Is it possible to have a rational discussion about Bible versions...

[FireDragon76]

I use the CEB sometimes for scripture readings in sermons, but the "Human One" reference bothers the heck out of me since I also start visualizing various "Star Trek" type scenarios. "Son of Man" may not be much better, but at least it seems to balance out "Son of God" in representing Christ as both fully God and fully human. The CEB seems to be a really good translation and can make scripture clearer for people hearing the readings, but I will change to another version if I am using one of those "Human One" verses, or I will just replace it with "Son of Man" on the fly.

Son of Man is really a reference to Daniel's vision of the Son of Man in heaven (Daniel 7). It's a messianic reference. That's why I have to wonder about folks that think the Synoptics are ambivalent about Jesus divinity and Messiaship. We are just used to thinking about those things in modern, Greek-inspired categories of thought.

BTW, in light of the Trek reference, you might want to watch the Next Generation episode, Darmok (Season 5, Episode 2) and you will get insight into understanding how Jesus communicates within a culture that is so shaped by narrative rather than metaphysics.

 

[bekkilyn]

Probably because it had scholars of many religions that felt that translating 'almah' as "virgin" wasn't being authentic to the original Hebrew text. Some folks really blow a fuse over that one.

I think that sort of objection is picayune, honestly. I don't reject a translation just because it has a few questionable translation choices. I actually think the NRSV and RSV are dubious on some word choices, but they are still very good translations overall.

I can't remember off-hand what translation it was, but your post here reminded me that people apparently got into an uproar because the translation didn't put the word "church" anywhere in the bible and correctly translated the Greek ekklesia as "assembly" (which may or may not have a religious meaning). "Church" actually comes from the German word kirche vs. Greek. So most of the translations since then just go ahead and translate ekklesia as "church" even though it's less accurate than "assembly".

 

[bekkilyn]

Son of Man is really a reference to Daniel's vision of the Son of Man in heaven (Daniel 7). It's a messianic reference. That's why I have to wonder about folks that think the Synoptics are ambivalent about Jesus divinity and Messiaship. We are just used to thinking about those things in modern, Greek-inspired categories of thought.

BTW, in light of the Trek reference, you might want to watch the Next Generation episode, Darmok (Season 5, Episode 2) and you will get insight into understanding how Jesus communicates within a culture that is so shaped by narrative rather than metaphysics.

Is that the one where Picard had to learn this Babylonian-sounding way of speaking...vaguely remember something like "the walls fell" in order to communicate with the race of beings who thought in metaphor, or something like that? That was a good episode, though it's been years since I've seen it! (And it must have been good for me to remember after all this time.)

Yes, the Messianic reference from Daniel is important because it's part of Jesus' demonstration that he was indeed the Messiah.

 

[FireDragon76]

I can't remember off-hand what translation it was, but your post here reminded me that people apparently got into an uproar because the translation didn't put the word "church" anywhere in the bible and correctly translated the Greek ekklesia as "assembly" (which may or may not have a religious meaning). Church actually comes from the German word kirche vs. Greek. So most of the translations since then just go ahead and translate ekklesia as "church" even though it's less accurage than "assembly".

Ecclessia is very similar to the idea of a synagogue or congregation. Assembley sounds a bit too informal, like there's nothing really sacramental happening there. Our church uses the word congregation to refer to the people, and church is better reserved to refer to the building or the national denomination, generally (structures or institutions). The Greek word kyriakos actually means "(temple) pertaining to the Lord" and refers to the building itself, but in time was generalized to refer to the entire institution and people.

Pre-Reformation English people primarily had formal contact with Christianity through that building, keep that in mind before coming down too harshly on the KJV translators choices.

 

[FireDragon76]

Is that the one where Picard had to learn this Babylonian-sounding way of speaking...vaguely remember something like "the walls fell" in order to communicate with the race of beings who thought in metaphor, or something like that? That was a good episode, though it's been years since I've seen it! (And it must have been good for me to remember after all this time.)

Yeah, it was a good pure sci-fi episode, and its consistently ranked as one of the best.

Some time ago I was studying the Preterist vs. Futurist vs. liberal theology debate and I just had a "Eureka!" moment and I realized that it all came together when I thought of that Trek episode. All of those perspectives are missing out on the mindset of a culture shaped by narratives. Jews even today continue to define themselves in terms of narrative rather than metaphysics ("Does God exist?") or other philosophical notions.

 

[bekkilyn]

I think we can get the right meaning of an individual word, by relating it to the overall meaning of God's word. There is always the love meaning; any part of scripture can be used by God, somehow, to help us find out how to be and love.

No matter how educated you are, in Greek and Hebrew and the translations, our character can effect how we interpret any word or scripture. We need how only God can have us getting things right.

Like I say, I think we can learn the overall meaning of God's word, and from this we can correctly understand any translation. Plus >

"you are an epistle of Christ", Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:2-3. I see this can mean we ourselves are Canon Scripture, written by the Holy Spirit in us. We need to read one another, and receive the grace which produces God's deeper-than-words meaning of all He says. How we become, how we love is the correct translation

I find that the New King James is close enough to the earlier King James, plus close enough to various more recent Bibles.

You've brought up an important point since many can get bogged down in all the legalistic stuff (usually when attempting to justify things like slavery, subjection of women, nationalism, etc.) and completely miss the overall message the writer of those passages was attempting to convey, which typically goes right back to loving God and neighbor.

 

[david shelby]

I never gave the HCSB much of a chance, and am not going to now either. But basically the inconsistent use of sometimes saying Yahweh and sometimes Lord for the tetragram in the OT just grated on me, as well as translating Christos as Messiah in the New Testament, which I found annoying. Plus the English seemed stilted to me, much like the NASB.

I did try to give the NASB a chance, but some weird things they did with verb tenses in the New Testament made the English rather artificial, and I always felt the NKJV was much more realistic modern English than the NASB, so I stuck with the NKJV/KJV back then.

The ESV, well it was initially advertised to be the NRSV-killer, to be the NRSV competitor that is free from gender neutral language. But, yeah, it is not at all free of gender neutral language! I feel sorry for all the Baptists that jumped ship from the NIV when the 2011 came out because they were upset that the NIV introduced gender neutral language, and since a bunch of Calvinist celebrities were advertising that the ESV was free of that stuff they switched to it. I wonder if they've figured out yet how bad they were duped. The RSV they used as the base text of the ESV is free from that stuff, ironically. But the ESV has as much as or more than the amount of gender neutral language as the NRSV. Then on top of that it tries to hide it by going back to KJV syntax sometimes. And that just makes it have an inconsistent feel where I'm not sure if its trying to be archaic English or modern English. So I'd rather just stick with the NRSV, which I initially started using simply because it included the Apocrypha (all of it too).

Now, the NRSV has its obvious flaws, the two main ones: Translating Caesar as "the emperor" like the translators or editor thought we are all morons who don't know Caesar was an emperor. And then the other, the gender neutral language in Paul's epistles for "brethren" where they put the phrase "brothers and sisters" (which becomes grating over time) and sometimes "friends" (which reminds me of John Mcain when he was running for President). But it more than makes up for it in the readability and accuracy in the Old Testament, I think. I do find it the most readable in the Old Testament. It provides a faster read than KJV/NKJV/NASB, which I think aids in comprehension; yet slower read than the NIV, which I think aids in retaining what you read.

The NIV is ok, but there are a few places the paraphrasing seems too biased. And then you have the issue of them having changed it so majorly from the 1984 to the 2011 that soured a lot of people against it. The ESV does the same thing though, and people don't notice it, yet I do. The old copy of the ESV I have which is a $6 paperback because I was never too interested in the ESV, has a very different text from the modern ESVs. I don't know how people can make their main translation a translation that changes as often as the ESV. At least the switch from the 1984 NIV to the 2011 was well publicized rather than these secret changes the ESV introduces. So I guess my verdict on the NIV is "At least its better than the ESV." And it is better in the sense that when it changes, you know it changed. But its also better in that its well known that the NIV has a Calvinist bias, and where it does. The ESV, on the other hand, has since the beginning been lauded by all the big Calvinists, yet its not clear where they've hidden the Calvinist bias. Some of the main passages that traditionally have had Calvinist bias (like Psalm 51:5) in other translations, like the NIV, don't in the ESV, which is worrisome, because it makes me think they're waiting for all the hapless non-Calvinists to embrace the translation, and then they're going to spring it on them in a future secret update to the text.

 

[caspianrex]

Heck, even Martin Luther, who was a giant in the early days of vernacular translations of Scripture, indulged in some manipulation of the text to achieve his agenda.
He famously added the word "alone" (allein) to Romans 3:28, so the text read, "So halten wir nun dafür, daß der Mensch gerecht werde ohne des Gesetzes Werke, allein durch den Glauben." (Translation: "Thus we now believe that man is justified without works of the law, only through faith.")

 

[bekkilyn]

Ecclessia is very similar to the idea of a synagogue or congregation. Assembley sounds a bit too informal, like there's nothing really sacramental happening there. Our church uses the word congregation to refer to the people, and church is better reserved to refer to the building or the national denomination, generally (structures or institutions). The Greek word kyriakos actually means "(temple) pertaining to the Lord" and refers to the building itself, but in time was generalized to refer to the entire institution and people.

Pre-Reformation English people primarily had formal contact with Christianity through that building, keep that in mind before coming down too harshly on the KJV translators choices.

Eklessia wasn't any particularly religious or sacramental word back in the day. It could mean a group of Christians (or followers of The Way) gathered together for some worship purpose, or it could also mean a group of Roman citizens gathered together for some political purpose. (Women, children, and slaves of course were forbidden from actively participating by Roman law.)

 

[bekkilyn]

So I'd rather just stick with the NRSV, which I initially started using simply because it included the Apocrypha (all of it too).

This is actually another reason why I tend to prefer the NRSV. Even though I don't consider the Apocryphal writings of primary scriptural authority, I find it useful to have it included.

 

[FireDragon76]

This is actually another reason why I tend to prefer the NRSV. Even though I don't consider the Apocryphal writings of primary scriptural authority, I find it useful to have it included.

I believe our Bibles should have it, for no other reason than Christians in the past frequently read those books. Even Luther eventually got around to translating them into German.

Pastor read from the addition to Daniel on All Saints Day, the passage where Daniel sees the saints gathered because they had died believing in the Son of God. It was very moving, I'd never heard that passage before.

 

[bekkilyn]

I believe our Bibles should have it, for no other reason than Christians in the past frequently read those books. Even Luther eventually got around to translating them into German.

Pastor read from the addition to Daniel on All Saints Day, the passage where Daniel sees the saints gathered because they had died believing in the Son of God. It was very moving, I'd never heard that passage before.

Agreed. And I've seen some passages from them pop up on occasion in the Revised Common Lectionary from time to time. Some of the books also have some historical validity as well which can be helpful in putting various events in context.

 

[Concord1968]

Well, first of all, the NIV and The Message are completely different kinds of translations. The NIV is a dynamic equivalent version, and The Message is a very broad paraphrase. So they don't even share a translation philosophy. I am familiar with many of the accusations against the NIV, most of which are based on conspiracy theories: Alexandrian vs. Byzantine textual traditions, supposed "missing verses" in the NIV, all kinds of stuff that has little or no basis in fact. Finally, "word for word" translation is not possible. If you literally translate original texts word for word, you get an interlinear, which is not the same thing as a translation. All translations involve some adaptation of the original language into a form that is understandable in the target language.

My whole point in the original post was that it seems to be impossible to have a rational discussion of Bible versions, without someone bringing typical KJVO propaganda into the conversation. Which is exactly what has happened. And things had been going so smoothly for a short time...

In fact, a pure "word-for-word" translation would be unreadable.

 

[FireDragon76]

In fact, a pure "word-for-word" translation would be unreadable.

Yes, partly due to the fact that most of the Greek in the NT is bad. Luke and Acts are the only books that actually have good literary Greek. Any Johanine text is downright crude in its language usage.

 

[Concord1968]

...without KJV-Only people trying to hijack the discussion?

It's starting.....

 

[Concord1968]

Here's an example from the King James:
Matthew 27:44 "The thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth."

Now go to the Greek text: There is no cast, no same, and no teeth. It's a straight up dynamic equivalent, thought for thought, Elizabethan English idiom.

 

[Anto9us]

Young's Literal Translation is closest to a word-for-word...
It is not easy reading.

 

[trophy33]

Yes, partly due to the fact that most of the Greek in the NT is bad. Luke and Acts are the only books that actually have good literary Greek. Any Johanine text is downright crude in its language usage.

Its not bad, its just koine (international Greek), not "Greek Greek".

Similar to international English today vs the UK Oxford English.

So, its simplified and with some local (Jewish) elements.

 

[david shelby]

Aside from KJVOs one of the biggest banes of trying to have a discussion on translation is dealing with both testaments at once. A discussion on translation needs to focus on one or the other (after all, two completely different ancient languages are involved). And KJVOs really exacerbate that problem, because most of them think the Textus Receptus encompassed both testaments, or that because modern translations use a different Greek text than the KJV they also use a different Hebrew text. Lots of facepalm stuff. The very first rule to discussing translations should be to pick which testament you want to talk about and stick with it. And the second is that in dealing with the inevitable appearance of the KJVOs, you don't let them start talking about the other testament. Because if we're gonna talk about Old Testament translation, we don't need arguments about the textus receptus versus the nestle-aland coming up as that's not even related. And if we're going to talk about the New Testament, we don't need lists of places that KJVOs think the NIV botched the ages of some kings in 2nd Kings.

 

[FireDragon76]

Its not bad, its just koine (international Greek), not "Greek Greek".

Similar to international English today vs the UK Oxford English.

So, its simplified and with some local (Jewish) elements.

"Simplified" being a nice way to say that sometimes it's so bad it's broken Greek, perhaps. For instance:

Here's an example from the King James:
Matthew 27:44 "The thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth."

Now go to the Greek text: There is no cast, no same, and no teeth. It's a straight up dynamic equivalent, thought for thought, Elizabethan English idiom.