From: samir@sphinx.rtp.dg.com (M. Yasser Samir)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: KJV is not the best
Date: 8 Apr 92 08:27:54 GMT
Organization: Data General Corporation, Research Triangle Park, NC

|> [The NIV is intended as a translation, not what you call a "version".
|>
|> The Greek in 3:16 simply means "only".
|>
|> Similarly John 5:7-8.  In fairness to the KJ translators, they
|> accurately translated the Greek as they had it, and they used Eramus'
|> edition, which was the best critical Greek edition available at the
|> time.  Unfortunately, Eramus had blown that passage.
|>
|> I agree with you that it's good to remove these partisan
|> modifications.  However this doesn't really change much in Christian
|> theology.  The Trinity is really based on more general considerations,
|> and not just a couple of "proof texts".
 
         In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful
 
Why should I pay that much attention to Greek or even to Latin like
Christians do?  I do understand their feeling towards the importance
of the Greek and Latin translations, because that's the only thing
they got about their book.  History had proven to us very clear that
those writtings themsleves are nothing but a traslation (supposably)
from what Jesus had said in Aramaic.  How much accurate were they?
Only God knows.

So, KJV is a translation from a translation that was handled by
millions and millions of Christians over centuries as the only CORRECT
word of God.  Now, when I read that the KJV that has departed from the
Greek.  That proves exactly what I have been trying to say for a long
time, which is there was confusion, politics and human theology and
human influance about Jesus (PBUH) and the writtings that the church
had at that time. Nobody, can gaurantee that the Bible we have now,
for example NIV, is the final Bible humans will ever have.  Scholars,
not preachers, in Christianity itself, said before, that the Bible
still under the theory of evol tion.  Whatever we have now, might very
will be changed in the future, if we have a new discovery.
 
The second paragraph in the reply above proves again what I'm trying
to say. Eamus for example and the big role he played of shaping the
opinion of the church and the traslation of th Bible.  How come we
will feel comfortable to say that NIV is not a version, but KJV is.
Doesn't mean that so many Christians were following the wrong book and
still do?  Doesn't mean that those Christian who died believing that
Jesus is the begotten not made son of god, died with misconseption
about their lord and savior?  How would Christians discribe Jesus
(PBUH) now a days?  Is he the only son of God?  Because as I said in
my article there're so many sons of god in the Bible,or is he unique,
becuse every single human is unique if someone is planning to take it
literally.
 
This is exactly the whole point.  The Bible was in the hand of a few
people, who are, the church for a long time till it was permitted to
go to public. The Fathers of the church took the resonsibilty to speak
for God in so many councils and occasions.  I do not need to go
further in details with examples to prove that the Bible we have now
in it's present form (NIV),is NOT the one and the same with KJV.
 
I'm very surprised to read that John 5:7-8 follow what so called
"mistranslation" because it's not in any way.  I was expecting such an
answer when I was writtingmy original article.  Therefore, I gave the
clear definition of both; traslation and version.  The verse of the
trinity was not there in the first place according to NIV and RSV.
For the research's sack, let us remember what was written in RSV
edition 1952's preface about the KJV and the traslation of the Bible
as a whole.

KJV did use "The gosple according to.....", because they knew for
certain that there is no 100% knowledge that Mathew wrote Mathew, and
John wrote John, and so fourth...........  Did we forget that Martin
Luther took some books out of the Bible (James, Hebrew, Revlation) for
example because he himself (not God) didn't like them, and the church
returned them back after his death.
 
"proof text" to be applied on someone who is pushing the text to hard,
and even beyond the meaning of the language that he/she speaking to
prove his/her owen point, which is on the other hand can't be
accepted. for example :
 
To say that the trinity exsisted in Gen 1:1 because the plural form of God
(Alohim) was used instead of the singlar form.
To say that Jesus (PBUH) is God because he said I AM.
To say that Jesus (PBUH) is God because he raised the dead.
To say that Jesus (PBUH) is God because he accepted worship.
To say that Jesus (PBUH) is God because he said I and the Father are one.
 
The list of "proof text" can go on and on, but I'll stop here.
 
 
Mohamed Yasser Samir
Tel : (919) 248-6266
Fax : (919) 248-6352

[?? You should pay attention to Greek because we're talking about a
translation from the Greek.  If you want to assess a translation, you
have to look at the original.

The KJV wasn't really a translation of a translation.  It worked
directly from the Greek.  It's just that in one case a reading taken
by the Latin had worked its way back into the Greek.  That's the only
example I know of where that happened.  However it's certainly
possible that they were guided by the Latin at other points.  I don't
see that that's such a big deal.  If there's a phrase in Greek that
you're considering how to translate, it makes sense to look at how
other translators have handled it.

At any rate, I certainly didn't intend to imply that Christians who
used the KJV were following the wrong book, or died with serious
misconceptions.  Let me say again, major doctrinal points are not
based on one or two passages.  The changes between the KJV and NIV
have not affected theology.  They've simply removed a couple of proof
texts, which were never very strong to begin with.

The business of Luther removing books from the Bible turns out to be a
legend.  His translation icluded all the NT books.  It's true that in
some of his comments he indicated that he didn't have a very high
evaluation of James, but he didn't remove it from his translation.

I think you're overplaying the significance of textual and
translational issues.  I don't know of any cases where they've
affected theology.

--clh]