The appropriateness of selection criteria, the choice of texts for the translation will cover all mainstream and esoteric translations combined. This is important since it is mostly through the deliberate variations of interpretive translation that the critically important passages of Scriptures have become distorted and sometimes falsified, as in the case of the failure of certain denominations of recognizing the Triune essence of God, or the Trinity. It is furthermore important to compare all translations, because they frequently present all the possibilities of translating certain words. In the case of errors in translation, the intended meaning of the original idioms are easier to spot, since it is with such idiomatically critical passages that the biggest errors have occurred, and then in such cases the footnotes will expose the entire nature of the problem.
Nowhere is this phenomenon more evident than in the Jehovah's Witnesses translation and the Seventh Day Adventists translation and their interpretations by the respective churches. The Jehovah's Witnesses not only have rejected the Trinity, but they have made the Triune God into a pagan deity. They have, furthermore, presented Jesus as the Archangel Michael. The Seventh Day Adventists, on the other hand, have made the Sabbath into an idol of worship. They hold the Sabbath as the essence of the Biblical commandments and thus make the Day of Rest greater not only than man "for whom the Sabbath was created," but greater than Jesus Christ Himself. They zigzag through Scriptures trying to prove the importance of the Day of Rest, as ironic as that may be, and refusing to accept the simple fact that Jesus performed all His great works on the Sabbath. One of the Pharisees' main objections to accepting Jesus as the Messiah was that He did His works on the Sabbath. I'm sure this irony is wasted on them. They'll go on quoting how Jesus said, "I did not come to retire the Law, but to fulfill it." For the Adventists, however, the Sabbath has become the most important feature of the Law, which it is not.
Despite all this, the various denominational translations of Scriptures are important in recognizing the special bias that was instrumental in destroying the unity of the churches of modern-day Christianity. And I'm not picking on these two churches. The Mormons have discarded the entire New Testament. However, they claim that they support the King James Version of the Bible; which is odd, because what do they think about the New Testament? I've talked to their twin missionaries on bicycles on occasion. They admit that the Mormons don't hold to the New Testament, but they do accept Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Their prophet Joseph Smith after all saw the Father and the Son, as the prophet slept under a tree and had a vision. So they claim that they recognize Jesus. I won't belabor the point, but I have a question for them though. The Son of God has to be God, doesn't He?
As for the Catholics and the main Protestant Churches, I've covered their misinterpretations of some of the main passages of Scriptures in my web page on the moral code and elsewhere in my notes.
The most accurate original Texts are of course the Galilean Aramaic that Jesus, the disciples and apostles spoke and wrote in. These are the primary Texts. They are preserved only by the Ancient Church of the East theologians. However, as I've stated above all other English translations are important, since they are the reason why a new, authentic translation is valuable insofar as comparative studies in the humanities are concerned.
January 21, 2003