First, I want to know what you meant by, "Do you resent being reminded of your failure to live up to your status as a Tyndale seminarian?"
The Best Bible Translation
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First, I want to know what you meant by, "Do you resent being reminded of your failure to live up to your status as a Tyndale seminarian?"
It was an honest question, not an assertion. I just asked the question based on your prior statement that you don't care about grades and on the utter lack of evidence of scholarly research in your posts that I've read. Also, I don't think any seminary grad who has not gained competence in Greek and Hebrew should be hired as a minister. Congregations deserve ministers who have more than second-hand knowledge of what the biblical texts actually say. But as a pastor, I never bring specific Greek or Hebrew words into my sermons. I just tell them what the text literally says, and they know I mean the meaning of the original languages. Nor do I like people who deliberately misrepresent posted views just to insult. You know very well I don't want to bother 2nd or 3rd graders with linguistic technicalities. You know I was just making a general observation about how to painlessly increase competency to teach the Bible.
I didn't say that I didn't care about grades. What I have said is that I don't care about competition for grades. There is a difference. As for the "utter lack of evidence..." That's your opinion.
Mystic said:
Okay.
Mystic said:
Teaching the Bible is what I do each week with Primary. As it so happens, my mentioning bringing Greek and Hebrew to my 2-3 graders was, while an apt response to your claim of students needing the Greek and Hebrew texts, a spot of humor.
Have a blessed night Mystic.
I want readers to understand why the corrupt text of the KJV should not be taken lightly. According to our best manuscript evidence, Mark ends at 16:8 without a recorded resurrection appearance. Many later scribes deemed this unacceptable; so 2 different endings were tacked on to Mark by scribes. The longest ending is 16:9-20, a composite of texts from Luke and other traditions. The inauthenticity of Mark's addition is convincingly attested by its stylistic differences. Indeed, we even know who contrived it, Aristo of Pella in the mid-2nd century. This text has been party to serious harm and error. Consider this bizarre text in the KJV addition:
"And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;
They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them (Mk 16:17-18)."
(1) Of the 600 million Pentecostals in our world, most believe that speaking in tongues is the indispensible condition for receiving Spirit baptism. True, speaking in tongues occurs in 3 of the 5 cases of Spirit baptism in Acts. This is not sufficient grounds for making tongues a necessary condition for Spirit baptism. But Mark's ending sets tongues apart as a unique badge of the true believer and is cited to bolster the Pentecostal case for the essential role of tongues. If this bogus KJV ending never existed, it is questionable whether tongues would ever have risen to such overinflated importance.
(2) Appalachian Christian groups cite this text as a basis for dancing with Eastern Diamonrback rattlesnakes and drinking strychnine poison as a badge of their faith in fulfillment of Jesus' promise and alleged criteria. Many have died as a result of this nonsense, but these Christians view such deaths as a test of faith. If they could only be convinced by the discoveries of Text Criticism, many lives would be saved.
"And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;
They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them (Mk 16:17-18)."
(1) Of the 600 million Pentecostals in our world, most believe that speaking in tongues is the indispensible condition for receiving Spirit baptism. True, speaking in tongues occurs in 3 of the 5 cases of Spirit baptism in Acts. This is not sufficient grounds for making tongues a necessary condition for Spirit baptism. But Mark's ending sets tongues apart as a unique badge of the true believer and is cited to bolster the Pentecostal case for the essential role of tongues. If this bogus KJV ending never existed, it is questionable whether tongues would ever have risen to such overinflated importance.
(2) Appalachian Christian groups cite this text as a basis for dancing with Eastern Diamonrback rattlesnakes and drinking strychnine poison as a badge of their faith in fulfillment of Jesus' promise and alleged criteria. Many have died as a result of this nonsense, but these Christians view such deaths as a test of faith. If they could only be convinced by the discoveries of Text Criticism, many lives would be saved.
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Jae, what you actually posted was: "As for grades, I don't compete for them." Since grade variations automatically imply competition that serves as the basis of job and professorial recommendations, I took that to mean, you don't take grades seriously. Your comment disturbed me enough that I spent considerable time to read through threads and track it down again. God and God's churches deserve our best efforts and measuring success by grade standards is the benchmark of due diligence.
Are mortals intuitively warped or just thrown off by The Swerve created by Poggio on the tendencies of Rome to say the Nature of Things ... isn't so ... particularly incarnate?
I say again what does incarnate mean ... look it up in the book of conventional understanding ... de Lexus?
I myself was used to using an electronic bible with 10 translations ... creating a 10's situation as to how that could be if it was one way ...
Can people blither uncontrollably when in the throes of passion ... even if only imagined and not in virtue aL (primary power of light) contact with something that is quite ethereal in nature? Some passions for toxic realating are rightfully more weird that unrighteousness to escape vipers ... that can cross over above ground ... thus the tres fall out of fete up syndrome ... at least keep or quip on weasels ... they are Ermine shaded when really Kohl ... that's a dark metaphor ... on royal T really ...
revjohn
Well-Known Member
I made sure to pick up a copy of the NLT when it was released because my faculty advisor at Redeemer, Al Wolters, was part of the translation team for the book of Job. My favourite advisor ever. He is a brilliant man, has a dry wit and during my time at Redeemer I thought I saw more than a little bit of mischief when he would ask questions.
His book "Creation Regained" is a good read.
His book "Creation Regained" is a good read.
An example of why the serious Bible student should purchase a New Living Translation Bible to complement a more literal Bible like the NIV:
The NLT of Matthew 7:7 stresses the need for continual asking in petitionary prayer: "Keep on asking, and you shall receive; keep on seeking and you shall find; keep on knocking, and the door will be opened for you." The NIV and NRSV translate "Ask...seek, and knock" as if once is enough. The NLT captures the repetive nuance of the Greek imperative and this is a key to grasping Jesus' teaching on prayer. Jesus doesn't mean that repettion is needed to get God's ear or to overcome God's reluctance. Matthew 6 recognizes that God knows what is needed before you ask. The sense intended of the repetition has more to do with the focused intent that it rakes time to develop in contemplative states and a long article would be needed to adequately explain why this process is needed to develop effective and authentic faith. My limited point here is that, though the NLT is often a paraphrase more than a translation, it captures nuances that the more literal translations omit.
The NLT of Matthew 7:7 stresses the need for continual asking in petitionary prayer: "Keep on asking, and you shall receive; keep on seeking and you shall find; keep on knocking, and the door will be opened for you." The NIV and NRSV translate "Ask...seek, and knock" as if once is enough. The NLT captures the repetive nuance of the Greek imperative and this is a key to grasping Jesus' teaching on prayer. Jesus doesn't mean that repettion is needed to get God's ear or to overcome God's reluctance. Matthew 6 recognizes that God knows what is needed before you ask. The sense intended of the repetition has more to do with the focused intent that it rakes time to develop in contemplative states and a long article would be needed to adequately explain why this process is needed to develop effective and authentic faith. My limited point here is that, though the NLT is often a paraphrase more than a translation, it captures nuances that the more literal translations omit.
You just never know
Blip, blip, blip....
I like The Jerusalem Bible for the depth it provides. Also like the Good News Bible for making the arcane bits more readable. For the Psalms I like the King James Bible for it's poetic sensibility.
The Jerusalem Bible is a flawed translation from the French translation and should be discarded in favor of the New Jerusalem Bible which takes the original Hebrew and Greek into account. Though not as reputable as either the NIV or the NRSV, the New Jerusalem Bible has the advantage of including the Apocryphal Old Testament. On the sloppy scholarship of the Good News Bible, see:
http://www.bible-researcher.com/tev.html
The Good News Bible is a poor man's New Living Translation.
Seeler
Well-Known Member
In my Bible Discussions group we seem to agree that the best translation is various translations. One person reads a passage aloud and the rest follow along as best they can in whatever translation they've picked from the shelf or brought with them. I usually grab the 'New Jerusalem Bible' - because it often gives a slightly different slant and inspires discussion. I also refer to 'The Five Gospels' when reading the gospel.
Since 1/3 of our group also refer back to the original Greek at times, we seem to dig pretty deeply into the passages, what they meant originally, how they have been interpreted, and what they are telling us on that particular day in our group.
Often when doing individual reading at home, or preparing to lead worship, or facilitate a discussion, I turn to more than one of the Bibles on my shelf or computer table, or more and more often to comparative texts online.
I do like the language of KJV for certain things - reading aloud The 23rd Psalm for instance. (I once heard someone read this psalm in church on his mother's 90th birthday - he read in Dutch, a language only 1/4 of the congregation knew, but that was his mother's mother-tongue. I understood the sentiment, not the words.)
Since 1/3 of our group also refer back to the original Greek at times, we seem to dig pretty deeply into the passages, what they meant originally, how they have been interpreted, and what they are telling us on that particular day in our group.
Often when doing individual reading at home, or preparing to lead worship, or facilitate a discussion, I turn to more than one of the Bibles on my shelf or computer table, or more and more often to comparative texts online.
I do like the language of KJV for certain things - reading aloud The 23rd Psalm for instance. (I once heard someone read this psalm in church on his mother's 90th birthday - he read in Dutch, a language only 1/4 of the congregation knew, but that was his mother's mother-tongue. I understood the sentiment, not the words.)
paradox3
Peanuts Fan
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Her
In Bible study groups I have found it best if everyone reads along in the same translation to get the "feel" of the passage. Bringing in other translations for comparison purposes or clarification is often valuable but I find it best when we start from the same place. Too much confusion otherwise has been my experience.
Mendalla
Happy headbanging ape!!
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Wow. That must be quite a group. My Greek is too limited and rusty and, above all, too old. My classics Greek courses focussed on the older Attic Greek of classical Athens (the language of Plato and Sophocles) and I understanding that koine is different enough that I'd need to learn that to properly read the NT in Greek.
Seeler
Well-Known Member
Since I don't know Greek, I have no idea how much Greek they have - but occasionally they will refer back 'well this word is sometimes translated from the original Greek to mean ... ' 'The Greek word .... used here only occurs twice in the Bible. Usually they use the word ... to mean .... ' or something similar. Adds to, but doesn't dominate, our discussions.
Seeler, one of the biggest problems with Bible studies and sermons is the tyranny of obfuscating jargon, heard so often that it can no longer inspire or communicate meaning. So preliminary readings from different translations have the potential to get the group's attention in a fresh way. Also, if a literal translation like the NIV is supplemented by a more modern paraphrase like the NLT, some additional Hebrew or Greek nuance is presented. Yet in another sense the Bible can't be translated because spiritually important words often have no one to one correlation with an English equivalent. So if I'm on a pastor search committee, one of my questions would be, "How well do you know Hebrew and Greek?" I'd want a pastor whose grasp of Scripture is a second-hand function of the quality of the commentaries consulted.
You just never know
Blip, blip, blip....
I'll stand by my original post Myst, guess it all comes down to different strokes for different folks. Cheers!
Mystic, in your OP you wrote, "It seems inappropriate to make this a technical academic thread beyond the training of readers. Chiefly, I want to hear about your reasoning for using one or more versions and not others"
Why then go after You after he states his reasons for liking a couple of versions.
If he enjoys the Jerusalem and the Good News, so be it. That's his choice.
Jae: If he enjoys the Jerusalem and the Good News, so be it. That's his choice.[/QUOTE]
I'm all for choice. I question when Bible students are indifferent to the question of accuracy of translation or paraphrase. I guess some people, want to twist the Bible's meaning into their own image, as in Bette's bias towards the Inclusive Bible.. For those who don't know the original languages, use of a good literalistic translation and an accurate paraphrase helps the reader escape the blinding influence of pious jargon and get to the personal relevance of the text.
I'm all for choice. I question when Bible students are indifferent to the question of accuracy of translation or paraphrase. I guess some people, want to twist the Bible's meaning into their own image, as in Bette's bias towards the Inclusive Bible.. For those who don't know the original languages, use of a good literalistic translation and an accurate paraphrase helps the reader escape the blinding influence of pious jargon and get to the personal relevance of the text.