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booboos on the arm; Bible translations
Apr. 1st, 2023 07:19 amI got my second dose of the shingles vaccine and another COVID booster yesterday*. I barely made it through the work day, then crashed at 1900 and slept for nine hours with a break for letting out all that water I felt like drinking yesterday. Finally, the shingles vaccine reaction lived up to its billing, but the tales I've heard from people who've actually caught it are far worse.
After tearing through Buddha, I thought I'd give a different major religion a try: I've never read the New Testament. But which translation? Yes, the King James Version is undeniably beautiful, but it's also a work of questionable accuracy and onerous antiquity.
So what about the New International Version, which is everywhere in the US? Uncle Wiki says it's an Evangelical project that paraphrases and, among other things, tries to obscure how Middle Eastern the church fathers and their society were. Screw that. I settled on the New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition, produced by people who cared more about fidelity than salesmanship.
What's disturbing about this is that as of the late twentieth century, translations of the Bible have once again become a political football, even if more low key than in the sixteenth century. Such shenanigans are the whole reason for the KJV's existence, which is fine, but the same mentality that plays fast and loose with Bible translations also brought us the English Civil War**, which was not fine.
*The CDC isn't recommending more boosters at the moment, but Dr. Funnyname was all about it. I'm listening to him.
**Until the 17th-century civil war, what are now called the Wars of the Roses were "the Civil War".
After tearing through Buddha, I thought I'd give a different major religion a try: I've never read the New Testament. But which translation? Yes, the King James Version is undeniably beautiful, but it's also a work of questionable accuracy and onerous antiquity.
So what about the New International Version, which is everywhere in the US? Uncle Wiki says it's an Evangelical project that paraphrases and, among other things, tries to obscure how Middle Eastern the church fathers and their society were. Screw that. I settled on the New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition, produced by people who cared more about fidelity than salesmanship.
What's disturbing about this is that as of the late twentieth century, translations of the Bible have once again become a political football, even if more low key than in the sixteenth century. Such shenanigans are the whole reason for the KJV's existence, which is fine, but the same mentality that plays fast and loose with Bible translations also brought us the English Civil War**, which was not fine.
*The CDC isn't recommending more boosters at the moment, but Dr. Funnyname was all about it. I'm listening to him.
**Until the 17th-century civil war, what are now called the Wars of the Roses were "the Civil War".
