Individual beliefs aside, the Christian Bible makes for a fascinating case study in book translations. Some translations are modern takes on an existing language translation like translating the King James Bible into modern English as literally as possible, while some take their own liberties with interpreting the original text as it was written and come up with somewhat dramatically different results. Translations between languages with dramatically different language syntax and grammars exists, as well as abridged snippets and (probably) millions of derivative texts used for lessons and teaching. And it's been going on for over a millennium, so we get perspectives on the cultures and languages themselves dramatically changing over time too.
> Individual beliefs aside, the Christian Bible makes for a fascinating case study in book translations.
The start of the gospel of John is one that is particularly thought provoking for me because we can more easily grasp the meaning of the original words.
en archē ēn ho logos kai ho logos ēn pros theos kai ho logos ēn theos.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
And you'll note in that λόγος has been translated to "Word". But logos means such more than just "word" (the word for word is λέξις léxis). Logos, as understood in Greek philosophy was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logos
> Ancient Greek philosophers used the term in different ways. The sophists used the term to mean "discourse". Aristotle applied the term to refer to "reasoned discourse" or "the argument" in the field of rhetoric, and considered it one of the three modes of persuasion alongside ethos and pathos. Pyrrhonist philosophers used the term to refer to dogmatic accounts of non-evident matters. The Stoics spoke of the logos spermatikos (the generative principle of the Universe) which foreshadows related concepts in Neoplatonism.
This was relating the philosophy of the Greeks (even then a couple of hundred of years old) to that of the early forms of Christianity.
I would contend that "In the beginning was the [ability to reason, link the rational nature of the universe to rational discourse]" ... but that doesn't fit well in translation or even liner notes. And so, we're left with the word "Word".
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One of the late night Bay Area public TV programs (not sure if it was KQED or KTEH) had a once a week program back in the late 90s / early 00s that was a verse by verse bible study looking at the oldest forms of the text and looking at specific word meanings like rāṣaḥ https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h7523/kjv/wlc/0-1/ and hāraḡ https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h2026/kjv/wlc/0-1/ - where they are used (you'll note the contexts are different while one is killing in general, the other is a specific type of killing).
Anyways... it was an interesting program that had a lot of linguistic study of ancient languages with the Bible as the text being translated.
It likely came that way via the Vulgate ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulgate ) which was a translation of Greek into Latin in the fourth century. It was the official Catholic version in 1545 - 1563 (the KJV was translated in 1611).
in principio erat Verbum et Verbum erat apud Deum et Deus erat Verbum
The early Christian church traditions were a battlefield of dueling scriptures and philosophies.
Some books that I'd recommend on that area. Note that my approach to the Bible isn't one of a believer but rather as another work of ancient philosophy (which was my favorite philosophy class of my almost not getting a CS degree) and stoicism is the branch within there that I've read the most of.
> some take their own liberties with interpreting the original text as it was written
The "original text" in many cases is simply not known; there are multiple "sources" to translate from, so part of the job of those who are putting together a new edition is to discern between the variant texts and work out which one should be treated as canonical. This can obviously have a major impact on the result, and it's all before any translation ever occurs.
Exactly. And each offers its own perspective and has its own value.
Sure, if you could only have one you'd want the original work in the original language, but that isn't as accessible as translations and other enhancements/improvements.
For example, Euclid's Elements in the original language has no diagrams; almost every translation and even reprints with the original have diagrams added. And those diagrams haven't been without controversy, either.