Featured Is It Possible For Modern Translators To Fall Under the Curse Of Re 22:18,19

I'm not Jon, but I hope he doesn't mind me answering this (but not instead of him).

Actually, the proper word is "texts", not "manuscripts. Texts are put together from manuscripts: the TR, Byzantine, USB, Nestle's, etc. It is the texts from which we translate, not the manuscripts directly.

I have known translators who went directly from an English version, but referred back to the original languages through software and other references. You can end up with a good translation this way, but not be going directly from the English and ignoring the original languages in which God Himself inspired the Bible. Why would someone want to ignore the Greek, in which God inspired the NT?

 

Now a little more about the passage in question.

Note that the genitive plural of the word logos (λώγων) is used. Since it is the plural, it is definitely not speaking of Christ, the "Word" in John 1:1.

As you all know, logos is a complicated word with many meanings. Here, though, all we have to consider is whether or not it refers to individual semantic content, or to messages. Mounce's short lexicon has: "a word, a thing uttered; speech, language, talk...; a saying, a speech" (I left out all of the references. I believe it refers here to the last meaning I gave. An example of this is in Luke 6:47, where the KJV (and other translations) has "sayings."

In other words, the curse applies to those who add content to the book--sayings, sentences, etc. A translator who simply goofs and gets the wrong word in his rendering is not cursed. Otherwise, every single Bible translator in the history of the world is cursed, including the translators of the KJV!

 

This is all very well, but truth must be given in words used together to make sentences and thus reveal propositional truth. You would know nothing about the "bread of heaven" if someone had mistranslated the Greek word "bread."

Some translators into an Asian language are for making it "rice" because that is the "main food" of their culture. The "main food" of a culture is important in Asia. Japanese even has a single word for it, 主食, shushoku. They like to say that our American shushoku is bread. However, that cross-cultural view is incorrect for Bible translation. Bread has characteristics that rice does not. Individual words must be translated correctly.

If this were mistranslated, using the wrong individual words, we would not know the truth God was giving.

The Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic do absolutely matter. Who are you to downplay the languages God Himself chose to communicate His word in? It is the height of fuzzy thinking to say that God's choice of languages does not matter.

Imagination does not count. Scripture does.

You have absolutely no Scriptural evidence to suggest that God Himself gives individual translations of the Bible. According to the Baptist distinctive of the priesthood of the believer, every believer has not only the right, but the responsibility to interpret Scripture himself or herself. It follows that God leaves translation up to His priest-believers.

Yes, both, but you have been downplaying the individual words.

 

I'm sorry, I'm just not following your logic here. Is the book of Revelation inspired of God? Is it then the prophecy spoken of in Rev. 22? Therefore is the curse not referring to the book of Revelation, which is a book of the Bible?

 

If the premise of the thread is the claim any deviation from the KJV is "adding to or taking away from the words of this book" and therefore cursed according to Revelation 22:18-19, then the premise is absurd , laughable and ignorant nonsense.

JOJ made a good point, if at anytime a translator mistranslated a part of the text, they were cursed, that would prohibit "modern translators" and by default, result in reliance on the cursed KJV translators. Absurd, laughable and ignorant nonsense.

The idea the modern translators are not doing their best to present the intended message of God, and often better than the KJV translators, the idea is absurd, laughable and ignorant nonsense.

Yes, we have some deeply flawed translations, and some verses where more than one interpretation is possible, thus limiting the accuracy of all our translations. But to throw up nonsense in provincial favor of this translation as always better than all others is absurd, laughable nonsense.

 

The KJV makers are in the same boat. They ADDED "and shalt be" to Rev. 16:5 & changed 'passover' to 'Easter' in Acts 12:4.

 

An observation.

The title of the book of Revelation as give in it's openning verse, "The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John: . . ."

Revelation 19:10, ". . . And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. . . ."

Jesus as cited in Luke 24:44, ". . . These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. . . ."

With the understanding that the whole given written word of God is a revelation of Jesus Christ, the warnings for the book of Revelation in 22:18-19 can be understood to apply to the whole Bible.

 

Romans 2:1, ". . . Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things. . . ."

 

Are you kidding me? I got a good laugh out of this! Thanks for the blessing.

I was not the slightest bit angry when I wrote that. I gave emphasis to "God's" because it seemed necessary since you were slighting the verbal (every single word) inspiration of the Bible in the original languages.

Oh, and yes, I do have a self esteem problem just like you do. It's called the sin nature.

Great, but you know you could have done that with a good attitude.

But then you did not actually respond to what I wrote that you underlined. I asked for Scripture that says God gives translations. You gave none.

What??? Mean spirited? How in the world was I mean spirited? Did I insult you? No. Did I say anything mean? No. So what was mean spirited in what I wrote? I stuck strictly to what you said, not who you are or are not.

How about if you are more careful about your false accusations?

P. S. It's called debate. Debate can get a little heated, right? So remember that thing about the heat and the kitchen?

 

Okay, we seem to be on the same page. I was just having trouble following your logic, but you've explained it.

Actually, I never said that the specific curse extended to the rest of the Bible.

A strict exegesis says that the curse in Rev. 22 is about John's prophetic document called the book of Revelation. I think, though, that it can be applied to the rest of Scripture, though not as a curse, because of passages like Deuteronomy 4:2 and Proverbs 30:6.

 

Of course not. Missionary Bible translation is an extremely important subject to me. It's an every day task and a subject to teach and advise on all the time, not just an incidental event to only talk about on an Internet forum.

Thank you for the gracious apology. I'll try to reign back my combativeness about this subject that I care very deeply about, and is such a huge part of my daily life.

 

The book or tree? One is the word of God and the other is both a take away and an add. Just by guessing, so one has a 50% chance of being wrong on two counts without trying to know the true word of God.