Re: Are we to obey Jesus?

most of my books are in storage right now. but i can tell you this:

some of the worst translating in the modern translations, meaning the king james 1611 and forward, can be found in paul's epistles. he is talking about some very advanced points and is meticulous in setting his arguments. i have found that the meaning of his writing is obscured and sometimes obliterated. romans is the worst. some of his sentences are cut in half in midstream and not only divided by starting another verse, but starting a whole new chapter.

it has really been a long time since i have done these studies. i know what he says, not chapter and verse of the text. my question is a valid one and is designed to get people to study the text from the greek. but alas, people have hung their hats on so many of the things the current translations say that they are loathe to depart from the common interpretations.

the jews were very strict in their handling of their scriptures(the very scriptures that are refered to by jesus and paul and the others, not their own writings), but the same cannot be said for the greek writings. until fairly recent times, there were not even any comparison writings available to linguists and bible scholars in order to obtain the meanings of the words and construction of these otherwise unique writings. it was obvious that the language of the bible was not classical greek, but without other examples of this language, those who were charged with translating them, including those of the king james translation, assumed sone very strange things. they thought that the language used was one of gods own making - a special holy language created to convey gods message. therefore, the way was open for interpreting these words and the sentence structure in ways which, quite frankly, they made up out of whole cloth, supposing that they must let god inspire their meaning. they did fairly good with the gospels, but the more complex writings, of which pauls are foremost, these liberties that they took were not helpful.

the problem was given an answer in the nineteenth century with the discovery of more and more writings that were written in this same style of greek. these writings were personal letters, notes, bills of laiding, merchants records, and soon it was clear that this language was not some special god-inspired script, but it was the language of the common man, much like the difference between the kings english and ebonics, with different words and different meanings and different structure from those of classical greek. this language has come to be called by scholars as koine greek or common greek. and much more has been learned about it.

when it comes to the king james version, the emperor no longer has nearly as many clothes on as was once thought. so that this translation not only has the current problem of being written in middle english, an already obsolete language which many today still regard as holy(mirroring the old attitude toward koine greek) by actually using it in prayers by saying thee and thou, but the language they were translating from was not very well understood. it is at once the standard for all modern translations(translators are not likely to stray too far from the king james and risk rejection of their translation) and the poorest translation available today(except for the paraphrases, which are a total abomination and no translation at all, by their own admission).

the bible is a very straightforward book. the meaning of the old testament can be obtained with little difficulty, thanks to the jews. the new testament is just as straightforward. the message is there even with all of the obstacles that have been in the way. but as we see in the world, people can read into the new testament just about anything they want. and they want! every one of the denominations out there are usually based upon an alternative interpretation of particular verses.

these inspired writings of the bible are quite finite. the information contained therein must be assumed to be important and, being the word of god, of a single mind and not open to multiple interpretaions. this makes it of supreme importance to have a good translation and, in the absence of that, the ability to study the words in the original language. anyone who does not study the original language opens themselves up to all manner of error because then they must trust man for their understanding of god. this is completely against the central message of the bible, which is that of a personal relationship with god himself. just read the psalms. they are about god, and the psalmist knows this god in their personal life and is in contact with him daily. there are no psalms about how great preachers are, or what a wonderful temple we have in town. one could be introduced to and saved by god simply with the psalms, because that is what they are all about. the rest of the scriptures have the same focus, though they dont read that way in places due to translators.

the bottom line is, much of the bible is more of an interpretation than a translation. for someone to use them to justify a doctrine is an incorrect use of them. the scriptures dont justify us, they indict us and encourage us to change. if they dont do that, we call god a liar and we cling to our sin. we are not charged with being right - we are charged with being righteous and told to strain every nerve to do that. it is an act of great will, loving god with all of your heart and all of your strength and all of your mind and loving your neighbor as yourself. anyone who ignores that does so at their own peril. love is deliberate.