OnceConvinced wrote:
Yahu wrote:
Most if not all translations are bias by the doctrines and contextual understanding of the translators. That is why using multiple translations is advisable.
So from your perspective there's not even one trustworthy translation that would stand on its own?
No. None I have found are without error.
One passage I tend to check when looking at a translation is Isa 57:9
The codex that the KJV translated from has a vowel pointing error. The passage in Isa 57 is clearly about the pagan Baalim worship conducted outside Jerusalem.
The word with the wrong vowel points is from the original un-vowel-pointed 'MLK'. The KJV sees it as 'melek' the word meaning 'king' but the passage is about sacrifices to the pagan deity Molech. Molech is the same word but is vowel pointed with the pattern for 'shame' and turns 'Shameful King' into a proper name of that pagan deity. It isn't really a name but an epitaph.
For example, if you look at the Amplified version, it says 'king [ or Molech]' and leaves it up to the reader to determine which is accurate. I tend to use the Amplified for general usage because it also provides alternate translations in [ ] when a passage can be disputed.
Granted the Amplified doesn't do that will all errors I am aware of.
Even if there isn't an error in the translation, many times they just leave names and such in transliterated Hebrew. Then you have to look up the meaning of the name. A good example of that is the 'field of Zophim' in the story of Balaam and his donkey. Zophim is the Hebrew word for Watchers and is a reference to fallen angels that took human wives. If you don't look up the name meaning, the reference goes right over most reader's head.
So should a name be translated or just transliterated? Should a passage be reworded to give an interpretation of meaning or stay as closely to a word for word translation? Remember Hebrew was an ancient language that didn't contain nearly as many words so many times word pictures were used to convey meaning. Should a passage give the actual meaning or some obscure word picture that gets turned into poetry?
Then you have bias of translators that don't want to be sexual graphic whereas the original text is. An example is in the story of Ruth when Naomi tells Ruth to wait for Boaz to sleep after feasting and drinking at a feast, uncover his penis and have intercourse with him to get a child by a near relative of her dead husband. That was actually allowed under the law for a Levirate widow but many translators cover up the graphic nature because they don't understand the law or don't want to put something so sexual graphic in a holy text. In this case, there are multiple problems. The 'feet' that she uncovers. It actually means apendage and is also an idiom for 'penis'. "Waters of the feet" is a reference to urine for example.
So to hide the sexual nature, they turn it into some cultural myth that laying as someones uncovered feet is somekind of act of ceremony instead of a direct sexual reference.
Another reference gets translated as 'behind a tree in the midst of the garden' when the actual reference is to a sexual act in the tended garden, ie the pagan grove. It is actually 'a tree (asherah pole) in the midst of the backside in the grove' as a reference to having anal sex with a standing phallic symbol to appease the pagan gods. So how many Christians would be offended by a translation that actually said something like that? Now if the translators are not even aware of the activities involved in the pagan sexual worship, they turn the reference into a bit of meaningless poetry. You will probably NEVER see a translation that will do a passage like that. Too many Christians would be outraged.
Now is as good a time as any to respond to that thought.
