The Faith & Religion mega Thread

"This place has grown much too quiet ..."

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What is your "favorite hymn that nobody has ever heard of," and why?

https://mbird.com/music/11-beautiful...ordinary-time/

And if you need to look anything up ... from any hymnal that ever sat in any pew ... "of course The Internet has it": https://hymnary.org/

One of the most-lasting gifts of any religion, to any society, of course is music. They say that you can complete both a music-lesson and a history-lesson by taking any church hymnal, especially the earlier ones, and learning how to play every song in it. (Eventually, "about a hundred or so songs in," you necessarily also master the arcane art of "sight reading," because you still have many hundreds of songs to go.)

Gone quiet here again, have we? Really, this thread would die out due to lack of interest without me to annoy you all, But Some tiny percentage of the many posters here must be religious.

To the religious & well read, and to nobody else: I am already familiar with the difficulties in getting a translation of the Bible into languages that people in western europe spoke from feudal times forward under the popes. Our magazines did a series on early translators into many languages, who usually met a sticky end at the hands of the Roman Church. But even by the time of the Roman/Orthodox split, the Bible had been restricted to the Latin Vulgate, which only a minority could understand. There was even great ignorance of Latin among priests. Ironically, Vulgate is a Latin word in the dative case [probably pronounced 'Vul-GA-tay'] meaning 'To/for the common/vulgar people.' So knowledge was denied to the common people by a translation meant expressly for them.

Now I want to trace the story in the Orthodox section of Greece/Russia, as they would have taken the same ban in their split. Who were the early translators? Did they also meet a sticky end? When were the local (Greek in Greece, Ukranian in Ukraine, Russian in Russia) languages finally available?

Translators in the west did not "usually meet a sticky end". There was no objection to translations, unless they were obviously unorthodox or incompetent. The Catholic Church didn't like laity attempting translation for those reasons — having seen the quality of some medieval translation of non-Biblical texts, I sympathise. The complete English version of Wycliffe was banned because he was a heretic, but the older complete French version met no objections.

The Orthodox tradition's first non-Greek Bible was Cyril and Methodius's Old CHurch Slavonic (really Old Bulgarian) version in the 9th century, still used in many Slavic countries.

Wycliffe attempted to obey the dictates of God's word over the priests by

1. Managing a translation because one was sorely needed. It's not thought he did the bulk of the translating work.
2. Obeying the clear instruction to preach and comissioning & training the Lollards.
3. Ignoring the Clergy who told him to leave the people in ignorance.

That probably made him a heretic in their eyes. He was actually nearer the truth than they were.
From the statements at Councils of Bishops, it's clear that the clergy would do anything to avoid such a translation.

It figures that the Orthodox church would keep a 9th century translation - anything except language people understood. Over the centuries, everything changes, and words remain in use but their meaning changes. Do they have any modern ones?

EDIT: Translators had to deal with the Church authorities in their work, as burning at the stake was ordained repeatedly for unauthorised translation. A translation into English was NEVER authorised by the Church until after half a dozen or so English translations were already available. Translators where tracked down were burned at the stake. Those educating their children from a banned translation also were. Read "Foxe's Book of Martyrs" to get a feel for things. It's clearly biased, but the names are real. I think it's online.

EDIT2: The 'older French version' must have got out before the established (western) church turned so negative against translation. They couldn't object when it was out there, and they had allowed it.

As I've said here before, I have books on what was probably the most-ambitious English language project ever attempted: the King James Version (KJV). It was rife not only with scholarly studies and debates – the sources did not always agree – and of course with politics. The teams actually renamed one of the disciples in honor of their patron, "James." But there was a lot of messy politics to deal with even if you were King.

It took a certain amount of bravery to do what they did, and of course did so well. (Although none of them were ever at risk of being burned alive.) I always think about Paul Harvey (RIP) when I read them: "The Rest of the Story!" There's quite a bit of "the rest of" the story of that book in your hands.

Another notable and modern project is the New International Version (NIV), which was another "original sources" effort, this time carefully documented while the work was being done. This text is full of footnotes with constant citation of the sources used, and of any discrepancies noted between them. It also has a lengthy Introduction. The team also published a contemporaneous book about the workings of the project, and the issues encountered while doing it.

I won't take issue with the last post now, save to point out you're ignoring the best translation - the (free) New World Translation in whole or part in 350+ languages & regularly updated as discoveries warrant it. But they don't make a song & dance about it. They just do it.

It's the story of the Orthodx countries I'm interested in. I know the strengths & inadequacies of the translations you mention.

"Wow! How could I have missed it?" Don't they have a web-site?

It is certainly "historically understood" that, as the original Roman Empire fractured into two very-distinct parts – the latter generally(?) being referred to as "Coptic" – two different "Christian Traditions™" necessarily emerged.

I had never yet realized the existence of any "translation" which – as you suggest – "tried to go much farther." That is to say ... and pardon me if I now misunderstand you ... to reconcile this "gap?"

I am right now extremely interested in learning more.

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... oh, wait. Maybe this thing is not actually "old" at all: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Wo...oly_Scriptures

I will not enter into this ... while I utter no opinion as to its scholarship. It is simply nonsensical for me to meaningfully comment. "Perhaps, indeed, too much time has now passed ..."

I vote for: Lamsa translation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamsa_Bible
(because CSL.org Religious Science AKA Science of Mind prefers it. I'm not into religion but I used to go to one of their small local churches, which has now faded away). It's basically The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale: Thot(=God)&'creates'ALL.

I'm rather fond of Samuel Clemens' (Mark Twain's) Letters From The Earth but I've only scanned parts of "The Art of Quality Buggy Whip Construction" before I lost interest.

Originally Posted by sundialsvcs "Wow! How could I have missed it?" Don't they have a web-site? It is certainly "historically understood" that, as the original Roman Empire fractured into two very-distinct parts – the latter generally(?) being referred to as "Coptic" – two different "Christian Traditions™" necessarily emerged. I had never yet realized the existence of any "translation" which – as you suggest – "tried to go much farther." That is to say ... and pardon me if I now misunderstand you ... to reconcile this "gap?" I am right now extremely interested in learning more.

The JWs? Yes, the website (Unsurprisingly) is http://www.jw.org currently in 1070 languages! Our publications are searchable on another site. There's even a Bible Museum housing a historical selection of Manuscripts, old Bibles, etc. in Warwick, New York(?). Get in touch before you call. Oh, there is also the JW Library App & JW Language App ( for basic learning of foreign phrases) and a computer database of our stuff which runs under wine.

Our translation has been informed by things like questions from those translating the Scriptures from English into other languages, which highlight areas where our translation is poorly understood. And we still have experts active in Bible translation. Unlike other translation efforts, the guys never disbanded. Wikipedia left out the 1984 Revision. English has changed in those 60 years.

I agree

• Neither of us know enough to comment meaningfully on Bible translation, although the translation Appendices (particularly Appendix C) help educating you in our translation decisions.
• There was this east/west split in the Late Roman Empire you describe, and the East lasted when the West Roman Empire fell.
• In effect, nearly every Bible has demands the translators must bow to. Mostly this is seen in the use of God's personal name, and views on certain key scriptures to support questionable doctrines. So Apocryphal passages that support such ideas are included where the translator usually knows better. Our guys could go where they liked, because our doctrines are constantly under review.The Bible teaches us what the Truth is.

I know how the Bible came in English: Wycliffe; Tyndale; Coverdale;The Geneva Bible, etc. How did it get to modern Russian? Greek? Turkish? and the other languages under the Eastern Roman/Byzantine/Ottoman Empire? Now I am aware that those stories may well be in other languages. I wouldn't regard it generally as the Coptic Empire - I thought that 'Coptic' was Egypt/North African, although the Byzantine Empire reached that far, they lost most of that land fairly quick.

I like to keep an AV (King James) Bible to hand when reading a modern translation. Modern translations are easier to read but I am suspicious of their philosophy. The translators of the New English Bible summed it up when they said in their preface that their aim was "to say in our own native idiom what we believe the original author was attempting to say in his." Now this may be fine when people want to read "the Bible as literature" but it also means that the translators' beliefs about what the original author was trying to say can trump what he actually said. Which is problematic if you believe, as I do, that the Bible is the word of God and supremely authoritative. Frankly I don't want to give that kind of authority to a translator's personal opinion about what someone else was "trying to say".

The AV is difficult to read nowadays because you have to translate it from Jacobean into modern English, but the authors did translate word-for-word as far as possible. Whenever the result did not make sense (which was often), they added words until it did make sense, but they added them in a different font, so that readers could see which words came from the Greek or Hebrew text and which were added by the translators (and therefore helpful rather than authoritative). Any reader could therefore mentally remove the added words, study and pray over what was left, and make up his/her own mind about how God intended it to be read. It's a philosophy that I like. Certainly I find it preferable to a footnote saying "Conjectural reading" or "Probable reading" followed (sometimes, not always) by a string of words that bears little resemblance to their preferred version and no explanation of how they got from the former to the latter.

That's why I always have the AV at hand to act as a "crib", although I use a modern translation for my main read.

There are, as we all well know, a galaxy of "Biblical translations," including those in the English language. Each of them are, or once were, pursued by a team of scholars who are trolling over the same materials while also trying to find new ones. And there of course many other teams who are writing for their own respective modern languages – and freely sharing their scholarly work.

And, above and beyond all of this, there are the many other extant texts, all of which now can be retrieved and inspected on the Internet. These are ones that "didn't make the original canonical cut," although quite interestingly some "Biblical translation" projects have actually referenced them, at least in footnotes and supporting documents. Things with sometimes-tantalizing titles, such as "The Gospel of Judas." (Read it here.) Oh, there are so many of them.

Which is part of why I continue to find this subject so(!) fascinating. "It's all about humanity."

Scripture is fascinating for certain in my view but the many, many translations over two millennia and many cultures should preclude any hope of literal meaning. The vast number of subsets or denominations only serves to strengthen that conclusion. This is a pretty good list afaik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._denominations

The Message by Eugene Petersen is an interesting take on translation, as it attempts to be less literal word for word and more high level (in the comp sci sense) translation. It's nice to have several different translations to compare, for those of us who don't read (church) Latin, (gospel) Greek, Aramaic, Hebrew
etc.

Interesting thing about those is that most of them were there when the Bible canon was agreed by eminent men listing what books they accepted. The litmus test is in 2 Tim 3:16-17

All Scripture is inspired of God and beneficial for teaching, for reproving, for setting things straight, for disciplining in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be fully competent, completely equipped for every good work.

By that measure, other books are not worth the paper they were written on. At least the contemporaries of those writers thought that. In fact, the writers of inspired books were all natural Jews. Romans 3:1-2 (GW)