The Bible and What's In It (A question)

[Crotalus71]

Some of you may have heard that a little while back a "Scripture" of Judas was found and it wasn't heavily publicized at least to my knowledge. Regardless, it got me to thinking about a discussion I had with a colleague a number of years ago before I became a christian and now I am a little confused/interested to see what others think. Now to the point. I am not questioning who wrote the Bible per se but who decided what went into the different versions and am I missing something by not reading all the versions available. I mean why different versions? Which is the first? Also obviously the original was translated from Hebrew to Greek I believe and then to Latin which was followed by English and other various languages I am sure.
That being said, I have seen numerous people say that while we can interperet Hebrew there are some texts which could be mistaken for other words which would radically change the actual meaning of the text. Now please understand I am not talking about the DaVinci code here but if my observations are correct then various Hebrew characters can have two or sometimes three meanings? Anyone gracious enough to try and answer this convoluted post would be much appreciated.

 

[BrendanMark]

The best single work I know on the subject is Bruce Metzger's The Canon of the New Testament, but it is an entire academic discipline (with all the debates over detail that includes) in it's own right.

Roughly speaking, the New Testament was written in Greek, and the authors used the Greek Old Testament in their citations, so I've only worried to learn Greek (a little, anyway) for original sources. 2nd declensions were bad enough - I cannot face the seventh declensions of Latin.

 

[Siyha]

You haven't even scratched the surface of that! Not only can words mean different things, but we have a variety of manuscripts with different words in them as well. For example, one manuscript says Goliath was 9 feet tall, and another 6 feet.

This is where one of the controversies with KJV only people comes in to play, which texts to we even use? Then once we have that, we have to interpret the words as we see fit, and will again come out with some different versions.

Hebrew is the more difficult of the 2 because the vowels were added later, so sometimes we suspect they have have added the wrong vowels, and it should actually be a different word. Also, because Hebrew is so much further removed from modern language and we have much less documents to cross refence to as Greek, its hard to back up our views of words.

But a lot of this is the same as english. Many words have entirely different meanings, but if you know english, and you come across it in a book, you almost always instantly know which meaning is being used ebcause you are used to the language.

The longer a scholar works with a language, the easier it is for them to identify which meaning is being used. Often times when there is debate over which meaning is being used, its by people with very limited knowledge in the language (though not always).

*edit: for a lot of controversial words, there is no english equivalent of it, so translators have to use their judgement as to what would best fit the context.

 

[Revelation1217]

The gospel of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew - just so you know

 

[christianmomof3]

Yes, Hebrew is often written without vowels and the TaNaCh was written that way. I think that vowels in Hebrew are a more recent addition to the written language. Here is an article about it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_language
I like the Hebrew language because it has the clearing the throat "ch" sound in it where you have to get some spit in the back of your throat to make that sound and when I was a kid I thought that was a fun sound to make.
Translation from one language to another is always difficult because even some concepts don't translate from one language to another.
So, it is entirely possible that many things in the Bible may not be translated exactly correctly. Or, perhaps the Lord guided the translators and it is perfect. Either way, you accept the Bible by faith in God, not by faith in the translators. It is good to use concordances and various translations when you have questions about things especially when the meaning of a passage hinges on just one word.

 

[prodromos]

The gospel of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew - just so you know

Or it was originally written in Greek by someone whose mother tongue was Hebrew. The result would be the same. I don't believe that there are even any fragments of Matthew's Gospel in Hebrew surviving so it is not possible to claim with any certainty that it was originally written in Hebrew - just so you know

John

 

[Christian Commando]

Hi everyone-

** First- Actually Hebrew is not that hard to understand, but because there are now two Hebrew Languages, interpretors argue over many points in God's Word.

For instance-

The wall of Jericho fell on some people after the Jews did as God commanded them. One Hebrew language is written so it fell on 1,000 or more people. the other, as its written, means the wall only fell on 10-100 people.

There was the old original Hebrew Language people had before the captivity of Jews by Egypt and Pharoah. But... the longer they were held captive, the less they used thier own language and eventually adopted the Egyptian language, traditions, etc.

If you question that, historical records in Roman Bacilicas prove this, not to mention God consistantly reprimanded the Jews for constantly going back to Egyptian traditions when lost faith in waiting for God during the Exodus.

When God lead Moses to bring the Jews out of captivity, the jews eventually "rebuilt" the Hebrew Language- thus the newer one was born so to speak. This is the reason for such divisions within the Scholarly language Study of God's Word.

** Second- Even since as far back in Old Test. times man has found recorded records in ancient civilizations, we know there were a group of people known as "Scribes". They were called this, because they wre "Script writers".

Ancient finds in ancient archeological digs have even suggested back when stone and metal tablets were used to record events, letters, official documents, etc, specific people who did this were used to do such things.

Take special note I believe its in Thessilonians where the Apostle Paul had a letter wriiten to that Church and the Scribe himself names himself as well as Paul and others in thier greetings to the Church. This proves beyond doubt, the Apostles were not the "writers" of thier "Letters" to each Church or people, but "Scribes" were.

** Third- Ancient documentations of both Christian and Secular historical writers from the first 3 Centuries of the Church era can be found in various Roman "Bacilicas" around Europe and in Monastaries etc (Check out the smaller less popular ones), that prove the two most popular languages in the Jersalum and surrounding areas were both Greek/Aramaic during the time of Christ being here on Earth.

** Fourth- Ask yourself this, (those of you who are Americans)- what is the English Language like?- Any particular word, used in its most common reference has its most popular meaning. At the same time, when its used in some other reference, it can have a diverse meaning.

This is no different than with the Hebrew Language.This would account for the same problem many people have trying to interprete or understand the Hebrew Language, just as many foriegners have problems when trying to learn the English Language.

All thats needed for either to be learned, is the "association pattern" used for either to figure out the basic foundational way to interprete and understand either language completely.

** Fifth- Thats right. Even the most accurate versions of God's Word such as the older KJV's which I like best, are still only in the 90's percent of being accurately translated. But there are 2 reasons for this-

1- So many centuries of translating proves there will end up being misinterpretations.

2- Keep in mind, since the time of the "Dark Ages" when the plague hit Europe and other Continents wiping out millions of people, because of the loss of faith in God by "Angels" not delivering the people from the plague, anything religious related or in nature mean't death for people and burning of books and other literature.

Witch and sorcerer hunts, psychics, Prophets, etc were all killed if found out by the radical descenters against religious or spiritually related activities thru that time.

** Sixst- Constantine, Emperor of Roman back in his time, had specific people assigned to go around the Middle East and other places known to hold ancient Biblical or Biblically related subjects, collected and brought back to Europe, Constantine then kept them at Rome first.

But, once ransackings started from the Dark Ages and after of the Monasteries, Bacilicas etc around Rome, the Emporer had a bunch of smaller ones built and spread the documents all over Europe in them.

So you see, theres alot more to this than just simple points. It involves world history as well. Many a Biblical Scholar/Researcher will absolutely never accept Secular Sources for info they search for.

Thats horrible. Why? The Secular World, wether admits it or not, by writing against particular subjects/topics'points, are actually proving God's Word accurate, for they constantly point against particular people who wrote this, said that, etc, which proves historically how God worked thru his Church all this time to keep as much of his word kept public and heard.

Plus- Even as Secular sources of today have chosen specific areas to argue against Biblical Teachings to prove validity of god's Word, so too did Secular ones do so back in early Church times.

And most Christians against Secular Sources never realize that the secular ones are pointing at specific "Concepts" of God's Word, then speaking against all specific Scriptural Teachings related to it, which can be compared to Early Church Leader Commentaries on God's Word, for accuracy of beliefs followed.

But also, in this day and age of technology, we must be careful what Sources- (Biblical) we choose to use, because if we don't check out thier accuracy too, they could teach wrong as well. After just less than 30 years of researching God's Word, I can atest to that myself.

God Bless!!

 

[Krus]

Very good analysis. Thanks!

 

[RonADiscipleOfChrist]

The text of bible do have some variations in translation, however the message in the bible is very clear and undefiled. Jesus died on the cross so we could be forgiven of or sins and if we are baptised and truely believe Gods word He will endow us with His Spirit and we can become the righteous people God wants us to be. Don't be distracted form the real treasure.

 

[Hairy Tic]

Some of you may have heard that a little while back a "Scripture" of Judas was found and it wasn't heavily publicized at least to my knowledge.

## That there had been a work named "The Gospel of Judas" was known to specialists in the NT Apocrypha & comparable literature for many years before the text was retrieved.

Regardless, it got me to thinking about a discussion I had with a colleague a number of years ago before I became a christian and now I am a little confused/interested to see what others think. Now to the point. I am not questioning who wrote the Bible per se but who decided what went into the different versions and am I missing something by not reading all the versions available. I mean why different versions? Which is the first? Also obviously the original was translated from Hebrew to Greek I believe and then to Latin which was followed by English and other various languages I am sure.
That being said, I have seen numerous people say that while we can interperet Hebrew there are some texts which could be mistaken for other words which would radically change the actual meaning of the text. Now please understand I am not talking about the DaVinci code here but if my observations are correct then various Hebrew characters can have two or sometimes three meanings? Anyone gracious enough to try and answer this convoluted post would be much appreciated.

## Are you referring to the fact that some Hebrew words are of identical form but unrelated meaning ? This happens in many if not all languages - it is not peculiar to Hebrew, & is not a clue to anything mysterious.