Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Jim West <jwest AT highland.net>]

You know, this whole discussion makes it fairly clear why the Catholic 
Church discouraged the average Christian from reading the Bible for him or 
herself until the reforms of Vatican II.  The argument was, the poor folk 
simply don't have the wherewithal to understand the text and they will, 
bless their hearts, mess it up!

Perhaps this is indeed true.  We all know the great ignorance present in 
terms of basic biblical literacy, even with the proliferation of translations.

But I think the situation calls for precisely more literal renderings that 
are harder to understand so that folk are driven to inquire of someone who 
may know what the text means rather than the usual response which is, as 
one of my college prof's called it, a "pooling of ignorance bible study" 
where folk sit around a room talking about things they have absolutely no 
clue about.

Back to literal translations!  Enough of the watered down drivel that is 
making people more ignorant, not better informed.

;-)

Best

Jim

++++++++++++++++++++
Jim West, ThD

http://web.infoave.net/~jwest Biblical Studies Resources
http://biblical-studies.blogspot.com Biblical Theology Weblog