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News‘Bible’ without “Allah” promoted in Book Fair
Published On May 29 , 2009
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KUALA LUMPUR: A ‘bible’ in Indonesian Malay but without the word “Allah” used in it was promoted during the International Book Fair held recently at the Putra World Trade Centre, Kuala Lumpur. The promoters had the book on display among other Islamic books on the first days of the Book Fair.
They also had leaflets for the whole period of the same Book Fair from April 17 - 26, among other Islamic leaflets, announcing that the “KITAB SUCI” has been printed.
Though they did not have any ‘Kitab Suci’ for sale, they instead suggested that the book be purchased on an online order using the website address they provided We are reminded of an earlier incident when a “Gospel of Barnabas” was on sale in a number of Muslim bookshops but not in any Christian bookshop. That ‘Gospel’, we know, is a false ‘gospel’ written by a Muslim.
On hearing of the publication — “Kitab Suci”, we wrote to the publishers in Indonesia to enquire if this edition of the “Kitab Suci” was approved by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference or the Bible Society of Indonesia (BSI). Our email returned with the tag ‘delivery failure’.
We then wrote to the two Authorities that approve the publication of the Bible in Indonesia. Their reply was in the negative. We were informed by a member of the Indonesian Bible Society that this “Kitab Suci” was done on the basis of J.P. Green’s literal translation. He wrote that “to some extent it differs from the earlier plagiaristic (sic) version.”
What this means is that there was an earlier version in which the word “Allah”, or God, was replaced with “Elohim” and “Tuhan” , or “Lord”, with “Yahweh” in the Kitab Suci. This is crass plagiarism! Faced with this situation, we read the first chapter of the Gospel of St John in English, and took note that there were only two words, namely GOD and LORD used in this chapter.
Then we turned to the ORIGINAL VERSION IN GREEK of the same first chapter of the Gospel according to John and we found that the terms “Elohim” and “Yahweh” were NOT used but instead “Theos” for God and “Kurios” for Lord.
Therefore, how can the publishers of “Kitab Suci” mention in the flyer distributed at PWTC that “it was not to make a new translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one but to make a good one better”? It is obvious that the original Greek version did not have ELOHIM and YAHWEH. Are these publishers, who have no authority to publish the Bible, saying that the original Greek version is wrong? What is their evidence for such an assumption?
What is certain, however, is that the publishers have cheated in the first instance by their manipulation of the words ELOHIM and YAHWEH, had second thoughts about their plagiarized version, and therefore have amended the current version of their “Kitab Suci”. This version varies from the earlier plagiaristic version. But the BSI pointed out to us that “anybody familiar with the Indonesian Standard Version (Alkitab Terjemahan Baru, 1974) would be able to detect their more covert plagiarism of the publishers of the “Kitab Suci.”
We as Christians are naturally disturbed by the fact that such a publication has been allowed to be promoted in Malaysia — one which does not have the approval of the authorities that give recognition to the credibility and trustworthiness of the translation of a bible. Are we, through this publication, condoning the stealing of another’s intellectual property without any qualms about this theft? This is outrageous, to say the least.
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