Hijacked! How could this have happened? I wasn't riding in a vehicle of some type that could be taken over by thugs and directed to a different destination. I was studying the Bible. The Bible! The Book of books was my text as I began to see – a word here, another there, then word after word – hijacked! Versions of the Bible where the translation from the source language never fully arrived in the target language seem common. Words have been hijacked and replaced with substitute words, transliterations, and words borrowed from other languages when perfectly suitable English words are available.
Some affects of this 'monkeying' with the text, as I call it:
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artificial vocabulary ('religious-use-only' words)
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inconsistent translation (one source word – many target words)
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altered meaning (from what was written)
Someone might say, “Oh, what you are looking for is a literal version of the Bible.” Excuse my ignorance, but what business would a person have for making a non-literal version? Am I being simplistic? Should the translator's duty be to translate the words, or is he supposed to smooth out difficult statements and make them 'easier to read' by use of 'equivalent thoughts'? Is the task a translation or a commentary?
So, here is my desire: I want the Bible in English, translated from the Septuagint and the Majority Text...without artificial vocabulary...with consistent translation of each source word into a single target word...without any alterations, no additions, no subtractions. It would be really impressive if I could change a dictionary entry that would then ripple through and change all occurrences of a source word in the version. Or, change a morphological entry and see its affect on the text. What a mess, right?
Well, if what I envision is not available, can someone steer me to some resources that can be used to accomplish this task? I suppose I would need a database containing the Greek text (book, chapter, verse, sequence id for each word) with Strong's numbers, and morphological data. I would also need an expanded Strong's dictionary (that would cover all Old Testament words also), and a morphological table. Please let me know if I am missing anything.
Some examples:
angel
apostate
apostle
baptize, baptist, baptism
bishop
blaspheme, blasphemy
Christ
church
cross
deacon
evangelize
gentile
gospel
grace
James
Joshua or Jesus
minister, ministry
pastor
Peter
prophecy, prophet
redemption
repent, repentance
resurrection
righteousness
sacrifice
saint
salvation
sanctification
scriptures
spirit
synagogue