Good Evening, DLL! You have a great advantage: reading and writing Hebrew. I'm sure we agree the Bible is absolute truth, inspired and preserved by Holy Spirit, the complete revelation of Jehovah's person, will and purposes.
We who do not read Hebrew & Greek must rely on translators to learn God's truth. So the common objection to the Bible, prattled often by those who have read little of it, is: "The Bible has been translated so many times, and there are so many errors that no one knows what the original writers wrote. [They were secretaries, not authors, let me state]
In other words: Even if God wrote a book, he couldn't preserve it intact. The premise is foolish in it's face! If Jehovah wrote it he could preserve it! Another stumbling stone: the world is full of religion, most has served man ill, witness the rivers of blood shed in religious conflicts "Christian" and other. Thus an intelligent inquirer needs facts, evidence to overcome the instinctive skepticism bred by the failure of religion.
And God has hard questions to answer. If He has absolute power, good will toward men, why does He permit evil. He could stop all bloodshed, hatred, sickness, aging, starvation, death; why has He not done so? And what of the countless victims of oppression and injustice now dead. What will this God do for them? Said a survivor of Nazi camps: "If you could lick my heart, it would poison you."
And we cannot ignore the problems of translation. How can we understand Jehovah's inspiration if we're dependant upon translations by men careless of presenting the God's Word with faithful accuracy? If a Hebrew noun were translated 33 or even 154 ways the result would be a meaningless disaster at worst or a confusion at the least.
DLL, this is exactly what has been done to the Bible which you can read in native tongue. Nephesh [Hebrew: soul] was so rendered by the KJV and NIV translators: appetite, body, creature(s), earnestness, hunger, kill, wanted, wishes, livelihood, heart, spirit, life, soul, craved ... etc, etc.
Other key words have also been mutilated. As you might expect, the poorest translations are the most popular since they reinvorce popular religious mythologies. But this Satanic deception has failed! Holy Spirit moved scholars to produce concordances and lexicons by which find the original meanings of scriptural texts. Other translators with allegience to inspiration have deleted such corruption from their works. The Word of the Jehovah is not bound! So, DLL, can we discuss the Bible with alertness to the original inspired Word, rather than relying on a sectarian King, James, as the final definer of God's truth?
As to Nephesh, the first 4 times it appears in scripture it applies to animals, then in Genesis 2:7 "Man became a living soul. Nowhere in scripture is the Nephesh described as indistructable, everlasting, undying, deathless, eternal or immortal, altho that's exactly what most religions teach: an immortal soul. A 100 times tho it's described as dying, being torn by a lion, killed or dead. This gross error lays foundation for the doctrine of eternal torment in a burning Gehenna and makes the Bible hope of resurrection puzzeling, to say the least.
The living know that they shall die, but the dead know not anything
In death there is no rembrance of thee, in sheol who shall give thee thanks?
The soul that sinneth, it shall die
There is no work, knowledge, wisdom in sheol, whither thou goest
They shall be as tho they had not been
The dead praise not Jehovah, neither any that go down into silence
Ecc 9:5&10, Ps 6:5, 115:17, Obadiah 16, Ezk 18:4&20
This has to do with who Jesus was too, DLL, for Christ died. Now let's you and I investigate what the Word of Jehovah says about who Yeshua was, being mindful to examine translational accuracy.
Sincerely, and with appreciation for the kindness you display,
Don Martini |
