The King James version is the best version: It has unicorns.
https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=unicor...
Earliest known draft of the King James Bible discovered
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Re: Earliest known draft of the King James Bible discovered
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Something subtle that's easy to miss is the fact that the original text did not contain quotation marks, and neither does the KJV. There are places where by introducing quotation marks, the translator necessarily must make decisions which the original text does not support. Take for example one of my favorite sayings, Matthew 24:15-16. ESV: "So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Danie…
My personal and completely unfounded speculation on the gospels is that they're a script for actors. (Thus the confusion about whether certain names refer to two people or one person appearing multiple times. It's one person but different roles.) So that part of the verse is a stage direction for the performer.
Hah, I like that. If you need some foundation for it, you could always quote Paul: "You are to imitate me, just as I imitate Christ." (1st Corinthians 11:1)
Re: Earliest known draft of the King James Bible discovered
#73This may be off-topic but is there any consensus on what is the most accurate translation of the bible into English?
Not only is there to such consensus, but there is an important (important beyond religious issues) lack of consensus of what is the most accurate text to be translated.
Modern societies weren't the first to find absurdities and contradictions in holy texts. Early scholars decided to search for the "actual" underlying meaning. For if the gods are infallible, and failures in the text must be human failures trying to translate their gods' word into lowly human expression. In christianity this "hermeneutic" scholarship laid the groundwork for modern linguistics, hermeneutics and semiotics.[1]
As for translations: I was surprised to learn that the biblical supposed prohibition on homosexuality dates in the English bible as far back as...1946. [2]. Which makes some sense; until at least Pope Urban, the Catholic Church was happy to perform both mixed sex and same sex marriages [3]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_hermeneutics
[2] https://medium.com/@adamnicholasphillips/the-bible-does-not-...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_same-sex_unions#Pol...
Re: Earliest known draft of the King James Bible discovered
#74Do religious groups in the US, specifically, Christians, talk about the history of the King James Bible? Why is it, uh, trusted by so many, when stuff like this hints at a storied construction?
> hints at a storied construction?
By the way the process of producing that translation was well documented at the time.
Re: Earliest known draft of the King James Bible discovered
#75The Douay-Rheims is actually a decade or two older and the first English translation, if memory serves.
Douay-Rheims is a translation from Latin to English. King James is a translation from Hebrew and Greek to English.
But neither translation was the first of their kind. The Wycliffe Bible was translated from Latin in the late 1300s. Likewise, Tyndale started publishing a translation from Hebrew and Greek in 1494.
The article is about the discovery about a piece of paper from one of the King James translators. So it’s the earliest handwritten manuscript from the King James translation effort.
Re: Earliest known draft of the King James Bible discovered
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think for some the issue is that if you consider the Bible to be absolute and without error, then the logical conclusion is that the first available translation is the right one and you can't have others that conflict. If, say, NIV conflicts with KJV in some way, then if said that the NIV was right it means the KJV is wrong, and for some people that's yanking out a key pillar of their epistemology. Another aspect o…
> I think for some the issue is that if you consider the Bible to be absolute and without error, then the logical conclusion is that the first available translation is the right one and you can't have others that conflict. If you considered that the Bible as originally revealed was absolute and without error, that would absolutely not demand the conclusion that the first translation into your language from intermedia…
Sure, you can believe that the original text was correct but the KJV is not. I guess what I meant by "The Bible" is "The Bible in English".
As a practical matter, few people know the Greek and Latin and Aramaic of the original texts, so to question the validity of the English Bible is to question the version they know and trust, that is accessible to them. If you question KJV, that opens up some other questions: if the KJV is wrong, which translation is right? Is any translation right? It seems like a hard question for which no answer is arbitrary and unclear and any wrong answer could have unknown bad consequences, and many of these people believe strongly that humans are very fallible when it comes to moral and religious discernment.
One defense against making the wrong decision is to make no decision, and simply to abide by the traditions of your upbringing.
Personally, I don't think Christianity is such a weak system of thought that it all comes crumbling down if you yank out the doctrine of inerrancy of scripture (such as it is available to them), but I can sympathize with those who don't want to try it and find out.
Re: Earliest known draft of the King James Bible discovered
#77This may be off-topic but is there any consensus on what is the most accurate translation of the bible into English?
Any translation has a profound impact on the way the bible is perceived, so perhaps it is worthwhile to look directly at the source. Take this famous opener in the KJV bible for example: John 1:1 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Well just what does it mean by Word? Turns out this is Koine Greek λόγος, logos. Logos not only means word, but it importantly also means reas…
"reasoning, order, and logic" still make sense to me because I believe in theistic evolution - evolution is basically a tool that God used to get us where we are today.
There is also Pandeism (where basically God ceased to exist because he became the universe). Scott Adam's book God Debris touches on this.
FYI, (I'm not Catholic, but) the Catholic Church today holds that view that Science explains the how, and Religion explains the why. It was actually a Catholic priest that came up with the Big Bang theory.
FYI continued, I believe everyone should be open-minded and respectful. I understand that my beliefs may be wrong (after all not all religions can be right at the same time). I believe people taking either side to the extreme does not help anyone, and I'm glad we can have reasonable, respectful conversations here on HN.
Re: Earliest known draft of the King James Bible discovered
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
The brilliance exists. Indeed, anyone can witness the psychological nature of influence upon people "born into low social status" and who become docile & obedient from the "word" while disregarding their birth status because just wait until death. :)
People misunderstand that old saying, 'Religion is the opium of the masses'. They think it means religion is meant to pacify and control. And maybe that's what Marx intended it to mean, I don't know. But it has a truer and infinitely more subversive meaning. The words of Jesus will get you high as a kite, if you study them and meditate upon them. "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send pe…
The reason there's confusion about that quote is it's always without context.
"Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people"
It's not so much that religion is meant to pacify, but that it does. It is soothing, and makes conditions which may be unbearable without it, bearable, preventing the people from attempting to change the underlying conditions which caused the suffering in the first place.
Re: Earliest known draft of the King James Bible discovered
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your profile says "greybeard", "skeptic" and "computers" so probably VERY similar backgrounds. Skimming your comments now to confirm :) Edit: Early, but see Apollo/HP, SunOS/Solaris already. Small world. Any chance of early 1990s Linux, Kermit, Windows packet drivers, KA9Q, Unicos, Mosaic, AT&T 3B2, Pyramid OSX, Usenet, UUCP, C, Perl, TCL, etc?
All those and more. Except for the 3b2. Not much Tcl.
Karnac says you're 54ish and from the Northeast US or Ireland or maybe UK ;)
I suspect not US, which makes the shared experience more interesting, as the world in general wasn't particularly very global at the time, yet we have a remarkably shared experience (I'm EU born, US bred). Yay early (late 80's / early 90's) Internet.
This is one of those rare HN moments that I wish more would notice.
Re: Earliest known draft of the King James Bible discovered
#80Do religious groups in the US, specifically, Christians, talk about the history of the King James Bible? Why is it, uh, trusted by so many, when stuff like this hints at a storied construction?
The KJV has greatly influenced modern English. Because of this, many of its passages resonate with people from or descended from the UK, often in a way that they don’t realize.