For those of you who believe in Sola Scriptura how do you distinguish among the various translations? Is one more accurate than the other? Which one? Does language (English, French, Chinese, etc.) make a difference?
Who or what determines for you the correct canon of the books?
(Please don't say the Bible interprets itself because that is a meaningless phrase).
Thats the only bible you should be reading. Thats the purest word you can get.
That has to be one of the silliest answers I have read in a long time!
No version is worth a hill of beans unless a person can sit down and read and understand what he is reading!
Basicly I think you should get one good translation and stick to it. If you are unsure of meaning then compare it with other translations as in a parallel Bible.
Paul told us all Scripture is useful for instruction so don't get hung up on the translation but gain understanding and wisdom by reading. There really isn't a great deal of difference between many translations but the archaic language in the KJV is hard to understand
There are ways to distinguish what translations are correct, but it takes a bit of work.
One way is to study the languages of the Bible and get the books(bound or electronic) which can lead you to the best translation of each word or phrase. To be good at this you will need:
1. a Bible written in Hebrew and Greek
2. studies of the languages of the Bible
3. an exhaustive concordance with definitions for each word(Strong's, Young's)
4. an analytical lexicon which will give you the tense, case, etc for each word in the Bible
5. years of study so that you know the connection between concepts, similarities, phrases in both testaments.
6. and probably a few commentaries to see why certain words/phrases were translated the way they were.
Most "translations" will carry a doctrinal bias from those who did the translating. Most words have more than one or two meanings and the translator has to make a choice unless it gives all the meanings to each word in the footnotes.
English translations are not the best because our language is not even close to the descriptive language it was a couple hundred years ago. Latin would be the best (not the Vulgate) because it is a "dead" language and hasn't changed in many centuries. Russian and German are more scientific languages and so would also be good.
The correctness of the present canon does become apparent after many years of Bible study because a unity of all these books becomes more apparent the longer you study them. That is, you will see the single authorship as all of it ties together. There are some books in the Apochrypha which show some spiritual life too.
I like the NIV because it is a good balance of literal correctness and "ease" of reading and understanding.
That has to be one of the silliest answers I have read in a long time!
No version is worth a hill of beans unless a person can sit down and read and understand what he is reading!
Perhaps this will explain further as to why someone might consider or preper the 1611 KJV. I have studied with many of the amended translations, and found difference that are sometimes less favorable for connecting the comprehendable knowledge that is possible when related from book to book. And there are the time frames that are shown in difference to each amended translation.
And I do use the Strong's exhaustive concordance of the bible, that is as revdrgade posted, a good aid for anyone to get to know the langauge of the bible.
For those of you who believe in Sola Scriptura how do you distinguish among the various translations? Is one more accurate than the other? Which one? Does language (English, French, Chinese, etc.) make a difference?
Who or what determines for you the correct canon of the books?
(Please don't say the Bible interprets itself because that is a meaningless phrase).
Sola Scriptura in essence means we believe the scriptures to be the only infallible source and rule of faith and practice and that the individual CAN interpret the scriptures as opposed to relying on a formal interpretation and decrees from say, a Pope.
Which version you use has absolutely no bearing on the doctrine of Sola Scriptura. As Tektonics puts it, "Sola Scriptura cannot be believed in a vacuum." We can use resources such as lexicons, we do need to examine context, we do need to consider tradition, history and culture in interpreting the bible. It's just that we as individuals can do these things ourselves as opposed to leaving the thinking and deciding to someone else.
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