Faith by the Spoken Word - Final Post

We inherit many things from our parents. In the process of growing up, we learn to speak their language. We mimic their actions, striving to become like them. We gain this folk knowledge from our parents without needing to be taught explicitly. We simply learn from their example. Perhaps most importantly, we construct our beliefs according the values taught by our parents. Without question, we accept the religion of our fathers. It’s only after we are grown and we enter a larger world that we realize the variety of religious options that exist. Worldwide there are hundreds of religions that have been preserved throughout the years by oral tradition. Arguably, these religions have thrived only because they have been passed down orally. In fact, oral knowledge has had a more powerful effect upon spirituality and religious practice than any other type of knowledge.

"A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible"

For my "field trip" for our class's print unit I decided to visit, "The Life and Legacy of the King James Bible" exhibit in the Harold B. Lee library here at BYU. It was truly an eye opening experience for me to see just how much time, effort, and even controversy went into creating what I thought was just the de facto Bible throughout history (that shows just how much I know). Keep reading after the break!

The Bible

When I visited the Life and Legacy of the King James Bible Exhibit I really thought it was interesting how bibles changed over time to fit the new medium and the changes in language. As was discussed in class originally the first bibles that were printed were made to look like the handwritten bibles of the past. 

The bible was translated from its original language into languages that for the most part the general population couldn't read. Later after King James the 1st comissioned the new translation of the bible(Madison Grant has a good blog about this specifically) and the translator did there best to make sure that there translations were accurate by going back to the Hebrew and Greek versions of the bible that they had to make the best translation possible. If we were to look at alot of the meaning of the words that the translators translated in the past we could find alot of things hard to understand because languages change over time. 

Some words today if I read from the King James version have a much different meaning than I would think was being refereed to. Such as, accursed which means devoted or amazement which means terror(More here). These word have a much different meaning and can really be confusing in today's world. 

How much do the differences in our language today affect the understanding of the Bible and in the future with languages changing how much will the changes affect the understanding further?