No offence please? For the Expert only in "How Bible is translated into English?"?

Question

For those who are expert in how the bible is translated into english. I had a NIV Bible. John 7:8-- You go to the feast. I am not YET going up to this Feast, because for me the right time has not yet come.

A comment below it said that the YET in the capital is not found in Some Early Manuscripts. It is added later. So why is it added later?
Is it the writer error or they do it according to the context and added it? Please expert only. Any webpage I can go to understand it?

Answer 1

Original manuscripts were written on papyrus (plant material) and animal skin.
Old Testament = Hebrew language and small part in Aramaic.
New Testament = Greek.
Scribes over thousands of years made 10's of thousands of copies. Some during that period made what vare called scribal changes. These are easy for scholars to see as they have both older and newer manuscripts, so they can see when the changes were inserted.
Some changes are minor punctuations that were needed as the languages improved. As an example, old Hebrew (What Moses wrote) was written without vowel markings... but vowel markings later were added.
Other changes were much more serious copy or translational changes. Sometimes the scholars are not in agreement with these changes. When that happens often bibles will note that for the benefit of the non-scholar reader so they can see some have an issue with it.
In the end the bible can be proven to be the word of God on numerous levels. One is the accuracy of statement. Despite all these copying issues there are no errors in statement. If there were then one would suspect the source of the information.
See Matt. 26:45 for a cross reference to John 7:8
Hope that helps!

Answer 2

I'm no expert but I did a lot of reading . The Bible is not to be taken literally. Especially all the new versions. Most of the writings or versions reflected the writers and not in the original context or interpretation when it was written. Remember, the Old Testament was writtten in Aramaic -Hebrew and the New Testament was written in Greek. A lot of Jesus sayings and teachings are in parables.

The copyist in the NIV (New Testament Version), probably added the word yet to verse 8 to bring it in harmony to verse 10. Yahoo search wasn't that helpful. But a lot of websites are given under the google search. The Biblegateway.com is one. There's a wwwkencollins.com. All I did was pose a question in The Bible, J ohn7:8, why was the word yet added, and a lot of sites popped up.

But be careful or you might make the same mistake of giving your own individual interpretation for something that was written many yrs ago and was esoteric for that period. Better leave the interpretations to the experts, the scholars, clergy, and theologians who made it a point to study the Bible their entire life.

Answer 3

The New Testament Greek versions in the U.S. will either come from the Majority text ot Minority Text.

The Majority Text, has no additions or deletions, has over 5,000 copies available dating back to 150 A.D.(200 years before the Egyption texts) with 86,000 citations from the early church fathers and is untainted with Egyption philosophy or unbelief. These are mainly Byzantine texts from the Greek Orthodox region that have been untranslated to the Latin reading countries.

The minority text has 200 verses omitted or missing (sometimes without explanation!) or the equivalent of 1st & 2nd Peter! These came from the Codex Sinaiticus {B} (translated in Alexandria Egypt by unsaved, but educated scholars) and/or Codex Vatanicus {C} Ordered by Rome's Constantine (380 AD) from Egypt (omits Gen 1:1-46:28 and Revelation etc) and translated to Latin by Jerome. Erasmus rejected these because he knew how corrupted the Vatican's texts were. The 'new' versions are made to cast doubt on the Majority texts or Textus Receptus.

The King James comes from the Majority Text or Textus Receptus (the name given in the late 17th century). The Greek TR was the translation popular from Erasmus' Majority text and was followed by his contemporary Martin Luther in German and William Tyndale in English in the early 1500's (90% of the KJV NT comes from Tyndale's version).

The minority text is responsible for the ASV, RSV (1881), NASB, NIV, NLT, RHM,WEY,MON,BAS,TCNT.RIEU and Catholic NAB & Jerusalem bibles. The bible is not evolving and does not need to be updated!

Although the NIV is anice and easy read, if you want to study, include the KJV or read the original Greek. It's very enlightening.

Answer 4

I'm not an expert, but translating from one language to another cannot always be translated word for word because of the actual meanings of the original word. One greek word may require two or three english words to convey the same meaning.

also rules of grammar are different, to say something in one language changes in the new language. (in spanish you say the house of red,
in english you say the red house)

The context shows he went to the festival in secret vs 10. so adding the 'yet' helps us understand that he was not going at that time but later.

I hope this helps.

Answer 5

sky,
Some Bibles have a preface at the beginning. They tell you about the different manuscripts and their decisions to allow insertions according to their goals that were set before beginning the translation. The Zondervan NIV should have it.

It's funny, even they are admitting to it being not "Inerrant." (pageix)

Answer 6

The original documents were translated by hand. well imagine a couple of hundred of years and thousands of copies by hand I rather find it miraculous that it's just these kinds of minor things that went wrong with the hand copying, of the original Greek and the subsequent translation into Latin and later English.

Answer 7

I never heard of a NIV bible, but they do things like capitalize to emphasize certain things

Answer 8

i admire the LOLCat Bible project. U can haz eckspurteeses. I'z gunna b in ur Sodom, pwnin ur n00bz. ((next, i'm gonna translate the Hindu Sutras into Lolcat. be at liberty to help with that, too.))

Answer 9

This will take a smarter person than me to answer this sorry. I tried to analyze it, but to no avail.