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Thursday, December 1, 2011

The Bible: Truth. . . IF Translated Correctly. . .


I explored the exhibit .The Life and Legacy of the King James Bible at the Harold B Lee Library. However, as I experienced the exhibit, the title seemed misleading. In reality, this is not only the legacy of the King James Bible, it is the legacy of the competition of preceding bibles such as the Geneva and Bishops bible. However, the name makes sense as this is the bible that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints endorses and the exhibit is in honor of the 400th anniversary of the translation of the bible. Thus, the exhibit has a nostalgic title.
Reading Jared's post reminded me of the importance of being aware of errors I thought more critically about the quality of the text and content I saw. Going to the exhibit left me with less confidence in the various bible translations as I saw the various differences in the different bible translations.



This got me thinking about how although knowledge is printed, it's not necessarily accurate or "absolute truth" and is often influenced by the social times. For example, the "he" and "she" bible stood out to me. I forget the edition, but one bible used "he" for every pronoun, even for the women. This demonstrated how women were not supposed to be considered religious leaders. I imagine the men didn't want the women to get ideas or think that women could perhaps be powerful leaders themselves, as it was not their role.


We know that although the King James bible is the most accurate, accepted translation, it still is not perfect as the repercussions of all of the translations and errors from the past, still effect it today. Thus, even Joseph Smith translated parts that were erroneous to make them more accurate. However, do we have the "complete truth today?" No, as the translations are still subject to human error. However,

"We believe the bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly. We also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God." -Article of Faith #8
Thus, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints havs the most complete true source today, although some truth is still missing from the bible due to the repercussions of human error. 
 Yet as in the past competitions of different sources of authority for the "best" bible translation, I'm sure many do not accept the authority of the LDS church with this translation. I find it interesting that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is aware of this and kept the Joseph Smith Translation separate as footnotes and inserts to preserve the original King James Version of the bible.



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