Opus 2022-107: Basic Beliefs II: The Foundation, part 3 of 4

There are three main reasons for different Bible translations.  The first is having translators that want to put their cultist spin on the book.  You see this in the translation of the Jehovah’s Witnesses in the verse I quoted in a previous post.  Christians translate I John 1:1 “and the Word was God.”  They say, “and the word was a god.”  One problem with that is the Greek has no indefinite pronoun “a”.  These groups, who are not Christian even though they often act like it, have a belief system that is developed outside the Bible and they are then trying to pervert that book to back up what they say.  Their translations are a waste of time for Christians.

A second reason for different translations is that there are two major groupings of manuscripts.  One group has the most pieces containing writing and is thus called The Majority Text.  These range from just a few lines up to entire books.  The other collection is smaller in number but supporters claim to be generally older.  The Majority Text was used in the King James Version.  As far as I know it is the only one that is based on that grouping today.  Most modern translations also consult the older samples.  Even the New King James fits into the second group according to a friend I have who is a “King James Only” person.  Opinions can get really strong and I am not going to wade into that now.

The third reason is different philosophies of translation.  One method is word-for-word, or as close as can be done (KJV, NASB, RSV).  A second approach is sometimes called dynamic equivalence.  This tries to take the ideas of a passage and put them together in a more modern way (NIV, GNB, The Message).  A third is to simply try to paraphrase with the emphasis on simple vocabulary and contemporary phrases (Living Bible, Cotton Patch Version).

To be concluded...

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