Translations of the Holy Bible

I've been feeling like writing a new blog post recently but just haven't been passionate about anything SpaceHey related lately. I do, however, know a lot about Bibles. So, if you ever were curious why there's so many translations out there and which I recommend, read on!

In Short

First it's important to know what a translation is of. The Holy Bible is a collection of books considered to be true, and subsequently the Word of God. It is divided between an Old and New Testament. Most the books of the Old Testament were written in Hebrew. Most scholars believe the New Testament was entirely written in Greek, although some like to argue some or all of it could have been written in Aramaic and translated into Greek.

Most modern translators will work from ancient Hebrew and Greek manuscripts they believe to be accurate to the original text. These manuscripts are usually 95% identical to each other, and the differences are usually grammatical. Still, people will spend years debating which manuscripts are the Word of God, and which are heretical texts corrupted by the Babylonians. 

Translators also must pick a translation method. This is why we have so many English translations. Throughout history, most translators used what is known as the word-for-word method. A translator would simply translate one word to its nearest English equivalent, and only provide additional words if grammatically necessary. In modern day people typically like an easier read, so the invention of thought-for-thought translation was born. An individual will read a thought in one language, and then write down what they feel is the best translation of that thought. I personally believe this is a dangerous form of translation method when handling something humans have extremely bias opinions on.

Popular word-for-word translations are KJV, CSB and ESB. The only "thought-for-though" translation I'd recommend is the Bible in Basic English by S.H. Hooke.

The Long

However things weren't always this simple. Paper obviously isn't meant to last 2000 years, so throughout most of history, information was maintained orally and by copying text over-and-over. After the fall of Jerusalem, Jews maintained their canonical text this way, eventually creating one authorized version known as the Masoretic Text. Most early Christians couldn't speak Hebrew, so they used Greek and Aramaic translations of the Hebrew text, created around the 3rd century BC, and have faithfully preserved them this way. These translations also included other Hebrew literature not considered canon by the majority of Jews. For this reason Christians remain split as to whether these books should be considered canon. For the most part, Protestants reject them, while others consider them "deuterocanonical."

Most scholars believe the New Testament was written in Greek, therefore the most research has been on Greek manuscripts. However, in the area of Judea during the time of Jesus the most common language was Aramaic, making the New Testament in Aramaic either the original, or earliest translation. The Aramaic New Testament has been preserved by churches like the Syriac Orthodox Church and the Assyrian Church of the East, with one arguing it was hand delivered to them by the Apostle Thomas. Regardless, the oldest New Testament manuscripts that are still around are in Greek, from early 2nd century Alexandra, Egypt. Most scholars favor these manuscripts, but they are the most critical of all other traditions, leading proponents of non-Alexandrian manuscripts to argue that these were corrupted translations made by the Egyptians and were only discovered because nobody was using them.

Those who do not trust the Alexandrian Text usually use the Majority Text (keep in mind these texts are still 95% similar). The Majority Text is just that, the majority of Greek manuscripts agree with each other, and therefore this is used to argue these manuscripts are authentic. After-all if everyone everywhere was copying down the Bible, and only a few copies were different, you'd probably assume the majority was right. The Aramaic New Testament also agrees more with the Majority Text. 

The early Protestants gathered what they believed to be the authentic Greek New Testament through a very similar method, creating the Received Text. Some actually get this confused with the Majority Text because they are so similar. It was used in creating the KJV, which is why some people argue the KJV is the only true English translation. However there are several other translations that used the Received Text, including the Geneva Bible, Young's Literal Version, and Green's Literal (KJ3). I'd personally recommend Green's Literal if you can find it online.

I am also fascinated by the Aramaic, and have been working on my own revision of James Murdock's Translation of the Peshito New Testament. However I feel the Majority Text has been grossly overlooked by Protestants. There are very few Majority Text translations, with the NKJV and WEB being the only ones I'm aware of. This leads me to recommend the NKJV to most people. It's footnotes clearly explain manuscript differences, it's easy to read, it's a fairly word-for-word translation, and it's accessible. It is, however, copyrighted; which bothers some people. The WEB was created intentionally to be Public Domain. 

Some Christians get caught up on translation, but here's the crazy thing I've learned from all my research. Manuscripts of the Holy Bible are miraculously similar, and when there is something missing there is always another part left to explain. If one of these text-bases were entirely corrupted, you'd think changes would be made throughout the text, but that's never the case. No matter the text-base, the message of the Gospels is always there. It's something that I think even non-Christians can find fascinating. 

Thanks for reading my long post about Bible translations, I'll see you later!