The Weight of Words: How Did They Get THIS Commandment Wrong?

When one really studies the bible, one cannot overlook the culture, the language, and the context. In the earlier translations, they went by the very literal understanding of the Hebrew word; whereas, in the later translations, they more closely examined the context and the nuance that the Hebrew language has. This resulted in academics realizing the intricacies of this ancient language, and although, the Hebrew words technically meant the same thing, there was stronger emphasis applied.

Of course, the Hebrews understood that back in the day, it was the rest of us that had to catch up and realize that context matters!

I found this commentary helpful:

How does the translation process impact the inspiration, inerrancy, and infallibility of the Bible?

This question deals with three very important issues: inspiration, preservation, and translation.

The doctrine of the inspiration of the Bible teaches that scripture is “God-breathed”; that is, God personally superintended the writing process, guiding the human authors so that His complete message was recorded for us. The Bible is truly God’s Word. During the writing process, the personality and writing style of each author was allowed expression; however, God so directed the writers that the 66 books they produced were free of error and were exactly what God wanted us to have. (See 2 Timothy 3:16 and 2 Peter 1:21.)

Of course, when we speak of “inspiration,” we are referring only to the process by which the original documents were composed. After that, the doctrine of the preservation of the Bible takes over. If God went to such great lengths to give us His Word, surely He would also take steps to preserve that Word unchanged. What we see in history is that God did exactly that.

The Old Testament Hebrew scriptures were painstakingly copied by Jewish scribes. Groups such as the Sopherim, the Zugoth, the Tannaim, and the Masoretes had a deep reverence for the texts they were copying. Their reverence was coupled with strict rules governing their work: the type of parchment used, the size of the columns, the kind of ink, and the spacing of words were all prescribed. Writing anything from memory was expressly forbidden, and the lines, words, and even the individual letters were methodically counted as a means of double-checking accuracy. The result of all this was that the words written by Isaiah’s pen are still available today. The discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls clearly confirms the precision of the Hebrew text.

The same is true for the New Testament Greek text. Thousands of Greek texts, some dating back to nearly A.D. 117, are available. The slight variations among the texts—not one of which affects an article of faith—are easily reconciled. Scholars have concluded that the New Testament we have at present is virtually unchanged from the original writings. Textual scholar Sir Frederic Kenyon said about the Bible, “It is practically certain that the true reading of every doubtful passage is preserved . . . . This can be said of no other ancient book in the world.”

This brings us to the translation of the Bible. Translation is an interpretative process, to some extent. When translating from one language to another, choices must be made. Should it be the more exact word, even if the meaning of that word is unclear to the modern reader? Or should it be a corresponding thought, at the expense of a more literal reading?

As an example, in Colossians 3:12, Paul says we are to put on “bowels of mercies” (KJV). The Greek word for “bowels,” which is literally “intestines,” comes from a root word meaning “spleen.” The KJV translators chose a literal translation of the word. The translators of the NASB chose “heart of compassion”—the “heart” being what today’s reader thinks of as the seat of emotions. The Amplified Bible has it as “tenderhearted pity and mercy.” The NIV simply puts “compassion.”

So, the KJV is the most literal in the above example, but the other translations certainly do justice to the verse. The core meaning of the command is to have compassionate feelings.

Most translations of the Bible are done by committee. This helps to guarantee that no individual prejudice or theology will affect the decisions of word choice, etc. Of course, the committee itself may have a particular agenda or bias (such as those producing the current “gender-neutral” mistranslations). But there is still plenty of good scholarship being done, and many good translations are available.

Having a good, honest translation of the Bible is important. A good translating team will have done its homework and will let the Bible speak for itself.

As a general rule, the more literal translations, such as the KJV, NKJV, ASB and NASB, have less “interpretative” work. The “freer” translations, such as the NIV, NLT, and CEV, by necessity do more “interpretation” of the text, but are generally more readable. Then there are the paraphrases, such as The Message and The Living Bible, which are not really translations at all but one person’s retelling of the Bible.

So, with all that in view, are translations of the Bible inspired and inerrant? The answer is no, they are not. God nowhere extends the promise of inspiration to translations of His Word. While many of the translations available today are superb in quality, they are not inspired by God, and are not perfect. Does this mean we cannot trust a translation? Again, the answer is no. Through careful study of Scripture, with the Holy Spirit’s guidance, we can properly understand, interpret, and apply Scripture. Again, due to the faithful efforts of dedicated Christian translators (and of course the oversight of the Holy Spirit), the translations available today are superb and trustworthy. The fact that we cannot ascribe inerrancy to a translation should motivate us towards even closer study, and away from blind devotion towards any particular translation.

Proving the Bible is God's Word

The Bible consists of a collection of 66 books, written by more than forty men over a period of at least 1500 years. But you will not find inconsistency in doctrinal unity, moral consistency, or the plan of salvation. Given such a great span of time, authorship and variances of the author's lives, can one not be amazed by the consistency? The Bible also claims to be God's word. In the Old Testament alone, the writers claim somewhere around 3500 times that what they are about to say is what "the Lord says." Either they were delusional, lying or actually writing what God wanted them to write (Note I Pet. 1:10-12; II Pet. 1:19-21).

The Dead Sea Scrolls ended a lot of controversy regarding Old Testament Scripture when they showed that there was very little difference between the books we know of in the original Hebrew and what was found. Esther was missing, but we can rely upon what we know of as the Old Testament in its original Hebrew, and almost exactly what we had in the Masoretic text.

Now, we have in the 27 books of the New Testament the confirmation of nearly 5,000 Greek manuscripts and over 24,000 copies which is an amazing number. How accurate and reliable in being free from textual corruption are these copies?

"Only 400 of the 150,000 variants materially affect the sense, and of these perhaps 50 are of real significance. But no essential teaching of the New Testament is greatly affected by them" (Ira M. Price, The Ancestry of Our English Bible, 1956, p.222, cited by Jenkins, p.83-84). These 400 variants amount to only 1/2 of 1% of the New Testament, an amazing figure for an ancient document! Even the next oldest document we have (the Iliad) has many more variants. If critics of the Bible were to be fair, they would not even attempt to discredit the Bible at the bibliographical level.

What else do we have to show that the Bible is God's Word? Archaeology proves the Bible record. Dr. J.O. Kinnaman said: "Of the hundreds of thousands of artifacts found by the archaeologists, not one has ever been discovered that contradicts or denies one word, phrase, clause, or sentence of the Bible, but always confirms and verifies the facts of the Biblical record." I'd like to suggest the following books for you to confirm this statement in your own mind:

Field Studies in Catastrophic Geology by Carl R. Froede Jr.
The Human Body, An Intelligent Design by Alan L. Gillen, Frank J. Sherwin III, Alan C. Knowles
Science and the Bible by Dr. Henry M. Morris
A video called, "The Young Age of the Earth"
The Signature of God by Grant R. Jeffrey
The Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel