Christians, what is your denomination ? Poll inside

[M43]

Agree 100% ....problem with the new translations is that they can change and play with the wording to bring out a whole different meaning as to what the original verse intended.

Many fall for this, I can understand that most people want a better understanding to all or some of the verses....funny thing thing is ....think about this....we were all taught to PRAY for insight and understanding, to PRAY for wisdom.....most of us has done this throughout life, and we understand...

by changing the words and verses two things happen....people are lead away from the original meaning and message and secondly, no one is praying for wisdom and insight to understand what the message is......why should it be so complicated? Simply because the its not meant for each and every person out there to UNDERSTAND, some will only come to understand in the latter days.

People have throughout the past couple of years used the Bible to justify their sins, unholy lifestyles and every whim they have ....just imagine how easily this could all be backed by changing the meaning of a single word and even a couple of words in a verse or paragraph....just remember the Bible is the enemy of our enemy....thats why things are remove and things are added and changed....the devil meddles in everything.....you can be certain he meddles with the "scholars" and Bible too

Sent from my Hisense Infinity H40 using Tapatalk

This nails it.
It basically comes down to this. On the one hand we have the textus receptus (the received text) Its proponents (me being one) trust and have faith that our God is omnipotent and certainly has the capability to preserve His Word despite the best efforts of his enemies to corrupt his word or destroy it through whatever means including war, persecution of believers you name it. The KJV is a good example of the received text or "majority text" it corresponds with thousands of older texts. No missing parts and no additional parts and it never contradicts itself.

And on the other hand there are things like the textus vaticanus.

The "enemy" referred to in the post I'm replying to managed to have his name removed from one "textus" and had it replaced at some stage with the "King of Babylon" and in later versions with "Son of the morning star" or even just "The morning star"... and that comes awfully close to how Jesus describes himself in Revelation 22 as "the bright and morning star"

But in the other "textus" it says "how fallen art thou o Lucifer.".. like it has always done. And anyone with half a brain can go and read for himself what is described in this part of Isiah. Its not about a man (human), not even one who is a mighty king. No human can "fall from heaven" or has ever been cast out of heaven. No human can attempt to ascend into heaven and try to take over heaven and set his throne "above the clouds". Isiah wasn't talking about some human dude that tried to take over and be like God and that will one day be cast into hell. He's talking about the other dude... And the "other dude" managed to get his name removed from a lot of bibles.

He even managed to get his own bible written an printed (The Satanic bible). But not anyone can print it because the publishing rights belong to Zondervan publishing...

The same guys who will send you a lawyers letter if you try to print an NIV without their permission.

So one simply has to decide which version / textus you trust.

[Nyt Ryda]

This nails it.
It basically comes down to this. On the one hand we have the textus receptus (the received text) Its proponents (me being one) trust and have faith that our God is omnipotent and certainly has the capability to preserve His Word despite the best efforts of his enemies to corrupt his word or destroy it through whatever means including war, persecution of believers you name it. The KJV is a good example of the received text or "majority text" it corresponds with thousands of older texts. No missing parts and no additional parts and it never contradicts itself.

And on the other hand there are things like the textus vaticanus.

The "enemy" referred to in the post I'm replying to managed to have his name removed from one "textus" and had it replaced at some stage with the "King of Babylon" and in later versions with "Son of the morning star" or even just "The morning star"... and that comes awfully close to how Jesus describes himself in Revelation 22 as "the bright and morning star"

But in the other "textus" it says "how fallen art thou o Lucifer.".. like it has always done. And anyone with half a brain can go and read for himself what is described in this part of Isiah. Its not about a man (human), not even one who is a mighty king. No human can "fall from heaven" or has ever been cast out of heaven. No human can attempt to ascend into heaven and try to take over heaven and set his throne "above the clouds". Isiah wasn't talking about some human dude that tried to take over and be like God and that will one day be cast into hell. He's talking about the other dude... And the "other dude" managed to get his name removed from a lot of bibles.

He even managed to get his own bible written an printed (The Satanic bible). But not anyone can print it because the publishing rights belong to Zondervan publishing...

The same guys who will send you a lawyers letter if you try to print an NIV without their permission.

So one simply has to decide which version / textus you trust.

https://bible.org/article/lucifer-de...n-translations

[Ds J]

My turn again

Translations of the Bible have been very necessary, but also problematic from the start. And again, there are different versions of history which support different theories.

There are two major causes for the different Bible translations: different original texts, and different methods of translation.

Different original texts:
The Hebrew text of the Old Testament generally used by translators is known as the Masoretic text. This book is said to be one of the best preserved book in the history of mankind from before the age of printing. It is supposed to be as original as can be. However, recently I learned that the Masoretic text is a translation from the Greek Septuagint, which in itself is a translation of the original Hebrew text. Thus there was a Hebrew text, then the Greek Septuagint, then the Hebrew Septuagint. And there are some very strong pointers that the later masoretic Hebrew text has been changed, because certain numerical values are not the same as in the Septuagint.


The Greek Text of the New Testament works on a different principal. We have to remember that there were only human copiers, who copied by hand. Thus, smaller and bigger mistakes were made.

Copying mistakes become clear when one studies the different available Greek texts. For example: "u" and "n" in ancient Greek looks almost the same, just like "c" and "o" in modern language looks almost the same. Some differences in the texts can be traced directly to this. In copying, spelling mistakes can therefore easily occur, especially when one takes into account that people get tired.

Another reason for differences in the Greek texts is that there are different families of texts. For example: some groups of texts share certain verses, whereas another group of texts does not contain these verses. Now one can start a lovely fight arguing about the "better" one of these texts, but the big question is why they differ. Apparently, the first Christians flew from Jerusalem during the years before the destruction of Jerusalem and they took their sacred letters along to the different new homes in Syria, Alexandria, etc. Each of these congregations / communities thus had some letters and they started duplicating them for other congregations. Now comes the important part: for some reason, the original copies from which the different copying schools worked, were not 100% identical. One of the large suppositions is that some of the original witnesses of Christ were still alive, and they added or removed some verses as they saw fit. And before anyone gets up in arms about this: even in our day, if someone is a trustworthy, original witness and corrects a statement to the best of their knowledge, very few people will worry too much about that. We can furthermore assume that changes were probably made several times. In the long run, we have roughly 600 (!!!) Greek texts from which the content of the Greek New Testament is compiled. And I should mention that Syriac, Coptic and other texts are consulted in the whole process.


Thus we have several different original possibilities to work from. That is one of the major reasons why the '33/'53 Afrikaans Bible differs from the '83 Afrikaans Bible in the New Testament; the same applies to the King James Bible and the New Internatiinal Version: the translators used different original texts.

Different methods of translation:
If one has finally agreed on the original text to be used in a particular translation, one still has to decide on the way in which one translate a certain text. One can translate literally, meaning word for word and sentence for sentence. It sounds very good, but it leaves very little room for figures of speech, idioms etc. It also means that one needs to stay true to the compilation of sentences as it was done in the original language.

Another option would be to translate according to the content of the sentence, and by using the language of the day for the sake of keeping it understandable. An example for this is Gen 2:23, where the Lord brings Adam and Eve together: "And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." The words "man" and "woman" in English bear the significance of the original text, which indicates that there is a similarity between man and woman. This became very difficult in Afrikaans, because no-one calls his wife his "mannin" - we call our wife our "vrou". This makes for an understandable text, but it leaves a gap for interpretation instead of translation.

There are other methods of translation which could be named, but I think that the point is quite clear: translating a text of 2000years + into a modern language is very tricky at best.

And after we agree on these few points, we still need to get to the whole argument that texts have deliberately been altered for this or that reason. I do accept that there is a chance for that as well.



Last words:
If one truly wants to get into the texts, study Greek and Hebrew and read the original texts.

If one is just really interested in reading the Bible, get different translations from different languages, and start reading them parallel. Every single translations is also an interpretation, whether the translators want to or not.

The secret of reading and understanding the Bible is to go at it with faith. One should not ask whether the Bible is true, but rather how it is true.



I truly hope that this gives a few answers.

[Zuku]

Yes, but which bible..

Again, which Bible does not matter. The message is the same in them all. In the OT love GOD with your whole heart and love your neighbor. In the NT Jesus saves. How you use and read your Bible and how the Holy Ghost reveal the Bible to you differs from petson to person.

It is well known that from translation, copying and printing errors occured and some version just read or sound better or explain better.

Many modern African languages doesnt have words to translate to certain things.Like sailors, so they use the term "worker on a boat", and the Holy
Altar they use the word "a clean place"

There is a whole book on the compiling and printing errors on the Bible. Like the one version the letter S was omitted in the word She. So they callled the printing error version the He and the She Bible.

And the Bible version most of you will definitely like is the Adulterous version. The word Not was omitted by the printers and the verse read as follows "thou shall commit adultery,"

[Marius@Jizni]

Prof Lotz Strauss told us the story about this student who did a physics experiment. In his report, he gave one of the measurements as, let's say, 6.35mm. Prof Strauss found this surprising, so he asked him: "How on earth did you manage to measure that to two decimal places?" To which he received the reply: "No, Prof, I thought that it was about a quarter of an inch, and a quarter of an inch is 6.35mm."

6.35mm is a very accurate "translation" of a quarter of an inch, but as an indication of the original measurement, 6mm would have been a better representation.

[Ds J]

Different original texts:
The Hebrew text of the Old Testament generally used by translators is known as the Masoretic text. This book is said to be one of the best preserved book in the history of mankind from before the age of printing. It is supposed to be as original as can be. However, recently I learned that the Masoretic text is a translation from the Greek Septuagint, which in itself is a translation of the original Hebrew text. Thus there was a Hebrew text, then the Greek Septuagint, then the Hebrew masoretic text. And there are some very strong pointers that the later masoretic Hebrew text has been changed, because certain numerical values are not the same as in the Septuagint.

Edit: typing error: "Hebrew masoretic text" instead of "Hebrew Septuagint".

[MSW2]

Prof Lotz Strauss told us the story about this student who did a physics experiment. In his report, he gave one of the measurements as, let's say, 6.35mm. Prof Strauss found this surprising, so he asked him: "How on earth did you manage to measure that to two decimal places?" To which he received the reply: "No, Prof, I thought that it was about a quarter of an inch, and a quarter of an inch is 6.35mm."

6.35mm is a very accurate "translation" of a quarter of an inch, but as an indication of the original measurement, 6mm would have been a better representation.

The old bastard alway shorted me on marks for things like differentiation and integration because I just wrote down the answers and not the steps. And I was even early for his classes - I never had to close the door from the outside.

[Johann du Toit]

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Big differences. Probably too many to list here, but I will give my view on some basic history of the church for those curious about why there are so many denominations today.

In the beginning there was one church in Jerusalem. Then the apostles went and spread the word to many cities and to all nations

There were churches all over Greece, Rome, Asia Minor (like Turkey), Alexandria, etc. There was apostolic succession eg. The bishop lays hands on his successor so there is a direct line of succession all the way to the apostles and good teachings are passed along.
Bear in mind there was no New Testament published yet, the books of the New Testament were only canonized in the late 300s so the early church used the copies of the gospels, many letters and many traditions passed down from the apostles.

Some heretics popped up (Arian, Nestor, etc) but the ecumenical councils condemned these teachings and set out guidelines for the church to follow. These councils were usually only called when there was big "drama" going on. The councils were attended by many bishops including the five patriarchs (Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople and Jerusalem). The bishop of Rome was viewed as "first among equals" because of the bishop of Rome's connection to Peter.

Things went well for a while despite some hiccups (even one where a patriarch was actually excommunicated for not conforming to the decisions of an ecumenical council).

Things were fine in the one universal church till 1052, when the bishop of Rome (Pope) decided he was way more important than the other 4 patriarchs and that he could change the Nicene creed (basically the biggest statement of faith for Christianity) without getting the approval in a meeting of the ecumenical council. The West (Pope) excommunicated the East (4 patriarchs) and the East excommunicated the west (Rome).

Then Rome fell into heresy, eventually culminating in them making up a place called purgatory and selling indulgences to poor people making them think that their donation to the church was getting their dead family less suffering time in purgatory before getting to heaven whilst it was actually funding the construction of St Peter's basilica.

Then Luther came along in the 1500s and confronted Rome about this. They excommunicated him and Lutheranism began.

Once people saw what Luther did, every other man who thinks they know better than their church came along, men such as King Henry VIII, Zwingli, Calvin and all the other guys that hopped on the "Protestant reformation" train that Luther started.

These guys all started their own churches and denied things they didn't like, even things that were taught in the church for like, a thousand years. Eg. Most protestants deny things like the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist, baptismal regeneration, baptizing infants, importance of apostolic succession, no women priests or bishops etc.

So in the end you get tens of thousands of denominations, many being completely unbiblical, many being completely corrupted by sexual immorality and greed, many being tainted by violent persecution or crusades, and a lot of people spending years trying to find the "best church".

Now many just give up and focus on their own relationship and the Bible, the problem is that God desires us to meet together and share the gospel which is difficult if you don't have a church.

I'm sorry, but your explanation is just plain wrong.

[Johann du Toit]

I'm a Catholic convert, originally from a Dutch Reformed background, going through an agnostic phase in my late twenties before my conversion.
My reasons for conversion are complex, save to note I believe what the Church teaches to be the truth, having read Belloc, Maritain, Cardinal Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua and the Catechism.

The Church's explanation of Scripture versus Tradition, Faith and Works, as well as it's approach to science are the most convincing from a Christian perspective. Plus, I think Jesus always intended for all believers to belong to one, universal (which is what Catholic means btw) Church, not separated between thousands of different little denominations who fight over often petty differences (no offence intended to the non-Catholics on this forum, of course).

That said, I think Christians should focus more on promoting issues of common interest (fighting abortion, euthanasia, attacks on religious liberty) than fighting each other over issues which are often trivial.

[MSW2]

I'm a Catholic convert, originally from a Dutch Reformed background, going through an agnostic phase in my late twenties before my conversion.
My reasons for conversion are complex, save to note I believe what the Church teaches to be the truth, having read Belloc, Maritain, Cardinal Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua and the Catechism.

The Church's explanation of Scripture versus Tradition, Faith and Works, as well as it's approach to science are the most convincing from a Christian perspective. Plus, I think Jesus always intended for all believers to belong to one, universal (which is what Catholic means btw) Church, not separated between thousands of different little denominations who fight over often petty differences (no offence intended to the non-Catholics on this forum, of course).

That said, I think Christians should focus more on promoting issues of common interest (fighting abortion, euthanasia, attacks on religious liberty) than fighting each other over issues which are often trivial.

We left some of the churches we tried because of Catholic teachings. You are right about not sweating the trivial stuff though. Being Catholic does not automatically make you a Christian although I know there are Christians among them.
Why is belonging to a denomination important at all?