The application of one or more techniques in the scientific study of the the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible refers to Scriptural/Biblical Criticism. These techniques are not peculiar to the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible study; they would be helpful in the study and of the writings.

Their primary intention is to help the reader of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible understand it better; for that reason scriptural/biblical examines the Greek and Hebrew texts (textual criticism) the historical setting of the various literary questions regarding how, when and why the books of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible were first written (literary criticism). These methods of study, when done with reverence for Scripture, should assist a reader's appreciation for the "Inspiration of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible."

Textual Criticism - This is the attempt to determine, as accurately as possible, the wording of the text of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible as first written down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Since none of the original documents has survived and the text is available only in copies, it is necessary to compare the early copies with each other. This allows the textual critic to classify these early copies into groups exhibiting certain common features and to decide why their differences occurred and what the original wording most likely was. The early copies on which textual critics work consist mainly of manuscripts in the original languages, translations into other languages, and scriptural/biblical quotations made by Jewish and Christian writers.

Historical Criticism - The examination of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible in light of its historical setting. This is particularly important because the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible was written over a period of more than one thousand years. The story the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible records extends from the beginning of civilization in the ancient world to the Roman Empire of the first century A.D.

Historical criticism is helpful in determining when the books of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible were written. It is also helpful in determining a book's 'dramatic date' that is, when the people it describes lived and its events happened. The dramatic date of Genesis, for instance, is much earlier than the date when it was written. Historical criticism asks if the stories of the patriarchs - Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph - reflect the conditions of the times in which they lived.

Literary Criticism - The study of how, when, where, and why the books of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible were written. Literary criticism may be divided into questions concerning sources, tradition, redaction, and authorship.

Source criticism attempts to determine whether the writers of the books of the Sacred Scripture used earlier sources were oral or written. Some scriptural/biblical books clearly indicate their dependence on earlier sources: 1 and 2 Chronicles, The Gospel according to Saint Luke, and The Acts of the Apostles. Some of the sources from Chronicles are still available to us in 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings, which were written earlier. The author of Luke and Acts says much of his information was handed on by "those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word." - Luke 1:2 -

However, these sources usually have not survived independently and their identification and reconstruction cannot be certain. It is fairly clear, however, that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke draw on common sources; their two most widely agreed sources are one that related the story of the Lord Jesus Christ and one that contained a collection of His teachings.

Tradition criticism (including form criticism) studies  how information was passed from one generation to another before it was put in its present form. Tradition is simply that which is handed down; it is divinely authoritative, or it may be merely the tradition of men.

The Pharisees and some of the scribes.......asked Jesus, Why do your disciples not respect the tradition of the elders...Jesus answered, It was of you hypocrites that prophet Isaiah so rightly prophesied in this passage of scripture:

This people honors me only with lip service,
while their hearts are far from me.
The worship they offer me is worthless,
the doctrines they teach are only human regulations.

You put aside the commandment of God to cling to human traditions. And Jesus said to them, How ingeniously you get round the commandment of God in order to preserve your own tradition!....... In this way you make God's word null and void for the sake of your tradition which you have handed down. And you do many other things like this. - Mark 7:1-13 -

You must live your whole life according to the Christ you have received - Jesus the Lord; you must be rooted in him and built on him and held firm by the faith you have been taught, and full of thanksgiving. Make sure that no one traps you and deprives you of your freedom by some secondhand, empty, rational philosophy based on the principles of this world instead of on the Lord Jesus Christ. - Col. 2:6-8 -

Sometimes a tradition was handed on by word of mouth for several generations before it was written down, as in the record of the patriarchs in Genesis. Sometimes a tradition was handed on by word of mouth for only 20 to 40 years, as it in records of the works and words of Jesus before the Gospels were written.

Tradition criticism attempts to trace the stages by which these traditions were handed down, the forms which they took at those various stages, and the forms in which they reached the people who committed to them in writing.

Form criticism is the branch of tradition criticism that examines the various 'forms' for example parables, miracles, discourses - by which the traditions took shape. Classifying sections of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible according to the form they take can provide an additional perspective from which one can be better understand the text of Scripture.

Redaction criticism attempts to understand the contribution to the finished manuscript made by the person who finally committed the oral or written traditions to writing. It is important to remember that an author's personal contribution to the finished book was no less reliable than the tradition which he received. Unfortunately, some redaction critics make the error of assuming that the author's work is unauthentic, ignoring the work of the Holy Spirit in inspiring the writers of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible.

Authorship and destination criticism involve the attempts to determine the authorship of a work, as well as the person, group, or wider public for whom it was written. Sometimes there is no need for inquiry into these matters; Saint Paul's letter to the Romans, for instance, is clearly the work of the apostle Paul and was sent by him to the Christians in Rome. But the judicious use of literary criticism will throw further light on the circumstances which led to the writing of the book and the purpose for which Romans was sent. When, however, a work is anonymous, critical inquiry may help us to discover what sort of person the author was.

For instance, we do not know for certain who wrote the letter to the Hebrews. However, by looking critically at Hebrews we can learn much about the character of the author and a little about the letter was written.

Living righteously, doing what is good and refraining from what is evil in accordance with the will of God refers to Scriptural/Biblical Ethics. The terms refers not to human theories or opinions about what is right and wrong but to God's revealed truth about these matters. Questions of human conduct prevail throughout the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible. God's revelation through His written Word narrates the story of human ethical failure, God's redeeming grace, and the ethical renewal of His people.

God's people are called to be holiness because they are God's people: "You therefore must be holy because I am holy." - Lev. 11:44-45, 19:2 - The New Testament counterpart to this principle, "You must therefore be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect." is found in Matthew 5:48.

Do not behave in the way that you liked to before you learnt the truth; make a habit of obedience: be holy in all you do, since it is the Holy One who has called you, and scripture says: Be holy, for I am holy. - 1 Peter 1:15-16; James 1:4; 1 John 3:3 -

God gave the Law to the nation of Israel as a standard of righteousness. This was the revealed will of God for His people. But His commandments were given in a context of "Grace." When the Ten Commandments were given through Moses, they were introduced with a statement supporting the relationship that had already been established between God and His people whom He delivered from Egypt - Ex. 20:2; Deut. 5:6 - God commandments are always given to those who are already His people by grace.

This truth carries through to the New testament. Jesus' ethical teaching in the Sermon on the Mount was preceded by the Beatitudes, which reminded Jesus' disciples that God's grace comes before His commands - Matt. 5:1-12 -

This connection between God's demands and His grace means that scriptural/biblical ethics must always be understood in terms of what God has already done for His people. Grace precedes Law, just as doctrine precedes ethics in the letters or epistles of the New Testament. So ethics should not always be regarded as the center of the Christian faith. Correct behavior, attitude, character are the outflow or product of God's grace - the proper response in those who have encountered and experienced God's grace. For the Christian the standard of ethics is the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Christian is not under the Law of the Old Testament. But since the ethical teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ sum up the true meaning of the Old Testament Law, following His teachings fulfills the Law and Scripture. So there is a direct relationship between the concept of righteousness as revealed in the Old Testament and later in the New Testament.

But now in Christ Jesus, you that used to be so far apart from us have been brought very close, by the blood of Christ. For he is the peace between us, and has made them apart, actually destroying in his own person the hostility caused by the rules and decrees of the Law. This was to create one single New Man in himself out of the two of them and by restoring peace through the cross, to unite them both in a single Body and reconcile them with God. In his own person he killed the hostility. Later he came to bring the good news of peace, peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near at hand. Through him, both of us have in the one Spirit our way  to come to the Father. - Eph. 2:13-18 -

He had overridden the Law, and cancelled every record of the debt that we had to pay; he has done away with it by nailing it to the cross; and so he got rid of the Sovereignty and the Powers, and paraded them in public, behind him in his triumphal procession. - Col. 2:14-15 -

The Ten Commandments, for instance, are referred to as positive ethical instruction in the New Testament. Yet the commandment concerning the Sabbath is no longer in force. And the ceremonial law, involving sacrificial rituals in the Temple, no longer is in effect because the ultimate sacrifice of Christ Jesus. - Rom. 13:9-10; Col. 2:14-16 - "He, on the other hand, has offered one single sacrifice for sins, and then taken his for ever, at the right hand of God, where he is now waiting until his enemies are made into a footstool for him. By virtue of that one single offering, he has achieved the eternal perfection of all whom he is sanctifying. The Holy Spirit assures us of this;... - Heb. 10:12-18 -

Jesus' commandment to love is the essence of Christian ethics. When Pharisees and scribes asked Jesus to identify "the greatest commandment in the law" Jesus answered, "You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength." This is the first and greatest commandment. The second resembles it: "You must love your neighbor as yourself." On these two commandments hang all the whole Law and the Prophets also. The apostle Paul also declared that all the commandments are "summed up in the above saying. This greatest love commandment summarizes and fulfills the intention of the Old Testament Law. - Lev. 19:18 - Deut. 6:4-6 - Matt. 22:34-40 - Rom. 13:8-10 - Gal. 5:14 - James 2:8-9 -

While love is the summary of Christian ethics, the New testament contains many specific ethical instructions. A basic pattern for this ethical teaching is the contrast between our old existence before faith and love in Christ and our new existence in Him. Christians are called to leave behind their old sinful conduct, attitude, and behavior and to put on the new, to walk in newness of life, and to exhibit the fruit of the Spirit.

In particularly, I want to urge you in the name of the Lord, not to go on living the aimless kind of life that pagans live. Intellectually they are in the dark, and they are estranged from the life of God, without knowledge because they have shut their hearts to it. Their sense of right and wrong once dulled, they have abandoned themselves to sexuality and eagerly pursue a career of indecency of every kind. Now that is hardly the way you have learnt from Christ, unless you failed to hear him properly when you are taught what the truth is in Jesus. You must give up your old way of life; you must put aside your old self, which gets corrupted by following illusory desires. Your mind must be renewed by a spiritual revolution, so that you can put on the new self that has been created in God's way, in the goodness and holiness of the truth. - Eph. 4:17-24 -

If you are led by the Spirit, no law can touch you. When self-indulgence is at work the results are obvious: fornication, gross indecency and sexual irresponsibility; idolatry and sorcery; feuds and wrangling, jealousy, bad temper and quarrels; disagreements, factions, envy; drunkenness, orgies and similar things. I warn you now, as I warned you before: those who behave like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. What the Spirit brings is very different: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness and self-control. There can be no law against things like that, of course. You cannot belong to Christ Jesus unless you crucify all self-indulgent passions and desires. Since the Spirit is our life, let us be directed by the Spirit. We must stop being conceited, provocative and envious. - Gal. 5:18-26 -

Although as Christians we are free from the Law, we are not to use that liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love to serve one another. Love is best expressed through service and self-giving. These points led to naturally to the observation that Jesus Himself is the supreme example of righteousness. Christian ethics are summed up not only in the Lord Jesus Christ teaching, but in His life as well. So true discipleship consists of following the Lord Jesus Christ and being conformed to His image and likeness.

The call for righteousness is directed to the individual, but ethics also has an important social dimension. The centrality of love indicates this very clearly. The prophets of the Old Testament emphasized the connection between righteousness and social justice. The ethical teaching of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible as followed by Christians will have an impact on the world. But in spite of all these truths, the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible does not call for a social program to be imposed upon the world. As Christians follow scriptural/biblical ethics, the world will be affected for good by them.

You are the salt of the earth. But if salt becomes tasteless, what can make it salty again? It is good for nothing, and can only be thrown out to be trampled underfoot by people. You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill top cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp to put it under a tub; they put it on the lamp stand where it shines for everyone in the house. In the same way your light must shine in the sight of people, so that, seeing your good works, they may give the praise to your God/Father in heaven. - Matt. 5:13-16 -

And indeed, everybody who does wrong
hates the light and avoids it,
for fear his actions should be exposed;
but the man who lives by the truth
comes out into the light,
so that it may be plainly seen that what he does is done in God. - John 3:20-21 -

                                                                     Page 8 
If you wish to donate. Thank You. God bless.

By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.


HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -

The first half of the 20th century was marked by a succession of brilliant private enterprises in translation - both for the New Testament alone and for the whole Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible. The earliest of these was the Twentieth Century New Testament, a project conducted by a group of intelligent laypersons who used Westcott and Hort's edition of the Greek New Testament (1881) as their basic text. They were concerned that no existing version made the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible plain to young people, and they set out to supply this need. They completed their work in 1901; a revised edition appeared in 1904.

Richard Francis Weymouth, a Greek scholar, published an edition of the Greek New Testament called The Resultant Greek Testament in 1886. Later he issued a translation of this text, The New Testament in Modern Speech, which appeared in 1903, shortly after his death. The "modern speech" into which this translation was rendered was dignified contemporary usage and it paid special attention to accuracy in the translation of details such as the definite articles and tenses.

Much more colloquial than Weymouth's version was The New Testament: A New Translation (1913) by James Mofatt. Moffatt was a Scot, and his translation bore traces of the idiom of his native land. While his unique expressions shocked readers accustomed to more dignified Scripture/Bible English, they brought home the meaning of the text with greater clarity than ever before. In 1924 Moffatt added The Old Testament: A New Translation; in 1928 the whole work appeared in one volume, entitled A New Translation of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible. In both Testaments, Moffatt occasionally took greater liberties with the wording and order than was proper for a translator; yet to this day one of the best ways to get a quick grasp of the general sense of a book of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible is to read it through in Moffatt's translation.

Edgar J. Goodspeed of the University of Chicago produced The New Testament: An American Translation (ASV) in 1923. He was convinced that most Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible versions were translated into "British English" so he tried to provide a version free from expressions that might be strange to Americans. A companion work, The Old Testament: An American Translation, edited by J. M. Powis Smith and three other scholars, was issued in 1927. In 1938 Goodspeed's translation of the Apocrypha appeared. This was the final contribution to The Complete Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible.

The Revised Standard Version (RSV) is one of the last versions in the long line of English Scripture/Bible translations that stem from William Tyndale. Although it is North American production, it had been widely accepted in the whole English speaking world. The RSV was launched as a revision of the king James Version (KJV) 1611, RV (1885) and ASV (1901) The New Testament first appeared in 1946, the two Testaments in 1957. A new edition in 1962 incorporated 85 minor changes in wording.

A Catholic edition of the RSV New Testament appeared in 1946, followed by the whole Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible in 1966. In 1973 a further edition of the RSV appeared (including revisions made in the 1971 edition of the New Testament) This version of the Scared Scripture/Holy Bible was approved for use by Protestants, Roman Catholics, and the Greek Orthodox Church, making it an English Scripture/Bible for all faiths.

Several new versions of the English Scripture/Bible designed especially for Catholic readers have appeared during the 20th century. In 1940 Ronald Knox, an English priest with exceptional literary gifts, was commissioned by his superiors to undertake a new Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible translation. At that time, it was out of the question for a translation for Catholic readers to be based on anything other than Latin Vulgate. The Vulgate served as base of Knox's version, but he paid attention to the original Greek and Hebrew texts. His New Testament appeared in 1945, followed by the Old Testament in 1949.

Ronald Knox had a flair for adapting his English expressions to the rigid restrictions of the Latin Vulgate style. But the progress of scriptural/biblical movement in the Catholic Church in recent years has made all Catholic versions of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible be based on the Latin Vulgate.

The Jerusalem Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible was originally a French translation of the Scripture/Bible sponsored by the Dominican faculty of the Ecole Biblique et Archeologique in Jerusalem. A one volume edition of the work, with fewer technical notes, was issued in 1956. The English counterpart to this volume, prepared under the editorship of Alexander Jones, was published in 1966. The scriptural/biblical text was translated from the Hebrew and Greek languages, although the French version was consulted throughout for guidance where variant readings or interpretations were involved.

The Jerusalem Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible is a scholarly production with a high degree of literary skill. While it is the work of Catholic translators, it is nonsectarian. Readers of many religious traditions use the Jerusalem Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible.

The New American Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible (NAB) was launched as a revision of the Douai (or Douay) Scripture/Bible for American readers. In Episcopal Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, and the resulting work was called the Confraternity Version. The translators were scholars who belonged to the Catholic Biblical Association of America.

The New Testament of this translation first appeared in 1941. While it was a revision of the Douai text, which was based in turn on the Latin Vulgate, the translators at times went back to the Greek text behind the Latin. They drew attention in their notes to places where the Greek and Latin texts differed. As the project progressed, the translators moved away from the Latin Vulgate as their text, basing it instead on the Greek and Hebrew text. So radical was this fresh approach that a new name seemed appropriate for the version when the entire Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible was completed in 1970. It was no longer called the Confraternity Version but the New American Bible. This new name may have been influenced also by the title of the New English Bible, which had appeared earlier in the same year.

In 1935 they consulted scholars about the possibility of a revision to bring this translation, rather than a revision of an old translation, was commissioned. The initiative in this enterprise was taken by the church of Scotland in 1946. It approached other British churches, and a joint committee was set up in 1947 to make plans for a new translation of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible into modern English. The translator's goal was to issue a version 'genuine English in idiom......a 'timeless' English, avoiding equally both archaisms and transient modernism.

The New Testament of the New English Bible (NEB) was published in March 1961; the whole Scripture/Bible, together with the Apocrypha, appeared in March 1970. Between 1961 and 1970 the New Testament received some further revision.

In one respect the New English Bible reverted to the policy of the translators of the king James Version; sometimes they rendered the same Hebrew or Greek word with different English words. This means the readers who cannot use the Hebrew or Greek texts will be unable to use this version for the detailed word study.

Some translators have attempted to bring out the meaning of the scriptural/biblical text by using either simplified or amplified vocabularies. Other translations that fall into this category are those that use lists of words considered basic to the English language.

Charles B. Williams, in The New Testament in the Language of the People (1937) tried to express the more delicate shades of meaning in Greek tenses by using a fuller wordings. What Williams did for Greek tenses, Kenneth S. Wuest did for all parts of speech in his Expanded Translation of the New Testament (1956-1959)

In The Amplified Bible (1958-1965) a committee of 12 editors working for the Lockman Foundation of La Habra, California, incorporated alternative translations or additional words that would normally appear in margins or footnotes into their translation of the text. One fault of this translation is that it gives the reader no guidance to aid in choosing the proper alternative reading for specific passages.

Basic English is a simplified form of the language, created by C.K.Ogden, which attempts to communicate ideas with a simplified vocabulary of 850 words. In the 1930s Ogden's foundation, the Orthological Institute, commissioned an English scriptural/biblical scholar S.H.Hooke, to produce a Basic English version of the Bible. For this purpose the basic vocabulary of 850 words was expanded to 1,000 by adding special Bible words and others helpful in the reading and understanding of poetry. The New Testament in Basic English appeared in 1940; the complete Scripture/Bible was published in 1949.

Charles Kingsley Williams who had experience in teaching whose native tongue was not English, produced The New Testament; A New Translation in Plain English in 1952. He used a 'plain English list' of less than 1,700 words in this translation.

J.B.Phillips, an Anglican clergyman, relieved the tedium of fire watching and similar night time duties during World War II by turning Saint Paul letters or epistles into English. This work is not a strict translation but a paraphrase that made the apostle's letters or epistles meaningful for younger readers. He published Letters to Young churches in 1947, and it became an instant success. The style was lively and forceful; the apostle Paul came across as a real person who had something important to say. Phillips followed up on his initial success by releasing other parts of the New Testament. The Gospels in Modern English followed in 1952; The Book of Acts appeared in 1955; and The Book of Revelation was published 1957. In 1958 the whole work appeared in one volume, 'The New Testament in Modern English.' A completely revised edition of this paraphrase was issued in 1972, but many readers prefer the earlier edition.

Like J.B.Phillips work, 'The Living Bible' is a paraphrase that began with a rendering of the New Testament letters - Living Letters (1962). The translator, Kenneth N. Taylor, prepared this paraphrase initially for his own children, who found it difficult to follow the apostle Paul's thought when his letters or epistles were read in family worship. Taylor went on to paraphrase the rest of the New Testament, then the Old Testament, until The Living Bible was published complete in 1971. This paraphrase is especially popular with young people. Many adults have also found that it brings the message of the Sacred Scripture/ Holy Bible home to them in languages they can understand.

In 1966, the American Bible Society issued Today's English Version (also entitled Good News for Man Man) a translation of the New Testament, in simple, contemporary English. The aim of this version was similar to the preceding basic English and plain English versions, but The Good News Bible used no limited vocabulary list. In 1976 the entire Bible in Today's English Version was published.

The translators of the Good News Bible worked to achieve 'dynamic equivalence.' They wanted this translation to have the same effect on modern readers that the original text produced on those who first read it. The Good News Bible has gained wide acceptance, and similar translations have been produced in a number of other languages.

On simplified translation of the Scripture/Bible include Clarence Jordan's Cotton Patch Version (1968-1970) which renders portions of the New Testament into the unique idioms of the American South. Also included in this category is Carl Burke's God Is For Real, Man (1967) and Treat Me Cool, Lord (1969). These were written in the unique language of prison inmates while Burke was serving as a jail chaplain.

An editorial board of 54 scholars began work on the "New American Standard Bible" (NASB) translation in the 1960s. They were determined to issue a new and revised translation based on the American Standard Version of 1901 in order to keep that version alive and usable among the Scripture/Bible reading public. Sponsored by the Lockman Foundation, the complete Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible of the NASB was published in 1971 after 11 years of careful, scholarly work. The translators used most dependable Hebrew and Greek texts available. The editorial board has continue to function since publication of the Bible, making minor revisions and refinements in the translation as better texts of the original languages of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible became available.

The New International Version (NIV) is a completely new translation of the Bible, sponsored by the New York International Bible Society. It is the work of an international and trans-denominational team of scholars, drawn mainly from the United States but also including scholars from Canada, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. The sponsors of the NIV claim it is 'written in the language of the common man' but its language is more literary than the 'common English' of the Good News Bible.

The translators of the NIV were familiar with traditional Bible English. They used the language of the king James Version where it was accurate, clear, and readable. But they made many significant changes. Unlike the RSV and NEB (which retained "thee", "thou" and "thy" when God was being addressed) the NIV uses "you" and "your." The New Testament of this version was published in 1973; the whole Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible appeared in 1978.

The original king James Version, first published in 1611, has been the favorite translation among English speaking peoples for more than three centuries. During its long history, the king James Bible has been updated and revised several times to reflect changes in speech as well as growing knowledge of the original text of the Scriptures. Previous major revisions of this translation were issued in 1629, 1638, 1762, and 1769.

During 1970s, Thomas Nelson Publishers of Nashville, Tennessee, sensed the need for a fifth major revision. Over 130 Scripture/Bible scholars were selected to work on the New king James Version. The translators worked from the earliest and most trust worthy Hebrew and Greek texts available and also used the 1769 king James revision as a general guide to make sure the new edition preserved the majestic style and devotional quality of the original one.

The most noticeable change in the New king James is replacement of the "thee's" and thou's" and other archaic pronouns with their modern English equivalent. The "-est" and "-eth" verb endings also were eliminated in favor of more contemporary idioms. The New Testament with Psalms was released in 1980, followed by the Old Testament in 1982.

                                                                     Page 7
If you wish to donate. Thank You. God bless.

By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -

In the early Middle Ages, parts of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible were translated from Latin into several of the dialects of Western Europe. These included versions in the Bohemian, Czech, and Italian languages, as well as the Provincial dialect of south eastern France. But none of these compare, is importance with the work of John Wycliffe, pioneering reformer who translated the entire Scared Scripture/Holy Bible from Latin into the English language.

John Wycliffe (c.1330-1384) master of Balliol College, Oxford, was a distinguished scholar and preacher. But he was also a social reformer who wanted to replace the feudal organization of State and Church with a system that emphasized people direct responsibility to God. The constitution of this new order would be the law of God, which Wycliffe equated with the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible. Before this could happen, the law of God had to be accessible to the laity as well as the clergy, the unlearned as well as the learned. This called for a Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible in English as well as Latin, so Wycliffe and his associates undertook the task of translating the entire Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible from the Latin Vulgate into contemporary English.

There were actually two Wycliffe versions of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible - an earlier one, produced between 1380 and 1384 during Wycliffe's lifetime, and a latter version completed in 1395, 11 years after his death.

The earlier version is a thoroughly literal translation. Wycliffe followed the Latin construction without attempting to render the meaning into good English idiom. The translators produced a literal version because it was intended to serve as the law book of the new order. The Latin text of the law book was already established and the English text had to follow it, word for word. About two thirds of this version was produced by one of Wycliffe supporters, Nicholas of Hereford. Wycliffe himself may have done some of the translation work on the remaining portion, the movement with which this English social reformer was associated was condemned by the authorities.

The second version Wycliffe version was the work of his secretary, John Purvey. It was based on the earlier version, but it rendered the text into idiomatic English. Purvey's version became very popular, although its circulation was restricted by Church officials. It was suppressed in 1408 by a document known as the "Constitutions of Oxford" which forbade anyone to translate or even to read any part of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible in English without the permission of a bishop or a local council. These constitution remained in force for more than a century.

More than 200 years passed from the time that Wycliffe's second English version was issued (1395) until the historic king James Version was published in 1611. These were fruitful years for new versions of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible. The stage was set for the monumental king James Bible by five different English translations that were issued during these years.

The years from about 1450 onward brought exciting changes in Western Europe. The revival of interest in classical and scriptural/biblical learning was already under way when it received a stimulus from the migration of Greek scholars to the West after the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453. With the invention of printing in Germany, the promoters of the new learning found a new technology at their disposal.

Among the first products of the printing press were editions of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible. the first major work to be printed was the famous Gutenberg edition of the Latin Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible, in 1456. The following decades brought printed editions of the Hebrew Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible, the Greek New Testament, and the Septuagint. The leaders of the Protestant Reformation were quick to take advantage of this new invention to help advance their efforts in church reform.

Making the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible available in the tongue of the common people was a significant strategy in the Reformers' policy. Rev. Fr. Martin Luther, leader of the Reformation, translated the New Testament from Greek into German in 1552 and the Old Testament from Hebrew into German in the following years. What Martin Luther did for the Germans, William Tyndale did for the people of England.

After completing his studies at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, William Tyndale (c.1495-1536) devoted his time and talents to providing his fellow English men with the Scriptures in their own language. He hoped that Bishop Tunstall of London would sponsor his project of translating the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible but the bishop refused to do so. Tyndale then went to Germany in 1524 to undertake his project. By August of 1525 his English New Testament was complete.

Tyndale began printing his new version at Cologne, but this was interrupted by the city authorities. The printing work was then carried through by Peter Schoeffer in Worms. who produced an edition of 6,000 copies. Soon this new Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible was selling in England, although it had been officially banned by the Church.

Tyndale's translation differed in two important respects from the versions of Wycliffe. It was rendered not from the Latin language but from the Greek original, and it circulated in printed form, not as a hand copied manuscript. From the New Testament, Tyndale moved to the Old Testament, issuing an edition of the Pentateuch, then the Book of Jonah, and a revision of Genesis. Later, in 1534, Tyndale issued a revision of his New Testament, justly described as 'altogether Tyndale's noblest monument.'

A further revision of the New Testament appeared in 1535. In the month of May of that year Tyndale was arrested. After an imprisonment of 17 months, he was sentenced to death as a heretic; he was strangled and burned at the stake at Vilvorde, near Brussels, on October 6, 1536. Tyndale started a tradition in the history of the English Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible that has endured to this day. His wording in those portions of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible which he translated was retained in the king James Version to a great degree. The latest in the succession of revisions which stand in the Tyndale tradition is the New king James Version. But even those versions that did not set out to adhere to his tradition, such as the New International Version, show his influence.

At the time of Tyndale's death, a printed edition of the English Scripture/Bible, bearing a dedication to king Henry VIII, had been circulating in England for nearly a year. This was the first edition of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible issued by Miles Coverdale (1488-1568) one of Tyndale's friends and associates. This English version reproduced Tyndale's translation of the Pentateuch and the New Testament; the rest of the Old Testament was translated into English from Latin and German versions.

Official policy toward the translation and circulation of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible in England changed quickly. When king Henry VIII break with the Roman Catholic Church in Rome in 1534. It had
something to do with it, but deeper factors were also involved. A landmark in the history of the English Scripture/Bible was the royal injunction of September 1538, directing that 'one book of the whole Scripture/Bible of the largest volume in English' should be placed in every parish church in England where the people could have access to it. When this decree was issued, another version of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible - Great Bible - was being prepared so this commandment could be followed.

Publication of the Great Bible was delayed because French officials halted its production in Paris, where it was being printed. The printing was then transferred to London, where the Great Bible appeared in 1539. It was essentially a copy of Tyndale's translation. It quickly became the "authorized version" of the English Bible. One part of the Great Bible remained in use long after the version as a whole had been replaced by later and better versions. To this day the Psalter in the Book of Common Prayer that is sung in the services of the church of England is the Psalms contained in the Great Bible.

During the reign of Mary Tudor of England (1553-1558) many English reformers sought refuge in other parts of Europe because of her policy of persecution. One community of English refugees settled in Geneva, Switzerland, where John Knox was pastor of the English congregation and where John Calvin dominated theological study. many of these English refugees were fine scholars, and they began work on a new English version of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible. A preliminary edition of the New Testament (Whittingham's New Testament) was published in 1557. This was the first edition of any part of the English Bible to have text divided into verses. The whole Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible appeared in 1560.

This 'Geneva Bible' was the first English Bible to be translated in its entirety from the original scriptural/biblical languages. Widely recognized as the best English version Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible that had yet appeared, it quickly became the accepted version in Scotland. In England it also attained instant popularity among the people, although it was not accepted by church officials. after the publication of the king James Version in 1611, the Geneva Bible remained popular. This was the Scripture/Bible which the Pilgrims took with them to the new world in 1620; to them the king James Version was a compromise and an inferior production. The Geneva Bible was printed until 1644 and was still found in use many years later.

The rival version to the Geneva Bible sponsored by church leaders in England was published in 1568. It was called the Bishops' Bible because all the translators were either bishops at the time or became bishops later. It was a good translation, based throughout on the original languages; but it was not as sound in scholarship as the Geneva Bible.

Shortly after James VI of Scotland ascended the throne of England as James I (1603) he convened a conference to settle matters under dispute in the church of England. The only important result of this conference was an approval to begin work on the king James Version of the English Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible. A group of 47 scholars, divided into six teams, was appointed to undertake the work of preparing the new version. Three teams worked on the Old Testament; two were responsible for the New Testament; and one worked on the Apocrypha. They used the 1602 edition of the Bishops' Scripture/Bible as the basis of their revision, but they had access to many other versions and helps, as well as the texts in the original scriptural/biblical languages. When the six groups had completed their task, the final draft was reviewed by a committee of 12. The king James Version was published in 1611.

The new revision won wide acceptance among the people of the English speaking world. Non sectarian in tone and approach, it did not favor one shade of theological or ecclesiastical opinion over another. The translators had an almost instinctive sense of good English style.; the prose rhythms of the version gave it a secure place in the popular memory. Never was a version of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible more admirably suited for reading aloud in public.

Although there was some resistance to the king James Version at first, it quickly made a place for itself. For more than three centuries, it has remained 'The Scripture/Bible' throughout the English speaking world.

A generation before the appearance of the king James Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible, an English version of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible for Roman Catholics was undertaken by the faculty of the English College at Douai, France. Unlike the Geneva Bible, which was translated from the original languages, the Douai or Douay Scripture/Bible was translated from the Latin Vulgate. The translator of the Douai Scripture/Bible was Gregory Martin, formerly an Oxford scholar, who translated two chapters a day until the project was finished. Each section was then revised by two of his colleagues. The New Testament portion of this version was issued in 1582 and the Old testament in 1609-1610.

The Douai Scripture/Bible was scholarly and accurate, but the English style and vocabularly were modeled on Latin usage. It would not have become popular among the Catholic laity if it had not been for the work of Richard Challoner (1691-1781) who revised it thoroughly between 1749 and 1772. What has generally been called the Douai Scripture/Bible since Challoner's day is in fact the Douai Scripture/Bible as revised by Richard Challoner. In several respects it was a new version. Until 1945 this Douai revision by Challoner remained the only version of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible officially sanctioned for English speaking Catholics.

During the 18th century and the earlier part of the 19th century, several private attempts were made at revising the king James Version. The reasons for revision included the outdated English of the king James Version, the progress made by the scholars in understanding the original languages of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible, and the availability of better texts in the original scriptural/biblical languages, especially the Greek text of the New Testament.

One of the most influential private revision was Henry Alford's New Testament (1869) In the preface to this translation, Alford expressed the hope that his work would be replaced soon by an official revision of the king James Version. This hope was fulfilled in 1870 when the church of England initiated plans for a revision. Two groups of revisers were appointed, one for the Old Testament and one for the New Testament. Representatives of British churches other than the church of England were included on these committees. Before long, parallel companies of revisers were set up in the United States. At first these groups worked under the hope that one version might be produced for both England and the United States. But this was not to be. The American scholars, conservative as they were in their procedure, could not be bound by the stricter conservatism of their British counterparts. The three installments of the British revision (RV) appeared in 1881, in 1885, and in 1894. The American revision, or American Standard Version (ASV) was released in 1901, but did not include the Apocrypha.

The RV and ASV were solid works of scholarship. The Old Testament revisers had a much better grasp of Hebrew than the original translators of the king James Version. The new Testament revision was based on a much more accurate Greek text than had been available in 1611. Although the RV and ASV were suitable Scripture/Bible study, they did not gain popular acceptance, mainly because their translators paid little attention to style and rhythm as they rendered the scriptural/biblical languages into English.

                                                                       Page 6
If you wish to donate. Thank You. God bless.

By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
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Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -

The Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible was written across a period of several centuries in the languages of Hebrew and Aramaic (Old Testament) and Greek (New Testament) With the changing of nations and cultures across the centuries, these original writings have been translated numerous times to make the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible available in different languages. Following are the versions and translations of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible that have been issued during the past 2,200 years. Just as God inspired to write His Word, He also has preserved the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible by using human instruments to pass it on to succeeding generations.

Ancient versions of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible are those that were produced in classical languages such as Greek, Syriac, and Latin. The following ancient versions were issued more than 600 years period from about 200 B.C. to A.D. 400. The oldest Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible translation in the world was made in Alexandria, Egypt, where the Old Testament was translated from Hebrew into Greek for the benefit of the Greek speaking Jews of that city. A Jewish community had existed in Alexandria almost from its foundation by Alexander the Great in 331 B.C. In two or three generations this community had forgotten its native Palestinian language. These Jews realized they needed the Hebrew Scriptures rendered into the only language they knew - Greek. The first section of the Hebrew Scripture to be translated into Greek was the Pentateuch, or the first five books of the Old Testament, some time before 200 B.C. Other parts were translated during the next century.

The version is commonly called the 'Septuagint' from septuaginta, the Latin word for 70 (LXX) This name was selected because of a tradition that the Pentateuch was translated into Greek by about 70 elders of Israel who were brought to Alexandria especially for this purpose.

Only a few fragments of this version survive from the period before Christ. Most copies of the Greek Old Testament belong to the Christian era and were made by Christians. According to some scholars, The John Rylands University Library, Manchester, England, owns a fragment of Deuteronomy in Greek from the second century B.C. Another fragments of the Septuagint have been identified among the texts known as the 'Dead Sea Scrolls' discovered in 1947.

When Christianity penetrated the world of the Greek speaking Jews, and then the Gentiles, the Septuagint was the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible used for preaching the Gospel. Most of the Old Testament quotations in the New Testament are taken from this Greek Scripture/Bible. In fact, the Christians adopted the Septuagint so wholeheartedly that the Jewish people lost interest in it. They produced other Greek versions that did not lend themselves so easily to Christian interpretation.

The Septuagint thus became the "authorized version" of the early Gentile Church. To this day it is the official version of the Old Testament used in the Greek Orthodox Church. After the books of the New Testament were written and accepted by the early Church, they were added to the Old Testament Septuagint to form the complete Greek version of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible.

The Septuagint was based on a Hebrew text much older than most surviving Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament. Occasionally, this Greek Old Testament helps scholars to reconstruct the wording of a passage where it has been lost or miscopied by scribes as the text was passed down across the centuries. An early instance of this occurs in Genesis 4:8, where Cain's words to Abel, "Let go out to the field" are reproduced from the Septuagint in the RSV and other modern versions. These words had been lost from the standard Hebrew text, but they were necessary to complete the sense of the English translation.

Aramaic targums - The word 'targum' means 'translation.' After their return from Captivity in Babylon, many Jews spoke Aramaic, a sister-language, instead of the pure Hebrew of their ancestors. They found it difficult to follow the reading of the Hebrew Scriptures at worship. So they adopted the practice of providing an oral paraphrase into Aramaic when the Scriptures were read in Hebrew. The person who provided this paraphrase, the Turgeman, was an official in the synagogue.

One of the earliest examples of such paraphrase occurs in Nehemiah 8:8 and because of the work of Ezra, the Pentateuch, or the first five books of the Old Testament, was officially recognized as the constitution of the Jewish state during the days of the Persian Empire. This constitution was read publicly to the whole community after their return to Jerusalem. The appointed readers "read distinctly [or, with interpretation] from the book, in the Law of God; and they gave the sense, and helped them understand the reading."


The phrase "with interpretation" appears as a marginal reading in several modern versions, for instance, the RSV, but it probably indicates exactly what happened. The Hebrew text was read, followed by an oral paraphrase in Aramaic so everyone would be sure to understand. This practice continued as standard in the Jewish synagogue for a long time. The targum, or paraphrase of the Hebrew, was not read from a written document, lest some in the congregation might think the authoritative law was being read. Some religious leaders apparently held that the targum should not be written down, even for use outside the synagogue.

In time, all objections to a written targum disappeared. A number of such paraphrases began to be used. Official Jewish recognition was given to two in particular - the Targum of Onkelos on the Pentateuch and the Targum of Jonathan on the Prophets. Some were far from being word-for-word translations. As expanded paraphrases, they included interpretations and comments on the scriptural/biblical text.

Some New Testament writers indicate knowledge of targumic interpretations in their quotations from the Old Testament. For example, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay" - Rom. 12:19; Heb. 10:30 - is a quotation from Deuteronomy 32:35; but it conforms neither to the Hebrew text nor to the Greek text of the Septuagint. This particular phrase comes from the Targum.

Syriac - The term Syriac describes the Eastern Aramaic language spoken in Northern Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers north-east of the land of Palestine. Large Jewish settlements were located there. At some point, the Old Testament must have been translated into Syriac for their benefit.

As Christianity expanded, this area became an important center of Christian life and action. The Christians in northern Mesopotamia inherited the Syriac Old Testament to it. This "authorized version" of the Syriac Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible is called the Peshitta (the "common" or "simple" version) In its present form, it goes back to the beginning of the fifth century A.D. but there were earlier Syriac translations manuscripts of the Gospels exist in an Old Syriac version, which probably goes back to about the second century A.D.

The Syriac speaking Church was very missionary minded. It carried the Gospel into Central Asia. It translated portions of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible from Syriac into the local languages of areas which it evangelized. The earliest forms of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible in the languages of Armenia and Georgia (north of Armenia) were based on the Syriac version.

Coptic - Coptic was a highly developed form of the native language of the ancient Egyptians. Christianity was planted in Egypt while some of the twelve apostles were still alive, although there is no record of how it was carried there. With the development of a Christian community in Egypt, the need arose for a Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible in the Coptic tongue. To this day the Coptic Church of Egypt uses the Bohairic version of the Coptic Scripture/Bible. translated in the early centuries from the Septuagint and the Greek New Testament into the dialect of Lower Egypt. Earlier still is the Sahidic version, in the dialect of Upper Egypt.

Gothic - Across the Rhine and Danube frontiers of the Roman Empire lived a race of people known as the Goths. The evangelization of the Ostrogoths, those who lived north of the Danube River, began in the third century. About A.D. 360 Bishop Ulfilas, 'the apostle of the Goth' led his converts south of the Danube to settle in what is now Bulgaria. There he translated the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible into their language. The Gothic version was the first translation of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible into a language of the Germanic family. English, German, Dutch, and Scandinavian belong to this language group.

Latin - The need for a Latin Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible first arose during the second century A.D. when Latin began to replace Greek as the dominant language of the Roman Empire. The first Old Testament sections of the Latin Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible were considered unreliable, since they were actually a translation of a translation. They were based on the Septuagint, which, in turn, was a translation of the Hebrew Scripture/Bible into Greek. Since the New Testament was written originally in Greek, it was translated directly into the Latin language. Several competing New Testament translations were in use throughout the Latin speaking world as early as about A.D. 250.

The task of producing one standard Latin Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible to replace these competing translations was entrusted by Damasus, bishop of Rome (366-384) to his secretary Jerome. Jerome undertook the task unwillingly, knowing that replacing an old version with a new is bound to cause offense, even if the new is better. He began with a revision of the Gospels, followed by the Psalms. After completing the New Testament, Jerome mastered the Hebrew language in order to translate the Old Testament into Latin. He completed this work in A.D. 405.

Jerome's translation of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible is known as the Latin Vulgate. It did not win instant acceptance. Many were suspicious of it because it varied so much from the version with which they were familiar. But in time its superior merits caused it to gain popularity.

The best surviving manuscript of the Latin Vulgate, the Codex Amiatinus, is now in the Laurentian Library of Florence, Italy. Written in a monastery in Northumbria, England, it was presented to Pope Gregory II in 716.

 The Latin Vulgate is especially important because it was the medium through which the Gospel arrived in Western Europe. It remained the standard version in this part of the world for centuries. In 1546 the Council of Trent directed that only "this same ancient and Vulgate edition...be held as authentic in public lecture, disputations, sermons and expository discourses, and that  no one make bold or presume to reject it on any pretext." Until the 20th century no translations of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible except those based on the Vulgate were recognized as authoritative by the Roman Catholic Church.

Until the beginning of the 16th century, all Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible versions in the languages of the Masses of Western Europe were based on the Latin Vulgate. Among these, the Old English versions are of special interest. Most of these versions consisted of only parts of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible, and even these had limited circulation. In this period few of the people of ancient England could read. Many of the familiar stories of the Scripture/Bible were turned into verse and set to music so they could be sung and memorized.

Caedmon, the unlettered poet of Whitby, is said to have turned the whole history of salvation into song in the seventh century. Bede, the monk of Jarrow, the most learned man of his day in Western Europe, devoted the last ten days of his life to turning the Gospels into English so they could be read by the common people.

Alfred the Great, king of a large part of southern and western England, defeated the Danish invaders in 878. He published a code of laws that was introduced by an Old English translation of the Ten Commandments and other brief passages from the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible.

The parts of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible most favored for translation during this period were those often read or recited during worship services, especially the Psalms and the Gospels. An Old English version of the Psalms by Bishop Aldhelm dates from soon after 700. A manuscript called the Wessex Gospels dates from the middle of the tenth century.

Some of the earliest Old English versions of Sacred Scripture were written between the lines of Latin language manuscripts. The manuscript known as the Lindisfarne Gospels ( now in the British Museum , London) was produced originally in Latin shortly before 700. Two and a half centuries later a priest named Aldred wrote between the lines of the text a literal translation in the Northumbrian dialect of old English. Scripture/Bible texts of this type, with some letters decorated in gold and silver, are known as illustrated manuscripts.

                                                                        Page 5
If you wish to donate. Thank You. God bless.

By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -