Bible versions

[MKJ]

What do they say "a little Greek is dangerous".

But not as dangerous as a big Greek.

 

[James Is Back]

But not as dangerous as a big Greek.

Reminds me of a joke I heard when someone asked someone "do you know a little Greek" the person responded "yeah he's my tailor"

 

[Thekla]

Reminds me of a joke I heard when someone asked someone "do you know a little Greek" the person responded "yeah he's my tailor"

Well, my great grandmother was 4'5 ... but we've gotten a bit taller each generation

 

[~Anastasia~]

Reminds me of a joke I heard when someone asked someone "do you know a little Greek" the person responded "yeah he's my tailor"

Awww, I know a bunch of little Greeks, and love them dearly! And I know a few big Greeks too, LOL!

Truly - I love Bible study at my Church. It's amazingly eye-opening at times to have people who have a much better understanding of the original language explain things that I never would have caught, probably not even if I learned it well enough to converse, read, and write in it. These little nuggets that don't seem to appear anywhere in all my reading so far. But sometimes they are precious!

Well, my great grandmother was 4'5 ... but we've gotten a bit taller each generation

LOL! I think my Nouna is not quite that tall. Not many people I have to bend over so far to hug.

 

[roman2819]

MKJ and Kylissa you are right on both counts >>

It's not just "what could this word mean" but "how did people in the X century think.. ..Translation is much more complicated than looking at a dictionary. …….A real ancient language dictionary is huge, it talks about many different ways of using the words, their different contexts, how they changed over time, how different writers used them in different ways.

And Kylissa was saying >> "Just the experience of studying Japanese with native speakers will underscore how much culture affects language and understanding, and that is only within a completely MODERN context. ......... one quickly realizes that books are inadequate for easily transmitting everything one needs to know....."

Trying to appreciate how people back then think when they read the Bible will really help us now to understand the Scripture.

Essentially this is one of the salient points in my book “Understanding Prayer, Faith and God’s will”, 2nd edition. At the start of the book I explain that reading the Bible (or any book) is not just about reading words only, but rather, about understanding what the apostles are trying to tell us. And what Jesus was trying to tell us about prayer. Too often we look too closely at the words, miss the point and puzzled at why prayers don't work in the way we (mis)interpret.

Word study (in Greek, Hebrew or English) cannot supersede context. Before one starts to use concordance to look up Greek or Hebrew meanings, we should always seek out the context of the passage first. Instead, too often we focus on the words first w/o seeing the context, which is like looking at the trees before you see the forest. But if we take effort (and i must say lots of effort) to figure out context first, we will come to see or appreciate what Jesus or the apostles were saying. When you understand the context, then Greek word-study becomes a supplement.

For example, take the word “predestination” in Ephesians, Romans or Peter. If you look up the word in Greek w/o seeing the context, you are no closer to understanding it, and u will still puzzled whether God predestine or choose who to be saved. But if you see the context in Ephesians 1 (by careful readng) you will realize what predestination means.

As Kylissa was implying, from our modern perspective, many of us do not appreciate that the Bible was written in a manner that asserts God's sovereignty. That was the ancient manner or culture of writing back then, and the word "chosen" does not mean that God literaly chooses who to redeem. Instead it is a humble way of saying that we are not worthy to be chosen because we are sinful, and it is by His grace that we are redeemed. Even though one consciously made the choice to confess our sins, he or she still owe it to God's grace, to begin with, thats the point. Unless we know that this is the way of writing, any word study in Greek/Hebrew won't help because we will still look at "chosen" or "destined" as a word only, and miss the connotation behind it.

 

[MoreCoffee]

I noticed one post remarked that the New American Bible Revised Edition was undesirable because it allegedly insulted one's intelligence. I use the NAB(RE) occasionally and can't say I've noticed that. Would the poster please explain and supply an example or two?

Cheers chaps

 

[ViaCrucis]

The translators of English bibles are, generally speaking, expert in the languages they are translating from and have a good command of English so when they choose a particular English word in a passage there are likely to be excellent reasons for their choice and one ought not to use a lexicon to "prove" they were wrong on some significant exegetical point. This "proof" lexicography appears to be a common error in on-line discussions about doctrine and holy scripture. One ought to be very cautious about accepting argument by lexicon.

While I tend to agree that, as a general principle, we can rely on the expertise and scholarship of those who translate the Scriptures for us. I think it is also wise to understand that translations will, by their very nature, be biased toward the views of the translators.

For example I've found it interesting that while, for example, the quite archaic KJV renders Romans 5:9 as follows:

"Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him."

Most modern translations instead read:

"Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him!" - NIV

"And since we have been made right in God's sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God's condemnation." - NLT

"Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God." - ESV

"Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him." - NASB

"Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God." - NRSV

And this isn't a case of differences in source text, the Received Text, GNT Morph, and Westcott-Hort say the same thing:

πολλω ουν μαλλον δικαιωθεντες νυν εν τω αιματι αυτου σωθησομεθα δι αυτου απο της οργης (Westcott-Hort)

πολλῷ οὖν μᾶλλον δικαιωθέντες νῦν ἐν τῷ αἵματι αὐτοῦ σωθησόμεθα δι᾽ αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ τῆς ὀργῆς (Received Text)

πολλῷ οὖν μᾶλλον δικαιωθέντες νῦν ἐν τῷ αἵματι αὐτοῦ σωθησόμεθα δι’ αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ τῆς ὀργῆς (GNT Morph)

So while the Greek text says "the wrath", and many older translations (and a few not so modern ones) retain this rather straightforwardly (the KJV, NKJV, the Douay-Rheims, and HCSB), many have added "of God".

I'm not a scholar, and as such I'm probably not fit to challenge anything; but I do count it interesting that this is done.

It's worth asking I think whether this changes the meaning of the text. In most Protestant circles maybe, maybe not; as in many Protestant circles the doctrine of Penal Substitution is either very popular or is regarded as de facto orthodoxy; and as such Christ by taking on God's wrath at the Cross becomes our substitute enduring the judgment and wrath which was due to us. In this case "the wrath" could only mean "God's wrath" here.

Is this an example of theological bias influencing translation? Again, I think it's a valid question. Is this a text that does support Penal Substitution and thus speaks of Christ rescuing us from God's anger, or is that being subtly added into the text by translator bias?

Then again, it may simply be that I don't agree with Penal Substitution that I would regard this worth challenging at all.

Having said all that I would defer to my earlier comment that I'm not a scholar, I have no expertise, maybe I don't have any grounds to challenge anything here.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Biblicist]

Yes, this is my point. I am telling you that even with a full dictionary, if you do not have expertise in the language, it will not be very useful to you, because you won't be able to make a reasonable judgement about which approach to use.

Using a little lexicon doesn't solve that problem, it makes it worse - you aren't even getting the back-ground information about why one choice might be appropriate for your situation and another not.

The BAGD, “a little lexicon”; okay, that would definitely be the first time that the primary Greek lexicon has ever been called “little”.

This discussion certainly intrigues me as I am at a loss to understand how little people seem to know about serious Bible study. People are concentrating either on dictionaries or lexicons but from what I can tell there seems to be a complete lack of awareness (at least from what I am reading so far) regarding the better NT commentaries that have been produced over the past 25 years.

As I mentioned previously, as with many others, my world of study is within the framework of the better known academics of our day where they would expect the average reader to understand what they are discussing regarding a particular passage; they would not accept that the average reader would be unable to make a reasoned opinion on the material that they have provided them with. I would have few qualms with sitting down with the best theologians at least within the Books of Acts and Corinthians were I would be well able to discuss some of the difficult passages within these two books in particular.

Word study (in Greek, Hebrew or English) cannot supersede context. Before one starts to use concordance to look up Greek or Hebrew meanings, we should always seek out the context of the passage first. Instead, too often we focus on the words first w/o seeing the context, which is like looking at the trees before you see the forest. But if we take effort (and i must say lots of effort) to figure out context first, we will come to see or appreciate what Jesus or the apostles were saying. When you understand the context, then Greek word-study becomes a supplement.

For example, take the word “predestination” in Ephesians, Romans or Peter. If you look up the word in Greek w/o seeing the context, you are no closer to understanding it, and u will still puzzled whether God predestine or choose who to be saved. But if you see the context in Ephesians 1 (by careful readng) you will realize what predestination means.

It seems that you are following on from my earlier point (Post #42 & #44) where I have already used the work 'pneumatikos' in 1Cor 12:1 where I explained that a lexicon is of limited value as the application of the word 'pneumatikos' needs to be defined by the passages that follow on from it.

Then there's the next two verses in 1Cor 12:1-2 where the only workable solution to this passage has come from within the field of archaeology. Maybe it's the nature of forums in that people seem to fail to connect the dots but I have mentioned on a number of occasions that we cannot simply rely on our lexicons, dictionaries and concordances but we must always refer to the better contemporary commentaries - this is simply Study-101.

 

[Biblicist]

It's still 'academic', not living. Recent studies have confirmed the theory that language shapes the brain, so to speak, even affecting our ability to see particular colors. The academic recovery of a lost language is no substitute for the living, and traditioned knowledge of a language. Else learning French as an adult would make you French, as French as anyone who was born and grew up French.

Here’s where I would certainly disagree with you as we have gained an incredible amount of information from the various academic persuasions regarding not only the semantic range of the words contained within the Greek text, but we have gained a wealth of information regarding the social makeup of some of these cultures, particularly with that of Corinth. We can add to this the greater awareness that many contemporary scholars have with Paul’s writings which have come from within the new science of socio-rhetorical studies.

It could be that as I understand that you tend to focus on the material from the early churchmen, if this is the case then you would understandably be missing out on the far more detailed material that has been produced by scholars such as Carson, Fee, Grudem, Keener, Thiselton, Winters and Witherington along with a host of others as these men will be able to provide far more indepth and scholarly information that has been based on recent advances with Biblical studies than the early churchmen could ever hope to provide.

 

[MoreCoffee]

While I tend to agree that, as a general principle, we can rely on the expertise and scholarship of those who translate the Scriptures for us. I think it is also wise to understand that translations will, by their very nature, be biased toward the views of the translators.

For example I've found it interesting that while, for example, the quite archaic KJV renders Romans 5:9 as follows:

"Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him."

Most modern translations instead read:

"Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him!" - NIV

"And since we have been made right in God's sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God's condemnation." - NLT

"Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God." - ESV

"Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him." - NASB

"Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God." - NRSV

And this isn't a case of differences in source text, the Received Text, GNT Morph, and Westcott-Hort say the same thing:

πολλω ουν μαλλον δικαιωθεντες νυν εν τω αιματι αυτου σωθησομεθα δι αυτου απο της οργης (Westcott-Hort)

πολλῷ οὖν μᾶλλον δικαιωθέντες νῦν ἐν τῷ αἵματι αὐτοῦ σωθησόμεθα δι᾽ αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ τῆς ὀργῆς (Received Text)

πολλῷ οὖν μᾶλλον δικαιωθέντες νῦν ἐν τῷ αἵματι αὐτοῦ σωθησόμεθα δι’ αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ τῆς ὀργῆς (GNT Morph)

So while the Greek text says "the wrath", and many older translations (and a few not so modern ones) retain this rather straightforwardly (the KJV, NKJV, the Douay-Rheims, and HCSB), many have added "of God".

I'm not a scholar, and as such I'm probably not fit to challenge anything; but I do count it interesting that this is done.

It's worth asking I think whether this changes the meaning of the text. In most Protestant circles maybe, maybe not; as in many Protestant circles the doctrine of Penal Substitution is either very popular or is regarded as de facto orthodoxy; and as such Christ by taking on God's wrath at the Cross becomes our substitute enduring the judgment and wrath which was due to us. In this case "the wrath" could only mean "God's wrath" here.

Is this an example of theological bias influencing translation? Again, I think it's a valid question. Is this a text that does support Penal Substitution and thus speaks of Christ rescuing us from God's anger, or is that being subtly added into the text by translator bias?

Then again, it may simply be that I don't agree with Penal Substitution that I would regard this worth challenging at all.

Having said all that I would defer to my earlier comment that I'm not a scholar, I have no expertise, maybe I don't have any grounds to challenge anything here.

-CryptoLutheran

The NAB says

Romans 5:9 NAB How much more then, since we are now justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath.
​

 

[High Fidelity]

I will hopefully have an NIV & NASB on the way by the end of the day so I look forward to giving my feedback on those too.

NIV is the version my girlfriend uses so I wanted one for study with her and I heard the NASB was a good translation, so giving it a whirl.

 

[Biblicist]

While I tend to agree that, as a general principle, we can rely on the expertise and scholarship of those who translate the Scriptures for us. I think it is also wise to understand that translations will, by their very nature, be biased toward the views of the translators.

Yes, translation committees are rarely harmonious where there will often be a lot of strong dissension over certain passages where debate can certainly be vigorous and even heated.

Translators not only have to contend with the often numerous lexical choices that encase some words but they also need to be mindful that they need to be reasonably careful with their choice of words as there are many which are almost deemed to be sacrosanct, so even when the translators may want to use a certain word, the senior editorial panels may choose to override a choice that the translators have made.

There will be those times when the translation committees will often make a 'calculated guess' as to what a certain word or phrase might mean. After the committee has finalised their task, we often find some of these same translators making comment within a new commentary or journal article where they will discuss the problems that the committee faced with a specific word. This is why there is often little value in checking out a number of versions on a particular passage as they will often either take the safe line of approach or even when a version takes the right (or better) choice we can only find this out from the lexicons or preferably from within a contemporary commentary on the book in question.

 

[MoreCoffee]

While I tend to agree that, as a general principle, we can rely on the expertise and scholarship of those who translate the Scriptures for us. I think it is also wise to understand that translations will, by their very nature, be biased toward the views of the translators.

For example I've found it interesting that while, for example, the quite archaic KJV renders Romans 5:9 as follows:

...

So while the Greek text says "the wrath", and many older translations (and a few not so modern ones) retain this rather straightforwardly (the KJV, NKJV, the Douay-Rheims, and HCSB), many have added "of God".

I'm not a scholar, and as such I'm probably not fit to challenge anything; but I do count it interesting that this is done.

It's worth asking I think whether this changes the meaning of the text. In most Protestant circles maybe, maybe not; as in many Protestant circles the doctrine of Penal Substitution is either very popular or is regarded as de facto orthodoxy; and as such Christ by taking on God's wrath at the Cross becomes our substitute enduring the judgment and wrath which was due to us. In this case "the wrath" could only mean "God's wrath" here.

Is this an example of theological bias influencing translation? Again, I think it's a valid question. Is this a text that does support Penal Substitution and thus speaks of Christ rescuing us from God's anger, or is that being subtly added into the text by translator bias?

Then again, it may simply be that I don't agree with Penal Substitution that I would regard this worth challenging at all.

Having said all that I would defer to my earlier comment that I'm not a scholar, I have no expertise, maybe I don't have any grounds to challenge anything here.

-CryptoLutheran

I think that the context of Romans 5:9 does point to the wrath being God's wrath.

Romans 5:6-11 NAB 6 For Christ, while we were still helpless, yet died at the appointed time for the ungodly. 7 Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die. 8 But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. 9 How much more then, since we are now justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath. 10 Indeed, if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, how much more, once reconciled, will we be saved by his life. 11 Not only that, but we also boast of God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
​

Catholics have not, on the whole, been subscribers to any penal-substitutionary-theory of the atonement though some have certainly written about substitutionary atonement. The Church has not presented a particular theory of the atonement as correct but I am fairly sure that one can hold to a substitutionary theory without risking error as long as the theory doesn't get too far from the teaching in holy scripture.

The Catholic Encyclopaedia (1917 AD) observes:

The word atonement, which is almost the only theological term of English origin, has a curious history. The verb "atone", from the adverbial phrase "at one" (M.E. at oon), at first meant to reconcile, or make "at one"; from this it came to denote the action by which such reconciliation was effected, e.g. satisfaction for all offense or an injury. Hence, in Catholic theology, the Atonement is the Satisfaction of Christ, whereby God and the world are reconciled or made to be at one. "For God indeed was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself" (2 Corinthians 5:19). The Catholic doctrine on this subject is set forth in the sixth Session of the Council of Trent, chapter ii. Having shown the insufficiency of Nature, and of Mosaic Law the Council continues:

Whence it came to pass, that the Heavenly Father, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort (2 Corinthians 1, 3), when that blessed fullness of the time was come (Galatians 4:4) sent unto men Jesus Christ, His own Son who had been, both before the Law and during the time of the Law, to many of the holy fathers announced and promised, that He might both redeem the Jews, who were under the Law and that the Gentiles who followed not after justice might attain to justice and that all men might receive the adoption of sons. Him God had proposed as a propitiator, through faith in His blood (Romans 3:25), for our sins, and not for our sins only, but also for those of the whole world (I John ii, 2).​

More than twelve centuries before this, the same dogma was proclaimed in the words of the Nicene Creed, "who for us men and for our salvation, came down, took flesh, was made man; and suffered. "And all that is thus taught in the decrees of the councils may be read in the pages of the New Testament. For instance, in the words of Our Lord, "even as the Son of man is not come to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a redemption for many" (Matthew 20:28); or of St. Paul, "Because in him, it hath well pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell; and through him to reconcile all things unto himself, making peace through the blood of his cross, both as to the things that are on earth, and the things that are in heaven." (Colossians 1:19-20).​

 

[Thekla]

Here’s where I would certainly disagree with you as we have gained an incredible amount of information from the various academic persuasions regarding not only the semantic range of the words contained within the Greek text, but we have gained a wealth of information regarding the social makeup of some of these cultures, particularly with that of Corinth. We can add to this the greater awareness that many contemporary scholars have with Paul’s writings which have come from within the new science of socio-rhetorical studies.

It could be that as I understand that you tend to focus on the material from the early churchmen, if this is the case then you would understandably be missing out on the far more detailed material that has been produced by scholars such as Carson, Fee, Grudem, Keener, Thiselton, Winters and Witherington along with a host of others as these men will be able to provide far more indepth and scholarly information that has been based on recent advances with Biblical studies than the early churchmen could ever hope to provide.

This may be so, but smacks a bit of hubris.

The academic "recovery" of information is not the same as never having lost the information in the first place. Of course, we've had this sort of thing playing out before ... Erasmian pronunciation of ancient Greek (because really, the now degraded Greeks could not possibly know how their language was pronounced a thousand or more years ago). Yet in this instance, yes, more recent excavations have, through misspellings, revealed that the modern Greek pronunciation is much closer to the ancient pronunciation than Erasmian. (And inasmuch as language is a living thing, and every language has its own "music", and it is in part this "music" of each language that also carries meaning, the west had lost the music of Greek and with this loss something of the meaning.)

Consider the discounting of the knowledge of 'native peoples' (for example, the process of desertification of Australia retained in Aboriginal oral history) followed on by the recent scientific (academic) discovery that the oral history was indeed correct.

Or the western belittling of observations found in Herodotos, more recently found (using genetic studies) to be accurate.

The mindset was different in these regions - still is. (My pappou would some times pause in his recounting of experiences to explain something in a manner his grandchildren as 'occidentals' - what he called us at these times - would miss if his 'oriental' experience and culture was not described more fully as a background.)

The early authors in Christianity had not lost the information and the mindset - Corinth was part of their culture and had never ceased to be part of their Church ... and still is. We know from the Corinthians, not from excavations - always one point pulled out of a context that the excavation does not have at hand. How do modern academics account for what has no record ? For a mindset they do not share ?

Is every aspect of the matter described ? No, but that is not the way communities describe their interior life and inheritance. What is retained, and not forgotten, is the "positive" - that which is important to retain. And that which is retained comes from a wholistic world view that may not give specific iteration to every element, but where every element is present in the shaping of the iteration of the particular.

 

[MKJ]

i think the other problem here is that if we remember that words point to things rather than being things themselves, and if we remember that the Church didn't cease to exist between Pentecost and today, we have to on the one hand realize that there probably isn't a perfectly accurate way to understand the text in itself, and we have to see it through the eyes of the living faith, which includes all the people in the middle as well.

Essentially, cutting out everything in between is cutting out tradition. And ironically, it means we will be cut out in a few generations as well.

 

[faroukfarouk]

But what the Word means, won't in the future depend on what we have to say about it.

 

[~Anastasia~]

But what the Word means, won't in the future depend on what we have to say about it.

Does what the word (Scriptures) mean now ... depend on what those in the past have said it means?





(I think this is the crux of our "Traditional Theology" forum - and I would say that yes, it does and should.

 

[Shane R]

I noticed one post remarked that the New American Bible Revised Edition was undesirable because it allegedly insulted one's intelligence. I use the NAB(RE) occasionally and can't say I've noticed that. Would the poster please explain and supply an example or two?

Cheers chaps

That was me. I was mistaken as I was referring to the version used by The Word Among Us who do not actually use the 2010 revision, but a hodge-podge of editions of the NAB. I heard the readings in Mass aboard a Navy ship many times and so many of them were stripped of detail by the childish renderings of the text.

 

[ImaginaryDay]

Does what the word (Scriptures) mean now ... depend on what those in the past have said it means?





(I think this is the crux of our "Traditional Theology" forum - and I would say that yes, it does and should.

The shame is that, if you ask a majority of Evangelicals, the answer is "No, and how could we possibly understand what those in the past have said it means anyway?". And, since we can't, let's just adapt what we think they thought into what we think today - into our common language and idioms. Hence my particular problem with some translations. For the life of me, the NIV makes no sense in some parts. None. I can read it, and re-read it, but it sounds like a riddle. I need an NASB really quick to understand what's being said. And that's sad. Of course, I grew up on KJV and NRSV, so that form is a little more pleasing to me. I understand it much better.

 

[~Anastasia~]

I'm just a little amazed at how cavalierly some can dismiss the ECFs, who in some cases were the direct disciples of the Apostles, and LIVED the early Church just as Christ established it ...

If I had the opportunity to speak to one of those men today, I'd be asking them a thousand questions, and put a very great deal of stock in what they had to say!

Scholarly work is all good and fine, but people who lived a faith (and died for it!) surely have a better grasp on what was meant than those who study leftover fragments 2000 years later. I'm always amazed when people take the opposite position.