The Christ Family Bible

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Translator's Preface

Do you know that Ancient Greek words and clauses usually have multiple possible senses?

You can easily confirm that by checking larger, rather than abridged or concise, dictionaries, like LSJ, DGE, or BDAG, where each word usually is held to be polysemous (has more than a single sense).

Do you know that the New Testament warns that there is a supremely great danger for readers and hearers of the holy scriptures, because there is always a potential to interpret them to one's own destruction (2 Peter 3:16), a problem likely addressed by the Lord Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount where He warns Humanity to take the narrow gate leading into life rather than the wide gate into destruction (Matthew 7:13-14)?

Do you know that Bible versions have, for many centuries, often only provided only a wide-gate (liberal, licentious) interpretation, not even mentioning the existence of a narrow-gate (restrictive, holy) interpretation?

Examples:

Luke 16:9

Nearly all known Bible versions do not even note that the Lord's utterance to His disciples can be read as an ironic, rhetorical question ("Also I tell you, 'Make friends for yourselves from the mammon of injustice, so that when it fail, they may welcome you into the eternal dwellings!'?"), rather than a commandment to imitate an embezzling, entrapping house manager. And yet the immediately following verses record the Lord giving multiple and supremely dire warnings to avoid being untrustworthy with even the smallest matters.

Matthew 5:28

Nearly all known Bible versions do not even note that the Lord can be interpreted to be saying that looking at a married woman to lust after her is adultery committed in the heart. By only giving readers and hearers their interpretation that the Lord taught that looking at any woman to lust after her is adultery in the heart, Bible versions open a wide gate of destructive life conduct based on the premise that because looking with lust on a member of the opposite sex occurs for many people without wanting to do so, Christ should be understood to mean that it is impossible to lead a life without committing actions that can be grounds for one's condemnation by Almighty God.

1 Corinthians 14:34-35

Nearly all known Bible versions do not even note that Saint Paul the Apostle can be interpreted to be saying that married women (not all women) must be silent in ecclesial meetings, to protect their marital relationships. Even though Saint Paul immediately then explains that the right course of action is for them to ask their own men (or husbands) at home, and has earlier in the same letter stated that it is preferable for Christian disciples to remain unmarried, Bible versions choose an incoherent interpretation that attacks the holiness of Christian women by implying that God does not give them the spiritual gifts that require speaking in ecclesial gatherings, such as teaching like Priscilla in Acts 18:1-14, prophesying like Anna in Luke 2:36-40, or leading the people of Almighty God victoriously like Deborah in Judges 4:4-5:31, Judith and Esther.

The Christ Family Bible is an ongoing translation into English of those ancient Scriptures that are held to be divinely inspired by Almighty God's Holy Spirit, by ancient Christian traditions.

This translation seeks to be scientific (providing reliable knowledge), which here means translating with awareness of the following principles:

(1) Multiple possible meanings can be intended by Almighty God, in order to provide a choice of a narrow gate or a wide gate. Principles operating in the background here are a Competitive Principle of Communication and a Cooperative Principle of Communication. For more about this, please see Language Sciences research articles cited in my brief introductory article, "Why is the NT Ambiguous?"

(2) No Addition, No Subtraction is a principle described for example in the Revelation of Saint John:

"I witness to everyone who is hearing the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone would add to these things, the God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book; and if anyone would take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, the God will take away his part in the tree of the life and in the holy city, in the things written in this book." (Revelation 22:18-19, CFB)

The Christ Family Bible aims to apply this principle as literally and faithfully as possible: every word in the ancient manuscripts should be represented in the modern translation, which sometimes requires the reader or hearer to exercise patience and thinking about unusual or even wholly new ways of speaking their modern language. Likewise, italic font (like this) or brackets (like this [____]) are used to clarify for readers that a word or words have been added, for the purposes usually of providing understandable modern speech, and sometimes of providing an important clarification.

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR READERS: If you copy text from The Christ Family Bible to share with others, please do not ignore the presence of italics in whatever you are copying and pasting elsewhere, so that you can avoid misleading your readers and hearers about what is in the ancient manuscripts. A forthcoming update of The Christ Family Bible will, hopefully, use only brackets rather than italics, to assist that process.

(3) Information preservation

The translation should try as much as possible to preserve the information in the best ancient manuscripts.

(4) Readers, including translators, ought to seek the maximal imaginable coherence of the texts, given the extreme credibility of their appearing among the traditionally holy scriptures by the design of Almighty God.

That seeking can include acknowledgement that contradictions for example between accounts of the same event, or contradictions by apostles of the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ, can be present by design, in order to train God's adopted children to differentiate between divine authority (the Lord's) and human authority (for example, Saint Paul's), and to look with compassion and mercy on the stumblings of even the most respected human Christian teachers, which the Apostle Saint James warns will happen even to them as a rule (James 3:2).

Internal contradictions may be allowed by Almighty God according to principles of Loyalty Testing, Loyalty Training, Competitive Communication, and Acceptability of Testimony Agreed by Multiple Witnesses.

Will you oppose a commandment from the Lord by standing on a word from a human teacher like the apostle Paul or apostle John?

Will you depart from the love of truth?

Will you treat the human authors of the New Testament with due mercy upon recognising errors?

Saint Paul for example appears to contradict the Lord on remarriage and eating things sacrificed to idols. Compare Matthew 5:32 with 1 Corinthians 7:11-15 on remarriage, and on food sacrificed to idols compare Revelation 2:20 with 1 Corinthians 10:25.

The apostle John can be interpreted to contradict the Lord on helping apostates. Compare Luke 10:25-37 with 1 John 2:10.

John's Gospel contradicts Matthew's and Luke's about the manner and timing of John the Baptist's awareness that Jesus of Nazareth is the promised messiah (anointed one). Compare John 1:29-36 with Matthew 11:3-6 and Luke 7:18-23. Are these and other such conflicts among accounts due to Christian disciples following the Multiple-Witness Rule that is stated in the Old Testament and, as research has shown, is evidently honoured in the Lord's recorded utterances about how people can verify His identity? Please see my article, "Does the Multiple Witness Rule Explain New Testament Mysteries?"

(5) The priority of Ancient Greek textual witnesses

The first churches appear to have used, perhaps without exception, the Ancient Greek manuscripts of what is frequently called the Old Testament*. Also recommending these manuscripts is that many Hebrew manuscripts could have been subject to corruption, even intentional tampering in order to make them less consistent with the New Testament.

Call to support the work of evangelisation

Please support the work of evangelisation: with prayers for evangelisation (Colossians 4:3) and material support (1 Corinthians 9:14). If you would like more information about how to support evangelisation, you are welcome to write to stjohn316@protonmail.com.

Who is the translator?

JJ Mathias Thomas is a born-again, Holy-Spirit baptised disciple of the Lord and Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, the incarnate Word of the Almighty and eternal God.

His online book A Guide to Misleading Bible Quotes is published for free reading here

https://sites.google.com/view/misleading-bible-quotes/introduction