I’m glad our group decided to visit the King James exhibit early on in this unit. The things I explored at the exhibit played right into some of the things I have been thinking about and researching as part of our Rosetta Stone project and in class the last couple times.
I was unsure about the Library’s policy concerning pictures, recordings, and what have you in the exhibit so I thought it best to err on the side of caution. These pictures are just images obtained online.
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The Latin Vulgate |
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| King James Bible |
First, issues of translation crop up immediately. The whole story of the King James Bible is based on translation. Each translation of the bible occurred as part of an attempt to get the most correct version. However, those in charge of each current bible strongly resisted efforts for new translations. They worried that their authority would diminish with new versions of the bible, and that legitimacy would decrease as a result in the variations in text.
I spent most of my time in the exhibit fascinated by the competing bibles, and the lengths people would go to see the bibles printed, or banned. I also started wondering at the cause of the various versions and translations. I had always given more credence to the fact that the “evil designs of men” were responsible for many of the plain and precious parts of the bible being taken out. However, as I came to experience in our group project, I believe that many of the translation issues could easily have stem simply from the process itself. It’s extremely complicated!
I also really enjoyed a line of conversation that came up in class last time. Somebody mentioned that when a religious text is changed, it raises serious questions about its legitimacy. Then somebody else brought up the fact that in our LDS scriptural cannon, the Joseph Smith Translation is incorporated mainly in the footnotes of our King James Bible, and is not overly advertised. I believe that Christians not of Mormon faith would feel like they had even less in common with us if we began publishing the “Joseph Smith Bible”. The LDS church is sensitive to this, and while not ashamed of the fact that we have a more correct version of the Bible, we celebrate the efforts of the King James Bible.
I thoroughly enjoyed the exhibit. I recommend allotting at least 25 minutes to go through and read everything, enjoy the artwork, and play around with the interactive display. I'm planning on going back to review one of the stations more thoroughly, and then I'll ad on to this post when I've done that.
...ooops! I took pictures, haha.
ReplyDeleteI'm intrigued with your comment "I believe that Christians not of Mormon faith would feel like they had even less in common with us if we began publishing the 'Joseph Smith Bible.'" I think that is really insightful, and true.
Also, I thought along the same lines as you about the translations of the Bible, I just always remember my freshman BOM teacher talking about it. Now after doing our Rosetta Stone project, I realized just how hard it is to translate from one language to another--let alone doing it with extreme political pressure (meaning that you cannot openly discuss and go over it with anyone else, so its translation is left to your judgement).
The whole thing with all these different translations/editions/variations of the bible reminds me of the phrase in the scripture "A Bible, we have a Bible." I know we usually use this to talk about the Book of Mormon and how most people don't understand why it is needed, but isn't it interesting how it applies to this case? It seems as though the people were divided: some were saying "we have a Bible" and condemning the translators/editors as heretics, and some were anxiously awaiting the new Bibles.
ReplyDeleteAmen and Amen to both comments. I don't mean to say that the idea that people were changing stuff for evil purposes is incorrect or anything, I just think that along with that there were many many unintentional errors that can probably only be prevented with...bum bum bum...the awesome seer stones Joseph Smith got to use.
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