how come christians don't have their "book" in it's origonal language?

Question

Islam has their book in it's origonal language..
i think Judaism even has their book in its origonal language....

any thoughts??

Answer 1

huh....
i suppose cause it's been translated so much that they've lost whatever "origonal" transcripts they had.

i have done some research on the bible, and i also believe that it's not the same as the origonal bible.

Answer 2

We do. The Bible wasn't translated into English until the early 1600's.

You can get a copy of the Bible in Hebrew (Old Testament) and Greek (New Testament) if you know and understand both of those languages. Some people actually do, and read the original text as it was originally written. Go to any decent Christian bookstore. There is even a Bible (I've thought about buying one) that has four translations side-by-side on the same page of each page, published by Zondervan Publishing I believe - the Hebrew, the Greek, the English King James Version, and I believe (but not sure) the New International Version all in one book.

Answer 3

The original languages of The scriptures are Aramaic, Old Hebrew, Greek and Latin. The western Catholic church continued to use Latin until the 16th Century. Following the invention of the printing press, and the dawn of the Protestant Reformation, the Bible began to appear in other languages.

The eastern Orthodox church used Greek but Bibles began to appear in other languages (Russian, Armenian) after some time. Other Bibles appeared in Syriac, Coptic and Arabic.

I think this makes Christianity unique in the west. It is a religion practiced in a hundred languages, and the message has remained the same. And it's still being translated and revised today. Perhaps the rapid spread of Christianity over Europe, N Africa and Asia demanded so many translations.

It's remarkable that despite translations, human errors in copying, revisions and disputes over the authority of the canon, the Bible remains the influential book that it is.

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Answer 4

Thoughts? Learn what you are saying before you say it.

The Bible, which includes the Torah (Old Testament), was written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. Judaism reads the Torah. Its the same book that makes up part of the Bible.

Any book can be translated into any language. The great Reformation by Martin Luther truly came about at the translation of the Bible into the everyday language of the people.

Answer 5

I guess because (1) it's a dead language and (2) there are no original manuscripts extant. Christianity was taken from one culture to another, each bringing their own perspective to it (eg: incorporating it into existing myths and festivals). Constantine tried to enforce some uniformity (Council of Nicea?) but it's a living, growing religion, and apt to change. Scribes and translators make honest mistakes, or sometimes are moved to emphasize one passage over another. With the printing press and rising literacy, dozens of additional translations of the Bible appeared. Today there are several hundred different versions of the Bible, and aside from the four Gospels I doubt they much resemble the original.

To get back to your question, to have the Bible in its original, ancient language would mean that only a handful of scholars could read it and deliver its message. Having such an elite in control of information is systemically vulnerable to corruption: leaders who have exclusive access to the Word of God could easily manipulate the faithful. In my opinion, to go back from accessible if flawed translations to an obscure original text wouldn't just be a step toward fundamentalism, but a step toward theocratic tyranny.

(P.S.: I'm not suggesting that's the case with either the Talmud or the Qur'an.)

Answer 6

Some Christians do. The Orthodox Churches preserve New Testament texts in Greek/Coptic (which were the major languages in the eastern Mediterranean at the time. To illustrate, the words for "bread" and "fish" in the Greek New Testament are (respectively) "arton" and "icthys" NOT "psomi" and "psari" which are the modern Greek words for the same things......

Answer 7

Actually, that is a good point since things do get lost in the translation. On the other hand, if people have to be trained in a different language to read a book, there is no certainty that their lessons were good enough to glean the original meaning.

Answer 8

The history of the Church shows a tendency toward distancing itself from its Hebraic roots. New Testament writings tended to be first in Greek, not Hebrew, even though the first Jesus supporters were Jewish.

It is interesting to note that the church, instead of using the language of its "savior" and its leaders, the apostles, chose to make its holy language Latin, the same language used in the pagan temples of the oppressors of Israel, Rome.

What exactly does that say about their loyalties?

Answer 9

A lot of Christians do have copies of Greek and Hebrew texts. The English translation makes it more accessible to the every day person.

Answer 10

My original language is English. My bible IS written in my original language. In fact the bible is written in the original language of hundreds of different countries. It's gone a lot farther than any other religious text.