Revelations 22:18 & 19 lays it out clearly concerning
the war of translations:
18 For I
testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If
any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that
are written in this book:19 And if
any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall
take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from
the things which are written in this book.
Now was this written to the readers of Revelations or the
readers of the Bible as a whole? Reason I ask is this has been applied to the
Bible as a whole, yet over the history of the Bible and the translations things
have changed. The original Bible is what? Technically all the Bibles in print
do something to change the wordings and underlying meaning.
Through my readings of the various translations and my
research into the “perfect” translation I have found one thing, these verses
have been violated by the translator. First we get into the KJV vs the NIV
version. Ironically the original KJV had 80 chapters and that was reduced to 66
in the 1880’s. Also, the NIV was translated from older manuscripts and thus
considered more reliable and are missing some verses or had some added. Now the
KJV only crowd says just because it is older doesn’t mean it is accurate. The
majority of ancient translations as well as letters quoting missing scriptures
from the “oldest” sources imply that the KJV is a correct translation.
Also, newer translations like the Message and The Voice are
very easy reads, but add a bunch of language to help clarify the statements
from the original translations. Whereas the Message has had some questionable
stuff embedded in the book, I have found the Voice to be very helpful in
understanding some of the more difficult passages.
The theological and historical bias starts to creep in since
the English language has changed and our understanding of ancient languages we
are translating from have changed. Also, when you are dealing with theological
biases, the meaning of a certain phrase could be different and therefore translated
different depending on the bias. The Jehovah Witness Bible is very much like
this since they do not believe Jesus was God.
Now through all this what does it mean for the lay person?
Should we only read the 1560 Geneva Bible, the 1611 KJV, The 1380 Wycliffe
Bible, the 1970’s NIV, the 1984 NIV or the 2011 NIV? Or some other version? Or
should we learn Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew to read from the originals? If so
that which originals should we read since the originals are lost?
Before the Reformation the Bible had been translated to
Latin, a dead language at the time and was hidden from the people from around
300AD to 1300 AD. So for 1000 years we lived in the dark, hence why it was the
Dark Ages. As we discover more archeological evidence of the time we can see
that the translation of the Bible and our understanding may change slightly.
So what does all this mean to YOU? Should you give up and worship
a goat or science of no God? Or trust in faith the Bible you have is correct? I
do not have a definitive answer here but can say that the Gospel has shown
through in all the translations I have read and therefore we need to stop the
decision process and just pick one to study. Use BibleGateway to do parallel
readings on parts you may not understand fully. The key is to read the Bible
and not have it collect dust.
I have looked into reading the 1560 Geneva or the 1611 KJV
and am quite depressed on two levels since most of the ones available are
copies and not re-typeset, so they are not only difficult to read Old English,
but difficult to read type. So I struggle with what to study next. I want to
read the Apochrypha and possibly the Gnostic Gospels. Also, I have taken
interest in the latest from Israel where the tomb of Jesus’ family may have
been found along with Jesus’ bones. This definitely throws a little change in
the theologies if it is in fact true but also shows others the story of Jesus
is true.