Bible: The translation and reinterpretation of selected passages
Author Sarah Ruden takes a fresher look at the translation of selected texts from the ancient Hebrew version of Old and New Testaments. The commonly used Bible is the King James Version (KJV) that is largely focused on religious and theological meaning rather than the cultural and historical significance of the texts. In the last fifty years, Biblical scholars have challenged the idea that New Testament is a sacred scripture. John Dominic Crossan, Robert Funk, James R. Butts, Barnes Tatum and Elaine Pagels have used historical and cultural methods to interpret Jesus’ parables and apostolic writings. This group created “Jesus Seminar” to discuss the Gospels, Epistles, and Parables of Jesus to understand the real Jesus However the church had the drive to find “God” in these writings, hence many translators and commentators “overlook” smaller details that may have given a different meaning to the texts of the “sacred scripture.”
Christianism arose when a small group of Jews became convinced that their leader, a poor and relatively uneducated man from the tiny town of Nazareth (a back-water of the Galilee), whom the Romans tortured to death as a troublemaker had risen from death. He is known to have paid with his own life for the sins of others. How can another man pay for our sins? Is that logical or rational? But for more than two billion people this is a divine truth; we have to accept Jesus as a savoir so that all our sins are forgiven. Then we are reborn and will find ever lasting peace in heaven (John 3:16.)
The first Bible translated by Jerome into the Latin version (Vulgate) occurred almost 500 years after the crucifixion of Jesus. Martin Luther’s Bible in German was published in the early sixteenth century. William Tyndale lost his life popularizing the sacred scriptures as the Word of God and everyone has the right to read it. This was a revolutionary thought for those days but the publication of the King James Version of Bible in 1611 challenged the monopoly of Roman Catholic Church on the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures.
One interesting conclusion reached by the author is with regards to Paul and his epistles. The first four Pauline epistles in conjunction with the four canonical gospels forms a major work in the teachings of Jesus, but she boldly suggests that Paul did not write about willingness to “give up my body to be burned” (1 Corinthians 13:3.) It is really give up my body so that I can boast about it. But that is not what came out of the pulpit, observes Sarah Ruden. Paul is discussed in greater detail in her previous book, “Paul among the People: The Apostle Reinterpreted and Reimagined in His Own Time.”
Some of the passages translated in this book includes; Paul on circumcision (Galatians 5:1-12); Ten Commandments (Deuteronomy 5:6-21 and Leviticus 19:18); fragile joys of life (Ecclesiastes 9:7-11); Ezekiel’s Dry Bones (Ezekiel 37:1-14 and Genesis 1:1-15); the story of David and Bathsheba (2 Samuel II 12:7); The beatitudes of (Mathew 5:3-12); Genesis 1:1-5; and Mathew 6: 9-13 (The Lord’s Prayer).
There is a chapter on the re-interpretation of the Parables of Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), which concludes that you must know who your friends are. Paul on the love of God through Jesus (Roman 8:31-39) and Revelation’s Martyr’s in Paradise (Revelation 7:9-17) are few interesting translations and interpretations I have read in this book. Proverbs 27:19 says, “As in water face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects man,” which may have played a role in the mind of the author for the title of this book.
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