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To: TBP
What if we could have all of the things mentioned above with out having to believe in the literal translation of an ancient text? What if we practiced principles rather than followed specific rules?

The literal translation of ancient text is the Bible, and it IS a set of principles.

Woo boy, this is deep thought. /sarcasm

7 posted on 08/31/2015 8:29:34 AM PDT by RedWing9 (Jesus Rocks Zero Sucks)
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To: RedWing9

It’s not a literal translation, for numerous reasons.

For one thing, the Bible is in Greek and Jesus spoke Aramaic. Much of the story began in Aramaic, including the words of Jesus. Now, many key words in Aramaic have multiple meanings, so the translator is forced to make a choice among the possible meanings of the words. He makes those choices in accord with his already-developed theological biases — we all would. Given the possible meanings, that may or may not be a correct choice.

Now, the same thing happens when the Bible is translated from Greek into other languages. Again, there are editorial choices made about what is meant by a given word.

We have ancient texts from early Christianity that differ in significant ways in numerous places from the texts in the Bible. In some places, there appear to be transcription errors (i.e., a place where the handwriting could have been one of two or more possible letters (such as a small h and a small n (handwritten) in English) and the transcriber had to make a choice of which it is. If he chooses the other, which might make sense in context, the meaning of the passage is different.)

Further, there are sections where passages have either been added to or removed from the early text, thus making a deliberate and conscious change. There have been numerous books detailing this.

We will almost certainly never get to the “original original”, but by textual analysis and other methods we can get much closer. it differs in notable ways from the text that is in the Bible itself.

Then there is the fact that there are contradictory reports. For example, when Jesus is going up Calvary, he is reported in two of the Gospels to have said two different things — and in another, he is reported to have said nothing. These accounts cannot all be true. That is just one example.

So the Bible, for all the wisdom it contains, cannot be said to be a “literal translation”. It needs to be read with all these facts in mind.


8 posted on 08/31/2015 8:52:50 AM PDT by TBP (Obama lies, Granny dies.)
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