Sis wrote:
I mean did you go to Bible school? Have you done a lot of personal study? Do you go to the internet or books or a scholar when you answer these questions? From whence is thy knowledge?
Long ago, when I was in 5th grade, we had a Sunday school teacher who started us on a little Greek. I went to a congregation where we were deep into the Scriptures in our study from about 3rd grade on, and I went to Bible camps in the summer where we had 10 or more Bible classes a week, and I did outside reading/study on my own. When I was in college, we had to have a Bible class every semester we were enrolled full time (I got 3 degrees at that school and consequently 14 or 15 different upper level courses lasting an entire semester ranging from the Pentateuch to Hebrew Poetry and Wisdom Literature to General Letters and Life of Christ and lots of stuff in between). I know enough Greek to look at the various manuscripts and look at the words there and look them up and one of the greatest resources out there is blueletterbible. They let you look at the text in multiple versions of the manuscript. A great example is the discussion the other day of Philippians 4:13.
http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Phl&c=4&t=NASB#conc/13 This shows you two manuscripts and tells you the difference, and goes through word by word to show which Greek words became which English words, and you can click on the Greek to find it elsewherein the Bible and get the Greek dictionary entry. I use that when studying, preparing to preach (I do that anywhere from a couple times a year to a dozen or more times a year to fill in for preachers who are traveling, sick, etc), preparing to teach Bible classes, discuss things in forums, whatnot.
Sis wrote:
My understanding was that the Received Text and the Majority Text was the same thing; isn't it?
Yeah, sorry. Those are actually
similar but not the
same. I was thinking of the newer compilations and not the Majority Text. Ironically, the Textus Receptus was based on the Majority Text, but made some changes and in fact differs from the Majority Text in roughly 2,000 places. (most of these are minor and inconsequential, but a few are not). Some of these appear to have been introduced when the authors of the Textus Receptus chose to ignore existing Greek manuscripts and instead pull in Latin translations from Latin Vulgate manuscripts (this is, ironically, one of the complaints about translations using the latter set of manuscripts - that those pull in the Latin inappropriately on occasion when the Textus Receptus did the same thing but used less reliable Latin manuscripts when doing so).
To sum that up again, there was the Majority Text. The Textus Receptus was a compilation based on that but is NOT the same. A later compilation was made that included other Greek manuscripts unknown when Textus Receptus was compiled. In some points, the later agrees with the Majority Text where Textus Receptus disagrees, and in some cases it disagrees with both of the other two. How's that for thoroughly confusing?
Sis wrote:
LOL! OKOK! I'll get to the "God forbid" in a bit. I know it says leviathan but then tell me this. How DOES *LEVIATHAN* fit in the context of the verse?!
Good question.
"Let those curse it who curse the day, who are prepared to rouse Leviathan" is the NASB translation. Job is talking about wishing he had never been born and wishing that day were destroyed. He says to let those curse it who curse the day (who are sick of living) and who are prepared to rouse leviathan (who would be prepared to rouse a monster save one eager for destruction?) I think it makes perfect sense in the context of calling for the destruction of the day of his birth, which is most of the chapter including this verse.
Sis wrote:
Yes, please - either start citing some or link, I don't care. : )
I'm not against tho't by tho't translating. I find it needful at times as when teaching a younger sunday school class. I do see the dangers in it, tho'!
I used to like the NIV. I used it when working with teenagers and others who liked the "simple" language. My first really eye-opening experience with it came when I was having a conversation about marriage with a young youth minister and some kids in a Bible class.
Here's what Matthew 19:9 says in the NIV:
"I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery."
contrast that with KJV:
"And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except [it be] for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery."
or NASB:
"And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery."
Apparently a whole school of thought has cropped up using the NIV that says "marital unfaithfulness" can include lots of stuff other than sexual immorality, but the word in the Greek there is πορνεία which transliterates as porneia (the root word of fornication and pornography). The "idea" translation becomes like a game of telephone. The youth minister was saying that this verse covered stuff beyond just sexual immorality as a Scriptural justification for divorce and remarriage, and we ended up looking into the Greek to convince him. That was my first real "Wow, I can't believe how badly the NIV screwed that up" moment.
Here's a link (ironically from a KJV only guy) that lits some good and valid complaints with the NIV, and it has stuff beyond the manuscript selection. If you want more, I'll get some more for you.
http://www.trinitarianbiblesociety.org/site/articles/niv.html