The doctrine of preservation

[Winman]

So it is the sense that matters, not the actual words?

Well, I think a translation ought to be word for word if possible, but I realize that is not always possible. We have words that were added in all the English translations to make the text intelligible. Now, in most KJBs these words are written in italics so that we can know they were added. I do not consider this adding to the word of God.

Now, the last 12 verses of Mark 16 is another matter altogether, they are either supposed to be there, or they are not. It is impossible that they are both supposed to be there and supposed to be omitted. So one of the texts is error here.

And while I do not speak another language (two years of German in High School), I realize that some cultures do not have words we have. I have read there is no word for "privacy" in Russian, Japanese, and Chinese. Not speaking these languages I have no idea, but for the sake of this argument I will assume this is a true fact.

So, if the Bible were to use the word "privacy" (this is a hypothetical), how would you convey the sense of this word in a translation in Russian, Japanese, or Chinese? Now, I would have to know these languages to answer my own question, but it is certain I cannot use a word for word method, that I must add words not shown in the originals to give the sense of this word that does not exist in these languages.

So again, I would attempt to keep to a word for word translation, but it is not always possible, but what is important is to capture the true sense of scripture. We want to convey the true meaning God is trying to communicate to us.

That is why I brought up Mat 5:22, the KJB and the MVs absolutely give a different sense. We had a regular poster here that felt guilty whenever she was angry at another person, even when she had a legitimate reason to be angry because her MV made her believe it was always a sin to be angry at another person.

This would also make Jesus a sinner as when he went into the temple and turned the money changers tables over. Jesus was absolutely angry here.

So, the KJB and the MVs cannot both be correct concerning Mat 5:22, they give a different sense and meaning altogether.

 

[NaasPreacher (C4K)]

So the question in hand is, in line with the OP, when John is finished will he have the perfectly God preserved Japanese New Testament? Will that be the perfect Japanse scriptures?

 

[NaasPreacher (C4K)]

Well, I think a translation ought to be word for word if possible, but I realize that is not always possible. We have words that were added in all the English translations to make the text intelligible. Now, in most KJBs these words are written in italics so that we can know they were added. I do not consider this adding to the word of God.

Now, the last 12 verses of Mark 16 is another matter altogether, they are either supposed to be there, or they are not. It is impossible that they are both supposed to be there and supposed to be omitted. So one of the texts is error here.

And while I do not speak another language (two years of German in High School), I realize that some cultures do not have words we have. I have read there is no word for "privacy" in Russian, Japanese, and Chinese. Not speaking these languages I have no idea, but for the sake of this argument I will assume this is a true fact.

So, if the Bible were to use the word "privacy" (this is a hypothetical), how would you convey the sense of this word in a translation in Russian, Japanese, or Chinese? Now, I would have to know these languages to answer my own question, but it is certain I cannot use a word for word method, that I must add words not shown in the originals to give the sense of this word that does not exist in these languages.

So again, I would attempt to keep to a word for word translation, but it is not always possible, but what is important is to capture the true sense of scripture. We want to convey the true meaning God is trying to communicate to us.

That is why I brought up Mat 5:22, the KJB and the MVs absolutely give a different sense. We had a regular poster here that felt guilty whenever she was angry at another person, even when she had a legitimate reason to be angry because her MV made her believe it was always a sin to be angry at another person.

This would also make Jesus a sinner as when he went into the temple and turned the money changers tables over. Jesus was absolutely angry here.

So, the KJB and the MVs cannot both be correct concerning Mat 5:22, they give a different sense and meaning altogether.

Please stop bringing English translations into the discussions, that is not the topic.

Since English translations and, say German, translations of necessity will differ, how can they both be perfect?

 

[Winman]

Please stop bringing English translations into the discussions, that is not the topic.

Since English translations and, say German, translations of necessity will differ, how can they both be perfect?

What? Why do you assume they differ? If an English translation and a German translation both convey the exact same meaning, how do you say they differ?

Is this supposed to be a serious argument?

 

[Winman]

So the question in hand is, in line with the OP, when John is finished will he have the perfectly God preserved Japanese New Testament? Will that be the perfect Japanse scriptures?

If John accurately translates an accurate text into Japanese, it will be the accurate word of God in Japanese.

If John accurately translates a corrupt text into Japanese, it will be a corrupt text in Japanese.

This is not difficult.

 

[John of Japan]

What? Why do you assume they differ? If an English translation and a German translation both convey the exact same meaning, how do you say they differ?

Is this supposed to be a serious argument?

Example: Greek has a definite article but no indefinite article. English has both a definite and indefinite article. Japanese has neither. So whether you translate from the English Bible (as some have suggested) into Japanese or from the Greek as I am doing, either way it is often impossible to get the nuance of the article into Japanese.

 

[John of Japan]

If John accurately translates an accurate text into Japanese, it will be the accurate word of God in Japanese.

If John accurately translates a corrupt text into Japanese, it will be a corrupt text in Japanese.

This is not difficult.

I once did a thread here on the BB asking how I might be able to produce a perfect Japanese Bible. There were no takers. No one could tell me. Can you tell me?

Just last week I was working on the final draft--the very final one, mind you--of the book of John. To my horror, I found that my MS Word files had "do not" in several places where the PDF (already typeset) of John had it correctly. The upshot was that, if I had not found this error, the printed version would have been correct but the version sent for software packages would not have been.

That is the reality of Bible translation, and it goes right along with the Biblical teaching that we believers, as priests before God, are responsible for the human preservation of Scripture. God providentially leads, but promises no miracles in translation work.

 

[Winman]

Example: Greek has a definite article but no indefinite article. English has both a definite and indefinite article. Japanese has neither. So whether you translate from the English Bible (as some have suggested) into Japanese or from the Greek as I am doing, either way it is often impossible to get the nuance of the article into Japanese.

Oh, I am sure there are tremendous difficulties translating from one language to another, but I am also sure that you come up with a way to give the accurate sense to readers.

Tell me, what do you do in the example you have given above?

I do not see what this has to do with Logos argument that the scriptures can only be preserved in the original languages. We see in Acts 2 that God miraculously gave the apostles and disciples the ability to speak in the hearer's native language. I am sure God enabled them also to give the perfect and accurate sense of the scripture they were preaching to these Jews from other nations.

Acts 2:6 Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language.

Acts 2:8 And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?

According to the argument being put forth here, God could not have possibly accurately communicated his own word here. Absurd.

If I did not believe I could accurately translate the word of God into another language, I would not dare do it.

 

[Winman]

I once did a thread here on the BB asking how I might be able to produce a perfect Japanese Bible. There were no takers. No one could tell me. Can you tell me?

Just last week I was working on the final draft--the very final one, mind you--of the book of John. To my horror, I found that my MS Word files had "do not" in several places where the PDF (already typeset) of John had it correctly. The upshot was that, if I had not found this error, the printed version would have been correct but the version sent for software packages would not have been.

That is the reality of Bible translation, and it goes right along with the Biblical teaching that we believers, as priests before God, are responsible for the human preservation of Scripture. God providentially leads, but promises no miracles in translation work.

Oh no? Do you not believe it was God who caused you to discover this error?

You might be getting more help than you are giving God credit for. Shame.

 

[NaasPreacher (C4K)]

If John accurately translates an accurate text into Japanese, it will be the accurate word of God in Japanese.

I have no doubt that John will give the Japanese people an accurate Japanese NT translated from the TR. I have know John and long, long time.

But perhaps you misread my question. I asked if it would be THE perfect God preserved word of God in Japanese.

 

[NaasPreacher (C4K)]

What? Why do you assume they differ? If an English translation and a German translation both convey the exact same meaning, how do you say they differ?

Because, simply put, German and English are not the same. No matter how hard we may try we cannot translate one perfectly into the other. They will be different. As we here so often in this debate 'things that are different are not the same.' Which is THE perfectly preserved word of God?

 

[DrJamesAch]

So the question in hand is, in line with the OP, when John is finished will he have the perfectly God preserved Japanese New Testament? Will that be the perfect Japanse scriptures?

The Japanese have a translation from the KJV called the Meiji. Now since I don't read Japanese, I don't know how closely the translators followed the KJV or the TR. The KJV has also been translated into about 800-1200 different languages (some partial, some NT only).

I'll ask you this C4K. If you do not speak Hebrew, and want me to ask a question of my grandparents about their experiences in Austria, and you are standing there as I ask them, how do you know for sure whether I really told them what you asked, or I didn't tell them that you wear ladies underwear?

When the Holy Spirit spoke through all the believers on the day of Pentacost, there were appx 20 different languages represented. Did they all hear a different message? Was the "original" message convoluted because they all understood languages differently? God is the one that split the languages of man in the first place in Genesis 11, so you'd think He'd know how to ensure that everyone understood the gospel in their own language and yet scholars today cast doubt on that.

I myself was raised on the Masoretic Text, and didn't learn English until I was 10. But in dealing with almost every part of the world, English is a MUST second language and most countries teach English, and when I discuss the Bible in English, I discuss it from the KJV because it is the only one that accurately reflects the Hebrew and everything that I have studied from all of the Greek texts.

Regardless of what language you speak, you will always THINK in your native language. Language is meant to convey meaning, because it is an expression of thought. The goal in translation is to convey what one word would mean to me in my native tongue, to what it would mean to another in their native tongue but it must be based upon a true source if I am speaking for someone else. If the source is corrupt, then I am not conveying the truth to another person regardless of what equivalent I find in their language to express the thought.

Just because it may be difficult to translate words and meanings does not mean it's impossible. God proved that in Acts 2. But yet scholars today act as if God can not control even the translation process even though He did a perfect job of it in Acts 2, and in all the translations of the Hebrew that were made in the hundreds of OT references made by the apostle when writing them into the NT in Greek. Somehow God must have forgot that the Greek language would take a back seat to English centuries later when expecting Christians to preach the word and on that note, since only a handful of us here actually think and read Hebrew, the rest of you are skwood.

God said His word if forever settled in heaven. Scholars don't like to think that such a concept applies to "originals" of earthly manuscripts, but then how did God inspire what they consider originals in the first place? Do you think that the 10 commandments were ALWAYS recopied on stone? When the 10 commandments were put in print, did God only preserve the commandments written in stone? When David wrote of over 165 references to the word, precepts, laws in Psalm 119, was he referring to the stone slab carved out by God Himself?

When God made His first command, and then Satan questioned it in Genesis 3, man was expected to keep a word that wasn't even in writing. So to what standard was God holding Adam accountable to in Genesis 3:11? And yet Bible scholars today say that the word of God isn't kept in heaven, that it was only God breathed in the original languages when God knew ahead of time there would be different languages spoken long after they were penned. Scoffers believe in initial utterances only, but don't believe in preservation.

Logos claims God only promised to preserve the original language meanings. Well then what happened to the original LANGUAGES? If preservation were limited to the LANGUAGES then why are those languages DEAD? If preservation and inspiration were limited to only the originals, which one of the 7 letters that John wrote to the 7 churches were the original? Jesus believed that the COPIES He was preaching from were the same as they were penned in the OT, but yet today, scholars say that's not possible. Scholars look at what they believe is HUMANLY possible instead of believing that God would preserve His word just as He did throughout 1500+years of Israelite history, and if God told us to preach the word, then it must be here somewhere. It can't be 30,000 different contradictory Scriptures.

On the other hand, if God also warned us that there were those who corrupted the word of God, then THOSE 'BIBLES' ARE HERE TO. Where are they? According to scholars there are no corrupt Bibles or translations and yet Paul and Peter both said there were those actively attempting to subvert the written word of God. All the scholars have a human answer for what they think the word of God is, but they never stop to think that the Bible also predicted there would be corrupt versions as well. WHERE ARE THOSE? We know that Rome has through the centuries purposely made altered texts in order to quell Bible believers as well as the Protestant Reformation. The Douay Rheims was put out to refute the Bibles used by the Protestants, and yet when faced with the evidence that most modern versions are based on the very same texts used by the RCC that even BEAR THEIR NAME, scholars stick their head in the sand and say "they're all the word of God". Many seasoned scholars can recognize the blatant alterations in the Watchtower's New World Translation but it's really not that different from the NIV or NASB (same underlying text). Yet the same standard isn't applied to the Bibles that they make money off of.

It's no wonder that the average Christian has barely 20 verses memorized. How do you hide the word of God in your heart and mind when it changes every 3 years.

 

[NaasPreacher (C4K)]

That is the reality of Bible translation, and it goes right along with the Biblical teaching that we believers, as priests before God, are responsible for the human preservation of Scripture. God providentially leads, but promises no miracles in translation work.

Wow - well put

 

[DrJamesAch]

Wow - well put

So God offers providence that is not miraculous? I fail to see how that is "well put".

 

[John of Japan]

Oh, I am sure there are tremendous difficulties translating from one language to another, but I am also sure that you come up with a way to give the accurate sense to readers.

Tell me, what do you do in the example you have given above?

There are times when we use あの, a word meaning "that" but not 100% equivalent to "that" in English and certainly not 100% equivalent to the Greek definite article. However, it does give the proper emphasis of the original when we need it to.

I do not see what this has to do with Logos argument that the scriptures can only be preserved in the original languages. We see in Acts 2 that God miraculously gave the apostles and disciples the ability to speak in the hearer's native language. I am sure God enabled them also to give the perfect and accurate sense of the scripture they were preaching to these Jews from other nations.

Um, in case you haven't noticed I'm not Logos. I would appreciate it if you would take my points on their own merits and not compare them to others.

Acts 2:6 Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language.

Acts 2:8 And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?

According to the argument being put forth here, God could not have possibly accurately communicated his own word here. Absurd.

You are confusing the message with the lexical units of the original. I can speak in Japanese and give the complete and perfect Gospel. That does not mean that there will be exactly equivalent lexical units in Japanese for every lexical unit in Greek or English. For example, the Greek word for Gospel means generally "good news", but the Japanese (and Chinese) word consists of two Chinese characters in a compound word: 福音, pronounced fukuin. The two Chinese characters mean "blessed sound." It is not an exact equivalent, but it carries the message of the meaning of the Greek word.

If I did not believe I could accurately translate the word of God into another language, I would not dare do it.

I certainly would not do so either! :type:

 

[John of Japan]

Oh no? Do you not believe it was God who caused you to discover this error?

You might be getting more help than you are giving God credit for. Shame.

You misunderstand. God certainly helped me, but the help was providential and not miraculous. Do you see the difference?

 

[John of Japan]

The Japanese have a translation from the KJV called the Meiji. Now since I don't read Japanese, I don't know how closely the translators followed the KJV or the TR. The KJV has also been translated into about 800-1200 different languages (some partial, some NT only).

The Meiji (明治訳、also called the Moto Yaku　元訳, or "Original Translation") of the NT was finished in 1880, with the OT coming out in 1887. It was ostensibly from the KJV with reference to the Greek, Latin, German and Chinese. However, it is not strictly a traditional text version, since there are places where it varies, leaving out several verses for example.

The NT of this translation was so poorly done that it was revised within about 20 years. For example, it translated oinos as sake (Japanese rice wine) in a number of places. Is it right to have the Lord's Supper from highly alcoholic rice wine? Of course not.

The Meiji was a lousy translation. So until 1928 and the Nagai Yaku, which was in classical Japanese, there was no Japanese NT from the traditional text.

As for the rest of your very long post, none of it was in line with the OP.

 

[John of Japan]

So God offers providence that is not miraculous? I fail to see how that is "well put".

"Miracle" and "providence" are not synonyms. That should be obvious.

 

[DrJamesAch]

"Miracle" and "providence" are not synonyms. That should be obvious.

Of course it was not synonymous and that was the point. You relegated the preservation of Scripture to providence, but said that same preservation of Scripture would not be miraculous. Thus if God's preservation were to be providential, how could anything that God does of which is providential not be miraculous? On what basis do you conclude that what God does providentially is not God working miraculously? especially when it comes to Scripture?

I would have to say that in this context providential and miraculous should have been synonymous considering that you were contending for the preservation of something that can not be naturally maintained. If it could be naturally maintained, there would be no need for providence. But for some reason, you admit that providence is necessary but not miraculous.

 

[John of Japan]

Of course it was not synonymous and that was the point. You relegated the preservation of Scripture to providence, but said that same preservation of Scripture would not be miraculous. Thus if God's preservation were to be providential, how could anything that God does of which is providential not be miraculous? On what basis do you conclude that what God does providentially is not God working miraculously? especially when it comes to Scripture?

I would have to say that in this context providential and miraculous should have been synonymous considering that you were contending for the preservation of something that can not be naturally maintained. If it could be naturally maintained, there would be no need for providence. But for some reason, you admit that providence is necessary but not miraculous.

You, sir, are mixed up. You don't understand the difference between two quite different words and concepts. In the first place, it is impossible for me to "relegate" anything to providence. I have a much higher view of God's providence than that. Don't you?

I shouldn't have to explain the difference between the two, but I will. Consider. Suppose I had a flat tire on the way to the retreat I preached at last week. However, suppose that having to change my tire prevented me from being involved in a tunnel collapse. Thus God has protected me through natural means and circumstances. This is God's providence.

A miracle, on the other hand, is when God reaches down into the natural world and works against nature. When Jesus did His many wonderful miracles, He accomplished things that were impossible humanly speaking: walking on water, healing leprosy, casting out demons. Miracles are impossible to us humans.

When God helped me to find the errors in my translation last week, He did not do it with a miracle. I didn't see the words magically rearrange themselves on the page. I had no vision. God did not write on the wall as He did for Daniel. He worked providentially, without miracles. Now do you understand?