The most accurate translation of the Bible

Boy is this a loaded question but I will ask it none the less ...

What is the most accurate english translation of what we know of as the Bible ?

kjv
king james version

I'm willing to bet the most accurate translation of the bible is the compiled learning inside the Vatican. The most we lowly mortals can get is probably the kjv

Here's the motherlode of info on why the King James Bible (not "version" but BIBLE) is the authorized book.

Has solid references across the board of all of the man rewritten "versions" and the verses/chapters, etc that have been changed or completely omitted.

Very eye opening - I didn't realize these "versions" were that different but they really have tried to change the entire meaning of numerous facts.

Defending the King James Bible

The linguistic challenges prohibit a translation leaving the spirit of the words as all they can try to translate and that is always subjective. Learning greek and hebrew are your options. William Tyndale did back in the days before James. The Church did not take kindly to his translations although never compiled into a Bible proper were the first widely printed chapters. And an interesting read into early modern english before the Great Vowel Shift.

The Tyndale Bible generally refers to the body of biblical translations by William Tyndale. Tyndale’s Bible is credited with being the first English translation to come directly from Hebrew and Greek texts. Furthermore it was the first English biblical translation that was mass produced as a result of new advances in the art of printing. The term Tyndale's Bible is not strictly correct, because Tyndale never published a complete Bible. Prior to his execution Tyndale had only finished translating the entire New Testament and roughly half of the Old Testament.[1] Of the latter, the Pentateuch, Jonah and a revised version of the book of Genesis were published during his lifetime.
The chain of events that led to the creation of Tyndale’s New Testament started in 1522. It was in this year that Tyndale illegally acquired a copy of Martin Luther’s German New Testament. Tyndale was inspired by Luther’s work and immediately set out to imitate Luther’s work but in English.[3] He made his purpose known to the Bishop of London at the time Cuthbert Tunstall. However Tunstall rejected Tyndale’s offer of creating an up-to-date modern English Bible. After this rejection Tyndale moved to the continent and ended up in Hamburg where he completed his New Testament in 1524.[4] During this time period Tyndale frequented Wittenberg where he consulted with Martin Luther and his associate Melanchthon.[3] The first version of Tyndale’s New Testament was put into print in 1525 in Cologne however the process was not finished. From there Tyndale moved the publishing process to Worms where the first recorded complete edition of his New Testament was published in 1526.[5] Two revised versions were latter published in 1534 and 1536, both personally revised by Tyndale himself. After his death in 1536 Tyndale’s works have been revised and reprinted numerous times.[6] Furthermore much of his work can be seen in other, more modern versions of the Bible, especially that of the King James Bible.
Tyndale's Pentateuch was published at Antwerp by Johann Hoochstraten in 1530.[7] His English version of the book of Jonah was published the following year. This was followed by his revised version of the book of Genesis in 1534. Tyndale translated many other Old Testament books including Joshua, Judges, first and second Samuel, first and second Kings and first and second Chronicles. Unfortunately these unpublished works haven’t survived to today in their original forms.[8] When Tyndale was martyred these works came to be in the possession of one his associates John Rodgers. These translations would be influential in the creation of the Matthew Bible which was published in 1537.[9]
Tyndale used a number of sources when carrying out his translations of both the New and Old Testaments. When translating the New Testament, Tyndale used Erasmus’s Greek and Latin New Testament, as well as Luther’s German version and the Vulgate. Scholars believe that Tyndale stayed away from using Wyclif’s Bible as a source because he didn’t want his English to reflect that which was used prior to the Renaissance.[10] The sources Tyndale used for his translation of the Pentateuch however are not known for sure. Scholars believe that Tyndale used either the Hebrew Pentateuch or the Polyglot Bible. It is suspected that his other Old Testament works were translated directly from a copy of the Hebrew Bible.

One CANNOT get an understanding without a concordance or two


Bullingers companion bible , kjv

ferrar fenton [ def worth looking at ]

aent.org has an Aramaic english NT that is very nice

aramaic - hebrew concordance with strong numbers


key words to look at , closely and carefully

fornicate
serpent
magician
harlot
lord
satan
tree
tribe
angel
spirit
familiar spirit

[ then in your concordances, try to find out where h119 went to...119, 120 and 121 are ADAM, but nowhere in the concordance is 119 used! why?! it's part of the definition, but not used!!! ]

The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament by Ludwig Koehler, Walter Baumgartner, Johann Jakob Stamm, and M. E. J. Richardson (Hardcover - Mar. 1994) 149.00

A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament: Based upon the Lexical Work of Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner (Hardcover)~ William Lee Holladay (Author) 30.00

The Companion Bible: King James Version (Black Bonded Leather) (Leather Bound)
~ E. W. Bullinger (Author ] 55.00

Gesenius' Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament (Paperback)
~ Samuel Prideaux Tregelles (Author) 30.00-200.00

The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, 2 volume set (Hardcover)
~ Ludwig Koehler (Author), Walter Baumgartner (Author), M. E. J. Richardson (Translator) $237.00

Works of Flavius Josephus

Are there any " good " online resources of direct translations ?

The WatchTower Bible and Tract Society publish for the Jehovah's Witnesses 'The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures' which they 'claim' is the most accurate bible going and they also 'claim' that everyone agrees with them!

However, the very title, 'New World' should perhaps be an eye opener that this particular bible was written with a rather 'unique' slant......'New World' origins>

Interesting to know that in the past this bible's cover was always in a rather interesting shade of GREEN.

Interesting to look at if you want and 'interesting slant' on things but not to be taken seriously!

reply to post by Max_TO


My friend a minister, thinks the King James Bible is a bad example of Christianity as do I.
I mean this council deliberately sits down and rewrites the entire book deciding what stays and what goes for political purposes? Was King James even a priest, or a very religious man? No he was a ruler. And created a book that would better help him rule.

No matter what version you read there will be much that isn't included that might have been. We both prefer the New American Standard Bible.

Originally posted by Elliot
The WatchTower Bible and Tract Society publish for the Jehovah's Witnesses 'The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures' which they 'claim' is the most accurate bible going and they also 'claim' that everyone agrees with them!

However, the very title, 'New World' should perhaps be an eye opener that this particular bible was written with a rather 'unique' slant......'New World' origins>

Interesting to know that in the past this bible's cover was always in a rather interesting shade of GREEN.

Interesting to look at if you want and 'interesting slant' on things but not to be taken seriously!

The Jehovah are certainly a dedicated bunch but their religion borders on being a cult. When they come to my house I ask why selectively edit the Bible they were provided by God...(though even I know much of this could not have had His blessing) I still try to persuade them back into the fold of non-cultist Christians. After all we are bad enough!

I always thinks of this in context to gloss versions..

Tho the best description of the process for me is this silly little wiki link.

Linky

Even the earliest texts in Hebrew had words and notes added to explain what the text meant that over the years meant more words and notes needed to be added to explain, on and on that goes.. through different lanquage translations..

Anyway, good luck in your search...

reply to post by Max_TO


Online I have to use the King James version to look up all sorts of things.
www.bartleby.com...

After reading the 12th Planet by Zechariah Sitchin, I went back and looked up words that he mentioned to cross reference them and it was very interesting. I looked up frequency of word usage and incidents of word usage like ophir, incense and gold.

You know the word gold is mentioned a few more times than the word love?

reply to post by rusethorcain


I agree king james was only religous in so far as it would serve his purpose to firm his rule

James wrote two works, The True Law of Free Monarchies and Basilikon Doron (Royal Gift), in which he established an ideological base for monarchy. In the Trew Law, he sets out the divine right of kings, explaining that for Biblical reasons kings are higher beings than other men, though "the highest bench is the sliddriest to sit upon".[34] The document proposes an absolutist theory of monarchy, by which a king may impose new laws by royal prerogative

Kings are higher beings than other men? The KJV is really where the ruling elite started getting gods approval out to the european masses

Originally posted by Max_TO
Boy is this a loaded question but I will ask it none the less ...

What is the most accurate english translation of what we know of as the Bible ?

Strong's concordance helps and any bible which properly translates "hell" into hades, sheol, gehennah, and which translate "forever and ever" as aion of aions" or age of ages. Those are the big offenders, especially in the king james.

[edit on 15-3-2010 by SmokeandShadow]

Oh please !

The KJV is one of the single WORST translations of all time !

It's just so flowery and evocative and has been used for so long that many un-informed people think it's a good translation.

In fact, it was done from a poor selection of manusscripts and abounds in errors.

The KJV is almost as bad as the NIV - both crap.


K.

It depends on what you're looking for. Since no language perfectly translates into another, the most accurate is learning every nuance of Greek. But then, that's not really a translation, is it...

When translators seek to translate the Bible, they choose between word level accuracy and message level accuracy. The New American Standard Version seeks to translate scripture accurately word by word. This means that, though a sentence may be confusing or oddly worded, they have translated the individual words of the sentence to their best English equivalent.

The Message, on the other hand, went with translating the content over the individual words. Instead of trying to translate word by word, they instead read through a "paragraph" and communicated the idea behind it in modern, understandable English. So they sacrificed digital accuracy for analog accuracy, if you will.

The NIV, or New International Version, sought to balance these out by making a more readable though accurate modern English translation. It tries to balance word by word accuracy with thematic accuracy.

In the case of the King James Version, we have a debate of a different sort. This was the first English translation of the Bible, which, for those of you who have used the first release of some large software application, probably has the hairs on the back of your neck standing on end. The KJV used 14 Greek manuscripts to translate the Greek into English. To make a comparison, the NIV used hundreds of manuscripts to translate. This, however, is where the problem arises. Some claim that those hundreds of manuscripts included Gnostic texts, where "New Agers" from 2000 years ago sought to change the Bible to suit their own beliefs wrote their own versions of Bible passages (just as they do now...). The accuracy of that statement is debatable, but it is one of the reasons KJV-only folks cite for only having one translation of the Bible being accurate.

Unfortunately, as you can see in the responses you've already received to your question, people are emotionally tied to a specific translation. However, God says that if you seek Him you will find Him. That's in every translation I've read. It also says He's seeking you. He knew there would be this many translations, just as He knew pre-Babel that there would be multiple languages. If you seek Him and ask Him to reveal Himself as He is and not as you'd desire, He will answer that. The Word says He will. It's His will. So don't stress the translation. As your walk with Him continues, your understanding of who He is will grow, despite and inaccuracies in the translation He's been speaking to you through.

reply to post by Max_TO


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Importance: High interesting Recently on Jeopardy, one of the answers was "It's the most accurate translation of the Holy Scriptures?" No one got the correct question, so Alex Trebek said "What is the; New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, printed by the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society.""
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One of my favorite theads! Please check the link.

One has to suspect that the supporters of specific version are all of course claiming that their version is the most accurate. There might not be accurate translation of scriptures.

First and foremost because scriptures themselves has been translated and altered many times before they even ended up in this specific collection of stories, which we call Bible. For example, the story about great flood and Noah is much older story than the version which Bible presents us - it was know to the Sumerians and can be found in story of Gilgamesh (see Gilgamesh flood myth).

Besides of the seeming fact that the stories themselves may have changed before they ended up in Bible, there is also the translation problem, but I wouldn't go further in that because I think that junglejake already represented this problem in this post.

-v

[edit on 15-3-2010 by v01i0]

Originally posted by Max_TO
Boy is this a loaded question but I will ask it none the less ...

What is the most accurate english translation of what we know of as the Bible ?

There is no accurate "Translation" of the bible into English, nor any other language.

Etymologically, translation is a "carrying across" or "bringing across". The Latin translatio derives from the perfect passive participle, translatum, of transfero ("I transfer"—from trans, "across" + fero, "I carry" or "I bring"). The modern Romance, Germanic and Slavic European languages have generally formed their own equivalent terms for this concept after the Latin model—after transfero or after the kindred traduco ("I bring across" or "I lead across").[7]

Additionally, the Ancient Greek term for "translation", μετάφρασις (metaphrasis, "a speaking across"), has supplied English with metaphrase (a "literal translation", or "word-for-word" translation)—as contrasted with paraphrase ("a saying in other words", from the Greek παράφρασις, paraphrasis").[8] Metaphrase corresponds, in one of the more recent terminologies, to "formal equivalence"; and paraphrase, to "dynamic equivalence."[9]

Translation is another word for interpretation and is based on the translators take on the texts. This is opposed to transliteration or a literal word for word transfer of the text.

From an information-theoretical point of view, transliteration is a mapping from one system of writing into another, word by word, or ideally letter by letter. Transliteration attempts to use a one-to-one correspondence and be exact, so that an informed reader should be able to reconstruct the original spelling of unknown transliterated words. To achieve this objective, transliteration may define complex conventions for dealing with letters in a source script which do not correspond with letters in a goal script.

Transliteration is opposed to transcription, which specifically maps the sounds of one language to the best matching script of another language. Still, most systems of transliteration map the letters of the source script to letters pronounced similarly in the goal script, for some specific pair of source and goal language. If the relations between letters and sounds are similar in both languages, a transliteration may be (almost) the same as a transcription. In practice, there are also some mixed transliteration/transcription systems that transliterate a part of the original script and transcribe the rest.

One instance of transliteration is the use of an English computer keyboard to type in a language that uses a different alphabet, such as Russian. Transliterated texts are often used in emails, blogs, and electronic correspondence where non-Latin keyboards are unavailable. It is sometimes referred to by special composite terms that demonstrate the combination of English characters and the original non-Latin word pronunciation: Ruglish, Hebrish, Greeklish, or Arabish. While the transcription implies seeking the best way to render foreign words into a particular language, the typing transliteration is a purely pragmatic process of inputting text in a particular language. The rest of this article concerns itself with the first meaning of the word, that is, rendering foreign words into a different alphabet, transliteration in a narrow sense.

Also, transliteration should not be confused with translation, which involves a change in language while preserving meaning. Transliteration performs a mapping from one alphabet into another.

In a broader sense, the word transliteration may be used to include both transliteration in the narrow sense and transcription. Anglicizing is a transcription method. Romanization encompasses several transliteration and transcription methods.

Also, in translation two very important things are inserted and taken away which completely changes the understanding and timing of the texts. Taken away is tense.

Tense represents the contrast between two measurements along the timeline of an utterance, with one of those measurements being the Time of Utterance TUTT (the time at which the actual utterance is made. TUTT is always the primary point of reference for tense. There are three additional references to which TUTT can be contrasted: TAST — the Time of Assertion, TCOM — the Time of Completion, and TEVL — the Time of Evaluation; these are secondary references. Which type is used for the secondary reference is determined by aspect and type of utterance.

TAST – Time of Assertion: This is the time at which the action of the verb takes place. It can be a single point in time (in the Informational Aspect) such as in “I had dinner at 5pm.” Or, it can be a range of time (in the Durational Aspect) such as “I was eating dinner from 5 till 7.”

TCOM – Time of Completion: This is the point in time at which a verb is completed. TCOM is used with perfected forms. In the perfected informational aspect it represents the time by which a verb is finished, as in “I have eaten dinner.” in the perfected durational aspect it represents either the time at which a verb is finished, or more normally, a time up to which the verb is completed (but that it may continue beyond); this meaning of interrupting the verb is the more standard use of this form and allows the duration of the verb to be measured up to a given point (TCOM). Consider “I had been eating for 2 hours by 7pm,” in which an action (eating) has a duration, of which two hours of it is completed as of 7pm.

TEVL – Time of Evaluation: Some utterances do not support measuring a specific action. Instead, they express a change in state, a generalization, or perhaps an habitual truth. These utterances express an idea that is evaluated as true or not. The point of time at which the idea expressed can be evaluated as true is the TEVL. Consider “Birds fly.” In this utterance a generalization is made (in the present) about birds and it can be immediately evaluated (present) as true. Likewise “I used to drink coffee everyday,” refers to an habitual action that was true in the past so that the TUTT is present (it is said now) but its TEVL is the past.

The Hebrew and Greek use all four of these tenses and with out understanding them, the stories remain stories and have no baring on ones life any more than a movie does.

Tense is then replaced with punctuation.

Punctuation marks are symbols which indicate the structure and organization of written language, as well as intonation and pauses to be observed when reading aloud.

In written English, punctuation is vital to disambiguate the meaning of sentences. For example, "woman, without her man, is nothing" and "woman: without her, man is nothing" have greatly different meanings, as do "eats shoots and leaves" and "eats, shoots and leaves".[1] "King Charles walked and talked half an hour after his head was cut off" is alarming; "King Charles walked and talked; half an hour after, his head was cut off", less so. (For English usage, see the articles on specific punctuation marks.)

The rules of punctuation vary with language, location, register and time and are constantly evolving. Certain aspects of punctuation are stylistic and are thus the author's (or editor's) choice. Tachygraphic language forms, such as those used in online chat and text messages, may have wildly different rules.

Punctuation, which is done at the translators whim, does not contain the tense required for your understanding of the bible.

I suggest this is a good place to start.

ISA Interlinear Scripture Analizer

Peace

[edit on 15-3-2010 by letthereaderunderstand]

reply to post by v01i0


It is also called Enuma Elish and the Creation Story or Story of Creation. I wonder if it has been given so many names as to make things confusing. So maybe people don't read it and become aware of the significance.

This isn't any soap opera they carved into a stone and no matter how you twist the translation the bible clearly is another book among many books that were referenced from it.

It was discovered and took 40 years to translate...we couldn't even read it until the mid 1900's and then.... what do you do with this information????

We know how easily frightened the populace is...should we confuse and befuddle nearly every major belief on the planet ?????with this "we don't even know what we just read" type of news????.

This story however rather than shake my belief...(my belief was actually waning) totally renewed my interest in the Bible and now I read it as an fascinating tale of adventure and human history...I try to pick out the parts I think were intended and true accounts and those only included to make "being a Lord" or a ruler over people that much easier.

But the Bible was intended as a living book and to mean what it needs to mean to you who ever you are. I suppose it manages to do that.

It also seems like all mankind was given the directive of creating a tome - and so we did as evidenced by the torah and the koran and various tomes of all the major religions.
As if some more intelligent mind knew - we would easily forget without a book.

Basically I agree with the poster who said God is where you find Him.

I think the God element is in us all.

It is what makes us really especially like not only the things he likes but his most wondrous creations.

When you look at human kindness and inspiration with artistic genius, benevolence, and sheer capacity for bravery and greatness that will stir your soul...Humans have gone on to meet that test and resemble Gods.

Clearly we have gone off track.
no matter how you view the world.

When something touches our heart (and you literally and physically feel a movement a stirring within your own heart) it is because we are like him, connected to Him. It is God talking to you. God works through feelings...always. And God works through you because He is in you if you let him out.

Throughout history this heart tugging which is otherwise known as conscious has been ignored, hidden and beaten out of individuals.
With societies approval. As soon as you try to show a little compassion or empathy you are labeled a sympathsizer when you might be just trying to follow Gods word and your feelings to there logical, inevitable (were it not for indoctrination) conclusion or natural path.

What would happen if we dealt humanely and with kindness even the worst among us? I don't say without incarceration. But lock them up and let it go. Don't demonize humans (though they can be demonic) Back to the good in people.

Society got approval from strict renderings of religious books such as the bible.

People who have significant feeling empathy and concern for every living thing created by God be it animal plant or human were ridiculed, beaten and given the patronizing label "tender hearted".

Survival of the fittest was the way of the world in those days.

These empathetic and tender hearted people were shoved aside bowled over. They were taken as daft.

And these people today? Today they are ridiculed even more so, people call them "dirty liberals" and sensitive men are alluded to as "gay" so they don't come out of the woodwork and wave a flag.

You don't hear these folks espousing a position of empathy for all in online in posts so it is hard to know but the numbers are large I think.

These days you might call them the meek.