Many causal readers of the Bible are unaware of what their teachers are using for their teaching text. Most congregates never consider the language. If they even read their Bibles, they only look at an English translation. However, the Bible was not written in English. It was written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, and many passages lose a lot in translation. Most translators favor simple messages of salvation or grace over technical, historic, or cultural significant’s of a passage.

The Old Testament

In the 2nd and 3rd century BC, a group of Jews in Alexandria, Egypt, translated the Old Testament into Greek, this translation is called the Septuagint or the LXX and is favored by many scholars. (The term LXX comes from a tradition that 70 Jews worked on this translation.)

However, the Septuagint version of Daniel that most of us have access to is not the original Septuagint version, but one made in the 2nd century AD by Theodotion. This is because the Septuagint version is so full of fanciful Rabbinic interpretive translations from the 3rd or 2nd century BC that was useless to those who believe that Yeshua/Jesus is the Messiah. They wrote what they thought the passages meant or would mean, rather than a more useful, wooden translation that let the reader consider the meaning.

There are several verses in Daniel where it is extremely hard to figure out the meaning. God says this is so the wicked won’t understand. [Dan. 12:10] This makes translation difficult. Without understanding the meaning, translation is difficult. Then of course, there are the verses where the translator is sure what the passage means, and translates the verse accordingly. Only to be shown later to have been seriously biased in their thinking.

The only real solution is to read the original Hebrew and Aramaic. Then it because clear that things are not so clear and settled as the English translations make them out to be.