Source texts for the Bible translations/reading

trofimus · Dec 8, 2016

I know that this was probably debated in "KJV only" threads or "NIV errors" threads etc. But only as something helpful for the translation debate.

I would like to keep this thread about the sources only.

I am currently choosing what to read for the OT and for the NT.

I have these choices:

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Old Testament:
LXX - Brenton or NETS
MSS - Stutgart or Hebraica

New Testament:
Nestle Aland (UBS)
Tischendorf
Stephanus 1550 Textus Receptus
Hodges & Farstad Majority text
Pierpont & Robinson Majority Text

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What would you recommend and why?

This is thread meant mostly for people knowing what I am talking about and having something interesting (argument for, argument against, some intersting insight etc) to say.

I do not want to debate KJV or NIV etc.
If you just googled the terms, please do not be too much active in posting your quick opinions

Thank you

trofimus · Dec 8, 2016

Nobody? Really? So many experts on everything and nobody knows what is actually the source of his Bible and why?

LaurenTM · Dec 8, 2016

trofimus said:

..................................................

followjesus · Dec 8, 2016

trofimus said:

Gods word spoken to man is the source. im not really able to grasp how we scrutinize every detail of who translated the bible, its roots, hebrew greek ect. isnt starting to doubt where the word came from, a distraction from Believing whats written ? Like when we start scrutinizing the details and doubting isnt that kind of like " Did God really say this?"

this isnt to distract from your op or anything, But why not take up a translation that a person can understand and trust Gods spirit will keep us from being " tricked" if there was only one valid translation, there would be a lot of people with no hope who didnt trust in the men translating but rather in the message in the Bible about His Son. everyone will never come to the same point of agreement on which spelling of words are official, But there is value in trusting Gods word and believing it rather than being consumned by the roots of things, which we can never actually prove anyways through reading things on the uinternet or in books...whos to say that information isnt wrong? God is able to speak through His written Word and Hes not condemning people for which version they read, its what we do with that information that is important. personally ithink the more we investigate things like this, it just creates seeds of doubt. BUTTHIS IS ONLY MY THOUGHT. sorry if i got offtrack in your op I appologize.

maxwel · Dec 8, 2016

followjesus said:

Jesus and Precision:

Jesus seemed to be concerned with every little detail of scripture.
Matthew 5:18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

Jesus was concerned with every jot and tittle... the tiniest of punctuations marks.

If the PRECISION of scripture was a concern to Jesus, then it should be a concern to us.

I'm not interested in debating texts over and over, but it IS an important debate
The precision of scripture SHOULD BE a concern to God's people.

The new Max translation:

If the precision of scripture does NOT matter, then what is stopping ME from doing a new translation tomorrow?
What is stopping ME from rewriting the bible tomorrow, however I choose, and changing every single doctrine to suit my own points of view?
When we give up our quest for accuracy... we give up our quest for truth.

trofimus · Dec 8, 2016

followjesus said:

Even the perfect translation of wrong source will bring many errors in the work.

There are many differences between main Greek editions, look for example at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_textual_variants_in_the_New_Testament

And the differences between the LXX and MSS texts (used for Old Testament translations) are much bigger.

So translations will differ based on what Greek/Hebrew source they chose. Some of the differences can change our views on something or even our theology.

trofimus · Dec 8, 2016

If somebody wants to recommend another edition, not listed in my OP, I will welcome it.

My only requirement is that it must be possible to purchase a printed copy of it to the Central Europe I live in, which mostly means it should be on amazon (UK,DE, FR) or on some other place shipping to EU.

followjesus · Dec 8, 2016

trofimus said:

Just so you understand, im not trying to argue or even stir up anything, Just long before this post, i have been thinking about how distracting it is ( to me) if i start doubting what the scripture says. i myself, trust Gods spirit to guide into truth, and find the same message in different translations, you seem like someone who isnt going to be offended if someone has a differing thought, so i thought this might be a decent post to leave that thought. i think as all things are it comes to a persons own faith, for instance i know other christians who are doubtful of certain translations, actually my grandmother was Like that with only Kjv<<< which is the one i always trust. my point is that i have also read and studied the niv many times over and find that the message is not changed by a word or two here and there. if it was required to depend on the persons transcribing and translating from language to language then how do we really understand or prove those things from thousands of years ago? and if we really cant prove 100 percent those things just to me, i see it creating doubt of the authenticity in a persons mind. but again this is Just my own thought not a judgement of anything in any way.

Rather than worrying about those things that i really cant prove from so long ago unless i trust what other people say, and many different people say many different things, to me it throws a thought of not trusting what is very clearly infallible, being the message of the bible and not necessarily each singular word needing to have the same spelling as when Moses began writing. I Have a belief that Satan is not able to effectually change Gods word, but that His way is through our minds, by changing our perception of what the word says Like He did to eve and then adam through Her. Gods Word i trust His power to reach it through timne to those who belong to Him, in a form they can grasp His message. in the end, if we cont all speak ancient samarian, or ancient Hebrew we cant really authenticate any translation anyways. just my thinking, thanks for being gracious and nottaking offense to my differing thought. I see potential for growth in that example that we can actually differ and still discuss and be gracious, God bless

followjesus · Dec 8, 2016

trofimus said:

Even the perfect translation of wrong source will bring many errors in the work.

There are many differences between main Greek editions, look for example at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_textual_variants_in_the_New_Testament

And the differences between the LXX and MSS texts (used for Old Testament translations) are much bigger.

So translations will differ based on what Greek/Hebrew source they chose. Some of the differences can change our views on something or even our theology.

I see what your sayoing, but how then do we know which is actually right is my wonder...

dcontroversal · Dec 8, 2016

I like the Tanach for the O.T. because it references God as "The Master of Legions" hahah.....I like the way many of the words are translated.....I also use a King Jimmy, but look every word up in the Hebrew and Greek because I want to know EXACTLY what the word(s) meant or means when it was inspired and used in scripture!

maxwel · Dec 8, 2016

followjesus said:

Well... we certainly can't figure out what is right by NOT THINKING ABOUT IT.

: )

God brings up the topic of STUDY in 2 Timothy 2:15, and COMMANDS us to STUDY.

We don't gain knowledge of ANY topic by failing to study.

Depleted · Dec 8, 2016

trofimus said:

Read first F.F. Bruce's The Books and the Parchments. (Oh, and feel free to skip the semantics parts, if you're not into semantics. Some of it is as dry as dirt in the Sahara. I liked even that part, but that's my background.) It's a good book to learn the history of how we came up with the bible. Downright God-given in more ways than most know, so a good read.

BUT I want you to read it because you seem to think "the older the better," when what it teaches us is a lot of work goes into the history of figuring out what a very old word meant in a dead language by sleuthing out that same word in the historic writings of all kinds.

I used to be a KJV onlyist out of ignorance. I was a new Christian, and my first teacher was a KJV onlyist, so I was more interested in God's word then ever to ask the obvious question. (Obvious question: Why KJV only?" lol) And then when I first became reformed I was into the NIV, partly because I knew one of those guys who did the research to translate one of the books (Jude. At least he took the shortest book, and it only took him 10 years to do it justice. lol), but also because that was the version our denomination used back then, so easy to read along with the teaching elder on Sunday.

BUT since then I've learned "newer is better," because of F.F. Bruce. He taught some of the fight for some of the words. And it's minor fights, like the middle east didn't have rabbits back in the OT times, so a rabbit couldn't be on the list of unclean animals. But they're still fighting those fights, and you need to get that.

If you go with the Vulgate, for instance, you'd think we should do penance instead of repent, because that's the best that scholar could make out of a word at that time. The Bible doesn't change. What historians and scholars learn about an old language by finding it in context in more and more old manuscripts recently found changes what they thought it meant.

You really need to get that better than I explained it, so, again Read The Books and the Parchments. Added bonus -- you'll enjoy it.

And once you understand that, then you can google to see what folks say about the newer versions. I'm stuck on ESV now, not because it's superior, but I know what it will say and how it will say it, and I'm just too old to relearn verses in a different way. Rumor has it Holman is better still, but the ones who like that one are middle aged, so maybe younger folks know something newer and even better. We really do progress, but the progression is to revert it back to the original better and better at each try.

Depleted · Dec 8, 2016

trofimus said:

You really have to remember you're on an international site and people have lives. Four hours ago most Americans were working and the Aussies were sleeping. lol

Tintin · Dec 8, 2016

trofimus said:

I never claimed to be an expert on such things. I only know what English translations are good and reliable.

Angela53510 · Dec 8, 2016

trofimus said:

Sadly I have lost a lot of my Hebrew. I find it enough work to keep moving forward in Greek at this time. However, it is my goal to get back to it. I also like Greek better, although I did well in the Hebrew classes, extremely well. Apparently most people generally like one or the other of the Biblical languages a bit more.

I use the Masoretic, because we read from it a lot in Hebrew class. We did a lot of passages, chapters and whole books. However, you have to remember that although the vowel points really are essential to the grammar, and pronunciation, they weren't added till the 7th to 10th centuries AD. And the oldest copies date to the 10th Century AD. The Septuagint, on the other hand was completed around 300 BC. Strangely, that makes the Greek older, and probably closer to the originals. I have a downloaded copy of the Septuagint, but one of my goals is to get the hard copy of it. I can't help it, I am a book person!

The other issue with the OT, is that it has a much larger vocabulary than the NT. So, many more words to learn! I'm down to 10 frequencies of Greek words in the NT. Which means, I can read pretty fluently. So, I guess when I want a challenge, I will start on the Septuagint.

Here is something I found on the internet, which I think is about right!

The Masoretes admitted that they received corrupted texts to begin with.
The Masoretic Text is written with a radically different alphabet than the original.
The Masoretes added vowel points which did not exist in the original.
The Masoretic Text excluded several books from the Old Testament scriptures.
The Masoretic Text includes changes to prophecy and doctrine.

"In other words, the Masorites themselves felt they had received a partly corrupted text.
A stream cannot rise higher than its source. If the texts they started with were corrupted, then even a perfect transmission of those texts would only serve to preserve the mistakes. Even if the Masoretes demonstrated great care when copying the texts, their diligence would not bring about the correction of even one error.
In addition to these intentional changes by Hebrew scribes, there also appear to be a number of accidental changes which they allowed to creep into the Hebrew text. For example, consider Psalm 145 . . .
Psalm 145 is an acrostic poem. Each line of the Psalm starts with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Yet in the Masoretic Text, one of the lines is completely missing." There is no line with the letter nun נ. Υet, the Dead Sea scrolls found an ancient Hebrew version of Psalm 145, which contained the missing verse, which dates to before the time of Christ.

https://theorthodoxlife.wordpress.com/2012/03/12/masoretic-text-vs-original-hebrew/

Put it this way, Jesus and his disciples did quote from both the Septuagint and Hebrew. But the Hebrew text quoted was not the Masoretic, but a Proto-Masoretic. And it was much less corrupted.

Like the Byzantium Greek scribes, who corrupted the Greek texts, leaving the so-called Majority text rife with additions and errors, I think this happened with the Hebrew scribes later on, too. The Jews loved to comment on the text, and wrote whole books like the Targums and the Tanach. In the Orthodox synagogue I visited, the OT in Hebrew, had an on-going commentary on each verses. But not exegetical, just comments, some of which were so far away from the intent and purpose of the text, I had to wonder why they would keep on with it.

Which Old Testament text did Jesus prefer and quote from?

So the Masoretic, without the strict controls on the text that existed before the time of Christ, it was easy for a self important Jewish scribe, to add things, or take away as he was writing.
So does this mean we do not have good, reliable copies of the Old and New Testaments? Well, God doesn't work that way. He left many copies of his word, and preserved them.

However, at the time the KJV was translated, using Erasmus's version, he relied on only 7 partial or complete Greek texts, all of poor quality. The so called "texus receptus" became standard as the Greek version, because of the number of copies that were in existence.

But they are the later manuscripts, and any error from the 6th century, for example, gets copied and passed down to that whole generation of copies. Or an addition in the 13th century, etc. Therefore, it only makes sense that earlier copies are closer to the original. There are less copyist mistakes!

For example, although there are more Byzantine texts, fifty medieval Byzantine texts which all rely on the same 10th century exemplar, the the entire group needs to be viewed in light of their common origin, rather than as 50 independent witnesses. So not 50 texts, but one and its copies.

In fact, the best reading for the NT, is ones which consult all the major text families - Alexandrian, Caesarian, Western and Byzantine. These eclectic versions have some real advantages. The consult all the major families, and rank them.

Lower textual criticism is so advanced, they have literally mapped and traced down in time most of the mistake, right back to the one where it started. Again, this shows that a Greek text which refers to all the early manuscripts, is the best option, in my opinion.

Therefore, these three Greek New Testaments, Stephanus 1550 Texts Receipts, Hodges & Farstad Majority text and Pierpont & Robinson Majority Text, which are all based on the Byzantine Majority texts, I would not bother with. I have compared Stephanus and Wescott- Hort and some of the errors were glaring. I'm not familiar with Tischendorf, which I assume to be an edited German version?

I personally use Nestle-Aland UBS, which I received as a gift from the Canadian Bible Society when I was taking Greek. I also have the interlinear. The nice thing is, they do list all the variations below on the page, and a letter gives the preferred reading (A being highest!) So, if you are really interested in textual criticism, you can spend hours wading through the differences. We do use it on occasion in Greek, our prof uses all the tools. (He is one of the top Greek scholars in the world and is on the ESV and NIV translation committees.) We constantly are looking for the ways in which earlier translations did not accurately capture the meaning of the text, and the results.

I can only think of Luke 2:14 as a perfect example of some sort of copiest error, not just leading to a wrong translation, but in fact, bad doctrine. Notice how KJV is a universalist statement, in which peace and good will is towards [all] men. Most new translations take a different course - and the result is that only people upon whom God's favour rests have peace. So, only those who believe and follow God!

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." KJV

"Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!" ESV

“Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” NIV

"Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and peace on earth to people He favours." HCSB

So why this major error? The Greek manuscripts used to translate the KJV contain εύδοκια (eudokia) which is the nominative case, whereas the older manuscripts used to translate modern versions contain εύδοκιας (genitive case) literally truanted "of good will" or "characterized by [God's] good pleasure." In other words, the peace that the angels sang of that belonged to the earth as a result of the birth of Christ for all humanity, is not a generic, worldwide peace, but a peace limited to those who obtain favour with God, by believing in his Son, Jesus.

What a difference a single letter can make to the meaning of a word.

This is why, I always encourage people, that if they want to study the original languages, using a concordance like Strong's is simply not good enough! You need to know the noun cases, the verbal language, and word order (which is different than in English) needs an understanding of not just grammar, but syntax.

If you want to pm me, I can give you the name of my prof, although you will have to wait for an intake next September for the first year course. For me, I have learned so much, but just listening to my prof talk about translational issues off the top of his head, is worth the price of admission. And, he is very careful to show us the who and where of sources concerning these issues, and tell us of the things which the various translation committees differed on, or did not get right, in some cases.

Does that mean we can't trust the Word of God? O course we can - the truth is never lost - God has preserved his word. And he has also shown that he used men to record the history of the story of salvation, and sometimes we have to really dig deeply to discern the truth.

This last year, I have been reading Holman's. It is an excellent translation. Plus, they give transliterated Hebrew and Greek words, in their Study Bible, which has taught me some interesting things. I read the ESV for many years, NASB, and I have also read many other translations from cover to cover.

In conclusion, we have over 6000 manuscripts of the NT today. Daniel Wallace, probably the world's greatest Greek grammarian, was given permission by the monasteries in Istanbul (Constantinople) and in Greece, by the Greek government, to catalogue the Greek texts in the monasteries and libraries. He left, and said he would not come back, until the job was done. Many Greek NT's and other Greek works were lost when a monastery burned down in Istanbul. That is why they finally opened the doors up on these ancient treasures. Who knows, maybe they will even find an original manuscript, if it is God's will!

trofimus · Dec 9, 2016

followjesus said:

Yeah... I wish this is what will be this thread about.. how to get oriented in several editions and which one to choose (and why).

trofimus · Dec 9, 2016

Depleted: Thanks for the tip, I have some books from F.F.Bruce, but If I remember correctly, he did not write about Greek editions...?

trofimus · Dec 9, 2016

Depleted said:

I know, it was a little provocation to get it alive here

trofimus · Dec 9, 2016

test test test test

trofimus · Dec 9, 2016

I dont know why, but I cant past any longer text now

Source texts for the Bible translations/reading

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