The Protestant Bible
The protestant Bible ( from here on, referred to as the Bible) came from documents written long in the past. The manuscript considered to be the oldest, and therefore closest in time to the events written about, is a a tiny papyrus fragment of the Gospel of John. It is considered the oldest "manuscript" of the New Testament. This manuscript has generally been dated to ca. A.D. 125.
Written in the past
The Bilbe is written in three extinct languages that must be translated into Modern English for the benefit of the reader of the Bible. An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers.
Extinct Languages vs Dead Languages
Extinct languages may be contrasted with dead languages, which are no longer spoken by anyone as his or her main language. The job of the translator is to determine the original meaning of the words in the original language and cause them to be understandable to the reader in Modern English, all the while preserving the original meaning.
Dead or Extinct
The change from a dead to an extinct language happens when a language undergoes what is known as language death. This death occurs when the language in question is replaced by a different language. As an example, some of the original north American native languages were replaced by English. Thus the process begins that ends in the death of a language. .
Language extinction
Language extinction can also happen when the language in question evolves into a new language or family of languages. An example of this was Old English, a forerunner of Modern English.
On the other hand a dead language may remain in use for many reasons, especially in some cases ecclesiastical functions. Latin is a dead language that is being used as a sacred language.
The Languages in question
The languages here in question are Hebrew (most of the Old Testament), Aramaic (a sister language to Hebrew used in half of Daniel and two passages in Ezra), and Greek (all of the New Testament). Must people alive today are not familiar with these languages beyond their names. However, others have a deep and exacting education in at least one language for the express purpose of Biblical translation and Biblical scholarship. The remainder of us depend upon these scholars for our translations of our Bible.
Fruitful Bible Study
The first need for the reader who wants a tool for fruitful Bible study is several ( More than two) "good" English translations of the Bible
Good?
The first basic tool in Bible study is good translation. No matter if you are reading the Bible daily in your quiet time or if you are involved in vigorous study of the Bible, you need to have a good translation to work from. You will come to find out that it is better for your study to have not one, but several good translations.
Reasons
The reason being that if you use only one translation, you are only getting the point of view from people who subscribe to one concept of translation.
Let it be said here this is not saying that these have a theological ax to grind. Rather they use a certain method of language transference than others.
It is good to look at other translations, note the differences and note the reasons behind the differences. Translators have often had to make choices as to what the original language In the passage you are reading was intending to say.
For the purpose of illustration here are several translation into the English language from the source text available at time of translation.More will be said about this later. The difference being in these cases, the principal or theory of language translation is different in each case. Usually it is better for your study to select Bibles that have the translators notes on the page of the text to explain why the path was taken in each of the problem areas.
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