect the ancient texts.
 
Is there a more literal translation than Young's Literal Translation?

The Bible text designated YLT is from the 1898 Young's Literal Translation by Robert Young who also compiled Young's Analytical Concordance. This is an extremely literal translation that attempts to preserve the tense and word usage as found in the original Greek and Hebrew writings. The text was scanned from a reprint of the 1898 edition as published by Baker Book House, Grand Rapids Michigan. The book is still in print and may be ordered from Baker Book House. Obvious errors in spelling or inconsistent spellings of the same word were corrected in the computer edition of the text.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Gregoire said:
How can you say that?:boggled:
Click to expand...
perhaps because:
  • it starts with a nonsensically superstitious account of the origins of Life, The Universe and Everything
  • it moves on to a nonsensically superstitious account of how all humans are bad (with tips and pointers on how to be bad) and will go to gaol, directly to gaol, without passing GO
  • it then goes on (and on, and on) with a nonsensically superstitious account of how some lucky humans can win a get of gaol free card
  • it wraps up with a nonsensically superstitious account of what getting out of gaol will be like

Wildy said:
I've been told that the KJV (or NKJV) is more accurate
Click to expand...
That's sorta like saying the BBC radio version (with Alan Bennet narrating) is more authentic than the Walt Disney version of Winnie The Pooh because everyone knows that tiggers don't speak with an American accent ;)

triadboy said:
The history of biblical translations is fascinating.
Click to expand...
Indeed

And it can be a great spectator sport watching the wooists argue which version has the most authentic recipe for fruit and nut cake :catfight:

http://www.drbo.org/intro.htm
The Holy Bible Douay-Rheims Version

Pope Damasus assembled the first list of books of the Bible at the Roman Council in 382 A.D. He commissioned St. J*r*m* to translate the original Greek and Hebrew texts into Latin, which became known as the Latin Vulgate Bible and was declared by the Church to be the only authentic and official version, in 1546.

The DR New Testament was first published by the English College at Rheims in 1582 A.D. The DR Old Testament was first published by the English College at Douay in 1609 A.D. The first King James Version was not published until 1611. This online DRV contains all 73 books, including the seven Deutero-Canonical books (erroneously called Apocrypha by Protestants). These seven books were included in the 1611 KJV, but not in later KJV Bibles.

St. J*r*m* considered the seven Deutero-Canonical books to be NOT inspired by God, but he was commissioned by Pope Damasus to translate all 73 books into Latin. Pope Damasus considered the 7 DC books to be inspired by God. Later in 1946, after the finding of the dead-sea scrolls, it was discovered that these 7 DC books were used by the Jews in Alexandria, even in their services. This verifies that Pope Damasus was correct. <snip/>
Click to expand...
yeah, riiiiiiiiiight :rolleyes:

http://www.drbo.org/
http://www.drbo.org/intro.htm
 
Last edited:
six7s said:
And it can be a great spectator sport watching the wooists argue which version has the most authentic recipe for fruit and nut cake
Click to expand...

It depends on your goals.

Legitimate scholars approach the problem in the same way we would approach, say, a translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh, or Egyptian hieroglyphs.

If your goal is to try to understand what the texts were, and what they meant to their readers/hearers/redactors in their own time, then there's nothing wooish about it.

These texts have a lot to tell us about ancient cultures. Studying them is worthwhile.
 
six7s said:
And it can be a great spectator sport watching the wooists argue which version has the most authentic recipe for fruit and nut cake :catfight:

http://www.drbo.org/intro.htm
The Holy Bible Douay-Rheims Version

yeah, riiiiiiiiiight :rolleyes:

http://www.drbo.org/
http://www.drbo.org/intro.htm
Click to expand...


I find it interesting just to see how scholars in another field go about doing their work using reason and logic to figure out which text has the best chance of being closest to the original.

Getting back to Bart Ehrman's book, Misquoting Jesus, I also found it very fascinating to see which passages are thought to be additions and which texts have been thought to be altered by scribes for ideological reasons.

His book Lost Christianities ,which I have not read, goes over some of the questions you raise like how the ancients decided which books were to be part of the canon.
 
Wildy said:
You don't happen to know a place that documents all the errors though?

My searches have always found biased fundie websites.
Click to expand...

Oh, my goodness.... No, I can't think of any single source which would provide a comprehensive list for that question in particular.

I doubt anyone would attempt it, actually, because the KJV, like all translations, has many revisions, and our scholarship is continually improving, so any such list would be highly fluid and would have multiple versions.

If you're going to invest time in searching for a source like that, I'd recommend that instead you invest in a more accurate and fully annotated Bible. Then you could make comparisons on your own, focusing on those passages of interest to you at the time.

Like I said, it's been a few years since I looked into the status of English translations, but I'd be happy to do a little scrounging if you want some recommendations.
 
Kopji said:
"Accurate" does not have the same meaning for all kinds of Christians:

http://www.chick.com/information/bibleversions/

(Note that Jack's explanation assumes that the passage from Psalm is accurate)
Click to expand...

This is all you have to read from that site to know it's ignorant and useless:

The experts want to impress you, so they make it sound complicated. But the bottom line is that there are two different texts from which Bibles are translated, and only one can be correct. Choosing the right one is not the realm of Greek and Hebrew scholars, either.
Click to expand...

In fact, Biblical scholarship is quite complicated, and this business of there being "only two different texts from which Bibles are translated" is simply false.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom