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Sotilas Jane · 08-11-2002, 03:43 AM

[quote="*MoG*Quartus":25592][quote="Sotilas Jane":25592]How can people take pieces of text and quote the bible literially? The bible has been translated so many times, that there must be some translation errors in it, minor or not. It is not the original scripture written word-by-word. And as you say, its most of the time meant to take literially.

I've read both Finnish and English version from the book of revelation, and although concept is same, there are some words, that are not exact.

Or then again, maybe I am just illiterate.[/quote:25592]

Yes, any translated work. by its nature, will have some differences in the wording. The Bible was translated from Hebrew, Aramaic & Greek. In particular the New Testament is of concern here. The ancient greek langauge was word/ picture based, hence a word in greek might mean a sentence in english.
The only way to fully grasp what a writer was saying is of course to read it in its original language, a feat few people would want to attempt, so we have to rely on men to translate. However if I told you in english to Love your enemies, you could convey that meaning to someone in Finnish. Yes the words are different but the meanings are the same. :wink:[/quote:25592]

But how can we be sure, that there are not parts in the bible, which have totally different meaning too, by a mistake in wording? I think that the original scriptures are long lost(?) and this we never can know how it really was meant to be. One wrong word in one wrong sentence could lead for total misconception, and make people understand the whole "event" in totally different view, thus maybe even leading to new actions - in a wrong way? Maybe that is an exaggeration, but still, makes you wonder.

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Sotilas Jane is Offline Senior Member Posts: 1,236 Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Helsinki, Finland	08-11-2002, 03:43 AM [quote="MoGQuartus":25592][quote="Sotilas Jane":25592]How can people take pieces of text and quote the bible literially? The bible has been translated so many times, that there must be some translation errors in it, minor or not. It is not the original scripture written word-by-word. And as you say, its most of the time meant to take literially. I've read both Finnish and English version from the book of revelation, and although concept is same, there are some words, that are not exact. Or then again, maybe I am just illiterate.[/quote:25592] Yes, any translated work. by its nature, will have some differences in the wording. The Bible was translated from Hebrew, Aramaic & Greek. In particular the New Testament is of concern here. The ancient greek langauge was word/ picture based, hence a word in greek might mean a sentence in english. The only way to fully grasp what a writer was saying is of course to read it in its original language, a feat few people would want to attempt, so we have to rely on men to translate. However if I told you in english to Love your enemies, you could convey that meaning to someone in Finnish. Yes the words are different but the meanings are the same. :wink:[/quote:25592] But how can we be sure, that there are not parts in the bible, which have totally different meaning too, by a mistake in wording? I think that the original scriptures are long lost(?) and this we never can know how it really was meant to be. One wrong word in one wrong sentence could lead for total misconception, and make people understand the whole "event" in totally different view, thus maybe even leading to new actions - in a wrong way? Maybe that is an exaggeration, but still, makes you wonder.