the original copies to translate it? Can anyone get a copy of the original?
2007-08-27 07:43:14 · 8 answers · asked by angel 2 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Nea87...They did actually come to mind when asking this question..I should have addressed it to them..wonder what they would have said..but I do really wonder about this with all translations.
2007-08-27 07:54:28 · update #1
I think they have an assembled "best original script", i.e a complete image of the New Testament in Greek, as correct as they can ascertain. I.e scholars have worked from extant manuscripts to work out a Greek version of the New Testament that is most likely to be the original. The one used for KJV, and many protestant versions until the late 19C was the "textus receptus" I think. New "best original scripts", better researched were produced in the 19C, and in the 20C more accurate ones yet. Translations I think in general are produced from one of the latest of such scripts. (I doubt many people get to see the original manuscripts as they are precious and fragile.)
You'd have to check it out yourself though. They often have big teams of scholars, and ways to try and prevent denominational bias. I think the hardest problems are probably translating abstract terms in some of the epistles, as the original Greek terms had loads of associations. Narrative will be pretty straight forward.
2007-08-27 08:21:58 · answer #1 · answered by Cader and Glyder scrambler 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There are available copies of the Latin (Vulgate) and Greek new testaments and you could get a copy of the Talmud/Torah for the old testament.
There are one or more versions of these in existence and translators compare them to each other using a process call literary criticism to try to determine the appropriate text.
With the new testament, the oldest copy of one of the books dates to around124 CE. This tends to throw the NT into some doubt to it's authenticity. The OT on the other hand has been very carefully and painstaking copied throughout the years so that today's Torahs are letter perfect when compared to parts and pieces from archaeological finds.
But strictly speaking the "originals" do not exist and exact dates of authorship,or even or the real authors, can not be determined.
2007-08-27 14:59:52 · answer #2 · answered by Pirate AM™ 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You mean originals? The Bible is indeed a compilation of books and gospels....if you go to a local University and do a search in their library for certain texts, you will most likely find books upon books who has copies of the orginal codex's or texts, and scholarly books remarking about the texts...that is if the library has a decent religion section.
Some gospels are of course more famous than others and you can get copies of some of the original ones found online, ..but there are many originals in many different languages and I would not trust any website that isn't a .org or a .edu site when it comes to these things..
As far as people translating the Biblical texts, well people have done it word for word into different languages, or changed them as they went along, or just wrote thier own take on them.
2007-08-27 14:55:48 · answer #3 · answered by SisterSue 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There is no "original" copy. The oldest we have is from the 4th century, called the Codex Sinaticus. It contains books in it that are not in the current Bible, and leaves out 3 that ARE in the current one. The Bible's history is a long and complicated one, but rest assured there is nothing we have that the original writers actually penned themselves.
2007-08-27 14:51:01 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes there are many hebrew verisons of the bible which are MUCH more accurate than english translations.
When the bible is translated it is done to fit the purpose of said religion.
2007-08-27 14:50:08 · answer #5 · answered by BOB 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Actually, it goes further than that. The bible is a compilation of stories. There have been points in time when it was edited and there were decisions as to what stories stayed and what stories were left out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible#Canonization_of_the_Old_Testament_and_New_Testament
2007-08-27 14:49:11 · answer #6 · answered by A.Mercer 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Why would they bother with something silly like accuracy?!
( Should I assume you are talking about jw's again? ;)
2007-08-27 14:49:24 · answer #7 · answered by Nea 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Thats a good question. They make it up as they go along. if something doesnt fit, they change it
2007-08-27 14:48:30 · answer #8 · answered by science rules! 3 · 1⤊ 2⤋