Comment by anon1m0us | Hacker News Reader

Comment by anon1m0us | Hacker News Reader

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I grew up in a religious family and community and I asked the same question! There was a debate among people about which version to use and anything but the King James version was wrong.

Why?

Because of Revelation 22:18,19

18. For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:

19. And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

So my first question was: The King James version is a translation, so it had to be changed at some point. No translations are perfect!

Their responses to the question ranged from: King James didn't experience those plagues, he must have translated it correctly, ... to the King James version is the first one translated into English and since The Living Bible or another version is different, then King James must be right as the change happened between the time of the King James and the subsequent translations.

I believe that taking the warning to mean the entire modern collection called the Holy Bible, and not strictly the book of Revelation, is up to you. It does say 'book of prophecy' which clearly narrows it down, but it's all you.

I believe that teaching this interpretation to others (that it means our entire Bible, which didn't yet exist in one book when that was written) also constitutes adding to or removing from the things in Revelation, violating the same warning.

I was remembering Ed Decker explaining that Joseph Smith arbitrarily edited bits all over the Bible. He was explaining this as a problem in the context of that warning from Revelation, when a Mormon pointed out that it was strictly about the book of Revelation, so Ed simply rolled out a list of edits that were made to Revelation.

I didn't piece it together at the time (yesterday). I think I was responding to the supposed case where "someone" thinks it means that, or not, but parent didn't actually say that so it doesn't really matter. I think I strawmanned a thing for no real raisin and I think it's because I'm violating my own warning: someone else's stupidity is a profoundly stupid thing to concentrate on / obsess over. And IRL I'm surrounded. But that's never an excuse... that I consciously & voluntarily got myself into this situation is already a bad sign.

"The Bible" in its current form didn't exist at the time the book of Revelations was written. So clearly it could only be talking about the book of Revelations otherwise the act of compiling the Bible would be violating this warning.

The Living Bible is a paraphrase, not a translation.

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