Beetle

[hesitantly] Hi, Yuri and Clara. Could it be that the two of you are talking past each other? It seems that when Yuri says "Western" he specifically means the Syro-Latin text and it's attributes. And when Clara says "Western" it's done in the same sense of "Western world", or "Western culture" and is not referring to a specific text.

Or I could be completely wrong on this. [scurries out of the line of fire...]

Yuri Kuchinsky

Well, you know, Beetle, this just might be the case.

Quote:

It seems that when Yuri says "Western" he specifically means the Syro-Latin text and it's attributes. And when Clara says "Western" it's done in the same sense of "Western world", or "Western culture" and is not referring to a specific text. Or I could be completely wrong on this. [scurries out of the line of fire...]

And then again, you might be completely right. Although I tried to make my posts clear, and even specified that I was talking about the Syro-Latin text, Clara might have misunderstood the term "Western text". It's a terrible misnomer, in any case, as I've said before. After all, this is not just the text that's found in western Europe, but the one also found in the East.

As to the value or otherwise of the Byzantine text, and of the KJV, that was based on it -- IMHO this is one of the strangest debates of all... Most of the people who advocate the value of KJV today are extremely naive about biblical history. They are just a bunch of naive literalists, who only rely on their tradition. But the big irony of it all is that they seem to be right about the value of KJV, after all! They are right, IMO, but obviously for the wrong reasons...

Cheers,

Yuri.

Jagged

(hi there y'all, was browsing here and had to add my 2 cents)

Yuri,
I don't understand why you're bringing the KJV into your Byzantine text argument. You want to defend this particular ancient text, fine, but that is beside the point of how useful the KJV is as a translation to the modern reader. In terms of modern English usage, the KJV is *completely obsolete.* The question was 'which translation is best,' and I must assume we're talking 'best translation for average modern reader' rather than 'best translation for biblical scholar.' On a practical level the KJV fails miserably to convey meaning to a modern audience thru usage, grammar, or expression. A couple random examples:Poetic maybe, but not practical. No matter how great this ancient text, the KJV is not going to be successful in conveying its meaning to a modern world.

As an atheist I admit I don't really care too much which Bible translation gets used (I'm not too fond of any of them), except as an ex-Christian I've seen how much the KJV's outdated usage is made a vehicle for all manner of strange fundamentalist arguments and dogma. If you're going to read the Bible, at least read one that's more coherant than the KJV.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Jagged,

Because, whether we like it or not, KJV is the main representative of the Byzantine text today.

Quote:

You want to defend this particular ancient text, fine, but that is beside the point of how useful the KJV is as a translation to the modern reader. In terms of modern English usage, the KJV is *completely obsolete.* The question was 'which translation is best,'

Well, actually, the title of the thread is "Which version".

Quote:

and I must assume we're talking 'best translation for average modern reader' rather than 'best translation for biblical scholar.' On a practical level the KJV fails miserably to convey meaning to a modern audience thru usage, grammar, or expression. A couple random examples: ... Poetic maybe, but not practical. No matter how great this ancient text, the KJV is not going to be successful in conveying its meaning to a modern world. As an atheist I admit I don't really care too much which Bible translation gets used (I'm not too fond of any of them), except as an ex-Christian I've seen how much the KJV's outdated usage is made a vehicle for all manner of strange fundamentalist arguments and dogma. If you're going to read the Bible, at least read one that's more coherant than the KJV.

Well, keep in mind that a good translation of a bad text will still amount to pretty bad results overall. And since I think that our mainstream Alexandrian text is a dud, then even the best translation of it will still amount to a dud.

I have no argument with your other points. Indeed, I'm all for updating the language of popular translations. There's no need to use archaic English. But when the main objective is to understand the underlying Greek text better -- i.e. for a serious student of the Bible -- I will recommend a very literal translation such as YLT (Young's Literal Translation), or KJV over above any of the modern Alexandrian-based translations. Because, for a serious student, the archaic English will simply not matter much and, if there are any difficulties with a passage, some other versions will naturally be consulted.

Regards,

Yuri.