| While translating Chapter 6 of the Book of Daniel, I
suddenly realized that the Western translations of the Bible used the
Greek and Latin versions exclusively when translating not only the New
Testament but also the Old Testament. This was mind-boggling, because, as
far as I know, all Western churches admit that the Book of Daniel was
originated in the Ancient Aramaic.
Why didn't the Western translators translate the Book of Daniel from the Ancient Aramaic? The best reason I can come up with is that they could not translate from the Ancient Aramaic. The scribal language is alien to them; therefore they must deny that the Ancient Aramaic is the sacred scribal language of the Scriptures. The Book of Daniel as translated by the Western translators is not only full of theological errors, it is full of historical errors. The historical errors introduced and the changes of historical facts were so the Western churches could conform the whole Bible to their own beliefs. At first this was done to discredit the Jewish Scriptures, but after Israel became a state, the Western churches decided to incorporate the "Hebrew" Old Testament into the new translations. They made certain political concessions to the Jewish people, and since the Jewish people were interested in self-preservation after the Holocaust years, they went along with the Western churches. The last Pope even apologized to the Jewish people for the role the Catholic Church played in the genocide against the Jewish people. This reconciliation between the Catholic Church and Judaism was a good thing from a humanitarian perspective; but it denied the legitimacy of Eastern Christianity and the Ancient Aramaic Scriptures. Now Eastern Christianity must endeavor to preserve the Ancient Aramaic Scriptures apart from the Western churches' Bibles. Some of them gravitate toward the Western churches and accept the Western bias that the New Testament was originated in Greek and then translated into Aramaic, others hold on to their ancient manuscripts and ignore the whole Western Christian world. Since most of the Eastern churches are in Islamic countries, this is a good thing. However, despite all this, the truths of the Scriptures shine through. There are people everywhere that discover the truth in the Bible. I think that it is God's will that it should be all like this. |
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