What's the AUTHORITY for an English Bible?

It is a mindset.
Under the OT Law, there was only one place to worship God and all men must come to the Temple in Jerusalem. There is only one way, prescribed in great detain, for how one may worship God and who may approach God and how close different classes of people may come to God. Everything about the LAW is about restricting access to a Holy God that is first and foremost ... other.

Under the Great Commission, there is no differentiation between people (no Jew or gentile or slave or free or male or female) and there is a call to carry the Good News to the ends of the Earth by all means possible. Thus Paul would allow no cultural barrier to stand in the way of his spreading the word. As a Jew's Jew, he was willing to cross the line and embrace gentiles. As a Roman Citizen, he was willing to set aside his station and embrace slaves. It is a mindset of removing barriers to spreading the truth. Even the choice of Greek was intended to allow communication with the greatest number of people rather than because everyone in Palestine probably spoke Greek as their first (native) language.

So requiring all Christians to learn Greek and Hebrew is a Pharisaical mindset to the worship of God contrary to the spirit of the NT. Translating the Bible into vernacular languages is a continuation of the mindset that anything that lowers the bar and increases access is what Jesus would do and what Paul did.

 

That would indeed be the literal application for God not wanting to have any other bible translation made in other than biblical Greek/Hebrew!

 

The New Testament was written in koine Greek, the language of most people in the Roman world. We are instructed to 'Go, and make disciples of every nation.' How can we do that without a Bible that people can read for themselves?

Translations are not modern things. The O.T. was translated into Greek long before the time of Christ on earth. The N.T. was translated into Syriac and Latin very early on, with a Gothic translation following swiftly.

 

Thanks for this. You make some good points that I haven't seen expressed this way before. I must admit I was skeptical when you first mentioned 1 Corinthians 9 -- mainly because in my experience I've seen a lot of people wrest it into a "end justifies the means" text. As I read your points, I also thought of John 4:21-24, Acts 15:8-9, and Romans 10:11-13 (which you alluded to) to support and complement 1 Corinthians 9.

You may not have noticed if you haven't seen all my posts, but I am not opposed to translating the Bible into the languages of the world. What I was trying to do was push respondents into defending translation with scriptural principles rather than just assuming it is OK. In conjunction with this post, I also wrote about "Translating the Word of God" on my blog.

 

Here's what the KJV translators had to say on the matter, which seems relevant, if but a little:

 

We've not commented on this in awhile, but I'm going to add what I think is the best authority for Bible translation:

Every time the New Testament references the Old Testament it does so by way of translation from one language (Hebrew) to another (Greek) -- thereby stamping approval on the principle of Bible translation.