Page 84 - Yahwehs Book

Variant Readings

Variorum New Testament
(The Variorum Edition of the New Testament of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ: Translated Out
of the Original Greek, and with the Former Translations Diligently Compared and Revised by His
Majesty’s Special Command: with Various Renderings and Readings)

The zealous student of the holy Scriptures who desires to arrive at the knowledge of the truth would
be greatly assisted by being able to examine where the ancient manuscripts and various textual
sources of the Bible differ from one another. By having this information readily available, the Bible
student can meditate upon the variant readings of the most ancient Scriptural sources, and, with the
illumination of the Holy Spirit, have some hope of arriving at the original author’s meaning.

Adopting an essentially literal translation method does not guarantee a flawless Bible version that
is faithful to the original Hebrew and Greek texts. Bible translators must choose what is the best,
most authentic, and accurate rendering of the Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament. The
majority of English Bible translations provide only one rendering of a word, phrase, or sentence. Yet,
the source texts that they are working from may present more than one possible meaning. Because
of the way in which ancient Hebrew was written, having no vowels, a large number of words had
to be determined by the context in which they were found. To give an example in English, if we
remove all vowels, then the letters “wrd” have many possible interpretations. They could represent
the following: word, ward, wired, weird, wearied, etc.. We would only know which is the proper
word by the context in which it is found. In some cases, more than one possibility may make sense.
Additionally, there are a significant number of Hebrew and Greek words that contain multiple
meanings. The translators must determine which definition of a word is most appropriate in the
context in which it is found. For example, consider the various meanings that the following short
English phrase could convey.

The fan roared.