cvirtue punched one of my buttons.

[sff_corgi_lj]

*grin* It's OK, I just need to walk away when my blood starts boiling: Fundies Say the Darndest Things! Top 100

Here's my favourite so far, out of a whole passel of winners:

[on the sunject (sic) of a Bible printing company]

Yes, that is a great company. I bought one of their large print version (old eyes... what can I say?).

The only thing I don't like about them is they sell foreign language versions of the KJB. I don't think that's right. We know the only true translation is the 1600's version in English.

It's too risky for anybody to translate that into other languages. Mistakes can creep in... and that can lead to heresy. True Christians should only read English.

leyenda , KJB only [Comments (164)] [2007-Aug-06]

Comments

[fabricdragon.livejournal.com]

oh yes, the KJB only crowd.....
the best line ever from one of them was a argument in a school board against teaching foreign languages. the person waved a Bible and said "if English was good enough for Jesus its good enough for our kids"

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

Makes you wonder how they remember to breathe, ne?

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

These hurt my brain too much.

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

I knooooooow. I'm so masochistic.

[delcj.livejournal.com]

leyenda is obviously not l33t. true Christians should only read Aramaic.

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

Send kir to Mel Gibson, stat!

[elfkat.livejournal.com]

Guess the fool doesn't know about the mistakes in the KJB like "Peace on earth to men of good will." OYYYY!

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

*blink* OK, feeling dense here, missing something....

[ladyfox7oaks.livejournal.com]

I second that particular "Wait-WTF?"

[elfkat.livejournal.com]

There are many translation mistakes in the King James such as Peace on earth - good will to men is really Peace on earth to men of good will. And "Thou sahll not suffer a witch to live" is really Thou shalt not suffer a poisoner to live. Little things like that.

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

Oh, the poisoner and the rapist mistranslations I'm well familiar with, yeah.

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

Also confused. King James has "on earth peace, good will towards men" or something like, which agreed, differs from some other translations - but I'm not clear which phrase you're claiming to be the mistake. What about the versions that have "peace to men with whom he is well pleased"? My point being, really, that any/all English translations have mistakes, or more commonly, issues of differing possible interpretations - King James as much as most, but not more so than some. *Likes King James for the language, but appreciates limitations. Also not getting into Bible as literature vs. revealed Word of God debate, as long as we agree translations are translations.*

Just in case anyone else is interested

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

Well, I found this an interesting topic, so I went ahead and looked up the Greek [disclaimer: I'm a scholar of Classical Greek, not the koine of the New Testament, but this is more or less a basic grammar issue, so should be okay. Also I am not in any way a Bible scholar, of course.] Anyway, it seems to turn on the key word 'eudokia', which is sometimes given as 'eudokias' - so there's the first issue, right there, before we even get to any translation, ie. the issue of how accurate the 'original' text we have received is (something the 'inerrancy'/true word of god types could do with bearing in mind.) Anyway 'eudokia' ('eu' + 'dokia', to break it down) has a range of possible meanings around 'good intention'/'good opinion' - so 'goodwill' is actually a perfectly possible translation. If we are accepting the form 'eudokia', i.e a nominative singular, in agreement with 'eirene'=peace, then the KJ translation isn't bad at all - and in fact several other translations agree with the "peace, good will to men" reading. The alternative is to attach eudokia/eudokias as describing the 'anthropois'=human-beings/men+women, rather than being, like peace, something that happens *to* them. This is where the 'good opinion' sort of reading comes in, giving rise to the translations that go with the "peace to men with whom he is well pleased" line. (From this we get the follow-on question, whether that should be taken as *qualifying* men i.e. 'only the men he is pleased with get peace', or merely as *describing* men in general: 'men get peace, and god is pleased with men'. But that's a separate debate.)

Anyway, I hope I've explained this clearly. In short, this seems to be a matter not of one translation being a mistake (though I've no doubt there *are* mistake in the KJ version - as in *every* translation of the Bible), but rather one of those many places where there is a question of multiple possible interpretations.

Re: Just in case anyone else is interested

[barsukthom.livejournal.com]

If only they had written it in Latin, instead of Greek. It's beautifully poetic, but, Merciful Avatars, can you wire a dvd player correctly in it?

Re: Just in case anyone else is interested

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

Hee ;-)

And of course, there is a Latin translation of the Greek (the Vulgate) and that does come down on the side of the second interpretation: "et in terra pax in hominibus bonae voluntatis" ie. men of good will. But as that is just a translation, it doesn't come into the original argument.

I am very fond of both Latin and Greek, but admit to having more of a soft spot for the latter, presumably because I am more the sort of person who likes to waft around poetically, leaving more practical souls to wire the DVD player - the more shame on me!

Re: Just in case anyone else is interested

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

Oooo, nifty! Erudition! :D

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

And may I just add, to be perfectly clear: I hold no particular torch for the King James version, other than quite liking it as a piece of nice, poetical old writing; I came at this issue entirely as someone interested in a rather startling claim I hadn't come across before, and thus naturally being keen to dig down to the roots of it and try to get to the truth.

[annechen-melo.livejournal.com]

*headdesk*

That's as good as the annual "Harvest Festival" argument with the fundie down the maze from me. She simply does NOT remember that I have more than one reference.

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

More detail, plis?

[annechen-melo.livejournal.com]

It's the same every Halloween, she noises about that HER church is going to SAVE all the neighborhood children because they are hosting a Harvest festival, none of this evil witchy stuff, and the games are held to find the King of the Harvest and the Queen of the Corn...

Though, she may shut up about it, since I had two corroborating informants about the original ceremonies this year. She apparently thought I was making it up.

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

The QUEEN of the CORN?!?!

Oh dear Goddess. Literally.

[phantom_wolfboy]

Yeah, I wanted to believe that one was a parody . . . but I keep reading about too many groups who beieve that.

[mafdet.livejournal.com]

Uhhh...no. True Christians should only read ARAMAIC because that is the language Jesus spoke.

*headdesk*

[proudofthefish.livejournal.com]

Because English has one word for the three different types of love but it is obviously the best....


I actually am using a New King James version right now but personally I change versions every couple of years as my bibles tend to get beat up.

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

I had an extra-credit thing in high school where if we did some sort of summary of N books of the Bible, we'd get points up to a maximum. I insisted, being me, that if we were gonna do them, we were gonna do ALL of them - got my mother's Vulgate and summarised the Apocrypha, too. I don't think I got extra on the extra, but they weren't dismissed, either. :)

[wyrmwwd.livejournal.com]

I can't even begin to comment on these....

Sometimes I think that the only versions that should be available are in the original Hebrew and Ancient Greek. That way, only scholars will be able to read it. Yes... perhaps that would be best.

[barsukthom.livejournal.com]

I suspect the Book Of Revelations to St John should be in colors. Really, really trippy colors.

[wyrmwwd.livejournal.com]

I have often suspected ergot poisoning for that one.