Dean Anderson

I purchased a copy of the Amplified Bible a while ago because it claimed...

Now I naively expected that this would be useful since if that statement were taken at face value it would be great for looking at what the Bible authors believed rather than what modern Christians believe.

However, I was very disappointed when I got home with it.

The footnotes and chapter headings make it clear that the translators are fundy YEC literalists (for example in their introduction to Genesis, they point out that some people think the Genesis creation story is metaphorical but claim that this is an untenable position to take).

I was also worried by their translation guide...

Surely 1 and 4 here are mutually exclusive with respect to the Old Testament? Their aim seems to be 'true to the original' but at the same time project their modern Christian viewpoint back onto the Hebrew and proto-Hebrew authors, claiming that pretty much every third OT verse is a 'prophecy' of Jesus' coming.

For example...

(The addition of bracketed text is by them for 'justified clarification' of the original text).

has a footnote that reads...

So in their translation, this verse is explicitly made into a prophecy.

Their methods seem a little dubious too - in that one of their methods for determining what the correct translation of a verse is 'prayer'.

So...

Does anyone else use this translation?

Is it actually reliable?

Or was it a waste of money (albeit an amusing one)?

CX

Chalk it up as an amusing waste of money. It's a biased translation predicated on a particular confessional stance.

Aravnah Ornan

I agree with CX. In the last church that I attended before my deconversion, one of our pastors preached from the Amplified Bible. I never saw a difference between the "amplifications" and the stuff that modern Christians of a particular stripe want to project onto the Bible.

dado

you mean they actually refer to "the" creation story? without noting there are actually *2* creation stories? if so - get a refund ASAP.

Jack the Bodiless

Well, they might mean that the Christian apologetic that "this was intended by the authors to be read as metaphor" is bunk. Fundies, atheists and Biblical scholars all generally agree that the Bible was intended by its authors to be read literally.

As for the "clarifications": I'll leave it up to those who know Hebrew to deal with those. But the footnote is obviously bunk: the "Serpent" wasn't Satan.

How does it deal with (for instance) God's hardening of Pharaoh's heart in Exodus 7, or the sacrifice of the 32 virgins in Numbers 31, or the controversial use of "pierced" in Psalms 22? In the latter case, I expect there's the usual attempt to pretend this is a prophecy of the crucifixion, but does this influence the actual translation?

Similarly, how does it handle the requirement to sacrifice the firstborn in Exodus 22:29, and the repudiation of this in Ezekiel 20:25-26?

If they keep their speculations in the footnotes and use actual knowledge of Hebrew to give the "amplifications" in the parentheses, then it might be of some use...
...But this is not a good sign!

Dean Anderson

Nope. Here's the text from their introduction to Genesis (I have skipped the first part which is just an overview of what each group of Genesis chapters talks about)...

So as you can see, they claim that the taking the position that the creation->flood narrative is anything other than absolute historical truth is untenable.

Exodus 7 simply has God hardening Pharaoh's heart and does not comment on it. Similarly, the virgin issue in Numbers 31 is glossed over.

Psalm 22 has the text...

Note the other bracketed verses indicating that this is a prophecy of the Crucifixion also referenced in John 19:37 and Isiah 53:7.

In their translation notes, they say that the word 'kur' should be translated as to bore, dig or hew and then ignore their own translation notes and translate it as 'pierced' instead so that it will fit the 'prophecy' properly.

In the case of Exodus 22:29, they add [or redeem] after 'give' and cross-reference Exodus 24:20 where is says a donkey can be redeemed with a lamb. Therefore they change the meaning of the verse from 'you shall sacrifice your firstborn' to 'you shall redeem your firstborn by the sacrifice of a redemptive lamb'.

Ezekiel 20:26 reads...

...so here they have changed the context to indicate that Yahweh never asked for human sacrifice, he simply allowed them to sacrifice to their 'idols'.

They are all in the text, but they use two different types of brackets to indicate the difference between extra meanings in the Hebrew/Greek and extra meanings gleaned from 'prayer'.