long winded fool

I do not deny that there were discrepancies in the early church's translations of original manuscripts. I simply deny that these discrepancies continue to appear in most modern Bibles. Where a discrepancy occurs, the older source generally wins. Many think that the Bible is like a giant game of "telephone," where errors are magnified over time and text winds up completely different than it originally was. This is not the case. While some discrepancies are to be expected, the books of the Bible are not translated according to the last version, they are translated according to the first version that we have available. Bibles today are more trustoworthy than Bibles centuries ago, because they are translated from the oldest sources available. We have older source material now than the church did in the past.

Amaleq13

Last time I checked, there continue to be discrepancies when one compares modern translations. Which translation do you consider to most accurately reflect the "oldest" sources?

badger3k

I found the Jesus Mysteries to be entertaining, but it's based on some assumptions that haven't been proven to any great degree (as far as I know). I thought the book "The Lost Christianities" by Bart D Ehrman is informative, as was Johnathan Kirsch "God Against the Gods" (which has a little information on the early church). How accurate their information is, I don't feel confident enough in my own knowledge to judge - but my opinion is that it is pretty solid, based upon other readings. More knowledgeable individuals may disagree. Other than that I try to go to original sources of the time (Origen (sp?), etc).

The dead sea scrolls work done by Eisenman puts forth some theories, and based on that, the book "The Messianic Legacy" also has some good writing (at least as far as the actual history goes - I know a lot of the recent material - aka priory of sion - is a hoax).

As for the discrepancies, just compare any of the books out today - I know the KJV is riddled with errors, and I have heard the New International Version (dated ? - I don't have this one) has some "unusual" interpretations and translations. Many modern bibles seem to be rewritten (or "translated") with a specific purpose in mind. It's been happening for the whole history of the book, I can't see it stopping now. That said, I am sure that there are reasonably accurate translations available, but as I am looking for one myself, I can't recommend any particular version.

long winded fool

I don't know. I have heard of a New Testament translated by a Jewish historian whose sole purpose was as accurate a translation of the ancient texts as possible. Most Bibles today, (with the obvious exception of the NAB) are translated by non-catholics. These would seem to be the least likely Bibles to be biased in favor of Catholicism, and a New Testament translated by a scholor of Jewish beliefs would be least likely to be biased in favor of Christianity at all.

As I said, discrepancies are to be expected in any translation of ancient manuscripts. The discrepancies are due simply to differing interpretations of the wording and lost fragments, not to any kind of religious agenda.

Amaleq13

You don't know the name, though?

Unfortunately, you are mistaken in this assumption. While the religious agendas are not necessarily Catholic in nature they do exist and are the ultimate reason for many translation discrepancies. The "KJV Only" debate is largely (exclusively?) Protestant in nature but it is clear that religious agendas are driving both sides of the argument and the discrepant preferences for specific translations. You might find it here with the search engine but I know you can find it by Googling it elsewhere.

It is a very entertaining debate if you have no agenda involved.

long winded fool

Well, there are certainly religious agendas surrounding differing interpretations of difficult words and passages, but my point was that religion has nothing to do with those actual words that are translated. If I learned Greek and Hebrew and examined the oldest texts I could find, all of the text that I would have access to would be at least as trustworthy as any other historical document from the same peroid.

I agree that different religions have different interpretations of certain words of the text, (usually very minor differences, and the Amplified Bible lists all of the possible interpretations of difficult words anyway) but the original text itself is less likely to have been altered than any other historical document, from an historical perspective. The debates you refer to are arguments about interpretation of the text, not about the text itself.

And I'm looking for that "Jewish" New Testament. I'll let you know the title and author when I find it.

Cynthia of Syracuse

Would that be _The Jewish New Testament_ translated by David Stern?

Toto

The Jewish New Testament translated by David Stern

I don't think this is the book. The reviews make it look biased and idiosyncratic.

Chris Weimer

Think Beowulf on this one. Beowulf contains many references to a single sole deity "God" in a Christian manner when scholars are certain it pre-dated the spread of Christianity there by hundreds of years. It has long been known that editors "edit" what they want in or not. The original Commentaries on
Genesis by Origen was altered by a conservative Christian who thought that Origen's ideas of Genesis being allegorical was heresy (which was why Origen was burned) so he changed them during translations into Latin, and original texts are now lost. Why could this not happen to religious documents as well? If they can change the translation and the original language of other sources, who's to say that anyone can't change early Christian texts?

Amlodhi

Hi lwf,

Whether one considers it to be relatively likely or not, the factual evidence clearly demonstrates that it ("the original text") has, in fact, been altered. Further, this evidence is obtained from fragmentary evidence dated no earlier than the mid-2nd century and later. Meaning that not only were alterations still being made at this relatively late date, but also that any alterations occurring in the decades between the "autographs" and our earliest "witnesses", (when the doctrine may have been most fluid), remain relatively unaccounted for.


In addition to the interesting points mentioned by cweb255, some further interesting examples of these alterations are described and documented in a well-written book called:

The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, Bart D. Ehrman, Oxford Univ. Press, New York/Oxford, 1993.

IMO, in addition to a study of early fragmentary textual comparison, the above book is well worth the read.

Amlodhi