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This may be off-topic but is there any consensus on what is the most accurate translation of the bible into English?
This may be off-topic but is there any consensus on what is the most accurate translation of the bible into English?
Accuracy depends on what your aiming for. There are two schools of thought on modern english translations, dynamic equivalence and formal equivalence.
Formal equivalence tries to maintain as much as possible the linguistic and syntactical features of the original languages and will often prefer to leave ambigous language or difficult readings as they are. Sort of a 'window' into the original language. The English Standard Version is probably the best representative of this perspective.
Dynamic equivalence tries to maintain as much as possible the affect and intention of the original languages, and so will often remove ambiguities, paraphrase passages, and make translation choices that limit alternative readings. The New International Version is both the most popular and pioneering translation in this regard.
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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…
I've never understood how anyone could believe this. Every single book of the Bible has lots of ancient versions, none of which are exactly the same as any other.
Do 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 original translation of the King James, like Luther's German bible, was a monumental work of cutting edge scholarship and had profound social impact. For several centuries leading up to the 16th century no full Greek or Hebrew manuscripts were available for translation.
The main issue with the King James Version is that we have better manuscripts available. The Textus Receptus, which was a truly amazing piece of scholarship at its time, is no longer preferred. Scholars now use an 'eclectic' text, a combination of manuscripts. I believe we have something on the order of 24,000 manuscript fragments of varying length for the New Testament, some even potentially dating to the first century. Modern translators have access to better resources than the KJV translators did.
This may be off-topic but is there any consensus on what is the most accurate translation of the bible into English?
My “to-read” list is too long, so I haven’t actually read it, but personally I’m interested in “The Art of Bible Translation” by Robert Alter.
This 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 tr…
"If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."
(NIV translation https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Leviticus+20%3A...)
The translation just doesn't use the specific word "homosexuality" which would be misleading and anachronistic anyway. The modern idea about homosexuality is about being attracted to persons of the same sex. Leviticus doesn't concern itself about any of that, it condemns the specific act of two men having sex.
You can argue that the Bible doesn't condemn sex between women though.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 tr…
>Which makes some sense; until at least Pope Urban, the Catholic Church was happy to perform both mixed sex and same sex marriages That's not what your [3] says. >Nevertheless, Historian John Boswell argued that Adelphopoiesis, or brother-making, represented an early form of religious same-sex marriage in the Orthodox church. >Alan Bray saw the rite of Ordo ad fratres faciendum ("Order for the making of brothers") as…
Obviously it’s interesting to religious people and people who study religion. But, on top of that it’s an important document of the English language at that time. So it’s got linguistic interest as well. But that’s the case for many historic religious texts. One has to do with religion the other is the linguistic aspect. Of course there are other areas of interest like culture and so on.
It also has a lot of timeless wisdom
I'm struggling to imaging something recorded in this draft that is useful, and not already known?
A lot of timeless wisdom is also obvious.
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I ask for the same level of self-restrain from you when using adjetives about the quality of the bible and similar kind of opinions. Note that the person you're replying to did not say that the bible was ALL timeless wisdom, or really say much at all about the overall quality of the bible. There's no contradiction between the bible containing lots of timeless wisdom AND containing lots of utter nonsense and complete…
Yeah, New Testament is a fair bit nicer.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, New Testament is a fair bit nicer.
That is kind of a myth. For example the concept of Hell and eternal punishment is from the NT.
However, many would say the entire compilation is a myth.