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.

You did WHAT to the Bible?!?!?!

Going to the King James Bible exhibit, I imagined that the professors wanted, in addition to our gaining a greater appreciation of print culture, for us to become more appreciative of the great men who translated the Bible. This is not exactly how my experience went, though...

King James Response: Alex

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.

The Latin Vulgate

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.