10 replies to this topic

[Gary Timm]

anh Mike,
 
I’m sorry for the delayed response. And I agree, accented words may have their place within our culture. But there is truly much more at stake. It is loss of understanding. The Hebrew text within the Torah was maintained by a vigorous standard of preservation to disallow this loss of understanding. If anyone has read the modern-day Hebrew equivalent, one can readily see how handwritten words could easily be confused for another. My main concern is that future generations will deviate even further from a standard which has been securely established long ago.
 
It is not the writing median or methodology, nor the use of papyrus and sheep skins that transform words, it is man. Implementing all capital letters is not the issue either, for we can still easily search for words and comprehend the difference if we are familiar with the language.
 
For example, if we wanted to search for the word SEW within an English sentence whose letters all run together in capitals, we could easily perceive whether the word applies or not. I’ll give an example in the sentence below, and I hope I’m not breaking forum rules by doing this, but here goes:
 
ASWECANSEETHISISEASILYREADBECAUSEWEUNDERSTANDTHELANGUAGE
 
With the above sentence being all capital letters and having no punctuation (as does the biblical Hebrew and Greek), we can easily decipher and understand it because we are familiar with the language. So too are Hebrew and Greek scholars familiar with the languages they translate, and we can pretty much assume that they have gotten it right… or at the very least, close to the original translation.
 
Within the above example, we can also deduce that the word SEW has little relevance within the sentence. And as shown, even with the run-on of consecutive words it is still quite simple to search the above text for similar characters (and words)… and discern whether the searches are relevant, or not. But it is not the separation of words which concerns me within our modern day translations, it is the addition of accents which appear to do little, except drift from the original language. 
 
Granted, and as you mentioned, there still are copies of Bible manuscripts in their original word forms. But with anyone doing an in-depth study of words from Scripture, it is soon realized what a blessing these original transcripts really are. Searching for words which implement accent marks is a nearly futile task. And the further we push these words from their original form, the less understanding we achieve.
 
I do not condemn the fact that man attempts to pronounce words correctly by using these accent marks, I am merely saying that the definition of words within Scripture are truly the most important. The basis of this original post was geared in the direction of a uniformity of understanding for words which are spelled exactly the same. It is this uniformity (as given by God) which is desperately needed. In many cases, the sad truth is, there is little, to no, uniformity even within the same Bible translation, let alone completely different translations.
 
Man is a highly intelligent being who has been formed by the Words of God. My only suggestion is that we use this intelligence, gather our resources, and search for that greater depth of understanding. After all, and in all humbleness… isn’t understanding and knowledge God’s primary goal in giving us the Bible in the first place?
 
Blessings,
Gary