REVISED STANDARD VERSION
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I guess you missed the part about this was May INTERLINEAR Greek I was talking about, not my Greek New Testament. The Greek NT has letters, it outlines the differences in ALL the manuscripts, and which are the best options. A being certain, B almost certain, down to lower letters which are probably from a copyist mistake of some sort, which constitute a large number of manuscripts, particularly the Byzantine, the so called “majority text.” In fact, if we made up a Bible, got a few thousand copyists copying by hand, but many copying later and later generations, incorporating more and more mistakes, till you have the extremely corrupted manuscripts the KJV (and Erasmus) used for the KJV. And they did the best they could! But, they were limited by not having the manuscripts which did not have all the copyists errors.
That, right there, lays waste to the whole “purity” of the KJV concept. Because, if the manscripts are corrupt, how can you possibly produce a “pure” version? But I digress, again!
The interlinear has the Greek on top, and the English below. It is a “pure” word for word, in that it keeps the words directly under the Greek. And it makes assumptions about words, and sometimes, it translates a word in a way, that just isn’t what I learned, and when I double check with BDAG, (Bauer) it is not the right word. So, the RSV, is in a side panel, and it puts the line into proper English and certainly better word choices. Sometimes, I would look at the RSV to see how they handled a difficult grammatical passage. Where the subject is at the tail end of the sentence, all kinds of participles and subordinate clauses.
So, this would be an interlinear, if I can make it work with the spacing.
“Λέγετέ ...μοι, οἱ .........ὑπὸ ..νόμον θέλοντες εἶναι, τὸν νόμον οὐκ ἀκούετε;” Gal 4:21
“[You] say..... to me, the ones ..under .....law .....wanting .....to be, the ....law ......not ...[you] hear.”
As you can see, it is not always direct translating. The first 2 words seem to directly translate, because μοι or moi, is in the dative, which means you can freely add the word “to,” or not! Also, the Λέγετέ “ete” ending on both the first and last words of the verse, are 2nd person plural, meaning that the plural “you” is understood.
The RSV is on the side of the page, here is the same verse:
Gal 4:31
”Tell me, you who desire to be under law, do you not hear the law?” RSV.
"Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law?" ESV
"Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?" KJV
"Tell me, you who want to be under the law, do you not understand the law?" NET
It makes the Λέγετέ Leyte into an imperative, which it is! And θέλοντες is of course a present active participle, which is why I translated it with the “ing” ending “wanting, wishing or desiring.” And yes, the "understand" in the NET under ἀκούετε, is a perfectly valid way to translate akouete. In fact, in my opinion, it makes more sense to translate it as "understand" in this case, than "hear."
So the English words underneath are not really a translation, but rather just translating the words, and not putting them in the correct order. The receiving language, in our case, English is just as important as the original language, in that we get our meaning and understanding in the receiving language.
Which is another reason I so strongly object to the KJV, besides the fact that manuscript evidence is against it. And that is because it really is not our language, and obscurity, while perhaps making it mysterious, is certainly not the way God wants the Word of God to be read. God wants us to understand what we are reading in our own heart language. Not some ancient, dead form of English. So much better to go back to the earliest manuscripts in the original languages, which ARE the what the words were written in, than to set a version with so many manuscript issues, and problems, which is not in our language as the standard!
Not in this example. It is easy to understand in KJV, which is why I included it. In fact, the first draft, which my IPad lost, actually talked about that. That all 4 versions were easy to understand, for that verse, but they were all different from the word order of the Greek.
The biggest issue is not the little words, like ye, but rather the conjugations of 2nd person singular in English, which we don't have any more. I can do 2nd person sg, in French, German, Spanish, Hebrew and Greek, because I was taught it. But, where do you get a book on all the conjugations of only 2nd person singular for English? And then there is 2nd person plural past, imperfect, perfect, pluperfect, future, etc, etc. All different spellings and words in every language but English, and different in early modern English.
My Bescherelle has over 10,000 verbs in French, the Spanish one the same. My German Bescherelle has 8000 verbs. It is written in French, with the German words. Lucky for me, my French is better than my German!
For Hebrew and Greek, I have a variety of tools, text books etc, to find how to conjugate the words, nothing for 16th century early modern English verbs. Mounce has a whole book on verbal morphology in Greek I refer to. I like to KNOW what I am reading, not hope it is right. That is just the way I read.
Then there are all those nouns, adjectives which literally have changed meaning.
For instance, in Gen. 1:28, God tells Adam and Eve to "replenish" the earth. This is confusing, because it sounds like the earth was formerly inhabited, and Adam and Eve's descendants would replace the original race. People have come onto CC and said as much.
Instead, the word "replenish" in 1611 English means "to supply fully." The re- does not mean again, as it does today.
Another example is the word closet. In Matt 6:6, Jesus speaks of entering one's "closet" to pray in the KJV. this does not mean we pray in a clothes or linen closet. The Greek tameion meant "an inner chamber, a secret room or storage room. It is not too much to say the original Greek could have referred to a bedroom.
Our word closet is derived from the French close, which merely meant "a private room" or "a room that is closed off." Yet I saw a whole movie a while back in which some woman literally took all the clothes out of her clothes closet, and made it into her "prayer closet." Jesus is referring to someplace private, not an actual closet. That is why I do think the KJV is not the best, because we simply do not understand a lot of the English anymore.
And so on. Here is a link to more:
https://www.gotquestions.org/KJV-words.html
And if the KJV works for you, then keep on using it. But, as you have said, it is NOT the only version.
Besides, this thread is about the RSV, which is what I was comparing, I just get excited, and start comparing all the versions. When I took second year Greek, and first year Hebrew, we had to compare everything we studied to modern Bibles, and see what they said. For Hebrew, KJV wasn't bad. I know, I had that version. Hebrew is very different than Greek, word-order wise, in that it tends to follow the same kind of word order as English. But, really, with the except of German, and probably other Germanic languages, no English version can ever follow the Greek, which is what I was showing in the example above. It gets much more complex than that, I was just trying to keep it easy.
I will also tell you, we had a steep drop out rate, when we hit Greek noun cases in seminary. I remember this one smug guy, who thought I should be home in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant. Instead, I got the Greek award for top student, he dropped out of Greek at noun cases, and out of seminary by the end of the year. He even tried a Reformed seminary and dropped out, but I digress.
I was lucky, took noun cases in high school in German. Wow! Did German ever help my Greek! Jumped into second year college German, and the Greek kept me going. Still does!
I hope that explains a bit better what I meant!
The biggest issue is not the little words, like ye, but rather the conjugations of 2nd person singular in English, which we don't have any more. I can do 2nd person sg, in French, German, Spanish, Hebrew and Greek, because I was taught it. But, where do you get a book on all the conjugations of only 2nd person singular for English? And then there is 2nd person plural past, imperfect, perfect, pluperfect, future, etc, etc. All different spellings and words in every language but English, and different in early modern English.
My Bescherelle has over 10,000 verbs in French, the Spanish one the same. My German Bescherelle has 8000 verbs. It is written in French, with the German words. Lucky for me, my French is better than my German!
For Hebrew and Greek, I have a variety of tools, text books etc, to find how to conjugate the words, nothing for 16th century early modern English verbs. Mounce has a whole book on verbal morphology in Greek I refer to. I like to KNOW what I am reading, not hope it is right. That is just the way I read.
Then there are all those nouns, adjectives which literally have changed meaning.
For instance, in Gen. 1:28, God tells Adam and Eve to "replenish" the earth. This is confusing, because it sounds like the earth was formerly inhabited, and Adam and Eve's descendants would replace the original race. People have come onto CC and said as much.
Instead, the word "replenish" in 1611 English means "to supply fully." The re- does not mean again, as it does today.
Another example is the word closet. In Matt 6:6, Jesus speaks of entering one's "closet" to pray in the KJV. this does not mean we pray in a clothes or linen closet. The Greek tameion meant "an inner chamber, a secret room or storage room. It is not too much to say the original Greek could have referred to a bedroom.
Our word closet is derived from the French close, which merely meant "a private room" or "a room that is closed off." Yet I saw a whole movie a while back in which some woman literally took all the clothes out of her clothes closet, and made it into her "prayer closet." Jesus is referring to someplace private, not an actual closet. That is why I do think the KJV is not the best, because we simply do not understand a lot of the English anymore.
And so on. Here is a link to more:
https://www.gotquestions.org/KJV-words.html
And if the KJV works for you, then keep on using it. But, as you have said, it is NOT the only version.
Besides, this thread is about the RSV, which is what I was comparing, I just get excited, and start comparing all the versions. When I took second year Greek, and first year Hebrew, we had to compare everything we studied to modern Bibles, and see what they said. For Hebrew, KJV wasn't bad. I know, I had that version. Hebrew is very different than Greek, word-order wise, in that it tends to follow the same kind of word order as English. But, really, with the except of German, and probably other Germanic languages, no English version can ever follow the Greek, which is what I was showing in the example above. It gets much more complex than that, I was just trying to keep it easy.
I will also tell you, we had a steep drop out rate, when we hit Greek noun cases in seminary. I remember this one smug guy, who thought I should be home in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant. Instead, I got the Greek award for top student, he dropped out of Greek at noun cases, and out of seminary by the end of the year. He even tried a Reformed seminary and dropped out, but I digress.
I was lucky, took noun cases in high school in German. Wow! Did German ever help my Greek! Jumped into second year college German, and the Greek kept me going. Still does!
I hope that explains a bit better what I meant!
S
By your own words, you have much more education that most of us. It seems that you believe, because of that formal education, you have an understanding that is impossible for people like me to have.
Formal education is great, but some of the wisest men in the Word of God I have ever met were uneducated by your standards. And sometimes those very educated make very poor teachers to those many believers that also lack education.
You may do very well in your neighborhood, but where I live, you would not.
Formal education is great, but some of the wisest men in the Word of God I have ever met were uneducated by your standards. And sometimes those very educated make very poor teachers to those many believers that also lack education.
You may do very well in your neighborhood, but where I live, you would not.
And what is wrong with one possessing an understanding you don't have? You act as if possessing such knowledge is plain wrong up above, then give a token to it below just to cover the bases.
There are many who have a greater understanding than her, you, me and others. Scripture says to hold those who labor in the word and doctrine in high regard. Your'e not doing this. Get some biblical points on how you should respect such persons and practice them. This anti-intellectual super spirituality facade has been killing the church and has helped facilitate the world's notion that believers are ignorant idiots.
But then your attitude toward her, no matter your education, or lack thereof, is quite unbecoming of a professing believer. Quite an unnecessary ending to your post IMHO.
There are many who have a greater understanding than her, you, me and others. Scripture says to hold those who labor in the word and doctrine in high regard. Your'e not doing this. Get some biblical points on how you should respect such persons and practice them. This anti-intellectual super spirituality facade has been killing the church and has helped facilitate the world's notion that believers are ignorant idiots.
But then your attitude toward her, no matter your education, or lack thereof, is quite unbecoming of a professing believer. Quite an unnecessary ending to your post IMHO.
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S
If I did not express my thought well please forgive me.
I do admire all who have taken advantage of the opportunity to gain the education she has.
But formal education does not always lead to a greater understanding. Often it does, but not always.
Maybe I read here wrong, but it seem she believes herself above others based on her education.
It seems to me that she believes she should not be questioned because, after all, she is educated and I am not.
Her style of teaching would be a failure with the people in my neighborhood.
No doubt, she is very successful in her neighborhood.
I do admire all who have taken advantage of the opportunity to gain the education she has.
But formal education does not always lead to a greater understanding. Often it does, but not always.
Maybe I read here wrong, but it seem she believes herself above others based on her education.
It seems to me that she believes she should not be questioned because, after all, she is educated and I am not.
Her style of teaching would be a failure with the people in my neighborhood.
No doubt, she is very successful in her neighborhood.
Don’t count on that. I was a teacher in two inner city schools, with immigrants, transients and very poor people’s children. The children were subsidized for lunch, or many of them went hungry. I taught grade 1, and had a wonderful relationship with the parents, and I loved the kids. Teaching basic letter sounds, and easy math, and fun things like art, music and PE. And of course, some experimental science! My initial training includes being appropriate to the context in which you are teaching. When I moved schools to a very upper middle class neighbourhood, I taught quite differently, and my report cards reflected more difficult language, because I knew the parents were mostly well educated.
However, the BDF is about discussing the Bible. I realize there are people who will not understand some of my explanations, but they don’t have to read them. I am really interested in manuscript issues, which I have sort of stumbled into on Sunday mornings, comparing versions with the original languages. Our pastor does talk down to our congregation, which is a real shame. My church is in a downtown core, as in lower income, not the bought up land turned to high rises. But, the people who attend are very educated, including a lot of retired pastors and missionaries and people who have really studied and know the Bible and applied it to their lives. Another church we work with specifically reaches out to the street people, and many have been saved through their ministry. We often supply workers, money, food or even our church building. But, I know their pastor preaches very simply, and very clearly. And it works!
When I preach, I do tend to aim for the high end. My pastor told me not to use Greek or Hebrew. Well, if something stands out in the original languages, I do mention it and use it. And that is something people always tell me was useful. But I do include some of the more basic things the passage is pointing out. That is what is important - that people, all people leave Sunday morning hearing and learning something new, that they can apply to their lives!
If you encounter anyone who claims their number of posts or number of rep points are to be held up in a discriminatory regard, you know that the most important aspect of maturity and education is entirely absent. As an early childhood and primary school teacher I can tell you that those I've met on my journey who had some of the most enlightening lessons of all were totally consistent with your philosophy.
19th century, or 1900s? I mostly went to school in the 1960’s no grammars, just blackboards full of conjugations. And we did study Shakespeare, and I think a bit of Chaucer, but no grammars, just the plays, or stories. And a fascination with Romeo and Juliet, which had just come out in a movie, as well as Taming of the Shrew, with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.
I also studied Bunyan in Seminary. But the language was a bit more modern, if I remember correctly, amazing book!
Do you know the name of an English grammar that might have this, that I could buy on-line? That would be very interesting to read. But, I still wouldn’t read the KJV. I’ve been reading the NET, with 60,000 footnotes explaining their word choices. I’m just doing the Psalms. It is a long study, but it is making me realize I need to work on Hebrew again!
I also studied Bunyan in Seminary. But the language was a bit more modern, if I remember correctly, amazing book!
Do you know the name of an English grammar that might have this, that I could buy on-line? That would be very interesting to read. But, I still wouldn’t read the KJV. I’ve been reading the NET, with 60,000 footnotes explaining their word choices. I’m just doing the Psalms. It is a long study, but it is making me realize I need to work on Hebrew again!
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