Honest question: How many Revisions can it go through before it's not really the Word of God anymore?
Revision (done well) goes the other way. It's not revising what God said; it's revising modern-language Bibles to conform to what God said. This happens in at least 3 different ways.
First, the languages we use today go through
changes. That's why the KJV of 1611 is slightly different from the KJV of 1769 (that's most KJVs printed today). Obviously, some people prefer an old-timey-sounding Bible. I'm currently reading through the KJV for the first time, just because I like the "sound" of it. But there are complications when people today try to understand a Bible version from 400 years ago.
Secondly, thousands of very ancient manuscripts (from complete documents to fragments) have been discovered since the initial round of Reformation-era translations in the 16th-17th centuries. Some of those have corrected our ideas about what the original autographs of Scripture really said, but none of them were so consequential that it made the old translations obsolete.
Third, there have also been advances in our understanding of ancient languages. Here is a famous example:
https://www.journaloftheology.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Sharps_Rule_A_Summary-1.pdfOne problem some people have here is they believe each revision or translation is just part of a long game of telephone, where errors constantly build up, until it really is a ship of Theseus at the end. In reality, the latest revision or translation can (and will be) checked against documents from thousands of years ago. English translations are compared to ancient Syrian ones. Spanish versions are compared to ancient Hebrew, etc.
Like, I assume someone with ill intent could do a "translation" that just crosses into heresy and call it the "New Revised Bible for Modern Audiences" or some such.
It happens. The aforementioned Passion Translation, the New World Translation, etc. A lot of people think any English version after the KJV is in that category.
So how do you decide which Revision has kept the "Literal Word of God" part? Does one just read a new revision and see if it's close enough in meaning to an older revision that was accepted? Are there scholars that know Ancient Greek and Aramaic and read new revisions to let the community know if it's still the Word?
Both. One of the reasons why newer translations undergo regular revisions is because people point out shortcomings of various translations.
I'm not being snarky. One of the things that has always confused me about Christianity is the insistence (by some Christians) that the bible is the literal Word of God. Like, Which one? I know the broad strokes don't change all that much between versions, but man some of the words sure do.
All of them. Obviously, not the ones you mentioned above, that promote outright heresy. But all the translations done in good faith are the Word of God. There will definitely be differences of opinion about how to translate anything from one language into another. So it's not surprising there are different versions. But that doesn't mean we don't know everything we need to know of what was originally said. I'm OK with not fully understanding every nuance of something written by God. He could say it in 21st-century English, on a billboard, and I'd still miss something. But God can still get his point across - he's God. He's too divine for us to fully understand, but because he's all-powerful, he can also communicate what he needs to, even to silly creatures like us.
A common bone of contention, when it comes to changes in language, is gender-specific vs gender-neutral language. 200 years ago, no one would read a passage like "the just man walketh in his integrity: his children are blessed after him," and think it only applies to men. A lot of "modern versions" will use a word like "person," instead of "man" because so many people today will read "man" in that verse, and think it's excluding women. It's a change that makes sense, at least for "modern audiences" but I still prefer "man," if that's what was in the original language. Turns out, the Hebrew really says something closer to the "the just walk in their integrity," so
a man one could translate it either way.
The closest thing we have to serious differences in Bible translation is the question of whether certain passages were originally part of the 1st-century New Testament, but later excluded; or if they were added later, and should no longer be included.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_Testament_verses_not_included_in_modern_English_translationsThose sound like serious problems, but including or excluding them hasn't changed major points of Christian doctrine. Also, a lot of those passages are duplicated elsewhere in Scripture, so "removing" them from one book of the Bible doesn't really eliminate them, because they're still there.
I could go on at some length, I guess, but there's only 8 hours left in this year, so...
