yiri@ucf-cs.UUCP (David) (08/26/84)
Having spent several years translating both the Tanakh and the "New Testament" (more appropriately the writings of the N'tzarim sect of Jews), I'm always amazed at how much confidence is placed in the version ordered and supervised by an anti-semitic Episcopalian king of England. Certainly it should not be astonishing to find that this, and subsequent versions, are sympathetic to the established Christian doctrines. Yet, the earliest mss. such as the codex sinaiticus, vaticanus and various papyrii translate quite differently unless they are strongly colored by first assuming Christian doctrines and then attempting to justify them. If one, rather, simply puts the various passages in harmony, one learns that these early followers of Yeshua were observant Jews some 40 years after the execution of Yeshua - keeping the seventh day Sabbath (while meeting on other days as well and collecting monies on the first day - certainly not Shabbat - as Jews today still do). They even continued to sacrifice in the Temple. Christian doctrines of today originate in the paganism of the Roman Empire - not with the authentic early group of Jewish followers. One should read "The Conlfict Between the Church and the Synagogue" Oxford doctoral thesis (Atheneum Books), "The Church from the Circumcision" by Bagotti (from the Biblical Archaeology Society), and vol 2 of "The Social and Religious History of the Jews" by Baron (Jewish Publ. Society). I would suggest that a good place to begin, if one wants to be knowledgable in this area, would be to define exactly what the Bible is: the KJV? Is it English? Based on the Textus Receptus? Perhaps one might read the section on "Text, NT" in the Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, Abingdon, 1962.