Hebrew As Original Text

Let's establish right away that the Hebrew language is the official language of the Old Testament Bible.  It was the language God gave to Adam.  It was the language Moses used to write the first five books of the Bible.  It was the language all the Old Testament prophets spoke and wrote.  Hebrew was the language taught to all Hebrew and Jewish children for reading, writing and study of the law and prophets.  It was the language Jesus was taught and used in the temple.  We know this.  So, why do we prefer our English translations over the Hebrew?  Arrogance and familiarity.  We prefer what we have been taught and are comfortable with.  Get over it!  We are missing so many teachings and deeper meanings of scripture that can bring us into a more personal relationship with and understanding of our Heavenly Father..

The history of Bible translation began with a necessity: people should be able to read the Bible in their own languages as the gospel was taken into the world.  As familiarity with Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek declined, Biblical translation was done in new languages.

The Bible was not translated into English until the fourteenth century.   Latin was the dominant language in the western church. The Bible used in the church was Jerome's Vulgate (completed in 405) - in Latin.  Sporadic attempts to translate parts of the Bible into Old English (before 1100) gave limited access to the Bible for those who did not know Latin (mainly the uneducated).  By now, both Greek and Hebrew (difficult languages to translate), are being interpreted by English speaking Christians.

We have some manuscripts from the ninth and tenth centuries that are "interpretations".  The most famous is the Lindisfarne Gospels that are in the British Museum.  However, this is not a complete translation/interpretation.

In the years 1100-1550, John Wycliffe, John Purvey, and Nicholas of Hereford got together to produce the first complete Bible in English.  There were two editions of the Wycliffe Bible. They were both translations of the Latin text.  The first edition was a literal translation from Latin into English.  There was a second edition completed in 1396.  It circulated more widely, rather than the more literal translation.  (?)  The focus was on the meaning of sentences, rather than words.  Hebrew is a difficult language to translate properly into other languages.  Translators were not Hebrew/Jewish so did not always select an English word that properly translated the Hebrew.  Then, there were those times when personal understanding did the translating.

As a result of this work, Wycliffe and his followers, "the Lollards" suffered persecution as heretics.   Purvey and Nicholas were forced to recant their work. In 1408.  The Constitutions of Oxford included a prohibition against Bible translation without approval of church "authorities", who were English speaking Christians.  (Let us not forget it was church "authorities" that crucified Christ)

By the sixteenth century, a number of events affected later Bible translations even more.   The Renaissance brought on a recovery of classic learning.   Greek scholars moved westward as Constantinople fell to the Turks (1453).  The invention of the printing press around 1450 was a profound influence on Bible translation.  By 1488, there were printed editions of the Hebrew Bible into English .  The Protestant Reformation in 1517, called for versions of local dialects.  The break with Rome in England also influenced the course of the English Bible that had already been translated several times.

More recently, William Tyndale (1484-1536) was a Greek scholar educated at Oxford with a desire to provide a readable Bible to the average person.  He based his English New Testament on a Greek text established by Erasmus in 1516. He printed it in Europe in 1526 and revised it in 1534.  Myles Coverdale produced the first complete English Bible of the sixteenth century in 1535.  Subsequently, in 1611, King James gave his blessing to a new translation, Authorized Version or the King James Bible.

More recent discoveries of the Codex Sinaiticus (early Greek papyri of New Testament documents), and the Dead Sea scrolls aided (or affected) new translations we use today (New English Bible, New International Version, and the Jerusalem Bible).

So many people are stuck on the King James as the official translation.  I present to you that none are 100% correct.  The Bible was first translated in part and then patched in pieces to become a complete book to be revised over and over.  God states in the Bible itself not to change a jot or tittle.  ("Jot" and "tittle" are Hebrew words for exclamation and pronunciation marks around letters.)  I further present that our best understanding of God's word is directly from Hebrew text along with understanding of Hebrew and Jewish culture.  More and more people deny the Jewish right of translating the Old Testament.  I say it is the work of the Enemy to turn Christianity against God's chosen people.  Our enemy is subtly turning us from the truth more by the day.

God's word tells us to discern for ourselves.  As children of God, we are to "seek" Him through truth found in original writings.  It is to the children (of God; us) that wisdom may be imparted.  Matt. 11:25

In summary: God's word, in the Hebrew and Greek languages, has been interpreted and translated through the centuries by English speaking Christian scholars and patched together after reformations.  How dare we resign ourselves to any one translation and call it "absolute".  We need to get back to real in depth study of original texts.  In our modern world, God's children should not be poo-pooing teachings from original texts.
Amen