What Bible Translation Is Good?

[flip]

ive heard so much talk about loving the vulgate...
























i have always been taught that the vulgate is just a bad translation...

[cmotherofpirl]

Who has said the Vulgate is a bad translation?

[EcceNovaFacioOmni]

The Vulgate has been declared free from error, the only problem is that it's in Latin and I can't read it.

[flip]

the translation comes from the Septugent (Greek translation from hebrew) instead of the Masoretic (original hebrew) text...

the idea is that the water is more pure at the source, as Alex Jones would say...

here are a few examples...

"they pierced my hands and feet..." instead of the masoretic (hebraic) translation "my hands are wasted away"

"The virgin will conceive" instead of "the young woman will conceive"

"Jonah was eaten by a whale" instead of "...a big fish"

[Socrates]

[EDITED BY SOCRATES - never mind, I just found out the answer to my question]

Edited September 3, 2004 by Socrates

[carrdero]

I didn't see my answer in the choices above but the best Bible translation I have come across is the one that you and GOD write together.

[MorphRC]

Well which Maso. texts and manuscripts?

[MorphRC]

[b]II. HEBREW MANUSCRIPTS[/b]

[b](b)[/b] [i]Massoretic text[/i]

All other Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible are Massoretic (see MASSORAH), and belong to the tenth century or later. Some of these manuscripts are dated earlier. Text-critics consider these dates to be due either to intentional fraud or to uncritical transcription of dates of older manuscripts. For instance, a codex of the Former and Latter Prophets, how in the Karaite synagogue of Cairo, is dated A.D. 895; Neubauer assigns it to the eleventh or thirteenth century. The Cambridge manuscript no. 12, dated A.D. 856, he marks as a thirteenth-century work; the date A.D. 489, attached to the St. Petersburg Pentateuch, he rejects as utterly impossible (see Studia Biblica, III, 22). Probably the earliest Massoretic manuscripts are: "Prophetarium Posteriorum Codex Bablyonicus Petropolitanus", dated A.D. 916; the St. Petersburg Bible, written by Samuel ben Jacob and dated A.D. 1009; and "Codex Oriental. 4445" in the British Museum, which Ginsburg (Introduction, p. 469) assigns to A.D. 820-50. The text critics differ very widely in the dates they assign to certain Hebrew manuscripts. De Rossi is included to think that at most nine or ten Massoretic manuscripts are earlier than the twelfth century (Variæ Lectiones, I, p. xv).


[b](3)[/b] [i]Worth[/i]

The critical study of this rich assortment of about 3400 Massoretic rolls and codices is not so promising of important results as it would at first thought seem to be. The manuscripts are all of quite recent date, if compared with Greek, Latin, and Syriac codices. They are all singularly alike. Some few variants are found in copies made for private use; copies made for public service in the synagogues are so uniform as to deter the critic from comparing them. All Massoretic manuscripts bring us back to one editor -- that of a textual tradition which probably began in the second century and became more and more minute until every jot and tittle of the text was almost absolutely fixed and sacred. R. Aqiba seems to have been the head of this Jewish school of the second century. Unprecedented means were taken to keep the text fixed. The scholars counted the words and consonants of each book, the middle word and middle consonants, the peculiarities of script, etc. Even when such peculiarities were clearly due to error or to accident, they were perpetuated and interpreted by a mystical meaning. Broken and inverted letters, consonants that were too small or too large, dots which were out of place -- all these oddities were handed down as God-intended. In Gen., ii, 4, bebram ("when they were created"), all manuscripts have a small Hê. Jewish scholars looked upon this peculiarity as inspired; they interpreted it: "In the letter Hê he created them"; and then set themselves to find out what that meant.This lack of variants in Massoretic manuscripts leaves us hopeless of reaching back to the original Hebrew text save through the versions. Kittel in his splendid Hebrew text gives such variants as the versions suggest.

[b][S][/b] [url="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09627a.htm"]http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09627a.htm[/url]

[MorphRC]

Also try this:

[b]The Reliability of the Bible[/b]
[url="http://www.angelfire.com/sc3/myredeemer/Evidencep11.html"]http://www.angelfire.com/sc3/myredeemer/Evidencep11.html[/url]

[MorphRC]

And this:

[b]Does It Matter If the Bible Is Historically Accurate?[/b]
[url="http://www.xenos.org/teachings/topical/objections/accurate.htm"]http://www.xenos.org/teachings/topical/obj...ns/accurate.htm[/url]

[dUSt]

I need to learn more about the history of the Bible.

[carrdero]

MorphRC: Thanks for the websites. Upon reading them I remembered that these points were realized to me once before. I would like to share with you what
I K(NOW) now about the Bible.

Exerpts from HELLO IT's ME: An Interview With GOD
The BIBLE Chapter pg 10

GOD: The Bible is a good book because it is filled with tidbits of wisdom and advice, and anyone who reads it can learn something from it. But YOU should never think that it is “finished” or that it is the “definitive source of TRUTH.” Every word that was ever written in its own right should BE called a Bible. The only constraint human society has ever put on literature is its binding. The Bible book is bound. It has covers that encase those particular pages. It would BE preposterous to put ONE cover on everything that was ever written.

[carrdero]

Exerpts from HELLO IT's ME: An Interview With GOD
The BIBLE Chapter pg 11

This was also an interesting point:

GOD: The Bible is also (contrary to popular belief) revised. What scholars and translators have not done very well is preserve the validity of the author's original vision and statement. One can't help but notice a strand of commonality and TRUTH to the Bible in ALL of its books. Its overall theme and its consistency have drawn many people to it. Aside from BEing a historical document, it is a book of TRUTHs. If these TRUTHs are applied and PROVEN, you will see they have stood the test of time and certainly have been spoken through ME. I cannot and will not BE contained to ONE book. I AM ALL and I AM GOD.

Edited September 3, 2004 by carrdero

[carrdero]

Exerpts from HELLO IT's ME: An Interview With GOD
The BIBLE Chapter pg 12

This was also very fascinationg:

GOD: People put too much emphasis and judgment on Biblical doctrines, and, in doing so, have started wars and murdered in MY name.
One group passes judgment on another, and the TRUTH is supposed to BE the prize in this battle. But people should realize that LOVE is the only TRUTH that matters.
While the Bible contains many examples of wisdom through experience, there are endless evidence of TRUTHs that exist outside of the Bible. Some people will miss them because their perspective does not extend outside the binding of this one particular book. The words written in the Bible are also guidelines that helped people during the historical era in which the Bible speaks of and may not be relevant to humans in more modern moments. There is no one book or one law humans can follow that will help them excel and prosper in the eventual PURPOSE they have defined for their individual existence.

[carrdero]

dUST writes: I need to learn more about the history of the Bible.

dUST if I may, I would like to recommend these fine publications:

Don't Know Much About the Bible: Everything You Need to Know About the Good Book but Never Learned
by Kenneth C. Davis (Paperback )

ALL SCRIPTURE IS INSPIRED BY GOD AND BENEFICIAL FOR TEACHING by The Watchtower Tract Society

Bible As History
by Werner Keller

Bible History: A Textbook of the Old and New Testaments for Catholic Schools
by George Johnson