Missing verses, Added words, and missing words from Modern Translations

[createdtoworship]

I like word for word translations. They are rarer than they should be. That is because greek is ancient and english is evolving into user friendly words. So more and more translations are going for a readability type of scripture. Thought for thought or paraphrase. I don't at that point think they should retain the world "translation" in their title anymore. I believe all thought for thought versions or paraphrases should all be categorized as paraphrases. I personally believe only the accurate english translations to the greek and hebrew should be categorized as translations. These are called "word for word" translations, versus "thought for thought" or dynamic equivalent. Word counts don't really show what I am talking about, mainly due to the fact the alexandrian removes over 200 verses, so that is thousands of words. Not to mention some fraud allegations over those missing verses (sinaiticus and vaticanus fraud allegations). So you can't see the sheer number of word additions in modern translations. I picked a random text, this test can be done on any new testament text, I just picked the first seven verses of the New Testament, just to show us. I picked at random. Anyway you can clearly see as far as accuracy between the NLT and the KJV, that the KJV is WAY more faithful to the greek. But you can only see this in an interlinear. And it's funny because you can't even find an NIV interlinear online, because that would be ten times worse, I was comparing a modern "literal translation" with the KJV translation just to do an experiment, and the results were exactly what I would expect. Over ten times the added wordage in the NLT and over forty percent more exclusions of words that are actually there in the greek, but not in the english (most likely there is no english equivalent), so it's the added words that are key here. But both are very telling... (many say that no doctrine is affected in picking various translations so this topic is not very important). However to those people I would like to mention that 1 John 5:7-9 in the majority of texts says "the three are one" referring to the trinity. That phrase is missing from NIV, ESV, NASB, NLT and many other modern translations. What does this matter? Because you can prove the three in one in the Bible, that is true, but you must use a chain reference, which is not really as effective as using a sole verse from a sole book. Lastly when you are chain referencing the trinity it is possible to misunderstand the trinity.....common misconceptions include that Jesus was Gods' son, not God himself. Other misconceptions are that the holy spirit is a force of God, not God the Holy Spirit. So this sole verse in 1 John proves the three are one. And I argue that without that verse, it is impossible to prove the trinity objectively. So yes doctrine is affected by which version you use. And lastly, I just thought I would mention this in passing, but to me this is also very important. In this world there are demonic possessions. Some possessions involve many demons, others involve higher ranking demonic forces. Jesus says "this kind does not come out accept by fasting and praying" This topic is repeated three times in the new testament to fast for the purpose of having an effective deliverance of a person from demonic possession, yet all three verses are removed from modern translations and are part of the 200 missing verses. So not only is the trinity missing from modern translations, basic principles of combating spiritual warfare are also missing.

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(note KJV only posts are considered off topic) Either the mentioning that KJV is the only word of God, or attacking KJV onlyism, there is another thread open for that topic here:
The KJVO myth...

If this thread gets too far off topic, get's too heated, or can't maintain orderly, I will be forced to ask moderators to close the thread. Lets keep things polite, courteous, and remember we are all saved. I know this can be extremely emotional to talk about our beloved Bibles we had since kindergarten from our great grandmother. But we are all adults here and I am very open minded to any rebuttals to this that you have. Also I am not saying paraphrases cannot be used for Bible study, I use several paraphrases in Bible study with my son. There is a reason for paraphrase. In fact the living Bible was created from the KJV, when a scholar wanted a more readable translation for His son, but he knew it was only a paraphrase. See paraphrases and english translations should never be called "Holy." And only translations should have the title "Bible." if you have a paraphrase it should be called "a paraphrase of the Bible." Which is on par with a commentary, or Bible notes, or Bible outlines. It has no accuracy because it's not intended as such. But lets be honest about what is accurate and what is not.

lastly, if anyone wants to know which Bible I use, I use the NKJV but there are many majority text translation projects out there. There are probably twenty different KJV variations, from children KJV, to paraphrases to whatever, so I am really as far from KJV only as you can get.

 

[SkyWriting]

I like word for word translations. They are rarer than they should be.

The languages are logically structured differently.

In the scriptures we discover a difference in the way the Hebrew mind viewed things compared to the way many Westerners relate to God. Hebrews used something called Block Logic. That is, concepts were expressed in self-contained units or blocks of thought. These blocks did not necessarily fit together in any obvious rational or harmonious pattern.

Greek logic, which has influenced the Western world, was different. The Greeks often used tightly contained step logic which reason a premise to a conclusion, each step linked tightly to the next in coherent, rational, logical fashion.

This is why some Bible stories don’t make sense to the western mind.

Block Logic – Today God Is First

 

[createdtoworship]

The languages are logically structured differently.

In the scriptures we discover a difference in the way the Hebrew mind viewed things compared to the way many Westerners relate to God. Hebrews used something called Block Logic. That is, concepts were expressed in self-contained units or blocks of thought. These blocks did not necessarily fit together in any obvious rational or harmonious pattern.

Greek logic, which has influenced the Western world, was different. The Greeks often used tightly contained step logic which reason a premise to a conclusion, each step linked tightly to the next in coherent, rational, logical fashion.

This is why some Bible stories don’t make sense to the western mind.

Block Logic – Today God Is First

I am not interested in block logic. I am interested in if the english words, match the words in the original. See no english translation is inspired. Only the greek and hebrew of the original translation. Which we dont' have. So there literally is no Holy Bible in possession today. We can only replicate the original as best as we can. As far as I can tell, what your saying is just a way to excuse the NIV's sloppy thought for thought translations. If you wish to further talk about block logic, either create a study yourself, doing your own homework on it, or post from an official seminary work on this, from a reputible scholar that has a name for himself. There are plenty out there with your view point so that should not be hard for you. But i doubt you will. But yeah I am not interested in block logic that some random forum says is an issue. I literally posted pictures proving at least in the new testament how new translations add over ten times the amount of verses to the text for clarity. But those words God did not think needed to be added for clarity, so why would we think so?

 

[SkyWriting]

I am not interested in block logic. I am interested in if the english words, match the words in the original. See no english translation is inspired. Only the greek and hebrew of the original translation. Which we dont' have. So there literally is no Holy Bible in possession today. We can only replicate the original as best as we can. As far as I can tell, what your saying is just a way to excuse the NIV's sloppy thought for thought translations. If you wish to further talk about block logic, either create a study yourself, doing your own homework on it, or post from an official seminary work on this, from a reputible scholar that has a name for himself. There are plenty out there with your view point so that should not be hard for you. But i doubt you will. But yeah I am not interested in block logic that some random forum says is an issue. I literally posted pictures proving at least in the new testament how new translations add over ten times the amount of verses to the text for clarity. But those words God did not think needed to be added for clarity, so why would we think so?

Because English is a very sloppy language slapped together from a number of sources. English gets new words added regularly. Only read Greek and Hebrew if you want Greek and Hebrew to read. And don't complain about english translations.

 

[SkyWriting]

I am not interested in block logic. I am interested in if the english words, match the words in the original.

They don't match. They are different languages. Lets take "Love" for example.
You love, show love, or make love to:
Pizza
a Car
your mom
your sister
a prostitute
a stranger in the ditch in need.

Those are each different thought patterns but they all use one word.
I needed 7 words to describe the last one.

 

[createdtoworship]

Because English is a very sloppy language slapped together from a number of sources. English gets new words added regularly. Only read Greek and Hebrew if you want Greek and Hebrew to read. And don't complain about english translations.

sources sir, sources. I am sorry if I don't believe everything that is told to me on the internet.

 

[createdtoworship]

They don't match. They are different languages. Lets take "Love" for example.
You love, show love, or make love to:
Pizza
a Car
your mom
your sister
a prostitute
a stranger in the ditch in need.

Those are each different thought patterns but they all use one word.
I needed 7 words to describe the last one.

in greek there are four words for love, in english there is one word, yet in every case above the actual word for love, is one word in each occasion, so you prove my point.

 

[SkyWriting]

in greek there are four words for love, in english there is one word, yet in every case above the actual word for love, is one word in each occasion, so you prove my point.

Greek is very specific, so read greek directly. Hebrew is not the same.
And it's likely that Jesus only spoke Aramaic, which we have no direct copies of.
So all of Jesus words are already translated once. And those, most likely from word of mouth communications.

 

[createdtoworship]

Greek is very specific, so read greek directly. Hebrew is not the same.
And it's likely that Jesus only spoke Aramaic, which we have no direct copies of.

again you are proving my point. you brought up love for instance. You have greek words for love like agape, or eros, or phileo, or starge. Yes there are various versions of love, BUT when ever love is in the scripture, it's ONE word. For instance.....greek will say "agape" in the english it will say "love". It's a one for one ratio. So I am simply talking about added wordage. For instance in the NIV for example it may say "extremely passionate" instead of love. So it added a word (fifty percent added wordage), a more literal translation would say "love' . So does that make sense?

 

[JackRT]

Because English is a very sloppy language slapped together from a number of sources. English gets new words added regularly. Only read Greek and Hebrew if you want Greek and Hebrew to read. And don't complain about english translations.

I have seen a word-for-word translation that even preserved the same word order. Great blocks of it were virtually inintelligible.

 

[createdtoworship]

I have seen a word-for-word translation that even preserved the same word order. Great blocks of it were virtually inintelligible.

yeah all interlinears are like that. I put up pictures of them. Yeah you don't use the greek section of an interlinear for Bible study, it's just a way to look up greek words. But what I am talking about is for example saying "extreme passion" instead of "love" you are adding twice the words. In revelation is literally says that if you add words to the Bible God will add curses to you.

 

[Aussie Pete]

I like word for word translations. They are rarer than they should be. That is because greek is ancient and english is evolving into user friendly words. So more and more translations are going for a readability type of scripture. Thought for thought or paraphrase. I don't at that point think they should retain the world "translation" in their title anymore. I believe all thought for thought versions or paraphrases should all be categorized as paraphrases. I personally believe only the accurate english translations to the greek and hebrew should be categorized as translations. These are called "word for word" translations, versus "thought for thought" or dynamic equivalent. Word counts don't really show what I am talking about, mainly due to the fact the alexandrian removes over 200 verses, so that is thousands of words. Not to mention some fraud allegations over those missing verses (sinaiticus and vaticanus fraud allegations). So you can't see the sheer number of word additions in modern translations. I picked a random text, this test can be done on any new testament text, I just picked the first seven verses of the New Testament, just to show us. I picked at random. Anyway you can clearly see as far as accuracy between the NLT and the KJV, that the KJV is WAY more faithful to the greek. But you can only see this in an interlinear. And it's funny because you can't even find an NIV interlinear online, because that would be ten times worse, I was comparing a modern "literal translation" with the KJV translation just to do an experiment, and the results were exactly what I would expect. Over ten times the added wordage in the NLT and over forty percent more exclusions of words that are actually there in the greek, but not in the english (most likely there is no english equivalent), so it's the added words that are key here. But both are very telling... (many say that no doctrine is affected in picking various translations so this topic is not very important). However to those people I would like to mention that 1 John 5:7-9 in the majority of texts says "the three are one" referring to the trinity. That phrase is missing from NIV, ESV, NASB, NLT and many other modern translations. What does this matter? Because you can prove the three in one in the Bible, that is true, but you must use a chain reference, which is not really as effective as using a sole verse from a sole book. Lastly when you are chain referencing the trinity it is possible to misunderstand the trinity.....common misconceptions include that Jesus was Gods' son, not God himself. Other misconceptions are that the holy spirit is a force of God, not God the Holy Spirit. So this sole verse in 1 John proves the three are one. And I argue that without that verse, it is impossible to prove the trinity objectively. So yes doctrine is affected by which version you use. And lastly, I just thought I would mention this in passing, but to me this is also very important. In this world there are demonic possessions. Some possessions involve many demons, others involve higher ranking demonic forces. Jesus says "this kind does not come out accept by fasting and praying" This topic is repeated three times in the new testament to fast for the purpose of having an effective deliverance of a person from demonic possession, yet all three verses are removed from modern translations and are part of the 200 missing verses. So not only is the trinity missing from modern translations, basic principles of combating spiritual warfare are also missing.

(click to enlarge)​

View attachment 271725

(click to enlarge)​

View attachment 271726

(note KJV only posts are considered off topic) Either the mentioning that KJV is the only word of God, or attacking KJV onlyism, there is another thread open for that topic here:
The KJVO myth...

If this thread gets too far off topic, get's too heated, or can't maintain orderly, I will be forced to ask moderators to close the thread. Lets keep things polite, courteous, and remember we are all saved. I know this can be extremely emotional to talk about our beloved Bibles we had since kindergarten from our great grandmother. But we are all adults here and I am very open minded to any rebuttals to this that you have. Also I am not saying paraphrases cannot be used for Bible study, I use several paraphrases in Bible study with my son. There is a reason for paraphrase. In fact the living Bible was created from the KJV, when a scholar wanted a more readable translation for His son, but he knew it was only a paraphrase. See paraphrases and english translations should never be called "Holy." And only translations should have the title "Bible." if you have a paraphrase it should be called "a paraphrase of the Bible." Which is on par with a commentary, or Bible notes, or Bible outlines. It has no accuracy because it's not intended as such. But lets be honest about what is accurate and what is not.

lastly, if anyone wants to know which Bible I use, I use the NKJV but there are many majority text translation projects out there. There are probably twenty different KJV variations, from children KJV, to paraphrases to whatever, so I am really as far from KJV only as you can get.

It's not easy. I use Bible Hub. They have most versions except the amplified. I have an amplified which is OK for me.

One thing for sure is that we need the Holy Spirit to teach us what the Bible says and what it means. I bought a Greek dictionary, but it is frustrating. The author tries give the sense of what a classical Greek speaker would have taken it to mean. Nice idea but that means an interpretation, not a translation. So it can be difficult at times to get to the real meaning.

I've been greatly helped by the writings of Watchman Nee. He was amazing, a preacher, teacher, apostle and scholar. There are few like him.

 

[solid_core]

Word for word translation does not work, it will fail miserably in for example idioms:

In Czech, we say "Měl jsem kliku", which, translated word for word to English, is: "had am pull".

When we translate it thought for thought, we get the right translation: "I was lucky". But none of these words is actually in the original.

 

[PloverWing]

@createdtoworship :

You've spoken to two different issues here: 1) the difficulty of translation, and 2) the difficulty of selecting manuscripts.

On 1: As solid_core has pointed out, translating one language into another is not a trivial task. Languages don't map to each other word-for-word. Many individual words do translate directly across languages, but there can be big differences in word order within sentences, how articles are used, whether nouns have endings that indicate their role in the sentence, and so on. For example, a number of the places you've circled to indicate that the English has omitted a word from the Greek are places where English and Greek use articles differently. The Greek is saying "the Isaac", "the Jacob", etc., but English doesn't normally use articles in front of proper names, so the English translators have omitted the articles: "Isaac", "Jacob". If it were a different kind of text -- not merely a list of names -- we'd run into the word order issue. English mostly uses word order to indicate the subjects and objects of sentences, and English tends to use prepositions to indicate indirect objects. (Compare "Jane brought the dog to Bob" with "The dog brought Jane to Bob".) Greek mostly uses noun endings to indicate subjects, objects, and indirect objects, and thus does not need to use word order in the same way English does.

Think about your experiences learning foreign languages in high school, and your interactions with your friends who are non-native English speakers. When I was learning French, I was forever messing up the genders of nouns, because most English words aren't gendered, so genders in French aren't intuitive to me at all. My Ukrainian colleague at work is forever forgetting to put "the" in his sentences, because his native language doesn't use articles as often as English does, so I assume English "the" is weird to him the way French genders are to me.

All this to say: If exact understanding of the Greek and Hebrew texts is important, we need to learn Greek and Hebrew. There are textbooks, and there are college courses. English translations and interlinears, even the best ones, will only ever be an approximation of the original.

2) The difficulty of selecting manuscripts is a different question, and it is a field of study in itself. That's the issue with some of the "missing" verses you mention. Some manuscripts include the sentences/phrases, and other manuscripts omit them. Scholars differ on which manuscripts are the most trustworthy.

 

[GreekOrthodox]

Plover and Solid_core are very correct. It isnt only choosing a one-for-one word, which may not exist, but which word do you chose if there multiple ways to translate it. The Greek ending of the Lord's Prayer is ΑΛΛΑ ΡΥΣΑΙ ΗΜΑΣ ΑΠΟ ΤΟΥ ΠΟΝΗΡΟΥ. Lets focus just on the last phrase "ΑΠΟ ΤΟΥ ΠΟΝΗΡΟΥ." Transliterated "apo tou ponhrou".

Normally this is translated as "from evil". "Apo" is the genitive case of "from". However, tou ponhrou, contains the genitive article "tou", "the". So now we have "From the". Ponhrou, is evil, but with the genitive case, it would be best translated as "evil one". So we could translate this as "from the evil" making "evil" a generic evil, OR (as we did at the Greek Orthodox seminary), translate it as "from the evil one" making "evil" more equivalent to Satan. This makes a major change how the Lord's prayer impacts our approach to what Christ is telling us. "...but deliver us from evil" or "deliver us from the evil one".

 

[GreekOrthodox]

Because English is a very sloppy language slapped together from a number of sources. English gets new words added regularly. Only read Greek and Hebrew if you want Greek and Hebrew to read. And don't complain about english translations.

 

[1watchman]

After all is considered here, people are going to continue with what they prefer to read (and thus hold as true) ---would you say? I value the KJV as having been studied over 300-400 years, and will continue to make that my general reading; however, I use sound comparative study editions of KJV ---such to see corrections in the margins and commentaries on words that have been introduced in verses noted. All writings have errors, for man makes mistakes and has preferences too.

There are several such Bible editions that show this which are obtainable at Bible Truth Publishers, Addison, IL. if one is interested.

 

[GreekOrthodox]

Go out and start learning the Greek! One, you'll appreciate the difficulties of translation (not only the Bible but other works). Two, when you do read in your native language, you'll know where the translators had to pick the best way to say something vs. what the author wrote.

 

[createdtoworship]

It's not easy. I use Bible Hub. They have most versions except the amplified. I have an amplified which is OK for me.

One thing for sure is that we need the Holy Spirit to teach us what the Bible says and what it means. I bought a Greek dictionary, but it is frustrating. The author tries give the sense of what a classical Greek speaker would have taken it to mean. Nice idea but that means an interpretation, not a translation. So it can be difficult at times to get to the real meaning.

I've been greatly helped by the writings of Watchman Nee. He was amazing, a preacher, teacher, apostle and scholar. There are few like him.

You might enjoy wuests word studies. I am not sure what manuscript family he uses but he has some interesting greek tools. As opposed to a Greek NT. I also use zodhiates KJV new testament study, and old testament and dictionaries very high quality.

 

[createdtoworship]

Word for word translation does not work, it will fail miserably in for example idioms:

In Czech, we say "Měl jsem kliku", which, translated word for word to English, is: "had am pull".

When we translate it thought for thought, we get the right translation: "I was lucky". But none of these words is actually in the original.

Who cares about idioms and poems I want thE doctrines all there, especially pivotal ones like the trinity.