Although I do not have any plans to immerse myself in religion in the near future, I am curious as to which version of the bible would be recommended by fellow posters? And why do you prefer other others?
Thanks! Damselfly
Versions of the Bible
by damselfly 14 Replies latest watchtower bible
-
-
blondie
I would recommend using at least 2, of your choice.
Here is a website that has several Protestant translations.
Blondie
-
damselfly
Thank you Blondie! I had a feeling you would be the first to post
Damselfly
-
Terry
Hi!
Many mornings I stop at the local Starbucks and quaff a latte with a rabbi and his group from the local temple.
In the course of many discussions the topic of translations came up. I asked the same question you did and his answer set me to thinking.
He replied: "In the Jewish religion we regard all translations as lies."
That took me aback.
"Why?" I plainly asked him.
"Because, IF (and he added parenthetically: 'Nobody really knows') we are dealing with the actual words and thoughts of G*D's we cannot allow anything to come between our thoughts and his...especially a human opinion."
I am at the point in my research and penetration into all things religion that I no longer view any book as sacred. However, the Rabbi's words caught me by surprise and started me down a different road.
He explained to me that the reason (All translations are lies) young Jewish boys must learn to read Hebrew is not a backward obsession with a backward time and place; but, rather an attempt to read God's words and thoughts in his own language of choice.
Most of what we find in various translations (and revisions and versions) in New Testaments is a constant struggle with various groups in an effort to put a point across at the expense of any integrity left in the texts. Sad, but true.
Why do you think the New World Translation (not a translation at all; but a version) was foisted upon the rank and file JW? Doctrines were propped up by the rewording of texts.
That is really the only reason a BOOK (the bible, as you know is many writings bound together by a committee by the Catholic Church) was ever produced: to solve petty arguments and to knock the wind out of differing opinions. The Bible is one long series of apologia.
I wish you well in your efforts.
You might want to take a look at WHO WROTE THE BIBLE by Friedman.
Below is an expert:
Richard Elliott Friedman, WHO WROTE THE BIBLE?, Jonathan Cape, London 1988.
{p. 50} ... three investigators of who wrote the Bible each independently made the same discovery. One was a minister, one was a physician, and one was a professor. The discovery that they all made ultimately came down to the combination of two pieces of evidence: doublets and the names of God. They saw that there were apparently two versions each of a large number of biblical stories: two accounts of the creation, two accounts of each of several stories about the patriarchs Abraham and Jacob, and so on. Then they noticed that, quite often, one of the two versions of a story would refer to God by one name and the other version would refer to God by a different name. In the case of the creation, for example, the first chapter of the Bible tells one version of how the world came to be created, and the second chapter of the Bible starts over with a different version of what happened. In many ways they duplicate each other, and on several points they contradict each other. For example, they de-
{p. 51} scribe the same events in different order. In the first version, God creates plants first, then animals, then man and woman. In the second version, God creates man first. Then he creates plants. Then, so that the man should not be alone, God creates animals. And last, after the man does not find a satisfactory mate among the animals, God creates woman. And so we have:
Genesis 1 ... Genesis 2
plants ....... man
animals ...... plants
man & woman .. animals
.............. woman
The two stories have two different pictures of what happened. Now, the three investigators noticed that the first version of the creation story always refers to the creator as God {Elohim} - thirty-five times. The second version always refers to him by his name, Yahweh God {Yahweh Elohim} - eleven times. The first version never calls him Yahweh; the second version never calls him God. Later comes the story of the great flood and Noah's ark, and it, too, can be separated into two complete versions that sometimes duplicate each other and sometimes contradict each other. And, again, one version always calls the deity God, and the other version always calls him Yahweh. There are two versions of the story of the convenant between the deity and Abraham. And, once again, in one the deity introduces himself as Yahweh, and in one he introduces himself as God. And so on. The investigators saw that they were not simply dealing with a book that repeated itself a great deal, and they were not dealing with a loose collection of somewhat similar stories. They had discovered two separate works that someone had cut up and combined into one.
{p. 52} The Discovery of the Sources
The first of the three persons who made this discovery was a German minister, Henning Bemhard Witter, in 1711. His book made very little impact and was in fact forgotten until it was rediscovered two centuries later, in 1924.
The second person to see it was Jean Astruc, a French professor of medicine and court physician to Louis XV. He published his findings at the age of seventy, anonymously in Brussels and secretly in Paris in 1753. His book, too, made very little impression on anyone. Some belittled it, perhaps partly because it was by a medical doctor and not by a scholar.
But when a third person, who was a scholar, made the same discovery and published it in 1780, the world could no longer ignore it. The third person was Johann Gottfried Eichhorn, a known and respected scholar in Gemmany and the son of a pastor. He called the group of biblical stories that referred to the deity as God "E," because the Hebrew word for God is El or Elohim. He called the group of stories that referred to the deity as Yahweh "J" (which in German is pronounced like English Y).
The idea that the Bible's early history was a combination of two originally separate works by two different people lasted only eighteen years. Practically before anyone had a chance to consider the implications of this idea for the Bible and religion, investigators discovered that the first five books of the Bible were not, in fact, even by two writers - they were by four.
They discovered that E was not one but two sources. The two had looked like only one because they both called the deity Elohim, not Yahweh. But the investigators now noticed that within the group of stories that called the deity Elohim there were still doublets. There were also differences of style, differences of language, and differences of interests. In short, the same kinds of evidence that had led to the discovery of J and E now led to the discovery of a third source that had been hidden within E. The differences of interests were intriguing. This third set of stories seemed to be particularly interested in priests. It contained stories about priests, laws about priests, matters
{p. 53} of ritual, sacrifice, incense-burning, and purity, and concern with dates, numbers, and measurements. This source therefore came to be known as the Priestly source - for short, P.
The sources J, E, and P were found to flow through the first four of the five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. However, there was hardly a trace of them in the fifth book, Deuteronomy, except for a few lines in the last chapters. Deuteronomy is written in an entirely different style from those of the other four books. The differences are obvious even in translation. The vocabulary is different. There are different recurring expressions and favorite phrases. There are doublets of whole sections of the first four books. There are blatant contradictions of detail between it and the others. Even part of the wording of the Ten Commandments is different. Deuteronomy appeared to be independent, a fourth source. It was called D.
The discovery that the Torah of Moses was really four works that had once been separate was not necessarily a crisis in itself. After all, the New Testament also began with four Gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John - each of which told the story in its own way. Why then was there such a hostile reaction, among Christians and Jews, to the idea that the Old Testament (or Hebrew Bible) might begin with four "gospels" as well? The difference was that the Hebrew Bible's four sources had been combined so intricately and accepted as Moses' own writing for so long, about two thousand years; the new discoveries were flying in the face of an old, accepted, sacred tradition. The biblical investigators were unraveling a finely woven gamment, and no one knew where these new investigations would lead.
The Story of Noah - Twice
These first books of the Bible had as extraordinary a manner of composition as any book on earth. Imagine assigning four different people to write a book on the same subject, then taking their four different versions and cutting them up and combining them into one long, continuous account, then claiming that the account was all by
{p. 54} one person. Then imagine giving the book to detectives and leaving them to figure out (1) that the book was not by one person, (2) that it was by four, (3) who the four were, and (4) who combined them.
For those readers who want to get a better sense of how this looks, I have translated the biblical story of Noah's ark, as it appears in Genesis, with its two sources printed in two different kinds of type. The flood story is a combination of the J source and the P source. J is printed here in regular type, and P is printed in boldface capitals. If you read either source from beginning to end, and then go back and read the other one, you will be able to see for yourself two complete, continuous accounts, each with its own vocabulary and concems:
(SNIP)
-
Rod P
Terry,
So where are your 2 Stories of Noah? Your last post makes reference to them, but I don't see your reconstructed accounts anywhere.
Great post, BTW.
Rod P.
-
blondie
I've heard that same concept from some Muslims that the Koran can only be properly understood if read in the original classical Arabic from Mohammed's time.
-
Terry
Terry,
So where are your 2 Stories of Noah? Your last post makes reference to them, but I don't see your reconstructed accounts anywhere.
The Story of Noah - Twice
These first books of the Bible had as extraordinary a manner of composition as any book on earth. Imagine assigning four different people to write a book on the same subject, then taking their four different versions and cutting them up and combining them into one long, continuous account, then claiming that the account was all by
{p. 54} one person. Then imagine giving the book to detectives and leaving them to figure out (1) that the book was not by one person, (2) that it was by four, (3) who the four were, and (4) who combined them.
For those readers who want to get a better sense of how this looks, I have translated the biblical story of Noah's ark, as it appears in Genesis, with its two sources printed in two different kinds of type. The flood story is a combination of the J source and the P source. J is printed here in regular type, and P is printed in boldface capitals. If you read either source from beginning to end, and then go back and read the other one, you will be able to see for yourself two complete, continuous accounts, each with its own vocabulary and concems
(The above quoted from the book)
-
tetrapod.sapien
oh yes. Who Wrote the Bible - brilliant read. highly recommended. i would love to type out the two flood accounts as they were written in the Friedman book. it does get pretty long though. perhaps i should search for it first.
Damselfly,
i recommend The Skeptic's Annotated Bible
-
tetrapod.sapien
oh, and if you liked Who Wrote the Bible, you will probably like The Bible Unearthed - Isreal Finkelstein & Neil Asherman Silber
-
kwintestal
I've found the Message bible to be real easy to read and have a very interesting interpretation of certain scriptures.
Kwin