DivineOb
April 13th 2003, 12:41 PM
So Jason, should I get my hopes up that you'll ever respond to this post?
The below was in response to me suggesting that the routine translation disagreements between the KJV and other translations is due to more modern translations working from different greek soure documents.
You only list one example where you think the change was because of different, Greek manuscripts. Afterwards, you assumed that all changes were due to different, Greek manuscripts. This is a huge and false assumption. How many translations have you investigated? Why would you read one and one circumstance, then think they all followed the same pattern?
You are completely misrepresenting what I said. I was very clear that I was not certain of the reason for the disagreements in translation, and I offered up the hypothesis that it was due to using different greek sources as my best guess, asking for your input. I even said "So, if I had to guess, I would say that the translation discrepancies are coming as a result of using different Greek sources."
Anyway, on your list of examples you gave, the nonKJV translations generally agree very closely (though I don't understand why you compare against the New World Translation... does anyone but the JW use it anyway?). Based on this page http://www.blueletterbible.org/info_greek.html most newer translations use a different set of greek originals, and so I am making the assumption that these nonKJV translations you are comparing against did use different Greek sources than the KJV (I did a web search and I could not find this information easily, so if this is an incorrect assumption then please correct me). Again, the fact that the nonKJV sources tended to have a very high level of agreement strengthened my confidence in this assumption.
I cited only one example for two reasons. First, I don't have time to check your entire list of problems, many of which were extremely minor imo. Secondly, this was a disagreement which I could not understand how it could arise when working from the same source documents -- if it turned out that the sources were the same for the KJV and for the other translations then you would indeed have some evidence for this intentional mistranslation (whaddya know... I attempted to *falsify* my hypothesis so I could either eliminate it or increase confidence in it).
Finally, I noticed that you only list disagreements in the NT. Since disagreements on how the NT should be translated would result from working from different Greek sources, that is another reason for my hypothesis. If these guys were arbitrarily mistranslating things then I would expect there to be disagreements in the Hebrew as well. If you have some examples, then please cite them (other than for the NWT). If any of the nontrivial disagreements on that page are due to differences other than based on the Greek source, then please give me an example and I will take a look. But real examples, not leaving out a 'Lord' here and there.
Please tell me which Greek manuscripts were used in your examples and which versions chose which ones.
According to your webpage
Matthew 19:17
KJV
Why callest thou me good?
NIV
Why do you ask me about what is good?
NAS
Why are you asking me about what is good?
NWT
Why do you ask me about what is good?
I don't know specifically which Greek sources were used for the nonKJV translations. I did a web search and couldn't find much beyond a page indicating that the NIV was translated from the 'most reliable' sources or something like that. Anyway, since you've studied Greek before I'm sure you already know which sources were used for which translations. At least I hope so, given the types of claims you're making regarding the accuracy of translation.
This page http://www.blueletterbible.org/info_greek.html indicate that "Many of the newer translations are based upon Alexandrian texts. The Blue Letter Bible also provides the Greek text based upon such Alexandrian texts, noting however that the King James Version is not based upon such texts. The Alexandrian based text that is shown is the combined Westcott-Hort / Nestle-Aland 26th edition variants."
If you look at the greek concordance listed at blueletterbible for that passage (I can't provide a direct link because I guess they expire after some time, so the link I provided yesterday no longer works), you'll notice that the word used for 'me', as in "Why callest thou me good"? (Strong's number 3165) is missing from the Greek which is given *below* the passage. Since this word is also missing from the nonKJV translations on your webpage, it seemed the most likely explanation that the nonKJV translations were working from the Alexandrian sources, not the Textus Receptus which the KJV used. (Note that for this example, that particular word is also missing from the TR shown *above* the verse. I do not know why it is missing in this case).
In any case, even if all of the translation disagreements on http://www.jcsm.org/biblelessons/KJV.htm are not the result of using different Greek sources, I think (unless you have evidence to the contrary) that it is likely that the disagreement over Matthew 19:17 is as a result of the Greek sources. Thus, I think it is misleading to keep that verse on this page, or to do so without at least providing a disclaimer that the disagreement comes due to working from a different Greek source.
The below was in response to me suggesting that the routine translation disagreements between the KJV and other translations is due to more modern translations working from different greek soure documents.
You only list one example where you think the change was because of different, Greek manuscripts. Afterwards, you assumed that all changes were due to different, Greek manuscripts. This is a huge and false assumption. How many translations have you investigated? Why would you read one and one circumstance, then think they all followed the same pattern?
You are completely misrepresenting what I said. I was very clear that I was not certain of the reason for the disagreements in translation, and I offered up the hypothesis that it was due to using different greek sources as my best guess, asking for your input. I even said "So, if I had to guess, I would say that the translation discrepancies are coming as a result of using different Greek sources."
Anyway, on your list of examples you gave, the nonKJV translations generally agree very closely (though I don't understand why you compare against the New World Translation... does anyone but the JW use it anyway?). Based on this page http://www.blueletterbible.org/info_greek.html most newer translations use a different set of greek originals, and so I am making the assumption that these nonKJV translations you are comparing against did use different Greek sources than the KJV (I did a web search and I could not find this information easily, so if this is an incorrect assumption then please correct me). Again, the fact that the nonKJV sources tended to have a very high level of agreement strengthened my confidence in this assumption.
I cited only one example for two reasons. First, I don't have time to check your entire list of problems, many of which were extremely minor imo. Secondly, this was a disagreement which I could not understand how it could arise when working from the same source documents -- if it turned out that the sources were the same for the KJV and for the other translations then you would indeed have some evidence for this intentional mistranslation (whaddya know... I attempted to *falsify* my hypothesis so I could either eliminate it or increase confidence in it).
Finally, I noticed that you only list disagreements in the NT. Since disagreements on how the NT should be translated would result from working from different Greek sources, that is another reason for my hypothesis. If these guys were arbitrarily mistranslating things then I would expect there to be disagreements in the Hebrew as well. If you have some examples, then please cite them (other than for the NWT). If any of the nontrivial disagreements on that page are due to differences other than based on the Greek source, then please give me an example and I will take a look. But real examples, not leaving out a 'Lord' here and there.
Please tell me which Greek manuscripts were used in your examples and which versions chose which ones.
According to your webpage
Matthew 19:17
KJV
Why callest thou me good?
NIV
Why do you ask me about what is good?
NAS
Why are you asking me about what is good?
NWT
Why do you ask me about what is good?
I don't know specifically which Greek sources were used for the nonKJV translations. I did a web search and couldn't find much beyond a page indicating that the NIV was translated from the 'most reliable' sources or something like that. Anyway, since you've studied Greek before I'm sure you already know which sources were used for which translations. At least I hope so, given the types of claims you're making regarding the accuracy of translation.
This page http://www.blueletterbible.org/info_greek.html indicate that "Many of the newer translations are based upon Alexandrian texts. The Blue Letter Bible also provides the Greek text based upon such Alexandrian texts, noting however that the King James Version is not based upon such texts. The Alexandrian based text that is shown is the combined Westcott-Hort / Nestle-Aland 26th edition variants."
If you look at the greek concordance listed at blueletterbible for that passage (I can't provide a direct link because I guess they expire after some time, so the link I provided yesterday no longer works), you'll notice that the word used for 'me', as in "Why callest thou me good"? (Strong's number 3165) is missing from the Greek which is given *below* the passage. Since this word is also missing from the nonKJV translations on your webpage, it seemed the most likely explanation that the nonKJV translations were working from the Alexandrian sources, not the Textus Receptus which the KJV used. (Note that for this example, that particular word is also missing from the TR shown *above* the verse. I do not know why it is missing in this case).
In any case, even if all of the translation disagreements on http://www.jcsm.org/biblelessons/KJV.htm are not the result of using different Greek sources, I think (unless you have evidence to the contrary) that it is likely that the disagreement over Matthew 19:17 is as a result of the Greek sources. Thus, I think it is misleading to keep that verse on this page, or to do so without at least providing a disclaimer that the disagreement comes due to working from a different Greek source.