4 ms·

The way that the Bible reads today, in English, after countless revisions and reformulations, translations and copyings, is so far removed from the original Gre

by douche 9y ago

The way that the Bible reads today, in English, after countless revisions and reformulations, translations and copyings, is so far removed from the original Greek or Aramaic that it's almost inconceivable that the words on the page are even close to what was written two thousand years ago. The formality of the Bible in English can be in large part attributed to the King James version, and other versions of that time period, where you've got the turmoil of the reformation, with the English King as the head of the Anglican church in opposition to Rome, as well as a relatively tumultuous internal political climate, and so a lot of passages were tweaked around to reinforce royal authority.

AnimalMuppet 9y ago
The manuscript evidence very strongly disagrees with you.
Garfgon 9y ago
Per Wikipedia the different New Testament texts have a 99.5% accuracy with each other, and the oldest existing manuscripts were written ~200 years after the original: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textual_criticism_of_the_New_Testament https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textual_criticism_of_the_New_T.... Modern translations are done based on analysis of the existing Greek manuscripts, not based on the KJV so any political meddling with the KJV doesn't affect the NIV, ESV or similar.
- Nomentatus 9y ago
  True but unhelpful, since Aramaic had riches and critical distinctions that have been dropped entirely or conflated on the way through low ancient Greek and into older English. For example, four or five different words with quite different meanings have all been rendered as "forgive" or "forgiveness" in the KJV translation making a contradictory and uninformative mess. (Philosophically speaking - it's still great if not entirely comprehensible poetry.) Given how central the Bible was to that concept, the KJV also impoverished our language, setting up an impossible problem for translators and helping to make us all much more ethically moronic than we'd otherwise be.

by douche 9y ago

AnimalMuppet 9y ago

The manuscript evidence very strongly disagrees with you.

Garfgon 9y ago

Per Wikipedia the different New Testament texts have a 99.5% accuracy with each other, and the oldest existing manuscripts were written ~200 years after the original: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textual_criticism_of_the_New_Testament https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textual_criticism_of_the_New_T.... Modern translations are done based on analysis of the existing Greek manuscripts, not based on the KJV so any political meddling with the KJV doesn't affect the NIV, ESV or similar.

Nomentatus 9y ago
True but unhelpful, since Aramaic had riches and critical distinctions that have been dropped entirely or conflated on the way through low ancient Greek and into older English. For example, four or five different words with quite different meanings have all been rendered as "forgive" or "forgiveness" in the KJV translation making a contradictory and uninformative mess. (Philosophically speaking - it's still great if not entirely comprehensible poetry.) Given how central the Bible was to that concept, the KJV also impoverished our language, setting up an impossible problem for translators and helping to make us all much more ethically moronic than we'd otherwise be.