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Comment by xfour | Hacker News Reader

That's a great point. There's some much arguing about what different passages in the bible mean, and what get's lost in those conversations that the passages in question are already a derivative source. The thinking must go something along the lines that everyone involved in each step must have been tasked by god himself with the wisdom to faithfully transcribe his wishes... or something of that sort.

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That's not lost in the conversation. "Churches and religious groups" vary widely of course, but a core part of seminary training (which most Christian traditions require before someone can be a pastor) is learning enough Greek and Hebrew - and specifically learning how to study the original written language - so that you can consider translations skeptically.

Further, it's very common for Sunday services to consist of the entire church making their way through a book of the Bible together, with the pastor bringing an analysis of the text each week centered on this whole idea of different translations and what did the original mean in the context of its time.

Even among the laity in a church, most Bible reading and study consists of comparing multiple translations and commentaries by scholars that debate what the original context and meaning was.

I had a fellow student in a Latin course whose church taught that the KJV translators were divinely inspired in the same way as the original authors (the original inspiration of the Bible being a very common Christian doctrine). However, that's not a common view among English-speaking Christians, nor even necessarily a majority view among people who prefer the KJV.

Apparently there are at least five reasons that people give for preferring the KJV:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_James_Only_movement#Varia...

Then you have the crazy end of things, accusing NIV of being satanic: http://www.av1611.org/niv.html

https://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Bible/1611_authorized_king_j... (this site is also a good example of how the old internet isn't dead. It's just that the internet we think of today has grown to around it, dwarfing it in size)

Here’s a translation of the US constitution into Spanish: https://constitutioncenter.org/learn/educational-resources/h...

Can you argue about what the law is based on that translation? R is the exercise meaningless merely because you’re not reading it in the original English.

What if the English translation was lost to history. Is trying to engage in constitutional interpretation on the remaining Spanish text fruitless?

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