The Bible has been mistranslated and copied and butchered and re butchered over and over again in several different languages over the last couple thousand years. I love herminutics and etymology.
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The barberic english translations are not the inspired word of God.
That is generally how I view it. But instead of saying "butchered", I point out -- based on my own experience as a foreign-language student -- that translation requires that the translator perform an act of interpretion, fallible human interpretation. That, in addition to the inherent problem the target language cannot always express exactly the same ideas as the original or that the translation may introduce new ideas through the target language drawing distinctions that do not exist in the original or through associations that exist in the target but not in the original. And on top of that, we have each individual's own act of interpreting the translator's acts of interpretation. True, an individual reading the original would also be performing a fallible act of interpretation, but at least that would eliminate the compounded errors introduced by layers of intermediate translation.
Interestingly and mind-bogglingly, I have encountered those who believe that the King James Version is the only correct Bible and that it is superior
even to the original. I'm serious. That is exactly what people have told me to my face and they remained adamant about it.
Here is what I believe; The original, in the original language, is the true word of God handed down to man.
Which raise the question: What "original language" are you referring to? Are you talking about a human language there? Or more specifically, assuming the existence of "The original [which] is the true word of God handed down to man", in what language was it, in what form was it, and in what manner was it handed down?
Thomas Paine had pointed out in "The Age of Reason" that when a man receives Revelation, it is Revelation to that man alone; as soon as he tells it to another, it becomes hear-say and as that second man tells a third it becomes hear-say upon hear-say. I would maintain that it is not even Revelation to that first man, because as soon as he tried to understand it and think of how to express it he has performed an act of fallible human interpretation and thus the translation process has begun.
Or did you mean that "original language" to have been Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic? I would most certainly agree that in order to best determine what the original authors were saying would be to read what they originally wrote. However, now we have the problem of determining just exactly what that original text was. There is no one version. We have found many manuscripts of New Testament verses, but they differ from each other. Which one is "The original"?
BTW, what is "IIX"? That goes against the conventions of Roman numerals. Are you trying to write "VIII"? If you are trying to make a statement by using an unconventional notation, then what is it?
{When you search for God, y}ou can't go to the people who believe already. They've made up their minds and want to convince you of their own personal heresy.("The Jehovah Contract", AKA "Der Jehova-Vertrag", by Viktor Koman, 1984)
Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the world. (from filk song "Word of God" by Dr. Catherine Faber,
No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.echoschildren.org/CDlyrics/WORDGOD.HTML)
Of course, if Dr. Mortimer's surmise should be correct and we are dealing with forces outside the ordinary laws of Nature, there is an end of our investigation. But we are bound to exhaust all other hypotheses before falling back upon this one.(Sherlock Holmes in
The Hound of the Baskervilles)
Gentry's case depends upon his halos remaining a mystery. Once a naturalistic explanation is discovered, his claim of a supernatural origin is washed up. So he will not give aid or support to suggestions that might resolve the mystery. Science works toward an increase in knowledge; creationism depends upon a lack of it. Science promotes the open-ended search; creationism supports giving up and looking no further. It is clear which method Gentry advocates.("Gentry's Tiny Mystery -- Unsupported by Geology" by J. Richard Wakefield,
Creation/Evolution Issue XXII, Winter 1987-1988, pp 31-32)
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