Bible Translations: Why are there so many? interesting article...

[MORTARDUDE]

http://www.bowvalleychristianchurch....uth/write1.htm Bible Translations:
Why are there so many?

Why are there so many translations of the Bible? Couldn?t we all just use one standard version? To find answers to these questions I looked in the book ?The Purpose-Driven Life? by Pastor Rick Warner. This book is not written about Bible Translations, but there is a small Appendix in the back with some information on these various translations and why there are so many.

First of all, the book says, ?The Bible was originally written using 11,280 Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek words, but the typical English translation uses only around 6,000 words.? Think about it, there are twice as many words in the original translations as there are in ours! Translating mistakes can be made, sentences are organized differently in the original languages, and some words mean something completely different than any English word. Translators are forced to reorganize the sentences and replace some words, different translators use different words and sentences, and we end up with different translations.

Another answer to this question is found in the Bible itself. Have you ever been reading your Bible when you run into a footnote? You look to the bottom of the page and it says, ?Some manuscripts?. Over time more and more copies, or manuscripts, of the Bible are found, showing changes to our current Bible translations. New translations are made to show these changes.

?The Purpose-Driven Life? also points out that we often learn Bible verses at places like AWANA, and when we see them in our Bibles we say: ?I know that verse, I don?t need to read it.? But if we are reading a different translation then it is new and ?fresh? and we read it to get new meaning.

I hope this essay has helped you understand why there are so many translations of the Bible, and how we can use these many translations to our advantage.

By Dustin Lammiman