” If it were just to make for better German, Germans wouldn’t have to lean on it for a radically different theology...
Every year, when the reading turns to 2nd Corinthians, and the term “bowels” is used in a way unfamiliar to most modern Americans, our priest explains what is meant. That is preferred to changing the word to something that might be more in tune with modern idiom, but NOT what God inspired the Sacred writer to write.”
They did not “lean on it” - that we are saved by faith and not by working is excruciatingly obvious to anyone who reads the New Testament, and reasonably obvious to anyone who reads the Old.
Nor is the goal of a Bible translation to create something that you must go to the priest to understand. As Tyndale pointed out, if you have the scripture translated, you can judge the priest, instead of “leaning on” the priest.
The Jews were commanded to know God’s Word themselves, so why would it be wrong for Christians to have access?
Your arguments against Bible translations were made for hundreds of years by the Catholic Church, but it eventually broke down and allowed commoners to read the scripture - although it prefers translations that twist the meanings of words like “repent”.
You are selling what no one is buying, not even the Catholic Church anymore - that commoners are not smart enough or godly enough to read God’s word in their own tongue.
Why is this a bad translation of 2 Cor 6:
“We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians; our heart is wide open. 12 You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections. 13 In return (I speak as to children) widen your hearts also.”
Instead of:
“Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own bowels.”
Do you know nothing of the duty of a translator? Why is it the Catholic Church now agrees with translating it: “ You are not constrained by us; you are constrained by your own affections”?
But but but, that could lead to the idea that the historical magisterium, as the steward of Scripture could be wrong!. Which (for Rome) is simply untenable, as it is upon the premise of the assured veracity of Rome that the RCs has assurance of Truth.
Catholic doctrine, as authoritatively proposed by the Church, should be held as the supreme law; for, seeing that the same God is the author both of the Sacred Books and of the doctrine committed to the Church....it follows that all interpretation is foolish and false which...is opposed to the doctrine of the Church. (Providentissimus Deus; http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_18111893_providentissimus-deus_en.html)
It follows that the Church is essentially an unequal society, that is, a society comprising two categories of per sons, the Pastors and the flock...the one duty of the multitude is to allow themselves to be led, and, like a docile flock, to follow the Pastors. - VEHEMENTER NOS, an Encyclical of Pope Pius X promulgated on February 11, 1906.
..in all cases the immediate motive in the mind of a Catholic for his reception of them is, not that they are proved to him by Reason or by History, but because Revelation has declared them by means of that high ecclesiastical Magisterium which is their legitimate exponent.” — John Henry Newman, “A Letter Addressed to the Duke of Norfolk on Occasion of Mr. Gladstone's Recent Expostulation.” 8. The Vatican Council lhttp://www.newmanreader.org/works/anglicans/volume2/gladstone/section8.html
“All that we do [as must be patent enough now] is to submit our judgment and conform our beliefs to the authority Almighty God has set up on earth to teach us; this, and nothing else.” “He is as sure of a truth when declared by the Catholic Church as he would be if he saw Jesus Christ standing before him and heard Him declaring it with His Own Divine lips.” —“Henry G. Graham, "What Faith Really Means", (Nihil Obstat:C. SCHUT, S. T.D., Censor Deputatus, Imprimatur: EDM. CANONICUS SURMONT, D.D.,Vicarius Generalis. WESTMONASTERII, Die 30 Septembris, 1914 ) ]
The mere fact that the Church teaches the doctrine of the Assumption as definitely true is a guarantee that it is true. ” — Karl Keating, Catholicism and Fundamentalism (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1988), p. 275.[http://www.catholic.com/tracts/immaculate-conception-and-assumption]