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I was just reviewing some old questions. I haven’t read the Apocrypha yet, but I am hoping to put that on my reading list this year. As I understand it, Martin Luther believed some books weren’t reliable, so he tossed them out. I’m not sure what his reasons were. I’ve heard there are some unbelievable stories in Maccabees, but I don’t know. Maccabees also discusses how the Hannukkah holiday came about; I think that’s a really interesting holiday, and I think we should learn more about it. I know there is an ancient Gospel of Paul that tells a story of a lion talking to Paul and requesting baptism. In the story, Paul baptizes the lion. We do have Balaam and his talking donkey, but most people probably have a problem with a lion being baptized. The particular story is known as an Aprocryphal story–the Book of Mormon has even been called the American Apocrypha. So, when we refer to “the Aprocrypha” we are usually referring to the books Martin Luther threw out. However, any non-biblical story can be called Apocryphal. There are many gnostic gospels that were never included in the original canon, and those would be considered apocryphal as well.
As for other Bible translations, I heard a teacher say that you should just read a few different translations and pick the one you like. NIV seems to be pretty good, NRSV seems good too. Personally, I like NLT. But my favorite website has to be the Blue Letter Bible.org. It lets you read up to 14 different versions if you want (even Greek or Latin if you can read them.) It’s an awesome resource. Check it out at
http://www.blueletterbible.org/ Well, for what it’s worth, the KJV translation of 2 Maccabees contains the word “Nephi”. 2 Macc. 12.38-45 also discusses prayer for the dead, and is one of the few mentions of this outside modern revealed scriptures.
Quote:38 So Judas gathered his host, and came into the city of Odollam, And when the seventh day came, they purified themselves, as the custom was, and kept the sabbath in the same place. 39 And upon the day following, as the use had been, Judas and his company came to take up the bodies of them that were slain, and to bury them with their kinsmen in their fathers’ graves 40 Now under the coats of every one that was slain they found things consecrated to the idols of the Jamnites, which is forbidden the Jews by the law. Then every man saw that this was the cause wherefore they were slain. 41 All men therefore praising the Lord, the righteous Judge, who had opened the things that were hid, 42 Betook themselves unto prayer, and besought him that the sin committed might wholly be put out of remembrance. Besides, that noble Judas exhorted the people to keep themselves from sin, forsomuch as they saw before their eyes the things that came to pass for the sins of those that were slain. 43 And when he had made a gathering throughout the company to the sum of two thousand drachms of silver, he sent it to Jerusalem to offer a sin offering, doing therein very well and honestly, in that he was mindful of the resurrection:
44 For if he had not hoped that they that were slain should have risen again, it had been superfluous and vain to pray for the dead. 45 And also in that he perceived that there was great favour laid up for those that died godly, it was an holy and good thought. Whereupon he made a reconciliation for the dead, that they might be delivered from sin.I’m actually reading a book on the Apocrypha just now. I’ve never understood why the LDS doesn’t reference it at all, espeically this passage from 2 Maccabees. It was used by the Catholics regularly in requiem masses, but I suppose the LDS has a Protestant inheritance.
Here’s a Dr Gipp on the KJV Apocrypha…
http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/apocryph.htm Quote:That they rejected the Apocrypha as divine is very obvious by the seven reasons which they gave for not incorporating it into the text. They are as follows:
1. Not one of them is in the Hebrew language, which was alone used by the inspired historians and poets of the Old Testament.
2. Not one of the writers lays any claim to inspiration.
3. These books were never acknowledged as sacred Scriptures by the Jewish Church [sic], and therefore were never sanctioned by our Lord.
4. They were not allowed a place among the sacred books, during the first four centuries of the Christian Church.
5. They contain fabulous statements, and statements which contradict not only the canonical Scriptures, but themselves; as when, in the two Books of Maccabees, Antiochus Epiphanes is made to die three different deaths in as many different places.
6. It inculcates doctrines at variance with the Bible, such as prayers for the dead and sinless perfection.
7. It teaches immoral practices, such as lying, suicide, assassination and magical incantation.
He’s actually wrong about the Hebrew.
1) Untrue, some Hebrew originals have now been found. Some parts of the Old Testament, e.g. Daniel 2-8 are not written in Hebrew anyway. (Aramaic) While at the time of Martin Luther, no Hebrew originals were known of the Apocryphal books (or deuterocanonical, if you prefer)… this has actually changed, and some Hebrew MSS have turned up for some of the material.
2) Arguable.
3) Arguable again. The Books of Maccabees form the inspiration for Hannukah, and are referred to in Josephus and others. The Books of Maccabees may have been suppressed by Rabbis for political reasons. Hannukah is still celebrated, and many Israeli sports teams are name Maccabi …, but the fact it described a Jewish rebellion meant that the authorities were afraid it could be inflammatory.
4) During the first four centuries of the Christian church, there was no official canon!
5) Fantastic statements and contradictions can be found all over the Bible.
6) The Bible was put together at a council, by which time the church had been infiltrated by the Roman imperial establishment.
6 & 7 – the “canonical scriptures” are not without their quirks either *. The Book of Jude quotes non-canonical scripture (Enoch) as do other NT and OT works. The Book of Esther, without the Apocryphal insertions (written in Greek) doesn’t mention the name of God, and the names of the two main characters, Esther and Mordecai are suspiciously similar to those of the pagan gods Ishtar and Marduk. The Song of Solomon/Song of Songs was criticized by Luther and the Puritans, and is hard for many to see as scriptural, as it is a piece of erotica. Some people have also argued about the authenticity of some of Paul’s letters, or whether Paul should be taken as such an influential writer. And the Book of Revelation came very close to being rejected too, for one reason and another.
Huge chunks of the Old Testament also deal with kosher, and various other practices completely ignored by the majority of modern Christians.
This is without going into the questions of authorship.
* By quirks I mean things that would annoy many “mainline” non-LDS Christians.
It is highly questionable whether King James should be taken as an authority on the scriptures. James himself had RC leanings, because of his mother Mary who was RC and murdered, and leaned towards a High Anglicanism. However, he couldn’t express this as he would have been assassinated too. He also liked a drink, so it is said, and was possibly bisexual.
http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/apocryph.htm Quote:Wasn’t the Apocrypha in the King James?
The King James translators never considered the Apocrypha the word of God. As books of some historical value (e.g., details of the Maccabean revolt), the Apocrypha was sandwiched between the Old and New Testaments as an appendix of reference material. This followed the format that Luther had used. Luther prefaced the Apocrypha with a statement:
“Apocrypha–that is, books which are not regarded as equal to the holy Scriputres, and yet are profitable and good to read.”
King James Version Defended page 98.
In 1599, TWELVE YEARS BEFORE the King James Bible was published, King James said this about the Apocrypha:
“As to the Apocriphe bookes, I OMIT THEM because I am no Papist (as I said before)…”
King James Charles Stewart
Basilicon Doron, page 13
Not only this, but the sixth article of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England (1571 edition) states:
In the name of the Holy, we do vnderstande those canonical bookes of the olde and newe Testament, of whose authoritie was never any doubt in the Churche… [Actually there has been – Luther was skeptical about the Song of Songs for example]
Now concerning the apocrypha it states,
And the other bookes, (as Hierome sayeth), the Churche doth reade for example of life and instruction of manners: but yet doth it not applie them to establish any doctrene [sic].
Philip Schaff, Creeds of Christendom. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1977, Vol. III, pp. 489-491.
The Hampton Court Document came as a result of the famous Hampton Court Conference of 1604 when King James authorized the translation of the Bible that would one day bear his name. Concerning the apocrypha and the Church of England, it states–
The Apocrypha, that hath some repugnancy to the canonical scriptures, shall not be read…
The Apocrypha began to be omitted from the Authorized Version in 1629. Puritans and Presbyterians lobbied for the complete removal of the Apocrypha from the Bible and in 1825 the British and Foreign Bible Society agreed. From that time on, the Apocrypha has been eliminated from practically all English Bibles–Catholic Bibles and some pulpit Bibles excepted.
Two interesting verses from 2 Maccabees chapter 1 – Quote:1- The brethren, the Jews that be at Jerusalem and in the land of Judea, wish unto the brethren, the Jews that are throughout Egypt health and peace:
The use of Jerusalem here is interesting, and similar to the BoM
Quote:31 Now when the sacrifice was consumed, Neemias commanded the water that was left to be poured on the great stones. 32 When this was done, there was kindled a flame: but it was consumed by the light that shined from the altar. 33 So when this matter was known, it was told the king of Persia, that in the place, where the priests that were led away had hid the fire, there appeared water, and that Neemias had purified the sacrifices therewith. 34 Then the king, inclosing the place, made it holy, after he had tried the matter. 35 And the king took many gifts, and bestowed thereof on those whom he would gratify. 36
And Neemias called this thing Naphthar, which is as much as to say, a cleansing: but many men call it Nephi.Interesting use of “Nephi” here, which doesn’t appear in other translations. “Naba” also appears in some Semitic languages meaning a prophet, that may be an equally likely origin. The Greek given is “nephthai”.
NSRV version –
Quote:35 And with those persons whom the king favoured he exchanged many excellent gifts. 36 Nehemiah and his associates called this ‘nephthar’, which means purification, but by most people it is called naphtha.*
http://www.lionofgod.com/view_article.php?id=53 Quote:The name Nephi is prominent within the Nephite Record. The first Nephi in the chronicles left the vicinity of Jerusalem just prior to the Babylonian Captivity, around 600 BC. Many have wondered whether Nephi is a Semitic name, and if so, what its derivation is. In the story of the purification of the Temple by Nehemiah, a hundred-fifty years later, the name Nephi was mentioned.
Does Nephi mean ‘purification’ or ‘cleansing’? It is not a purely Hebrew word, so we don’t know. Some have suggested it could mean ‘sacred fire’. Does the name Nephi have the same meaning as the word used in 2nd Maccabees? There are similar names in the Egyptian and Ugaritic records that survive from the 5th century BC, and earlier. Is Nephi a Hebrew, Arabic, Egyptian, or Ugaritic name? We do not know. But we do know that the word appears elsewhere, and is not unique to the Nephite Record.
Fantastic information on the Apocrypha! Thanks Sambee! No problem. When I was confirmed in my teens (in pre-LDS days), I was asked what I would like for a present, and I chose an edition of the Apocrypha. Actually maybe I shouldn’t go on about it as the Apocrypha, a Catholic friend of mine insists we should call them Deuterocanonical books i.e. not completely canonical, but the next level down. To quote Luther again (who actually hived them off into their own section), “books which are not regarded as equal to the holy Scriptures, and yet are profitable and good to read.” They’re not all equally good, but the notable thing about the Apocrypha is that it has several stories in it which taken purely as literature (rather than spiritual stuff) are the equal of anything in the rest of the Bible. Susanna, Tobit and Bel and the Dragon are just interesting to read.
So from my confirmation in that other church, and my long standing interest in the Apocrypha, I was more open to the idea of additional scripture, and hence the Book of Mormon etc. Like I say, I’m amazed that the church doesn’t make more of it, or have a study program for it. The LDS has always said that the Bible is only as good as “translated correctly”, and talks about the early church being apostasized, and yet the church in the apostasy was the one that put the canon together.
I notice that some of the more obscure LDS sects, such as Sons Aumen Israel, whatever they are, and the English Latter Day Church of Jesus Christ also include a lot of early scriptures in their canon which other churches don’t, e.g. the Gospel of Thomas.
The KJV of the NT is based on 12th century greek manuscripts. Since the NT was written in the 1st century, that’s basically over 1000 years of manuscripts that were copied from copies of copies of copies, etc. That’s over 1000 years of accumulated scribal errors, omissions, and changes to the text from one manuscript to the next. Between 1611 and the 19th century, manuscripts of the NT as early as the 4th century have been found. The 4th century manuscripts understandably contain fewer scribal errors than the 12th century manuscripts that were used for the KJV. Most of the modern English translations use these earlier texts. So, while we still aren’t reading the actual words that the original authors wrote, (and never will, since the original manuscripts don’t exist) we are much closer to reading the words and intent of the original authors when we read a modern translation of the Bible.So, to say that modern translations of the bible are corrupt is laughable. To say that any translation is corrupt is a leap, since nobody knows what the original authors of the bible wrote. A good read about the history of scripture is Bart D Ehrman’s “Misquoting Jesus”. He is a well-educated bible scholar, but he took the time to write this book in layman’s terms, so it is actually quite readable. The book takes the 8th article of faith to the extreme. Ehrman gives specific examples of passages in the Bible that were changed over time, and lists possible reasons for these changes.
mormonheretic wrote:…Personally, I think that KJV is awful for the Old Testament, with the notable exception of Genesis. If you ask a person to read other books like Ezekiel, Amos, Psalms, etc, most people get completely lost because it is so archaic. It’s practically like reading a foreign language…Perhaps I’m biased against KJV because I love the Old Testament so much. For the Synoptic Gospels/Acts in the New Testament, it’s mostly fine. But when you get into Romans, Hebrews, Revelations, etc, I think it’s pretty awful.
Heber13 wrote:I like the KJV because it most closely matches my Book of Mormon … especially that 2 Nephi stuff (is that a coincidence?…I also like the footnotes…Add the footnotes and index system to another version, and I might enjoy another version better.
Reading Bart Ehrman’s “Misquoting Jesus” reminded me of this thread because he said the King James Version New Testament was translated from the “Textus Receptus” which sounds like it was basically thrown together hastily by Erasmus based on a handful of late medieval Greek manuscripts that he happened to have access to and in some cases where he didn’t have any Greek manuscripts he translated the Latin Vulgate back to Greek himself. According to Bart Ehrman, the Textus Receptus was full of errors and spurious changes that ended up in the King James Version as well.
Personally, I think the main reason that the Church still uses the King James Version as its official Bible is mostly because the Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith translations, etc. are written in a similar style. So now if they officially adopt a modern English translation of the Bible it will make some of the other LDS scriptures sound odd by comparison. On the other hand, if they update all the standard works then some members that are already accustomed to the way they were before might not like the change.
Whether you think the Book of Mormon is inspired or not, it looks almost as if people basically expected scriptures to sound like this when it was originally published as if there was something magical about the old Shakespearean-era English. In some of the Joseph Smith journals they even talked like this sometimes in prayers or sermons. It’s a classic example of style over substance because it’s not as accurate or easy to understand as some modern translations but some people still like the KJV best anyway. I understand the feeling because if I’m already familiar with scriptures in the KJV and then read them in the New International version or some other modern translation they just don’t sound quite right in many cases even if the meaning is essentially the same.
Also, the combined resources that make the quadruple combination appear almost to be one record took a LONG time to develop and publish, and I’m sure the Church leadership has no desire to go through that process again or apply it to other translations – especially given the foundational “as far as it is translated correctly” paradigm that de-emphasizes (rightly, imo) the drive to create a “perfect” translation in the first place or rank the various translations in order of correctness. earthbound misfit wrote:To say that any translation is corrupt is a leap, since nobody knows what the original authors of the bible wrote.
I disagree.
The Douay Translation and others have words translated in different ways to conform to RC doctrine, such as the permanent virginity of Mary. The New World translation is used to prop up the JWs, by people who were proven in court not to know Greek or Hebrew.
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