tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Dec 05 01:59:53 2001
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Re: yem! (was Re: Klingon WOTD: wem (n))
> Depends on what you mean by "imperfect"-- if you mean that one may
> occasionally come across a typo or a minor word translated wrong, then you'd
> probably be right. (I'm talking about KJV and NIV-- I don't really know
> about some of the new translations). But even if there is a small typo or
> something, that doesn't change the fact that the Bible is God's word ("All
> scripture is God-breathed"). God had some pretty important things to say--
> He's not going to let a few human errors keep people from understanding
> those things.
I don't think he was reffering to typos or a few words being incorrectly translated.
It's more the idosyncrasies. Things that are phrases/words unique to one culture and would make no sense in another one, or cannot even be
expressed in English. In English you can say "snow, slush, ice" and maybe one or two other words for snow in English. For an Eskimo, you
could say over 30. The snow that can be packed into bricks for houses has a name, and the type that comes hard, the type that comes soft. Etc.
And more than that, you can say something like "UFO" or "space saucer" to a native tribes people like the Jun'/hoasi and all they'll
understand is "light from the sky that carries people". To these types of people,this would possibly be seen as 'god'.
I'm not familiar enough with the original Hebrew version of the Bible, but I'm sure there are phrases/passages that, when translated for the
first time back before America was even a country, that are incorrect. If you say "the light from the sky blessed his body" and there were no
way to say that in English, would you write "The sun shone on him" or "God touched him"? Or something like "The sun touched his body", which
doesn't convey and of the connation that "blessed" does. And that's just a whimsical passage. Things like that do and did get wronged from
translation to transation. It's proof that the English/Catholic church changed parts of the Bible to suit them.
And besides, someone wrote the Bible. God didn't. Who ever wrote it (or the people who did) were biased. They focus primarily on one group
of people, and spend little to no time explaining the others. So, no translation will ever be "perfect". Even something like "maj" might not
be turned into "good" in English, and even if it were, it might not be that intent.
I didn't mean to start ranting there, just to prove a point.
> Those things can exist without faith in God, but they won't really mean
> anything-- just as someone can live a perfectly good life on earth without
> ever believing in God, but it will be a temporary one, and more or less
> meaningless.
Thank you for not imposing your own opinions on the rest of us.
My life is meaningless. buy' ngop!
Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam
vajHurghwI'