the so fallible Bible

[xpastor]

Bible-believers seem to think that any loophole, however improbable, that gets the Bible off the hook has solved the problem.

Oh how I know. It seems the most common one I've seen is the "lost in translation" defense where they claim that this or that word or phrase had two definitions, but for some reason the common definition isn't the one intended, but the convoluted one which doesn't make the bible wrong or embarrassing.

For example, if someone brings up Jesus talking about slaves, I would claim "When the bible was translated, the word for 'slave' had two meanings, one being a person owned by another person, and the other meaning of 'employed worker.' So when Jesus was talking about how to treat your slaves, he was talking about how employers should treat their employees."

Of course there's never any evidence that there were two different definitions for a particular word, or why one is necessarily more correct than the other.

I've done a lot of translation, and as a general principle it is true that there may be occasions when it is appropriate to translate the same original word by two different words in the target language. However, when there is no evidence, no solid philological grounds for making a distinction, you know that the fundies are bullshitting you.

You also have to watch out for some Bible translations. Until recently I used the New International Version (NIV) because I assumed it was reasonably scholarly but it was committed to an inerrantist position, so the fundies could not accuse me to picking a liberal version. However, I started to notice little words that were not in the original languages.

As is well known, there are two incompatible creation stories in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. Here is a snippet from Genesis 2 in the NIV.

18 The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” 19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals. But for Adam no suitable helper was found.

I have italicized the one verb because NIV puts it in the past perfect to imply that this is the creation which had taken place in the previous chapter. The animals were supposedly already there, and God brought them to Adam. However, all the verbs in this passage (except for the future "will make") are in the simple past. God is making the animals at this point and bringing them to Adam.

The Good News Version translates more accurately,

18 Then the Lord God said, It is not good for the man to live alone. I will make a suitable companion to help him.19 So he took some soil from the ground and formed all the animals and all the birds. Then he brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and that is how they all got their names.20 So the man named all the birds and all the animals; but not one of them was a suitable companion to help him.

Jeremiah, Chapter 7, states in the Good News Translation:

22 I gave your ancestors no commands about burnt offerings or any other kinds of sacrifices when I brought them out of Egypt.23 But I did command them to obey me, so that I would be their God and they would be my people. And I told them to live the way I had commanded them, so that things would go well for them.

Same thing in the KJV version.

However, NIV slips in one little word with no warrant in the Hebrew that literally reverses the meaning.

22 For when I brought your ancestors out of Egypt and spoke to them, I did not just give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices, 23 but I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people.

Because the translators of the NIV know that the Pentateuch contains plenty of commands about burnt offerings, so they just know that Jeremiah meant to acknowledge this.

The three Synoptic Gospels place the crucifixion on the Day of Passover (which began the previous evening with the Passover Meal) but John places the crucifixion on the day before with Jesus' death at the hour when the paschal lambs would be slaughtered in the temple in preparation for the Passover Meal. NIV gives the following translation for John 19:14:

It was the day of Preparation of Passover Week, about the sixth hour.

The word "week" is nowhere to be found in the Greek. IMO NIV includes it to obfuscate the time difference.