by I.M.

Created on: June 21, 2008

Today there are countless translations and variations of the Bible, some of which are related to specific denominations of Christianity, and others meant to preserve the original language, and yet others meant to modernize antiquated concepts. Translated from Aramaic and Hebrew to Greek and Latin; from Latin to the vernacular languages of Europe; and from those to nearly every modern language today, the modern Bible has undergone many translations. For the entire history of the Bible, councils consisting of scholars and religious leaders, learned in the scriptures and the politics of the church, have gathered to decide what to include and what not to include in the Bible sometimes for purely theological purposes, and other times for sociopolitical reasons - and how to properly translate it. In light of this, to some degree, one may already take the variations in content and specific language to assert that people are already, and have been, re-writing the Bible.

However, the differences between translations and formats of the Bible are not as drastic as the differences in dogma. The Christian church, from its inception, has argued, reformed, and split itself into the denominations we see today, and some that are lost to history. The chronology of the Christian church is ripe with conflicts: in the fourth century, the church was split into Trinitarians and the non-Trinitarians; The (East-West) schism of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches, spanning some three centuries and culminating in the fourteenth century; Calvinism and Protestantism against Catholicism in the sixteenth century. These are only several examples out of many, many more. However, all of these denominations base most of their dogma on essentially the same texts, and therefore, there is hardly a need to truly re-write the text, when the differences are a result of the various interpretations of, essentially, the same text.

Yet, the comparison to the idea of Wikipedia is viable, but it lies not in the various translations of the Bible, but rather in the interpretation of the text itself. With the availability of the Bible in over four hundred languages, the ability for non-ecclesiastical interpretation and study is unlimited. This, by far, exceeds the importance of changes made in translation. Before the invention of the printing press, all copies of the Bible - like any other text - were replicated painstakingly by hand. Possession of the texts were almost exclusively in the hands of the

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