Christians how many of you have read the one true Bible, the one that wasnt translated?

Question

and if you never have, then how do you know for a fact that your Bible was translated correctly?

Answer 1

Hi Cindy,
In Seminary, we studied both Hebrew and Greek and studied both Old and New Testaments in their original languages, so I COULD possibly raise my hand and say :

"ME,ME!
over here, Cindy.
Me -the old priest in the corner. "
(actually, lotsa clergy could make that claim)

except-
I can't claim to have then (or since) read every verse in each in the original language,
and second,
There are different manuscripts and texts especially of the New Testament, and so many "readings" of different texts and their ages, do give SLIGHTLY different translations.
But nothing like "...and Jesus married Mary of Magdala and they had many children"!
The same is true of the Old Testament but I only translated from the Jewish Masoretic Text, and did not do much comparing with the Septuagint and other sources such as the Qumran scrolls.

I think that a few religious groups have their own translations which are slanted and biased, but most translations are not used by only one group and based upon various readings in the original or different but reasonable translations into English, are all more accurate than my student level could produce.

BTW-When I prepare sermons or meditate, I use or check the original, as do many clergy who are fortunate enough to have studied and have enough leisure to keep up their language skills.

Answer 2

People say that God would make sure his word is translated correctly, but have you ever read a Jehovah's Witness Bible? Some verses in their bible are translated differently than the christian bible. They say that their's is translated from the original text. One example is John 1:1 where it says that in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God. The JW Bible says the same except at the end it says "and the word was a god." ...not THE God.
Anyways what I'm getting at is if God allowed the JW bible to be mistranslated (if it was mistranslated) then why couldn't other christian bibles also be mistranslated?

Have you ever learned another language and tried to translate one to another? It's not easy when you have phrases in one language that mean something totally different in another language. If I told you that you were a bird, you might think that I thought you could fly, or had a beak nose or something. But in Spanish if you tell someone that they are a bird it means that they are sly. Also if I said that a girl was a fox in Spain, I'd be smacked because that's like calling them a ***** over there. So, I wonder how accurate and qualified were the people who translated the ancient texts into english or other languages? Did they get the real meaning across?

Answer 3

I have to say that I am not sure how many people really understand the difficulties of translations.

Take the word Theos. We see this word and derivatives thrown around a lot in this forum.

The word Theos is often translated to mean "God", which it really does not mean. In the New Testament it is properly translated to mean "God", but, the word Theos really means "important idea" and as a result it is the basis for words like thesis and theory as well as atheist and theist.

Thesis is a properly stated or written important idea, roughly.
Theory is the expression of an important idea, roughly.
atheist is one who is against important ideas, roughly.
theist is one who accepts important ideas, roughly.
Theologian is one who studies important ideas, roughly.

You could also use the word concept instead of idea and that might even be a better translation.

Now that idea is going to get a lot of thumbs down and arguments from people who believe that these words mean something different.

A word can mean something totally different to different people which is why we have "politically correct" language.

So yes, I have sat and used various books offering translation concepts and studied the various Biblical books, those canonized and those not canonized.

Essentially I came to the realization about fifteen years ago that there was no way to understand or communicate the scripture except through the Holy Spirit.

Answer 4

There are many thousands of ancient Biblical manuscripts available today for study.
No one would be able to change something and get away with it.
There have actually been a few attempts to take more than normal liberty with translation, but these guys are caught right away. Most any modern popular translation is good. Some are more technically correct than others , like the NASB is closer to the Greek than the NIV, but the NIV is still excellent.
Only a Bible scholar can see the difference.

Answer 5

Excellent question.

It's not that hard to find a copy of a bible translated directly into modern English from the original Greek. The people who are quibbling here are avoiding the issue - in essence they are admitting they've never read an unadulterated copy of the bible. Most Americans are working from the copy designed to support the Inquisitions(KJV) or a derivative of it. Each layer gets further and further from the original text.

I have no trust in the "scholars," kings or priests who have changed the bible to their liking. I still say, if 'god' were omnipotent, had a plan and could do miracles, "he'd" have left a copy of the bible on DVD so there'd be no doubt of what "he" meant.

Answer 6

miraculous question. enable me attempt to describe what's happening with that. There are countless verses "lacking" contained in the NIV & different more moderen translations compared to the KJV. the reason of it truly isn't any longer some conspiracy to cover suggestion. even as the KJV translation changed into practice some four hundred years in the past, it changed into depending on the manuscripts obtainable on the time. contained in the four hundred years on condition that that translation, many, many, further early manuscripts were got here across; consisting of a few significantly older than those used to create the KJV (you've positively heard of the useless sea scrolls?). contained in the situations of those "lacking" verses, no longer each of the manuscripts agree. some have some extra words, or something phrased in a special way than others. modern translations provide decision to previously manuscript evidence and the passages which seem extra continuously. commonly, the further/disagreeing textual content is coated contained in the footnotes of more moderen translations. definite, it truly is really alright to benefit the NIV & TNIV. They were written to be as actually precise and on the point of the unique as a chance - extra precise translations than the KJV.

Answer 7

While it is apparent that trust is real issue these days I find it hard to believe with the many scholars who are knowledgeable in both Hebrew and/or Greek and English that serious errors are infiltrated into all English Bibles. Some translations were done with the specific purpose of being as close to the original Hebrew as possible. By comparing various translations and studying concordances and other reviews it is possible to be 99% confident you are reading original meaning of the ancient text.

Answer 8

I have never read the true bible.. all the bibles were translated for different purposes... some verses were added during the centuries...

Answer 9

So what you are saying is that the living God, who created all things was incapable of seeing to it that HIS word was translated correctly? Sorry. I have more faith than that.

Answer 10

It's called the King James, word for word translation. It would be the same as reading the original, we would translate in our head, and then understand, the KJ just removes the need for us to learn another language to read it in it's original language