• Re: The Simple English Bible The New Testament

    From Major Howie@21:1/5 to samsloan on Sat Sep 10 10:31:45 2022
    On Sunday, January 15, 2012 at 2:04:47 PM UTC-5, samsloan wrote:
    The Simple English Bible, The New Testament

    Introduction by Sam Sloan

    The Simple English Bible is a new translation of the Holy Bible. It is
    the result of an effort by several teams, not just one team, over a
    period of many years. The purpose was to reduce the Holy Bible to
    simple words not more than about six letters long. Any person with a
    Fifth Grade Reading level and any foreign person who knows some
    English but is not fluent should be able to read and understand this
    Bible.

    A basic vocabulary of three thousand words was created for this Bible
    and this Bible only uses those words.

    Not only is this a reduction of the text to simpler words but it is
    also a completely new and original translation. Most other new
    editions of the Bible are simply rewrites of the well known King James Version of the Bible. By contrast, The Simple English Bible is an
    entirely new and original translation.

    This can be demonstrated by comparing almost any verse of the Bible.
    Take for example John 3:16:

    John 3:16
    King James Version (KJV)
    For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting
    life.

    As can be seen, several words in this famous passage are never used in everyday English. We do not speak of a “begotten Son” nor do we talk about anyone who “believeth”.

    If you check other Bible translations, you will see almost exactly
    these same words. For example:

    John 3:16
    New International Version (NIV)
    For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that
    whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

    John 3:16
    Easy-to-Read Version (ERV)
    Yes, God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that
    everyone who believes in him would not be lost but have eternal life.

    John 3:16
    Common English Bible (CEB)
    God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life.

    There are at least 30 different editions or translations of the Holy
    Bible and all of them say almost exactly the same thing.

    Yet, anybody who has ever done translation work knows that no two translators, working independently of each other, will produce exactly
    the same result. The similarities of all of the above translations
    shows that they are all just re-writes, not original new translations.

    Now, compare them to The Simple English Bible. Here we have:

    God loved the people of the world so much that He gave up His one and
    only Son. Every person who commits himself to Jesus will not be
    destroyed. Instead, that person will have eternal life.

    As can be seen, this is something different. Instead of one sentence
    we have three. The three different concepts have each been given a
    sentence of their own.

    Which is correct – the 30 or the one that is different?

    Is it correct to say “God so loved the World” or rather is the correct translation “God loved the people of the world”.

    It should be obvious that “God loved the People of the world” is correct. Otherwise, it would be that God loved the rocks, the oceans,
    the volcanoes, the trees, the insects, the germs, the microbes and so
    on and expected them to believe in him. Surely, it does not mean that.
    So, it must mean that God loved the humans, alone. To answer a child's question, Sorry, your dog or your cat will not make it into Heaven.

    Almost every verse of the Bible follows this example. Long, complex sentences are broken down into short simple sentences.

    Let us take one of the most controversial verses of the Bible:
    Revelation 13:18

    King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
    Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of
    the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six
    hundred threescore and six.

    The Simple English Bible

    This is true wisdom. The person who has understanding should figure
    out the number of the wild animal.(It is the same way that men count.)
    Its number is 666.

    As can be seen, there are important differences between the two. The
    King James version says that it is the number of the man, such as a Social-Security-Number or a Drivers License number is a number
    assigned to one person which he will carry for the remainder of his
    life.

    The Simple English Bible instead says that it is a number in the
    counting system that men use, but not the number actually assigned to
    any specific man.

    Again, it seems obvious that the translation in The Simple English
    Bible is correct. Surely, there is no living, breathing man walking
    around numbered 666.

    My involvement with the Simple English Bible dates back to April and
    May 1981 when I spent about two weeks at the Summer Institute of
    Linguistics in Dallas Texas. This is an organization that tries to
    develop a writing system for every one of the six thousand known
    languages of the world, with the eventual goal of translating the Holy
    Bible into each of those languages.

    This goal is unrealizable because it takes about 20 years to do this
    for one language and there are not enough people willing to undertake
    such a task, but anyway they try.

    The two most memorable people I met there were Joyce Overholt and Max Cobbey. The most memorable event while I was there was the
    announcement while I was eating in the cafeteria that two SIL
    researchers had been killed and their dead bodies had been found in
    the jungles of Columbia. They had been there trying to reduce one of
    the Native American Indian Languages to writing. Unfortunately, a
    Marxist group had thought they were American CIA agents and not there
    to do God's Holy Work and for that reason had abducted and killed
    them. This illustrated the dangers in this kind of work.

    A man I met when I spent about two weeks in the offices of the Summer Institute of Linguistics in Dallas was working on the Simple English
    Bible. As I was driving to New York, he asked me for a ride and I gave
    him a ride in my rental car with my Chitrali wife, Honzagool. He spent
    the night in my family home in Lynchburg, Virginia. Although I lived
    in Manhattan, he was going to Hartford Connecticut where he was
    working on The Simple English Bible. This was a distance of 125 miles
    out of my way but as I was interested in the Simple English Bible I
    drove him there in my rental car and the man whom he had come to see
    he gave me a copy of the Simple English Bible as a reward, although
    with some reluctance as he said that only a few copies of this bible
    were in existence, as he had not been able to afford to print more.

    He asked me if I could reprint his Bible and I said I would.
    Unfortunately, he had in mind a big press run and there was no way
    that either I or Ishi Press had the money at the time to do this.

    Now with the new technologies available I can afford to do it and as I
    still have the Bible he gave me back in May 1981, I have decided to
    contact them about this but unfortunately both of the men involved are
    dead. Max Cobbey is dead too. He died in 2008. The only one that might
    still be alive is Joyce Overholt. However, that is a fairly common
    name. I found one person on the Internet by that name and I have
    written her but she has not responded. Yet another person who was
    associated with SIL at that time and with whom I have corresponded was Kendall D. Decker, so I decided to look him up and was shocked to
    discover that he died recently too at the age of only 50.

    I am not getting any younger either so I have decided that I had
    better get this Simple English Bible reprinted now or else the True
    Word of God will be forever lost.

    Sam Sloan
    Friday, January 13, 2012



    http://www.amazon.com/dp/4871872211 http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/product.aspx?ISBN=4871872211

    The Old Testament of the Bible in Chinese, Part I, from Genesis
    through Chronicles

    http://www.amazon.com/dp/4871872009 http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/product.aspx?ISBN=4871872009

    The Old Testament of the Bible in Chinese, Part 2, from Ezra to
    Malachi

    http://www.amazon.com/dp/4871872106 http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/product.aspx?ISBN=4871872106

    The New Testament of the Bible in Chinese

    http://www.amazon.com/dp/4871872203 http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/product.aspx?ISBN=4871872203

    My #1 bible after 50-years.

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  • From Quadibloc@21:1/5 to samsloan on Mon Sep 12 00:14:46 2022
    On Monday, January 16, 2012 at 1:45:59 PM UTC-7, samsloan wrote:

    There are at least 30 different editions or translations of the Holy
    Bible and all of them say almost exactly the same thing.

    It seemed to me that all of them omitted one important concept
    that was in the King James Version.

    The New Testament elsewhere refers to believing Christians as
    "Sons of God". So it's important that John 3:16 notes that Jesus
    is the only Son that God actually fathered; the only Son that is of
    God's "flesh", distinct from all the other sons of God.

    Or, at least, it _would_ be important, if that concept is actually
    present in the original Greek.

    John Savard

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  • From Quadibloc@21:1/5 to All on Mon Sep 12 00:18:59 2022
    On Monday, January 16, 2012 at 7:02:47 PM UTC-7, Globe786 wrote:

    You are wasting your time on they Bible. The holy Qur'an is the real uncorrupted WORD of GOD.

    That's what _you_ think.

    The blasphemy law in Pakistan, the treatment of Coptic Christians
    in Egypt, violence and aggression against Europe and India...

    "By their fruits ye shall know them."

    It is the Christian world that created modern liberal democracies
    with their tolerance of every faith.

    John Savard

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  • From Quadibloc@21:1/5 to Quadibloc on Mon Sep 12 00:31:26 2022
    On Monday, September 12, 2022 at 1:14:47 AM UTC-6, Quadibloc wrote:
    On Monday, January 16, 2012 at 1:45:59 PM UTC-7, samsloan wrote:

    There are at least 30 different editions or translations of the Holy
    Bible and all of them say almost exactly the same thing.
    It seemed to me that all of them omitted one important concept
    that was in the King James Version.

    The New Testament elsewhere refers to believing Christians as
    "Sons of God". So it's important that John 3:16 notes that Jesus
    is the only Son that God actually fathered; the only Son that is of
    God's "flesh", distinct from all the other sons of God.

    Or, at least, it _would_ be important, if that concept is actually
    present in the original Greek.

    And it _is_.

    Outos.gar igpisen o Thios ton kosmon oste ton.uion.autou ton
    monogeni edoken, ina pas o pisteuon eis auton mi.apolitai, oll
    ikhi zoin aionion.

    It is "ton monogeni" that corresponds to "only-begotten".

    Also, "ton kosmon" is "the world". In the sense, though, of _le monde_
    rather than _la terre_, so of course the idea of "the people of the world"
    is present, but not in a fashion that a _literal_ translation could easily capture.

    John Savard

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  • From Quadibloc@21:1/5 to samsloan on Tue Sep 13 19:01:35 2022
    On Sunday, January 15, 2012 at 12:04:47 PM UTC-7, samsloan wrote:
    Any person with a
    Fifth Grade Reading level and any foreign person who knows some
    English but is not fluent should be able to read and understand this
    Bible.

    Of course, it might be noted that, due to the tireless efforts of
    Christian missionaries throughout the world, the Bible has been
    translated to a *lot* of other languages besides English.

    Most other new
    editions of the Bible are simply rewrites of the well known King James Version of the Bible.

    That is factually inaccurate. It would *still* be inaccurate to claim that
    most other new editions of the Bible are simply rewrites of the well-known *Revised Standard Version* of the Bible, but at least that would be *closer*
    to the truth, most newer editions of the Bible having a New Testament based
    on Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Vaticanus, rather than the Byzantine
    Textus Receptus.
    Nearly *all* new editions of the Bible, though, are translated directly from the original languages. Some versions are exceptions - the Douay-Rheims,
    being translated from the Vulgate (of course, that one's hardly modern),
    and versions that are simply adjustments to existing versions, say, to modernize the language.

    John Savard

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  • From Eli Kesef@21:1/5 to All on Thu Oct 6 09:53:00 2022
    Bs"d

    Shalom dear readers,

    Hereby I want to tell you about the one true God, and give you shocking facts and data that has been suppressed by the Christian church for 2000 years. This was done by, amongst other things, burning Bible translators on the stake, mass burnings of Bible
    translations and corrupting Bible translations.
    But now the truth is out. Look here:

    http://mountzion.notlong.com

    Please send this message to every Christian & messianic Jew you know and/or post it on every messageboard you can find. One way of loving God is making Him known amongst the nations. One way of loving your fellow man is revealing the falsehood he has
    been exposed to.

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