Starting off on the wrong foot

I think I asked you something like this in another thread some time ago and you never answered. No matter. I'll try again.

If there is only one perfect Bible, and it is not in the original languages, but it is in the English language, then what do I tell my beloved Japanese believers? There is no "KJV-type" Bible in print in Japanese. The only conservative version we have is done from the same principles and original language text as the NASV.

So, were my beloved church people saved through an imperfect Bible? Is that what you would tell them, their Bible is imperfect so they can't trust it? Or what? Should I tell them that we have no "final authority" in Japanese?

If this is a far off world to you and you really don't care, I suggest then that maybe you don't love missions and thus don't care about the Great Commission, Christ's last command on earth. If you are truly "still learning," though, you will humbly respond.

 

I would agree with you.

If God told us that in His word and then told us which particular translation was the perfect one.

But since He doesn't I will try to get as close to the source as I can.

Starting off on the wrong foot to me is making a human assumption that a translation, and only one translation, is perfect.

I think John's new translation into Japanese is the perfect one. Does that make me right?

 

I missed it...how is the op about translations?

 

How could a believer not think God's word is perfect?

 

Stilllearning, here is a quote from your OP.

Now here is your post to me.

In your OP you clearly say that those who go to the original language to "correct the Bible," or find the "Bible's mistake" are wrong. You say "I jokingly say, these people think they are smarter than God." So you are obviously ascribing perfection to a translation rather than the original.

I "correct the Bible" all the time when I refine our new Japanese NT according to corrections given me by my Japanese translation partner, sent me by my son (a budding Greek scholar who grew up in Japan), or by others of my editors. In fact, just today I was adding furigana ("ruby" pronunciation marks for the difficult Chinese characters) to Matthew 28 and proofreading it as I did. I found several mistakes, so I corrected them. Am I therefore a "Bible corrector"? And by the way, this kind of thing is exactly what the translators of our beloved KJV had to do as they worked on their new translation in 1611.

Now, if you had left out the bit about correcting the Bible from the original languages, you'd have been just fine, and no one would have thought you were talking about Bible translations. I grew up in Fundamentalism, and know that in the '50's, '60's and '70's independent Baptists almost never objected to correcting a translation from the originals.

When we talked about "errors in the Bible" in those days we meant what the liberals and others said about the history, science and other facts in the Bible. Then we often referred to the original Greek and Hebrew for our answers. Two books that answer critics of the Bible in this way are Dr. Rice, Here Is My Question (1962), and Dr. Rice, Here Are More Questions (1973), both by John R. Rice. I could list other such books.

I've taken extra time to answer you, hoping to be a help. God bless.

 

Hey, Roger, want to help me proofread it so we can make this the perfect Japanese translation? They say the Japanese Shinkaiyaku Bible that we fundamentalists use over here was proofread 8 times! So you could be a big help just as soon as you get that gift of Japanese from the Lord! :smilewinkgrin:

 

I have asked the same question as well as others concerning non-English translations to not just SL but others on this board as well. I have never been satisfied with the answer or lack of answer that I have gotten.

 

Since it is perfect, perhaps one could use it to make a new Spanish translation. After all, one of the most widely spoken languages in the world needs a perfect translation as well.
Japanese to Spanish- now that would be interesting!

 

According to the KJVO perspective there may be three unsatisfactory answers 1) The Japanese have to have a Bible translated exactly from a KJV into their language 2) We aren't concerned with other language groups -- just with folks who know the English language 3) Luther's Bible is fine for Germans,Zwingli's version for the Swiss etc. but all should at least be based on the same manuscripts as the KJV was.

 

Brother I see that it is clear this post is not intended to discuss KJV or differing translations. To bad it is being derailed.

 

I can clearly see that you do not understand that SL's point is indeed about the KJV and differing translations.Try reading his posts from the Bible Versions Forum sometime,then you'd have an "Ah ha!" moment.

 

That boggles the mind! The Japanese language is similar to Spanish only in the pronunciation of the vowels. The product might be the worst possible example of a double translation (one step removed from the original).

 

The thing is, the first complete Bible in Japanese, the Motoyaku, was translated from the KJV. But it had some horrible errors in it, notably translating sake (Japanese rice wine, very strong) for "wine" for the Lord's Supper. So then the question arises according to stilllearning's logic, should the Motoyaku be corrected from its original document, the KJV?

 

So, in your view it is "derailing" the thread to object to a statement in the OP? In this case, stilllearning said in the OP, "When they come to an apparent contradiction or a mistake in the Bible, there instinct is to look into the original language etc, not to find 'there (sic) mistake”, but to find the 'Bible’s mistake'. I joking say, that these people think that they are smarter than God. But this is no joke."

Please enlighten me. On the BB, is it or is it not derailing the thread to quote from and respond to the OP? Or must we somehow determine from the OP the central issue and only respond to that, ignoring other words in the OP with which we disagree?

 

They exist on this board.

 

Excuse me...he clarified what he meant in the op and you continued to argue with him as if he was lying. You my brother are twisting his words. Maybe you spend to much time and emotion on his posts with regard to the KJV.. I whole heatedly disagree with all of the KJVO arguments i have heard. But it is clear this op is not related to that and he has clarified his position.

The op is just about those who look into scripture with a personal agenda. The op cannot be more clear.

 

"Argue with him as if he was lying?" No, I didn't. I didn't feel he'd clarified anything at all. Apparently you've read none of his posts elsewhere. Everyone else who has posted on this thread took him the same way I did.

As for me spending "to (sic) much time and emotion on his posts," I've only ever posted in answer to him once, and was ignored that time. I was hoping to get an answer this time.

Sorry, the OP was not at all clear to me. It still isn't. Where does it say anything about a "personal agenda"? To me, as far as I could figure out, it was all about those who do not believe in an inerrant Scripture. And in stilllearning's mind until now, that inerrant Scripture is the KJV and nothing else.

Now, I did try to deal with this idea of those who come to the Bible believing it has errors, if that is what his OP was about (rather than what you say it was). I said,

I'm still waiting for stilllearning's response (not yours) on this.