How do I know which Bible is the right one?

[Thaddaeus]

How dare you, sir? As a pastor, you of all people should be focused on making sure ALL people of ALL walks of life can read and understand the bible, yet you view any translation that is not your precious KJV, which you can't even type right, as perverted.

You would dare put a rock in the path of an honest seeker of the Word of G-d, simply to fit your traditionalist, dogmatic views of Scripture? The KJV may be easy for YOU to understand, but you are you to judge all the people of this earth? Not all people find the KJV easy to understand. In fact, most people find the KJV too complicated to understand. Yet you, a pastor, sit there and tell them that if they read any version but the KJV they are reading a perversion?

Shame on you, sir.

I am sorry but you must have me mistaken with some other ministry a pastor's main concern is His Flock or the Flock that is under his watch/care, however I do care about others that is why i am in here trying to promote the Word of God, and trying to get Christians to stop attacking the Authorized version Of that Word. by leading someone to the truth is not putting a rock in the way presenting so many different preversions is what has put the rock in the path of so many christian just look at the title of the thread "How do I know which Bible is the right one? " you would have had this question even raised 150 to 200 years ago, each new modern day translation is another rock, laid in the path of a new believer, shame on me . shame on you for tearing down the Word of God

 

[Captain_Mal]

To be fair, I don't see where the guy tore down the KJV.

 

[Thaddaeus]

[/i]

Thad with all due respect, you don't know what you're talking about. The Hebrew word for "heaven" (shamah-yim) only exists in the plural as "yim" is a plural suffix - meaning that translating it either as "heaven" or "heavens" is fine.
Here, I'll take the time to show you:

The literal is " In (the) beginning, he created (God) (the) heavens and the earth (or land)."

Heavens is highlighted in green, and is parsed below. It is a plural absolute. That word always appears that way in the Hebrew text. The Hebrews did not think of "heaven" in the singular, monolithic form that you require.

Which brings me to a point of translation: It's anachronistic and silly to demand something from a translation that requires it to do something not even the original language is doing. To use something you don't even understand as a weapon to attack folks who are very likely God loving people is incredibly suspect.

I beg of you, please stop this and learn what it is you're actually talking about before you inflict it upon others. People do actually get hurt by it.

wow another hebrew scholar that knows more than the strongs, with all these hebrew scholars around here I am beginning to wonder why we even need a english Bible, but wait you just said it could mean both, but by contents of the text it would be singular for God did not created more than one til the second day, so I guess the KJB is still true, thanks for the infro that it can be singular, I need all the help I can get in here , ok so in the beginning God created the heavens and then on the second day He created more heavens just how many heavens do we have?????

[SIZE=+1]~ymX [/SIZE]Shamayim (shaw-mah'-yim); Noun Masculine, Strong #: 8064

1. heaven, heavens, sky
   1. visible heavens, sky
      1. as abode of the stars
      2. as the visible universe, the sky, atmosphere, etc
   2. Heaven (as the abode of God)

 

[Thaddaeus]

You're not giving all the facts. You've also failed to mention the translational inaccuracies that happen to ALL translations.

yeah well man has had their hand in it , I am not concern about typos, punctuation, but rather Doctrines errors and the diety of The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, and of course people tearing down the Holy Bible! to build theirs up!!

 

[Captain_Mal]

yeah well man has had their hand in it , I am not concern about typos, punctuation, but rather Doctrines errors and the diety of The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, and of course people tearing down the Holy Bible! to build theirs up!!

I personally have multiple different translations, including the KJV, and they all say the same things as far as doctrines go.

 

[Not_The_Righteous]

wow another hebrew scholar that knows more than the strongs, with all these hebrew scholars around here I am beginning to wonder why we even need a english Bible, but wait you just said it could mean both, but by contents of the text it would be singular for God did not created more than one til the second day, so I guess the KJB is still true, thanks for the infro that it can be singular, I need all the help I can get in here , ok so in the beginning God created the heavens and then on the second day He created more heavens just how many heavens do we have?????

It's the same word in the Hebrew in v 1:8 as it is in v 1:1. There's two sensible ways to look at the text's progression that spring to mind:

1) Gen 1:1 is a summary statement, and when it says "God created the heavens and the earth" it means to establish God as Creator of all things - the earth, and all else that exists (the heavens referring to the universe, since that word in english might suffice to explain what "heavens" means. Psalm 19 uses "heavens" (sha-ma-yim) to describe the universe/sky above, and it is in these "heavens" where God fixes the Sun to give light to the Earth (Gen 1:17). It, then, makes sense that after Moses has made the introductory statement that God created everything that is, he then gets into the details of just what God did. Personally, that's this is my understanding of it.

This isn't unprecedented in Genesis, either - look at the two mentions of the creation of man. One is shorter, and a later one is more detailed.

2) I suppose you could read it that God created a generic "heavens/heaven" (the sky/universe) and then later further divided it between Heaven (as you might understand it now) and the heavens "below," which is the generic universe, sky or something like that. I don't think it's necessary or fair to the Hebrew to require that every time "heaven/heavens" is mentioned that you think of the dwelling place of God. Context, context, context.

Bottom line: The collaborators on the KJV made an interpretive choice to call it Heaven. It's a fair choice to make. The collaborators on great, reliable modern translations (including the New King James), have chosen to use "heavens" and that is fine too. It doesn't change any significant reading or interpretations unless you are requiring something from the text that isn't there - which you shouldn't do as a matter of general interpretation.