New American Bible Version coming out soon

[nebula]

One bit of advice: Don't trust ANY version enslaved to Graf-Wellhausen!

Who is that?

The Graf-Welhausen Hypothesis was the beginning of the lunacy which today passes for legitimate Biblical Criticism. Lots of info on the net, I'm sure. I critiqued the critique in grad school, and the profs LOVED IT!!!

OK, so what is the Graf-Welhausen Hypothesis and which versions use it?

[Leonard]

Basically every version since the mid 1800's has been infected by the radical 'higher criticsm' of our age. The earlier hypothesis was simply that Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 showed different authorship because different names were used for God (Elohim, and Yahweh). These two 'diverse' traditions were then said to have been lifted, respectively from a (purely theoretically deduced) E and J document.

Well pretty quick for other parts of the Old Testament, ingenious scholars quickly invented a P and D document (JEPD theory), Then as successive generations of scholars each had to do 'original research' for their doctoral dissertations, and because it's easy to do if you can just invent a whole lot of pseudo-intellectual falderal out of whole cloth, people have found J1, J2, J3, E1, E2, EP, P1, P2, D1, D2, and DTR documents, but almost nobody can agree entirely on which is which, although they are each assured of the absolute brilliance of their own conjectures!

And let us not forget that on the scantiest of evidences many of them believe in a Deutero-Isaiah and even a Trito-Isaiah, and of course the elusive "Q" document our 4 gospels were based on!

In higher critical circles all this nonsense has several different disciplines such as Historicalgeschichte, Formgeschichte, Textgeschichte, Kerygmageschichte, etc.

I synthesis them all under the heading "Bullgeschichte."

[nebula]

That's interesting, Leonard. Thanks!

So, how does all this affect the actual translation?

[Leonard]

That's interesting, Leonard. Thanks!

So, how does all this affect the actual translation?

Well if within a particular passage say from the J1 tradition, there is a phrase or verse that just doesn't fit with the 'assured results of higher criticism' on that passage, then the phrase or verse can be omitted as a 'scribal gloss' or an incorrect 'textual emandation.' For examples of how badly this CAN play out, pick up a Moffatt translation of the Bible and read all Dr. Moffatt's notes!

[Guest shiloh357]

That's interesting, Leonard. Thanks!

So, how does all this affect the actual translation?

It affects how the first 5 five books of the Bible are viewed. Source critics (JEPD folks) do not believe in Mosaic authorship for much if any of the Torah/Pentateuch. Deuteronomy for example is believed by source critics to have been written around the 6th century or so B.C around the time of Ezra. J, E, D, and P are anonymous authors as is Q for the NT Gospels. It is a bit involved, but it is pure nonsense as no evidence has ever been found for these anonymous authors.

Translation inovolves other factors.