>>>I read a book a few years back about the creation of the King James edition. The book was interesting, though not an easy read. That translation was very political, both in motivation and in intention.
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>>>Tamar
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>>As has been pretty much every translation - especially of the New Testament. Does make you think Islam may have learned from this in the takfiri assertion the Quran must not be translated but one must come to it in its original language - though of course even then there is a huge body of Hadith and Sahabah - some of which are commentary by the Prophet himself.
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>>The problem is much more complicated for the Bible of course because of the multiple authorship, the political translation and councils as to what would be excluded or included, and the multiples languages that were sole sources for some of the material.
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>>Takes a lot of faith to get very literal.
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>Old Testament was pretty much standardized at the point of Nicea Council. Dead Sea scrolls confitmed that text didn't change since that time, i.e. few centuries before the council.

Quite true. The Old Testament - at least the Greek Septuagint - was pretty much a known quantity five or six centuries before Nicea. But the Latin Vulgate was Jerome's doing and that was contemporary with Nicea. Greek Orthodox still adheres to the Septuagint while King James (and Douay Reims) are heavily influenced by the Vulgate. Along the way I'm sure there were a lot of very human decisions that had to be made both about translation and inclusion/exclusion of some text. Not sure how closely any of this adheres to the Tanakh but my understanding is the Protestant versions of the OT coincide most closely.

Of course the Pentatuch is probably has the best pedigree of the lot when it comes to maintaining the original <s> A lot of guardians for a very long time.