MAMEWorld Forums - The Loony Bin - But isn't it flawed from it's inception?

>I *DARE* you to buy that book and read the whole thing instead of ridiculing it.

Not debating the validity of the Bible itself or not... but just to focus on the New King James version... or any "translated" version for that matter.

And it is just that... a VERSION. Meaning it's not the original. Meaning some 'meaning' neccessarily is not exactly as the original, and the translator gets the option of editorializing the translation... which is why there are multiple translations... because they are not all the same and someone decided they wanted a different translation... or they decided they could make some money selling a new one... or whatever. It's not like computer code, where there is only one way to translate a character from ascii into hex.

So, then, do you put your faith in the translator... in this case, originally, King James, who wanted his own translation to meet his own agenda? Or do you put your faith in the original authors of the scriptures that comprise what we call the Bible? If your faith resides in the original scriptures, why are you not studing those as the basis of your faith? Or have you not thought about what comprises your authoritative text on your beliefs before?

Personally, if I were to belive in the scriptures, I would want to spend my scholarly time understanding the original works, not some "translators" opinion of those works... and there is lots of opinion in those translations. I've studies the Bible on a thesis level, including various translations, and the political climates those various translations were created to support, and the differences between versions of the Bible are not subtle... they are faith changing... wars were fought, governments were overthrown, and territories redrawn over which versions of the Bible to follow... which in theory should all be the same, if there is truely ONE definitive authoritative text of the faith, right?

As is is, even the original scriptures went through an editorial process, since someone had to decide which scriptures would be included, and which would be excluded, so perhaps even the Bible itself is missing important works. For example, where are the writings of Mary? She was, after all, only the Mother of Jesus. Well, she was a woman, so anything she had to say was deemed irrelevant, and so her writings were excluded. Maybe to truely understand your faith's origins, you need to find and read all the unincluded stuff too, to understand why it was excluded... was it wrong, was it misguided, did it conflict with a man's personal agenda unrelated to his relationship to God... man is falliable, is he not?

At the end of the day, every single parchment of paper in the Bible, rather included, excluded, translated or original, was penned by a human being. Theologists will counter pointing out that the will of God was there to guide those humans in the writing of ther Bible to ensure its accuracy. Literally, then, that means that it was the will of God to have conflicting versions over which his children will kill each other over trying to decide whose is best.

Food for thought.

:2cents: