>>>>>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.
>>>>>
>>>>>Tamar
>>>>
>>>>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.
>>>>
>>>>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.
>>>>
>>>>Takes a lot of faith to get very literal.
>>>
>>>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.
>
>Yeah, they're pretty strict about that stuff.
>
>Do I recall correctly that most of the English translations of the Old Testament are based not on the Hebrew, but on the Greek translation?
>
>Tamar

My understanding is that Jerome around 350 went back to Aramaic for a lot of his translation ( of NT stuff ) for the Latin Vulgate. Not sure why they say the Greek Septuagint (or Alexandrian ) version of the OT is the oldest (maybe they mean oldest of all the material beyond the Pentauach) when it is from around 300 BCE. I'm sure there must be Hebrew stuff (besides Torah) earlier than that, though perhaps they were lost in the original.

Of course politics entered into the choice of source material for the King James version done in the first decade of the 17th century - immediately following the death of Elizabeth.

Here's what Wikipedia says about sources for translation of the King James version :

"The king gave the translators instructions designed to guarantee that the new version would conform to the ecclesiology and reflect the episcopal structure of the Church of England and its beliefs about an ordained clergy. The translation was by 47 scholars, all of whom were members of the Church of England. In common with most other translations of the period, the New Testament was translated from the Textus Receptus (Received Text) series of the Greek texts. The Old Testament was translated from the Masoretic Hebrew text, while the Apocrypha were translated from the Greek Septuagint (LXX), except for 2 Esdras, which was translated from the Latin Vulgate."

( the Apocrypha - both OT and NT - didn't make the cut and is not part of the KJV )