Bible Questions?

Do you need to be fluent in ancient Hebrew in order to truly read most bible passages as they were intended?

If the answer is no how can you be sure the translation you have been given is not doctored in many ways, also what does this say to the majority of Christians who read only from translated texts?

 

If you wanted to read the original Biblical texts, you would have to know both Aramaic and Ancient Hebrew to read the Old Testament, and Ancient Greek to read the new Testament. So yes, if you truly wanted to read these books completely unadulterated then you would have to know these ancient languages. But I can put money on that only a tiny fraction of the Earth's population are fluent in all three languages.

For this reason, we have to put some trust into translators to have provided us with the best possible translation and not to have added or subtracted from the original Bible.

I don't think it really says anything about Christians who only read translated copies of the Bible (that must be about 99% of all Christians). If Christianity was truly supposed to be for all people, Jews and Gentiles alike as it was decided in the new Testament, then surely having the Bible in only its original language form would stop this somewhat? How could anyone truly believe in a Faith in which it's holy book is in completely foreign and now unused languages?

 

What would stop these translators from altering the book to better suit there needs at the time?

Why should trust just be assumed of the men who translated the bible when so many translations seem to add there own influence such as that the world was created in 7 days when the original does not describe such an event?

How would you be able to tell if the whole thing was a gigantic con of some sort if you would be willing to take a long dead strangers word for it?

Just sounds credulous.

 

The dead sea scrolls show very little manipulation for the old testament over the past 2300 years.

I've been using the youngs literal translation as it is closer to the original writings in meaning.

I get what you're saying though. I've been finding differences reading from the youngs literal/NIV translations compared to what I've been taught. For exapmle, Moses crossed the sea of reeds not the red sea.

 

There are many adulterated copies of the Bible, which whoever the translator was, decided to alter the passages for his won purposes. But as a whole these copies are not in the mainstream, partly because it is such a grave sin to add or subtract to the Bible.

Mainstream copies of the Bible generally can be trusted, but that is not to say not to be vigilant.

I'm not sure I understand your example though. The Hebrew word that was used in Genesis is very clearly translated as "day", so the 7day creation story does fit by the Hebrew original.

 

The scribes were meticulous with copying the Bible. If a single letter was miscounted, the entire text would be destroyed and started over from scratch. It was a very complex process.

 

What was that Hebrew word?

 

Have you run out of new questions so that you have decided to recycle old ones?

 

The Bible contains prose which on the one hand is straight forward and on the other meant to turn the readers attention toward a certain flavor or conjugation of meaning. It is in these attenuating comments that the damage of imprecision is wrought, and once in the text, no amount of fidelity to form in translation can improve understanding.

 

I guess this explains the way you write. Looks like you've been attenuating the conjugation of your meanings again.

 

My inspection of this matter has been a life long devotion that began with my first introduction to the nature of convoluted interpretation at age eight when I heard the song Jesus loves the little children, all the little children of the world, except that those little colored kids have to go to their own church down the street, they aren't allowed in this one.

An example of attenuating and colorizing commentary.
It is not what goes into a man that defiles him, but what comes out, (there by declaring all foods clean).
That parenthetic comment turns a statement concerning the workings of the inner man into a comment on religious practice. The writer put words in the speakers mouth.

 

The Hebrew word is yom, literally to mean "day". While it may be true that the word "day" can be used in many different contexts to mean any amount of length of time, the context that yom is used in not only in Genesis, but all through the Old Testament indicates very clearly a 24-hour day. It can even be argued that the very definition of yom in the Old Testament was made in Genesis.
In comparison, writers who wanted to convey that a long period of time had passed tended to write such words as olam, which meant "long time" or "age", so the words used together, yom rab meant "long time".

 

God called the "light" day and the darkness he called night. Then there was evening and morning one day. Evening and morning are different from light and dark.

 

Sorry, that you were going to the wrong "church".

So why did you do it?

 

Sorry to disagree with you but Paul when speaking about that "day" or in Hebrew "yom" at Hebrews 4:1-11 seems to be saying that the last creative day, God's day of rest, is still going on and that would make that creative day about 4,000 years long in Paul's day and since it is still going on in our day, that day is now about 6,000 years long and I see no reason that if the last creative day is 6,000 years long, that the rest of the creative days would only be 24 hours long. So it would seem that the creative week spoken of in Genesis is over 42,000 years long.

Personally, I think I'll go with Paul on this one.

 

Perhaps so, but I have only mentioned the Old Testaments usage of the word. Whatever Paul's take on the word may be does not subtract from the word's general connotations in the Old Testament of a 24-hour day.

 

Oh, I didn't say it did. As you said the word just means a time period and it's actual length is determined by context. In the Bible we need to consider the whole Bible is the context and so in the case of creative days if we just look to the Hebrew Scriptures for context then obviously it would seem the creative days are only 24 hrs long but considering the whole Bible and thus Paul's comment, then we should know that those creative days are not 24 hrs but thousands of years long.

 

Why did I do what?

 

Put words in the speakers mouth.

 

I'm sorry, can you be specific?