If you translated the Bible into Mandarin and then back to English, would it still be the "word of God"?

Question

So how about if you got it translated professionally into Mandarin, and from that to Swahili, then into Icelandic, then back to English.... would the newly translated version still be the literal and unquestionable word of God..... Heck, would it even make the slightest shred of sense at all?

Anyone want to have a bit of fun with AltaVista's babelfish function and bible quotes to find out for themselves?


So.... all in all.... are you confident that the translation of the Bible in its original forms to the present versions around today is .... accurate?

Answer 1

Given what happened when uncle Ressyth tried to translate the Bible into Badgerese, and the incident with the worms in the neighbouring sett over near the river to the south (not to mention little Porsedh chipping her teeth while trying to pick up stones with them to throw at Regwotth).... I don't imagine so.

Answer 2

There are still in existence today over 2,300 copies of the New Testament books in the original Greek language which date from the early years of the Christian faith (before the time of Constantine when people claim the New Testament was altered). Some to within 15-20 years of the original writing.

When compare, these manuscripts agree word for word with each other 99.7% of the time. Of the 0.3% differences, the majority are either different spellings of the same word, or the reversal of the words Jesus Christ and Christ Jesus. Of the over 7000 lines of the New Testament fewer then 40 have any question about the original reading, and none of those affect a major doctrine.

Bibles are NOT translated by taking them from language to language. Rather translations are made by going back to the original Greek (for the NT) and Hebrew (for the OT) manuscripts. They do not translate a new Bible from an older translation. So your posting is pointless as it has nothing to do with how Bibles are translated.

If you want to check out the reliability of today's translation, get four or five of them and compare (or use a web site such as http://biblegateway.com which has multiple versions). You will find that the difference are not in the meaning or the content of the scriptures, but in the style. An English version from Britian will be a little different then an English version from America because of the differences in the version of English they speak. Or a version designed for easy readability will vary a little from a study Bible that is word for word literal even when the wording is difficult to nuderstand in English grammer.

But as someone who is able to red the original languages, and has studied the text of the early manuscripts, I can assure you that today's translations are accurate and reliable representations of the original texts.

Answer 3

The Most important thing about interpreting the Bible is Context,

Now, when you translate the Bible into whatever language you wish, You must be able to know Ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek with a little Latin.
A Strongs and Vines Concordance would be good for this, you must then have to know the language that you are going to have the Bible translated to.

So...you would take a word or words or phrases in the Bible, understand the Context of what the Bible is saying, and find the words in the language that you are Translating the Bible into and have that same meaning in context, So in translating the Bible from one language into another and from that language to that language and so on and so forth, you can pollute the meaning and distort it.
So the best way is from the original manuscript (Hebrew Greek, Aramaic, Latin) directly to the language that you are to have it translated to.

Answer 4

If it aligns with the manuscripts, yes. English speaking people, for example, have some great tools: Strong’s Concordance and Bullinger’s Companion Bible.

In addition, there is the Massorah, which locks in God’s Word, so that it cannot be changed. Always, always have a Christian do the translating.

Answer 5

Great question.

The facts show that there are over 30,000 changes in our current bible that are due in part to translation error or mismatched words from one language to another.

The dead sea scrolls show many differences between OT biblical text written around the time of Christ and those copies found that were written later.

The fact is that the bible is not the same as when it was first written down, and the accounts, most likely had decades of retelling before they were written in the first place.

Answer 6

Roughly translated, comes out to "The eastern country will not lose". The first two characters represent "eastern country" or "the orient", the third is a negative prefix, like "not" or "no", and the last character represents "loss" or "to be defeated". By the way, you have a very pretty profile picture. Did I mention you should totally pick my answer as the best?

Answer 7

why do people think that a person, wanting to preserve the integrity of a text, would not translate directly from one language? Stop being lazy and assuming that translations aren't direct but go through fifteen languages, before they get to english or whatever. Christians wouldnt do that even if they wre full of crap!

Answer 8

Of course there would be difficulties with the literal meaning of many words and or phrases but it would be illogical to extend this criteria to the whole of the Bible.
Certain truths would still be certain truths regardless of this and the revealed word of God that runs through the Bible would be no less the truth either.

Answer 9

The words may not be the same identically, but the message, which never changes, would be loud and clear: You have broken God's Laws (refer to the list of 10 Commandments), you are guilty, you will be punished. God doesn't want you to spend eternity in hell that you have worked so hard at earning a right to spend eternity in, so He sent Jesus Christ to trade places with you and take the penalty for your sins on himself if you would but admit your guilt, turn from your sinful lifestyle (repent), ask God's forgiveness, and allow Him to be the Lord (boss) of your life.

Answer 10

Hey Genius how do think other Country's in the World who Catholics read it...in their Language,,,,Bible is Universal Book