Some of the aspects that Terry (Mejdrich - science columnist) brings forth are certainly true, especially concerning dialects and meanings with cultural and metaphors and as we are presently experiencing the prejudices of authors affects how they write and interpret and the words that are used to convey their bias, we all have that and do that to try to prove our point. However, what Terry is saying, is that the same thing has happened in Bible translation. I would like to strongly disagree with that on the basis of history and the Biblical account and record.
First, the monks which copied the Bible during the Middle Ages; if they made a mistake in the copying of a letter or a comma the monastery would throw out the whole work of a certain monk. Hence, because of such close scrutiny and an atmosphere of perfection, there were very few errors that were ever recorded in a manuscript or Bible. Each monk would go over their work numerous times to verify it was accurate even the punctuation needed to be totally accurate. They realized they were handling God’s Word, not some work of man. Christian believers know that the Bible is without error in its original version, and that it was written by men under the inspiration of God which makes it totally accurate and without error in its message and historically accurate. Hundreds of times, archaeologists have confirmed the accuracy of the Bible as to cities, locations and artifacts presented which confirm the Biblical record (as in the location of the Egyptian chariot wheels being in the Gulf of Aquaba and Mount Sinai being in present day Saudi Arabia or that Jericho existed.
Terry is wrong that the new translations are based or going off of the old translations, that is basically not true. The translations go back to the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts almost exclusively. The newer translations mostly use the Alexandrian family of manuscripts which were found most recently but seem to be older than the Textus Receptus which is the Byzantine Family which was used in the older translations the KJV, the Latin Vulgate, Martin Luther Bible, and Tyndale. A few “Bibles” are paraphrases as Terry is trying to explain. Also, Terry states “there was conscious editing of the early transcripts selecting only those that fit the desired narrative”. That is totally false, the monks had to be meticulous. Another error that Terry states is that “ what is read in the translations of the translations of the translations from one language and culture … to another” is a false depiction of Bible translations and translators. To the unlearned, Terry seems accurate and understandable because that is how the natural biased person would act. Monks and translators realize they are handling “God’s Word” and with the fear of God want it to be correct and without errors. The translations are derived from the oldest and closest to the original manuscripts as possible with few exceptions.
Marlon Sias
No comments:
Post a Comment