Dare you follow Newton
In general, what people call Scriptures are the unified collection of manuscripts that forms the basic teachings of any one particular religion. Most of the major religions of the world have their own holy scriptures: Islam has the Koran, Hinduism the Vedas, Buddhism the Tipitaka, Confucianism the Analects, Zoroastrianism the Avesta, Shinto the Nihon shoki and Kojiki. However, the Scripture we are concerned with in this book is that of the Judeo-Christian faith -- also known as the Bible.
What is the Bible?
The English word "Bible" came from an ancient Phoenician port city named Byblos byblos
The Bible was written over a period of 1,600 years (circa 1500 B.C.-100 A.D.), in 13 countries on 3 continents, by 40 to 44 authors of various backgrounds: shepherds, prophets, warriors, judges, kings, poets, musicians, scribes, fishermen, an orchard dresser, a tax collector, a physician, a tent-maker. The contents come in a variety of forms: history, homily, biography, allegory, dramaturgy, prophecy, poetry, proverbs, parables, penal code, personal letters, and more. Besides religious verses with spiritual and moral lessons, the Bible contains topics touching on practically all aspects of life: art, science, medicine, sociology, agriculture, government, finance, etc., with lessons that remain sound to this day.
Despite having many authors writing centuries apart over one-and-a-half millennia of ever-changing mores and attitudes, the Bible exhibits an amazing unity and sameness of purpose. From the first book to the last, the Judeo-Christian Scriptures present consistent themes of faith, justice, and love – portraying an unchanging Creator-Father intent on saving His erring creatures from self-inflicted destruction.
Biblical origins
Where did the writers get the ideas and stories recorded in the Bible? Did these come from myths, legends, and folktales, or were they actual historical events?
One writer and speaker.
In the second book of the Bible, Exodus, we read that God Himself wrote part of the Scriptures. “And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God” (Ex 31:18).
According to Jewish tradition, Moses wrote the other parts during the forty days and nights that he spent with God on Mount Sinai . He copied the black letters of fire he saw against a background of white flame.2 Later, God would dictate His other instructions to Moses over the Ark of the Covenant, God’s symbolic throne on earth: “And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel” (Ex 25:22). Moses wrote the rest of the first five books of the Bible, called Torah (“law”) in Hebrew, during the forty years the Israelites wandered in the wilderness after the Exodus from Egypt
Angels, prophets, Christ.
After the time of Moses, God sent his messengers, the angels, to convey His messages to men: “While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel and making my request to the LORD my God for his holy hill -- while I was still in prayer, Gabriel, the man I had seen in the earlier vision, came to me in swift flight about the time of the evening sacrifice. He instructed me and said to me, ‘Daniel, I have now come to give you insight and understanding’” (Dan 9:20 -22, NIV; also Rev 1:1; 22:6).
At other times, God spoke through His prophets, who gave voice to His holy words: “As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began” (Luke 1:70).
When God’s Only Begotten Son came to earth as a man, it was He who conveyed God’s messages to men. “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son” (Heb 1:1-2, NKJV).
Inspired by the Holy Spirit.
After Christ ascended to heaven, it was the Holy Spirit who moved godly men to speak on behalf of God -- “for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21, NKJV).
For this reason, Scripture is said to have been inspired by God: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Tim 3:16 -17, NKJV). The phrase “given by inspiration of God” comes from the Greek word theopneustos, which means God (theo) breathed (pneustos), indicating God was actively behind the writing of the Greek Scriptures or New Testament.
Thus, since the Biblical messages have been written by God Himself, spoken by Him through His angels, prophets, and Only Begotten Son, as well as inspired by His own Holy Spirit in godly men, believers have all the reasons to call the Bible the “Word of God.”
Canonical books
The Bible is made up exclusively of canonical books, i.e., belonging to the canon or official list of books authorized as Holy Scriptures by the Church. Both the Latin canon and English cannon (artillery gun) come from the same Greek word, kanon, in turn derived from the Hebrew qaneh, “cane” or “reed,” a tube-like water plant used as a measuring stick or standard in olden times. Hence, “canonical” books are only those that measure up to the “canon” or standards of the Church.
The early Church writers Clement and Origen were the first ones to use the word canon in referring to the Hebrew Scriptures in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, respectively. The canonical books are made up of two sets:
Hebrew Scriptures.
Jews call the Hebrew Scriptures the TaNaKh, an acronym for Torah (“the law”), Nevi’im (“prophets”), and Ketuvim (“writings”).
The Torah (Pentateuch in Greek, meaning “five rolls”) consists of Genesis (origin or creation), Exodus (emigration or mass departure), Leviticus (of Levites or priests), Numbers (counting the Israelites), and Deuteronomy (“second law” or “repetition” of the first list). With annotations, the Torah is called Chumash.
The Nevi’im comprises the written works of four “major” prophets with relatively long manuscripts and twelve “minor” prophets with brief accounts. (There are twelve “oral” prophets with no written records, but are also referred to in the Tanakh.)
The Ketuvim is made up of historical narratives, as well as scripts of wisdom and poetry, such as the Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Songs.
The Tanakh was faithfully copied and recopied over the centuries by Levitical scribes, who had been originally charged with the safeguarding of the holy writings since Mosaic times. Their descendants, the Jewish scribes, similarly exercise great care in their work, painstakingly counting the exact number of letters and lines. Any slight variation from the original renders a copy unfit for use.
In the Middle Ages, from the 6th to the 10th century A.D., scribes who became known as the Masoretes, compiled the Masorah, a collection of notes on the textual traditions of the Tanakh. The Old Testament (OT) text of the modern Bible is based on Masoretic texts dating from the A.D. 900s, which are considered authentic Hebrew manuscripts.
Greek Scriptures.
The Greek texts of the new covenant or New Testament (NT) tell the story of Christ and the growth of early Christianity.
The first section of the NT comprises the Gospels: the four books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. “Gospel” comes from the Old English word godspel, which means “good message or story.” In Greek the term is euaggelion (“good news”), which gave rise to the English words “evangel,” “evangelist,” etc. Next are the lone historical book of Acts, the 21 epistles or letters of the apostles (13-14 or about half of which had been written by Paul, the book of Hebrews being doubtful), and the solitary book of prophecy in the NT, Revelation.
A collection of Christian writings first began to be referred to as "New Testament" (Novum Testamentum or Instrumentum) in the late 2nd century by the theologian Tertullian (160?-220?) and was placed on equal footing with the "Old Testament.3
Unfortunately, the Greek texts of the NT did not all pass down to us in their original form.
Gnostic influence. In the ancient Greek and Egyptian cultures, centuries before and after Christ, mystics known as Gnostics (seekers of “knowledge”) proliferated. They congregated in Alexandria, Egypt, where they established a school of Gnosticism, as evidenced by their recently discovered Nag Hammadi Library.4 Some of the best known Gnostics were the early Church “fathers” Clement of Alexandria (150?-215?), Origen (185?-254?), and Theodoret (393?-458/466?).5,6
Many scribes embraced Gnostic teachings and became practitioners of “textual criticism” (scriptural editing). Whenever a Gnostic scribe came across a passage he did not agree with, he either edited it or removed it entirely. On the other hand, faithful members of the underground Church diligently copied and preserved the original apostolic writings word-for-word. This resulted in two schools of Christianity: the Gnostic, in Alexandria Antioch Asia Minor (present-day Turkey
Author William Grady (The Christian’s Guide to the King James Bible, 1993) wrote: “The ancient city of Alexandria Alexandria
Four textual sources. The changes introduced into the original Greek texts have resulted in four different sources for the NT:
1. Codex Vaticanus. In A.D. 313 the Roman emperor Constantine, after legalizing Christianity, asked Eusebius, the Bishop of Rome, to make fifty copies of the Greek apostolic writings. Unfortunately, Eusebius picked the Gnostic texts as his references. One of those codices became the Vaticanus.10 (A codex is a book with pages as distinguished from a scroll.)
2. Codex Alexandrinus. Believed to have been written in Alexandria
3. Textus Receptus (“Received Text”) or Majority Text. Towards the end of the 3rd century, Lucian of Antioch made a compilation of over 4,000 Greek manuscripts and fragments12 of the original, unedited Orthodox texts. This formed the basis of the Eastern Church’s Byzantine text, following the transfer of the Empire’s capital from Rome Byzantium
4. Codex Sinaiticus. Regarded as the oldest extant manuscripts, this collection of Alexandrian Greek texts dates from the early 300s, but was discovered only in 1844 – salvaged from a trash pile in St. Catherine’s monastery in the Sinai, Egypt.14
Some Bible scholars prefer the codices Vaticanus, Alexandrinus, and Sinaiticus over the Textus Receptus because they are older, but it should be noted that these Gnostic manuscripts differ considerably from one another as well as from the more authentic Textus Receptus.
Non-canonical books
Many books, considered non-canonical, have not been included in the Bible. Most of these writings fall under the following categories:
Martin Luther was the first to use the Greek word Apocrypha,15 meaning "hidden" or "secret," in the 16th century. The term was originally deemed complimentary as it seemingly referred to works too exalted or esoteric for laymen. In time, though, "apocryphal” acquired the meaning “non-canonical” or without the imprimatur (approval) of the Church and, hence, to be regarded as forbidden, even heretical. There are both OT and NT apocrypha.
The early Church leaders, however, quoted from the Apocrypha. The Roman and Byzantine churches regarded the books as Scripture. The scholar Jerome (347–419/420) called the Apocrypha “ecclesiastical books” that were good for spiritual edification, but not authoritative. Augustine (354–430), a renowned Church theologian, disagreed; and the Apocrypha became part of Jerome’s Latin Vulgate (“common”) version of the Bible. Later translations excluded the Apocrypha.
The Roman Catholic and Protestant Bibles were the same until the Reformation that Luther, John Calvin, and others led early in the 16th century. They questioned some practices of the Roman Church, such as indulgences and prayers for the dead, which were unscriptural (Heb 9:27 ; Deut 18:11 ). The OT Apocrypha, however, contained prayers for the dead (2 Mac 12:42 ). In 1546, the Council of Trent officially included the OT Apocrypha in the Catholic Bible.
Books belonging to the OT Apocrypha are: 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, Additions to the Book of Esther, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus (or Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach), Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah, Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Holy Children, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, Prayer of Manasseh, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, 3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, Psalm 151.
The Pseudepigrapha.
Writings ascribed to other authors, typically well-known Biblical personages who were not the actual writers, are called pseudepigrapha, which means “falsely inscribed.” The better known pseudepigraphal books are the Book of Enoch, Letter of Aristeas, Martyrdom of Isaiah, Apocalypse of Abraham, Testimony of Abraham, Sibylline Oracles, Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, Book of Jubilees.
A few others are also quite interesting: Joseph and Asenath, Lives of the Prophets, Life of Adam and Eve, 5 Maccabees, 3 Baruch, Psalms of Joshua, Psalms of Solomon, Testament of Job, Paralipomena of Jeremiah the Prophet, Secrets of Enoch, Assumption of Moses.
A number of “missing” gospels have come to public attention in recent times. These are the Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Philip, Gospel of Mary, Gospel of Barnabas, Gospel of Judas.
The Dead Sea Scrolls.
In 1947 Bedouin shepherds unwittingly discovered the most ancient Biblical manuscripts in the caves of Wadi Qumran near the western side of the Dead Sea . Called the “Dead Sea Scrolls,” more than 800 texts and fragments so far found have been dated from as early as 200-150 B.C. Actually, discoveries in the area had been reported as early as the A.D. 100s through the Middle Ages.
All Old Testament books, except Esther, are represented in the Dead Sea Scrolls. However, the manuscripts appear to have been written by Essenes, a Jewish sect of ascetics, whose beliefs are known to have been heavily influenced by Greek Gnostics.
Biblical divisions
The Bible is essentially made up of two sets of books – one written before the birth of Christ, and the other, some years after His crucifixion and ascension to heaven. The subdivision of the text into smaller sections came centuries later.
Testaments.
The two main parts of the Bible -- the Old Testament and the New Testament -- are separated in time by the Inter-Testamental Period or “400 silent years” (circa 400-5 B.C.), with no canonically accepted writings between the last book of the OT (Malachi) and first book of the NT (Matthew).
The OT is about 99% Hebrew and 1% Aramaic (e.g., Ezra 4:8-6:18; 7:12 -26; Jer 10:11; Dan 2:4-7:28).16 The ancient Hebrew text did not have spaces between words, a form of script called scripta continua. The spaces were simply inferred. Spaces between words seem to have been introduced in the 5th century B.C., on the return of the Jews from Babylon Judea during the time of the prophet Ezra.17
The NT was mainly written in koine (common) Greek (except the book of Matthew, which was probably penned in Hebrew)18 from around 45 A.D. until no later than 100 A.D.
Books.
The Bible has 66 books in all. The Old Testament has 39 books, which contain 78% of all the text of the Bible.
The New Testament has 27 books, or 22% of the text, including many quotations, paraphrases, and allusions to OT scriptures.19
Chapters.
As early as the 3rd century, the Jews divided portions of the Torah into large sections called Parashahs, and the Nevi’im into sections called HaphTarahs, for convenience during readings in synagogues. Shorter sections called Pesuqim closely resemble modern Bible verses.
The numerical sequence of chapters in Christian Bibles came much later in the Latin translations. The present-day arrangement of chapters first appeared in the 13th century. Some scholars attribute the system to Cardinal Hugo de St. Caro (d. 1248), while others give the credit to Archbishop Stephen Langton of Canterbury
Verses.
Biblical passages were first marked in the 16th century, with verses appearing in Robert Stephens' edition of the Greek New Testament in 1551. His son Henry Stephens recounted how his father thought of the concept on horseback while traveling from Paris
Shortly thereafter, the first Bible with the text divided into chapters and verses was published in 1560 – the Geneva Bible.
Parallel structures
Whether by divine or human design, the OT and the NT display analogous textual structures, divisible into four parts each: covenant, history, teachings, and prophecy.
The OT Torah and the NT Gospels are both covenants, in which the terms and conditions of the agreement or contract between God and man are spelled out. The books Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Esther, Nehemiah, and Ezra in the OT, and Acts in the NT constitute history. The OT books of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs, as well as the NT epistles of Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, 1 and 2 Peter, 1, 2 and 3 John, and Jude, all present teachings. The books of prophecy are those of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi in the OT, as is Revelation in the NT. (Chart in the Appendix.)
Disparate views.
The Jews do not use the New Testament since they do not recognize Christ as the Messiah. On the other hand, evangelical Christians rely primarily on the NT for religious doctrine, using the OT only for spiritual and moral guidance, and considering the seventh-day Sabbath, feast days, and many other commandments of God as only for the Jews.
Messianic Jews, together with Gentile members of the Messianic movement, keep both the OT and NT teachings of the Bible.
Sola Scriptura.
Many Bible teachers hold that all religious doctrines must be based solely on the Scriptures. This is known in Latin as Sola Scriptura.
The prophet Isaiah declared: “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isa 8:20 ). Accordingly, the “law” refers to the Tanakh, which embodies the Old Testament laws and teachings; while “testimony” points to the New Testament, which testifies to the truth and fulfillment of the Old. Thus, any teaching that is not based on both the OT and the NT has no “light” or truth in it.
Interesting statistics.
The King James Version (KJV) of the Bible, first published in England
King James Version (KJV) Statistics22
Letters:
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3,586,489 letters
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Words:
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773,692 words
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Verses:
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31,093 verses
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Chapters:
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1,189 chapters
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Shortest verse:
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John 11:35
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Longest verse:
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Esther 8:9
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Middle verse:
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Psalm 118:8
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Shortest chapter:
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Psalm 117
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Longest chapter:
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Psalm 119
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The shortest verse in the KJV reads: “Jesus wept” (John 11:35 ). The exact middle verse of the Bible says: “It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man” (Ps 118:8). This seems to be the core message of the Bible – located in the very heart of the Scriptures. We must depend on God, never on unreliable man.
Because the KJV has 1,189 chapters, besides the one that contains Psalm 118:8 there are 1,188 other chapters. The numbers are repeated! But the oddity does not end there. Psalm 118 is preceded by Psalm 117, the shortest chapter in the Bible, and followed by Psalm 119, the longest chapter. The central verse lies “guarded” by the briefest and lengthiest chapters on both sides -- a puzzle that has long intrigued Bible scholars.
Bible translations
Numerous translations of the Holy Scriptures – as the OT alone, the NT only, the Bible as a whole, or just parts of the OT or NT -- have been made from as early as the 3rd century B.C. to our present day. Listed below are some of the major translations:
Septuagint, c. 280 B.C. Ptolemy II had the Torah translated into Greek for the Jews in Alexandria , Egypt Israel
Writer Larry Spargimino warns: “The manuscripts of the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), however, are interspersed with apocryphal writings, never acknowledged by the rabbis, or by Christ or His apostles, as ‘scripture’.”26 Thus, “nearly all (translators) acknowledge the general corruptness of the LXX…”27 Moreover, some researchers question the existence of the Septuagint before Christ. “Moorman gives two examples of writers who argue that there is no pre-Christian era Septuagint… Paul Kahle… (Peter) Ruckman… point(s) out that no one has produced a Greek copy of the Septuagint dating from before A.D. 300. Instead of Jesus and the apostles quoting from the Septuagint, the Septuagint quotes from them.”28
Aquila’s translation, c. 140 A.D. Aquila , a 2nd century scholar, completed an extremely literal translation of the Old Testament in Greek. This replaced the Septuagint among Greek-speaking Jews. A Jewish convert to Christianity, Aquila returned to Judaism when censured for practicing astrology. Origen used Aquila ’s work in the 3rd century; Jerome, in the 4th-5th centuries.29
Onkelos Targum, c. 150. Translations of the Hebrew Scriptures into Aramaic or Chaldaic (Western Aramaic) for the benefit of Jews who had lost their knowledge of Hebrew in foreign lands are called targums. The Onkelos Targum, a literal translation in Aramaic, has become the official targum for the Torah. Legend ascribes the work to Onkelos, a Roman convert to Judaism who is said to have been the nephew of Titus, destroyer of Jerusalem
Peshittah, 2nd c. The spread of Christianity into Syria
Vulgate, 383-405. The scholar Jerome, commissioned in 382 by Pope Damasus to do an official Latin version of the Bible, unfortunately made use of the Codex Vaticanus, which had been based on the corrupt Alexandrian texts.32 He finished the Gospels in 383, followed by the rest of the NT. Translating the OT, he first used the Septuagint, but later shifted to the Masoretic texts, completing the Latin Bible called Vulgate (“common” or “popular”) in 405.33
Wycliffe’s NT, 1384. John Wycliffe, a Catholic priest later dubbed “the Morning Star of the Reformation,” produced 150 handwritten copies of the first major English translation of the NT.34 He had, however, based his work on Jerome’s compromised Latin Vulgate.35
Gutenberg Bible, 1455. Following the development and use of the movable type by Johannes Gutenberg and his associates in the mid-1400s, the Gutenberg Bible was the first complete book (3 volumes) to be printed. Also called the “42-line Bible” because most of the pages had 42 lines, only 150 copies of this Latin Bible were printed.
Erasmus’s Greek NT, 1516. Desiderius Erasmus, a Dutch priest and scholar, produced his Greek edition of the NT. It made available for the first time the original Greek text, which was naturally more accurate than the Latin Vulgate and became much preferred by reformers.36
Tyndale’s NT, 1525. William Tyndale, using Erasmus’s work, published the first printed NT in English. Portions of the OT appeared in 1530 and 1531. His translation was so precise and his language so magnificent later translators would adopt much of his phraseology. Ironically, the Roman Church burned Tyndale at the stake in 1536.37 And within a year a Bible, 2/3 of it Tyndale’s, was allowed in Britain
Coverdale Bible, 1535. Miles Coverdale had the first complete English translation of the Bible and the Apocrypha printed in Germany
The Great Bible, 1539. Coverdale, commissioned in 1538 by England
Bishops’ Bible, 1568. A revision by Anglican scholars and bishops to replace the Great Bible and Geneva Bible, the Bishops’ Bible served as the second authorized version of the Anglican Church
The Jesuit Bible, 1582. This work was published in 1582 by Jesuits in the Anti-Reformation Movement to counter the Coverdale and Geneva Bibles used by Protestants to refute certain Catholic doctrines.
Rheims-Douay Bible, 1582/1610. Catholic refugees from England France Rheims Douay in 1610.41 Carefully translated and footnoted to support Catholic doctrines, it was the only officially approved Catholic Bible for over 350 years until 1966, when the Jerusalem Bible was published.42
King James Version, 1611. Commissioned by King James I of England in 1604 to make a third authorized version, the Anglican Church, using Erasmus’s uncorrupted Greek text and about 90% of Tyndale’s inspired phraseology, produced the Authorized or King James Version (KJV).43 In honor of the royal sponsor, NT characters named “Jacob” were renamed “James” in the KJV.
Several minor revisions were made on the KJV -- in 1613, 1629, 1638, 1653, 1762, and 1769 -- e.g., to update words like sith and fet.44 The KJV remained the only Protestant English translation for 270 years.
Westcott-Hort edition, 1881. In 1853, a Revision Committee commissioned Anglican churchmen Brooke Foss Westcott and Fenton J.A. Hort to produce “an acceptable alternative to the archaic language and grammar” of the KJV. The two were occultists who had helped found the Ghost Society, a club that dabbled in necromancy and spirit channeling.45 Westcott and Hort preferred Gnostic texts that had edited many passages that underscore “the deity of Christ, His atonement, His resurrection, and other key doctrines.”46
William Grady notes that the “corrupt manuscript tradition embodied in codices Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, the principal sources for the notorious Westcott-Hort Text, are Alexandrian texts… Alexandrian teachers, such as Origen, Clement, and Philo, were some of the most grievous corrupters of biblical Christianity.”47 Author Floyd Jones adds: “Moreover, it must be seen that the testimony of these two corrupted manuscripts are almost solely responsible for the errors being foisted upon the Holy Scriptures in both testaments by modern critics.”48
As seen by author Chuck Missler, in the four gospels alone, there are more than 3,000 contradictions between the Westcott-Hort version and the Textus Receptus that they rejected. Their so-called critical edition differs from the traditional Greek text in no less than 8,413 instances!49
Regrettably, the Westcott-Hort texts served as the basis for the 1881 English Revised Bible. In addition, most new Bible translations since then, except for the New King James Version (1979-1982), have been based on the corrupt texts of the Westcott-Hort edition.50
Types of translation
Today, there are over 60 popular versions of the Bible to choose from. Which one is right for you? It will be helpful to know that Bible translations are classified into three broad categories, as follows:
“Word-for-word.”
The most faithful and accurate English translations from the original Hebrew and Greek texts are word-for-word or verbatim versions, such as the KJV, NKJV, and New American Standard Bible (NASB, 1970). Authors Norman Geisler and William Nix calculate that, compared with the texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the KJV is “98.33% pure.”51
The latest version of the KJV is the 21st Century King James Bible, featuring modern English and punctuation, with the text in paragraph form, instead of verses.
“Meaning-to-meaning.”
Valued as secondary references for their contemporary wording, “meaning-to-meaning” renditions include the New International Version (NIV, 1973-79), Revised English Bible, Good News Bible (1976), New Living Translation, Jerusalem Bible (1966). In the late 1980s, the NIV began outselling the KJV, which nonetheless remained a top favorite.
“Paraphrased.”
With their interpretive translations, paraphrased versions are useful in making the Scriptures more understandable, but should not be used as basis for doctrines. Translators use figures of speech that conform to their own religious beliefs. The Living Bible (1971) and The Message are two examples of a paraphrased translation.
Most read book
In the early 17th century, the Bible became the most read book in the world. The widespread use of the movable type expedited the printing of more and more copies. In the 1990s, around 630 million Bibles were being distributed yearly by the American Bible Society and the British and Foreign Bible Society.52 The American Bible Society stated at the end of 1997 that the Bible had been translated in full in 363 languages; the NT in 405 languages; and portions of it, usually one or more gospels, in 2,197 languages.53 By the year 2000, more than 6 billion copies of the Holy Scriptures had been printed.
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(Excerpted from Chapter 2, Secrets in Scriptures, THE DEEP THINGS OF GOD: A Primer on the Secrets of Heaven and Earth by M.M. Tauson, Amazon.com)
