Re: Translations.

From: Jonathan Robie (jonathan@texcel.no)
Date: Thu Jan 08 1998 - 17:38:48 EST


This post raises questions which are explicitly outside the scope of
B-Greek, and which we have decided, as a group, to avoid. The reason for
this is simple: our goal is to discuss the text of the Greek scriptures as
openly as possible, with as much light and as little heat as possible, and
by ruling out discussions that distract from that goal, we are able to
focus on the text itself.

At 04:52 PM 1/8/98 -0500, Michael S. Olszta wrote:
>I've been reading through some of the posts on translation and how the
>theology of a translator may affect his translating. An internet
>contact and I have had a very heated discussion going on as to the
>merits of the King James Bible. He believes the translators were quite
>biased in certain places that seem to disagree with his understanding of
>the New Testament. I, on the other hand, believe that the English text
>is perfect as it stands BUT in cases of pure misunderstanding of the
>English, I have no trouble with going back to a Hebrew or Greek lexicon,
>concordance, grammar, etc. to elucidate the meaning of the English.

Whether or not the King James is perfect, B-Greek is not about any
translation, and global judgements about translations have little to do
with the Greek text. Moreover, there are groups of people who are strongly
convinced that their translation is the best, that other translations are
biased, or even that only one translation is inspired. In our experience,
debates of this kind simply don't increase our understanding of the meaning
of the Greek text, and they get very emotional. People involved in these
debates often get personal in their attacks. We don't need that here.

>The main reason I subscribed to B-Greek was at his bidding so that we
>could read the opinions of those who obviously spend a great deal of
>their time in studying the Greek New Testament and compare notes on
>various passages where to him the King James Bible is absolutely wrong
>and to me there just needs further study to understand the text as it
>stands.

You are perfectly welcome to ask specific questions about the meaning of
the Greek text for verses that interest you.

>May I ask you folks one question:
>
>Is it possible for a Bible translation to be THEOPNEUSTOS or is it only
>possible that the original words penned by the writers of the New
>Testament could be so? Please give your reasons why or why not.

This is much too broad a question to answer meaningfully - what do you mean
by THEOPNEUSTOS? I doubt very much that the original writer was thinking in
terms of translations of the Bible that would be made 1600 or more years
after he penned those words; in fact, the context suggests that the writer
was talking of the Old Testament scriptures.
 
So I would ask you to *please* restrict your questions to those within the
scope of B-Greek. For an official statement of which questions are within
our scope, please see "http://sunsite.unc.edu/bgreek".

Jonathan
 
jonathan@texcel.no
Texcel Research
http://www.texcel.no



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