Wisdom and Cheese (General)

by David Turell , Sunday, December 04, 2011, 21:57 (4546 days ago) @ dhw

TONY: You ever consider that breaking the translation barrier of the bible, which many people consider the gospel truth of "god", might go a long way to generating some tolerance and understanding in the world? People would be much more likely to believe that the translator messed up than they would believing that their religions intentionally misled them.

dhw: We’re having a bad time with our communications! I’m really sorry, but I don’t understand any of this. What do you mean by “breaking the translation barrier”? A perfect translation?

The only portion of the OT Bible that is a problem in translation is the Torah. Tradition has Moses taking dictation on Mt. Sinai but the scholars don't accept that and Genesis has four or more authors. Further old Herbrew has many nuances and is a very limited language. The Masoretic text, which I have in translation was put together about 200 AD from existing Torahs. The scribes for those were very exact. The scroll of Isaiah from Qumran is 99.8% like the existing Masoretic scrolls, so we can assure that the Torah itself is extremely accurate as it currently exists. What is up for grabs is translation. The Greeks did not do a great job at the time and the English were no better with the KJV, so the best approach is the Masoretic. The Torah was undoubtedly in oral tradtion for many hundreds of years, so the original may have been different. The NT has four acepted gospels, with the first, Matthew written, after oral tradition, about 60-80 years after Jesus. There is no physical proof that Jesus even existed, and the section in Josephus about him is thought by some scholars to be a forgery. Josephus was born shortly after Jesus died, and so he was depending upon what he was told as a child, if that is not a forgery in his existing history.

My conclusion, as always, is taking the word of God from both Bibles is an act of faith.