Do fundamentalist Christians believe that the Bible was written in English?

Question

I ask this because while I can, up to a point, respect a belief that the Bible is the word of God, you surely have to concede that the Word has to be a matter of interpretation, because all texts lose something in the translation. So what worries me is where fundamentalists take the Bible literally, based on the English translation. Thus my question: what language do they think the Bible was written in and do they accept that the shades and nuances of meaning can be corrupted during translation?

Answer 1

The Bible has been translated into many languages.
From Hebrew all the way to English

I myself when I read switch back and forth between the Hebrew (which I find on-line) and English to see how close they are

Answer 2

There are, to date, over 25,000 (yeah, twenty five thousand) manuscripts over a thousand years old of the New Testament. Not bad. Now, have you ever heard of the dead sea scrolls? Those were dated to within 150 years of Christ's death. In relation to other "historical texts," please note that Alexander the Great had NOTHING written about him until just over 300 years after his death. There are others but my mind is drawing a blank right now...just woke up. Anyway, people take what people said about Alexander and run with it stating that it is EXACTLY how it happened when in truth, several generations passed before anyone decided to write about him. My point is that, in comparing today's texts with the oldest known ones, the accuracy was between 98-99.5%. That is about a few paragraphs to a page/page and a half worth of difference and those differences were so slight as to still be able to convey its original meaning. Now about the English part...these are all translated from the original Hebrew/Aramaic (Old Testament original languages...for real) or the Greek (New Testament original language...for real) texts. So to answer your question, it is still pretty accurate. Now the ones you really gotta watch out for are the ones who think it was originally in Latin. Wrongo!!! It is just that the Roman Catholic church had so much power that it forced many to believe that it was the only "Divine" translation. Boo-pucky!!! Hebrew and Greek. Never EVER let anyone tell you different. A good English translation will tell you in the very front of the book what exact texts they used. The ones using the "Latin Vulgate" are not nearly as accurate. Hope this helps.

Answer 3

Dear Friend,

It is a fact that the English language in its present form was not around when the bible was written. The Old Testament (or Hebrew scriptures) were written in Aramaic and the New Testament (Greek Scriptures) were written in Ancient Greek.

I believe that the lord has provided numerous translations so that we are drawn to the translation that best communicated the wonderful news that the gospel holds to us.

God Bless.

Answer 4

Over 1000's of years and translations by many languages, names have a tendency to regulate. different languages use different instruments of sounds, and for some thing as in additional than a number of cases used as someone's' call, the audio gadget have a tendency to desire sounds that are already area of their languages. This in all likelihood handed off even in the previous the names were written. Jesus spoke Aramaic by technique of decision, and doubtless his disciples did, too. besides the indisputable fact that the recent testomony is written in Greek, so the names were already adapted to that language at the same time as first written (except for those mutually with Luke, which began out as a Greek call for a Greek individual). Translations into Latin lined translating the names again. in case you examine the Bible in a language except English, you'll discover the names in kinds common in that language. case in point, John turns up interior the kinds Johann, Ivan, Sean, and so on.

Answer 5

The original books about God were written in Hebrew words or Hebrew language and was translated in many languages by known translators in order to be spread all over the world but as of this moment there are countries which do not have a copy of the bible or book.

It was translated as it was written in Hebrew language and words. Only the important things in life were translated. However er according to the Catholic encyclopedia many of the books which were written were destroyed and burned by the Roman Catholic Church during their period because it is against their teachings and doctrines. They made force to the non believers of their doctrine to believe in them and those who won't believe were put to death by burning them at the Vatican. Many members of the catholics do not know this story because the encyclopedia was kept at the Vatican and was made as a secret, however, a leakage came out to the truth.
jtm

Answer 6

I hope they don't :-)

The Bible (Old Testament) was actually an oral tradition passed down by word of mouth long before it was ever written down by anyone. The first actual written Old Testament was the Targum which was actually written in Aramaic, the language of the Jews of the time who were still in captivity in Babylon. It was later translated back to the original Hebrew of the oral tradition. In about the 200s or 300s BC, a Greek translation of the Old Testament was made from the first Aramaic and Hebrew documents. This was known as the Septuagint, and was called this because according to tradition it was translated into Greek by seventy Jewish scholars in Alexandria Egypt, who took seventy days to do it. Greek was the main language of the time in that place. The Septuagint is the main translation originally used for our Christian Bible that we know today. The New Testament was written in Greek. So the first complete Bible as we know it today was actually written in Greek. St. Jerome came out with the Latin version (Vulgate) in the third or fourth century AD - he actually consulted Jewish linguists and scholars of the day, and accessed many original documents that no longer exist - and is supposed to be very true to the original docs. It's still the official translation of the Catholic Church. The first official Catholic English version was the Douay-Reims Version, which actually came out a few years before the famous King James Version.

Yes, I think that in order to have a real understanding of what is meant by the original creators you have to go way back to the originals, and you have to have a good understanding of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek languages and how they were used at the time.

I do believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God, but God, for His own reasons, had it transmitted through the minds and pens of human and imperfect men, and that has to be taken into account when reading and interpreting it.

Answer 7

...It's a great thing that we can research the Greek and the Hebrew in a concordance like Strong's. One can find out the original words, and also look in several translations; I like the Amplified - it helps with things like you mentioned - a problem with word to word translations.
...For the objective seeker, there are many resources.
...They are not corrupt as you think. The Old Testament we have is virtually the same as the ancient - the Dead Sea Scrolls showed us this.
...The New Testament has more copies and fragments than any 10 pieces of antiquated literature - more than 25,000. (And does this criticism apply to non-Bible literature as well?)

Answer 8

The Old Testament was written in Hebrew/ Aramaic. Later translated to Greek.
The New Testament in Greek,
It was not till much later that it was translated to English.
As to whether any major mistakes were made...God is making sure that it remains accurate.
Otherwise, why would this warning be given;
(REVELATION 22:18-19) ““I am bearing witness to everyone that hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone makes an addition to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this scroll; 19 and if anyone takes anything away from the words of the scroll of this prophecy, God will take his portion away from the trees of life and out of the holy city, things which are written about in this scroll.”

Answer 9

In ancient Greek and Hebrew, and the translation has been poured over by scholars for centuries and yes there are certain parts that people still argue about the translation thereof but the believer, with the help of God understands.

Answer 10

If translation is a problem, you need a good concordance to translate the original. I find the Strong's concordance is very good. It has every word spoken in the bible translated into it's original language (Hebrew, Greek). Great for serious study.

Answer 11

No, of course not. I am a fundamentalist and no such thing ever crossed my mind.

But I had to laugh when I read your question because of the KJV only bunch. They exist, and they call themselves "fundamentalists", but even some of the KJV only types understand that it is all about God and what He is intending to say to us.

If I said, in Greek "hello, how are you today?" then that is how it should be interpretted into whatever language. It should not be interpretted as "my dog went down the street." The modern interpretations can be just about that bad, or even worse. They add things, cut out things, misinterpret things, and so on.

The more we learn, the closer we should be getting to my example of "hello, how are you today?" and the further we should be getting from anything else! That is what the true fundamentalist wants, they just want to know what God is really try to say to us.