Exodus 20:13, Matthew 18:19, etc. And the Changes

[Lazerlike42]

As for the “changes” in translations… the answer is slightly more complicated because there are more parts to the answer.

The biggest part is that, quite simply, we know more about the ancient languages than they did in 1611. Modern translations differ in a lot of places because 400 years of scholarship and textual and language sciences have helped us to understand some things better. That being said, the vast majority of these differences concern matters that are basically unimportant because they don’t affect doctrine. For instance, nobody is going to forumalte a doctrine of how we ought to behave based on what Christ slept in when he was born. We can draw interesting conclusions from it, but it’s not going to affect how we practice our faith.

Another matter is that a lot of Bibles are written with some bias. This may seem like a major problem at first, and it can be, but it’s not important enough to discredit the Bible or anything because the bias is either completely obvious (for instance in the case of the Jehovah’s Witnesses New World Translation) or just not that meaningful and important. There are 3 sorts of bias:

A) Protestant bias. Most Bible translations are made by Protestants, so they are made to try to sound more Protestant. The way I’m saying this sounds a lot more negative than the way I mean it. I’m not saying that Protestants are evil people who mistranslate the Bible or anything (although this does happen sometimes). What I mean is only that Protestants are more comfortable interpreting certain passages certain ways, so when these are translated into English, they are translated with the interpretation sortof already built in. Let me explain. Translation can be done in two ways:
Literal - The translation is done word for word, just
taking one Greek or Hebrew word and writing
the equivalent English word right there. Usually
the word order is left the same too, unless its
really confusing to do so.

Dynamic Equivalent - The translation is done more on a “thought
for thought” basis. In other words, the
meaning of the original language is almost
paraphrased so that it makes the most
sense in English.

There are a lot of gradatians between the two as well. A lot of translations fall somewhere in the middle. For instance:

KJV____NKJV_______NAB___________NIV______________NLT
<-Literal----------------------Dynamic Equivalent-------Total Paraphrase>

The types of bias I’m talking about comes about in the more dynamic translations. Here’s why. A lot of the things said in the Bible are expressions in the original language. For example, the phrase “uncover the nakedness” or “uncover your mother’s nakedness” was a hebrew pharse which referred to people having sex. This is not clear to a reader who is not familiar with this Hebraism. So, when the KJV translation was done andwhen literal translations are done, the literal words “he uncovered her nakedness” are put in there. When the NIV or NLT is done, however, it’s translated as “he had sexual relations with her” so that people will understand.

Now when this “Protestant bias” comes into play is in some situations where a doctrine is involved. Usually its not that big a bias and it doesn’t really affect anything. For example, in Luke 1:28 the angel says to Mary: “Hail, full of grace!” Protestant Bibles often read “Hail, highly favored!” It’s not that big a deal. It can be if someone wants to get into the nitty gritty about Mary and really get into it deep, but if that’s the case they’re probably gonna be looking at the Greek anyways. In other words, it doesn’t affect things that much. Even one Catholic Bible ended up saying “highly favored,” but it didn’t change the way Catholics look at Mary. When it is a big deal could be evidenced in the accounts of the last supper. For example, when Jesus says “This is my body” at the last supper, some Protestant Bibles read “This means my body” [emphasis mine]. In this case the translation makes a very big deal. The reason the Bibles are translated as “This means” instead of “This is” is because Protestants don’t believe in the real presence. So there it is a huge deal. There aren’t really that many cases like this however.

[Continued next post]

 

[Lazerlike42]

[Continued]

Another place this comes in is when words need to be added to the English. If you open up your KJV and look, you’ll see a lot of words in italics. That means those words are not in the original languages. Now it’s necessary to add these words, because a lot of times they are critical in english grammar but aren’t used in Greek, so it just wouldn’t make sense without them. Usually they are words like “is” or “a” or “the” that don’t matter. Every once in a while they can matter but when they do the context very clearly points out what the words ought to be. Every once in a while, the words that are added are based on a particular bias. This is another source. However, just like the other sources of bias, they rarely affect actual doctrine.

Even when there is this bias, it’s there not because the Bible changed but because the people reading/translating it already have their beliefs and the Bible isn’t gonna change them (which yes is wrong, however that’s just the way people are!) In other words, they have particular beliefs, based on the Bible, that have been taught for a hundred years. They have been taught what they believe so when they go to read the Bible they interpret things based on that.

In certain translations there can be other, cultural bias. For instance, the TNIV translation refuses to use words like “he” and “she” so people can believe God is a woman or whatever if they want (even though He really is neither male nor female. The reason we use male pronouns when talking about God is theological and has very little to do with gender in any way whatsoever. If people understood this then the whol gender bias problem would be avoided.) Other people have made some translations with their own political or social beliefs built in, but these aren’t the translations you are likely to see. They are those ones where the bookstore has this one copy sitting in the corner and nobody knows what it is or buys it.

In fact, if you are worried about changing words in the Bible you needn’t be. Most of it is just due to better understanding of language but hasn’t affected much of any beliefs. Some of it is due to bias, but all that is is “Protestant bias” so it’s just going to make it more “Protesant” than Catholic. In other words, if there is bias in a translation it’s just going to make you more Protestant, it’s not going to make you believe all sorts of wildly crazy or insanely erroneous things. The truth is that most of the people who translate the Bible have too much respect for it to go making flat out changes to it or being unfaithful to it. In every case, if you want to make sure you’ve go it right you can always go straight to the Greek or Hebrew. If you can’t read those languages, you can buy a Bible that has the different Greek and Hebrew words with the english words right next to them so you can see exactly what it says.

In fact, there are a lot of reasons to believe the Bible. The Bible, for many reasons, is a spectacular testimony to the truth of the faith. If you want info on this, let me know.