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Post by Jeff on Jul 26, 2005 14:55:31 GMT -5
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Post by amanda on Jul 26, 2005 16:31:10 GMT -5
I was a little surprised that NIV beat out KJV as preferred translation among evangelicals, particularly Baptists. I expected KJV to come out on top. My personal favorite is the New Revised Standard.
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Post by rickus on Jul 26, 2005 17:09:36 GMT -5
In our Bible Study class most of us us the NRSV. I think I would have to give that one my vote for "BEST".
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Post by CaptAdam on Jul 31, 2005 14:55:00 GMT -5
I have enjoyed the NAS (New American Standard), but I also have a side beside bible with 4 different translations and when you ready and compare I see no real difference or better accrucy for interpetation, just easy of reading.
What does NRSV stand for? just curious.
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Post by Betterout on Jul 31, 2005 22:45:31 GMT -5
Adam,
NRSV is the New Revised Standard Version.
I really like the NAS version, too. It's basically just a streamlining of the King James version into a more modern (but not too modern) speech style--about halfway between the KJV and the NKJV. However, as far as I know (or, maybe I should say, if I am thinking of the version I think I'm thinking of here...if that makes any sense) the NAS was not translated into English from any original language source texts. I believe its editors just went back to the KJV, instead, and updated the speech. Therefore, any textual or translation errors in that document were preserved in the NAS. I still like it a lot, though.
By the way, the practice of going back to source documents is nigh on impossible, as the source documents themselves exist in numerous and not always identical forms. The question of which documents really are the original source texts is far from answered, and may even be unanswerable. Because of this, the practice of updating older versions from the same language has been a fairly common practice. Consequently, a lot of the English versions aren't terribly accurate in the eyes of many scholars. A silly example of this, of course, is the name James. That name doesn't really appear in the source documents, but was inserted into the New Testament by--you guessed it--King James in place of the name Jacob. I guess he just really liked his name better!
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Post by rickus on Aug 1, 2005 14:55:29 GMT -5
If Adam is correct with most of his other posts, the translator had to be divinely inspired to replace Jacob with James.
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Post by amanda on Aug 1, 2005 18:29:36 GMT -5
I found this bit o' history regarding the New American Standard bible over at Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_American_Standard_Bible) :
As its name implies, the NASB is a revision of the American Standard Version of 1901. This translation was begun as an alternative to the then-popular Revised Standard Version (1952 edition), which was perceived as too liberal in its translation style. Using the ASV as its English basis, the NASB's translators went back to established Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts and revised the ASV as literally as possible, deliberately interpreting the Old Testament from a Christian standpoint, in harmony with the New Testament.
The translators were trying for a word-for-word translation from the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. They used more modern phrasing where a word-for-word translation didn't make sense, but made a footnote of the more literal rendering.
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Post by Jeff on Aug 1, 2005 19:05:54 GMT -5
"deliberately interpreting the Old Testament from a Christian standpoint, in harmony with the New Testament"
Jack Miles in Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God argues in Appendix I that the God of the Tanak (NOT OT) makes as much sense as the God of the New Testament. (The God of the OT is already an imaginative re-interpretation of the God of Judaism.) But Miles argues strenuously(!) that the different versions of God (Tanak and Christian) are not the same; they represent different phases in the development of a certain understanding of God.
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Post by Tyler on Oct 10, 2005 11:07:05 GMT -5
Jefferson Bible seems the most reasonable.
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Post by Jeff on Oct 10, 2005 12:24:47 GMT -5
The trouble with the Jefferson Bible is that it must necessarily espouse an interpretation of the Bible. First of all, there is more to the Bible than morality. In fact, I would say the Bible isn't a good statement of ethics at all. It is indifferent to slavery and its sexual codes are archaic in the extreme. If the Bible were primarily about morality, then it wouldn't need to be studied nearly as much as it does, I'd argue. Better to look at Aristotle, Mill, Kant, and Marx. Second, the Jefferson Bible claims to know what the moral import of the text actually is. And this is problematic since one of the wonderful things about the Bible is that it continues to reveal itself to those who are willing to listen. Let me take just one example. Suppose we are discussing what is probably the most famous of Jesus’ parables, that of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37). What is its moral? On one level it exposes false piety, which is a nice moral. But it goes deeper. We know that the person who finally does God’s will is a Samaritan, but what is the ethnicity of the person who is waylaid? Jesus does not say. The Samaritan then does not know or care whether he is saving a Samaritan or Jew or even a Roman. Recall that the story is supposedly an answer to the question, “Who is my neighbor?” and you begin to get a feel for the next level of meaning. This story is connected with Jesus’ exhortation to love one’s neighbor as oneself, but now we see that your neighbor is anyone whom you come across. The meaning has other layers—in fact, the Bible is a lot like an onion—when you consider that this parable may be the key to understanding others. Jesus is advocating uniform treatment of all, an idea that today’s Christians don’t always take as seriously as they should. Look at Matt. 13:24-30 for a parable that is difficult to understand, that of the Weeds and the Wheat. If the weeds are the sinful and the wheat is the community of believers, then Jesus is telling us that we should treat both exactly the same. Don’t pull out the weeds, he says, because you might accidentally get some wheat. What is interesting here is that the Farmer in the parable says, “Let both grow…” In the context of the meaning of the Parable of the Good Samaritan this letting grow is understood to mean treat both equally. Here then is an argument for gay marriage, among other things. Even if Christians want to accept that gay marriage is sinful—something they are wrong about—but even if they do, here is the Bible telling us to treat those people uniformly as we treat ourselves. I would suggest that that means according them the same right to marriage. This would be what Jesus meant by letting them grow. Have I uncovered the last layer of meaning here? Have I spelled out all the connections to other parables and events in the Bible? Hardly. Would I ever want to see a Bible redacted by someone who claims to know its true meaning, even a great someone like Jefferson? No--well, I might as a autobiographical statement about Jefferson. Can you imagine how silly Revelations would look, what interpretational contortions would have to be invoked by any interpreter who sought coherence? (Actually you can if you look at those who preach the Rapture.) One of the wonderful things about the Bible is that it is a perpetual mystery when read and considered with an open heart. Like the world itself, these books are multifarious and yet a single thing. The books became The Book. Jeff PS The Jefferson Bible online: www.angelfire.com/co/JeffersonBible/PPS Again, I would urge everyone to read the book by Miles. Parts of my argument here are drawn directly from pages 181-4 of his work. |
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Post by Jeff on Oct 10, 2005 13:14:52 GMT -5
Jefferson does have some good ideas about religion. He just thought too much of himself and the power of reason:
"Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear. You will naturally examine, first, the religion of your own country. Read the Bible, then, as you would Livy or Tacitus. … Those facts in the Bible which contradict the laws of nature, must be examined with more care, and under a variety of faces. … I forgot to observe, when speaking of the New Testament, that you should read all the histories of Christ, as well as of those whom a council of ecclesiastics have decided for us, to be Pseudo-Evangelists, as those they named Evangelists."
Thomas Jefferson writing to his nephew Peter Carr on Aug. 10, 1787.
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