Dem Translations Is De DEBIL!!!!!1!

Note the time stamp on this post. I couldn't sleep and fired up the computer, checked my messages, looked at car stuff, and then had a theological question come to mind. I am reminded the ugly way that -for English-speaking people- the King James version not being used is a good indicator* to be wary of what you are reading. I find that the newer and "easier to understand" the version someone uses in their study, the worse they will go off-track when they start drawing conclusions from "the Bible."

I have owned, read, and studied from MANY English translations of the Bible. This comes not only from the opinions of those whose judgement I trust, but also from my personal experience: If you are capable of discerning spiritual things and learning a couple of dozen archaic terms (out of a couple THOUSAND pages) then you should be reading the King James Bible. It expresses most clearly and (usually by FAR) most elegantly the intention you find if you dig through to the underlying Greek/Hebrew/Aramaic.

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*Another good indication is that people make unnecessary use of four-dollar words. I find that excessive use of big words sometimes comes hand-in-hand with lack of clarity. I kin unnerstand all 'em big woards purty good-like and I can think straight. If you can't write in a way that is accessible to an 8 year-old, it is just possible you don't really understand your subject.

It is not necessarily bad to use endnotes, as should be obvious. Endnotes can dramatically improve the flow of a work, and give enhanced knowledge for the curious. The worst offender used end notes like they were giving a well-prepared dose of wisdom. Well, some of us check the endnotes as we read through, instead of waiting until we're done, just to be sure . . .

...the worst offender I found this morning both used big words and gave phoenetic spellings of "the original" words. I smelled a rat at first when they started out with a 'contemporary' "translation" of the Bible. I read with my KJV open, to compare - and sure enough they were getting it wrong. I carried on reading, accepting nothing but taking it all "with a grain of salt" to see where they were going with the article. I stopped reading and started writing when I was checking their references against the original (in this case Hebrew) text and the word they called out was NOT EVEN IN THE TEXT!.
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Moral: use known-good primary sources, and check the references when you read an article. They might just be making it up!