[rayhale]

There are two different points of view in Bible translation. One is what I will call, a dumbed down version, and the other is a version that is true to the original that is in modern English.
I don’t have web links but these two points of view can be seen in these two articles of ‘Christianity Today’ :
‘Meaning-full translations’ by Eugene A. Nida
‘We really do need another Bible translation’ by Raymond C. Van Leeuwen
The first article is about how the Bible uses old and unused words that we don’t know, or have changed to mean the opposite thing then what is intended. Mr. Nida believes people need translations that make the Bible more understandable to today’s people. Sometimes, not always, even at the expense of what was said. For example, in the second article it says that in a pig-sacrificing area of the world, the translator of the Bible said that Jesus was a ‘pig-herd’ instead of a ‘shepherd’, because they understood the importance of a pig and not of sheep. Now how more of a wrong of a translation than that is there? Throughout the Old Testament, pigs were unclean so it wouldn’t be right to totally change what is said, because it would also change dramatically what is meant.
In the second article it does agree that the Bible is hard to understand but it just forces us to study and learn what is said and also what is meant. Translations can never be perfect but I do think with all of the Bible manuscripts out there and the Dead Sea Scrolls, we can make sure, more now then ever before, what was said and what was meant.
I’m not totally against a modern English version of the Book of Mormon, yet I feel that you need to be careful about it. For example, there’s those Bibles that have the King James Version on one side of the page and some other version, like the Basic English Version on the other side of the page. I feel this is the only way a new version of the Book of Mormon, or even the Bible, should be published. This way you can read the different versions and make up your mind as to what is meant.