Former KJVO whose eyes are now open!

I second, Michelle! I agree! Amen!

 

Deborah, I would not want to try to scare you away from anything that was a blessing from God. I would try to scare you into serving God, if it was called for. Some save with fear, right? Anyway, this is the version debate forum after all

I have somewhat against the MV's however. I have a question. It goes like this.

The bible says:
2 Corinthians 13:1
This is the third time I am coming to you. In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.

Matthew 24:35
Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

Mark 13:31
Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.

Luke 21:33
Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.

Are these the words of Jesus?

Luke 4 (KJV)
4 And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.

Or not?

Luke 4 (HCSB)
4 But Jesus answered him, "It is written: Man must not live on bread alone.

 

When I first saw those footnotes I asked some questions. But when I got answers I had a much greater respect for the translators and their honesty. At the end of it all I felt as though we have the best Bible we have ever had. I am confident of that more than ever.

 

This is one of my problems with some of the modern versions.

There is plenty of reason for including the ending of this verse. Good sound manuscripts included it. It has historically been included:

The Vulgate ended the verse - "in omni verbo Dei"
Wycliff ended the verse - "but in euery word of God."
The Geneva ended the verse - "but by euery word of God."

I think this was a poor choice by many modern translators, (the NKJV ends "but by every word of God". Holman followed the pattern of others by leaving off the ending phrase, which at least adds clarity to the Lord's statement and which is substantiated by good, sound Greek texts.

I don't beleive these translators were bad men, I don't beleive they or they work are the "spawn of Satan." I do wonder about passages like this.

 

Deborah

We use the KJV in our Church. When preparing for SS classes, I usually study the scripture in the NASB and ESV, along with the KJV. I don't use the NKJV as much as I once did because it is so similar to the KJV that it is almost redundant. Of course, the syntax, punctuation and vocabularly has been updated in the NKJV, very similar to other modern formal translations.

If you want an MV that matches well with the KJV, then the NKJV would be much better than the HCSB. You would not have to make any of those "amendments" in the margins, as you described.

 

I agree with Michael,

For my tastes and after my own personal study, for those who have difficulties with the KJV I would definetly suggest the NKJV.

 

Luke 4 (KJV)
4 And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.

Luke 4 (HCSB)
4 But Jesus answered him, "It is written: Man must not live on bread alone.

C4K: "This is one of my problems with some of the modern versions. There is plenty of reason for including the ending of this verse. Good sound manuscripts included it [....] I think this was a poor choice by many modern translators [...] I don't beleive these translators were bad men, I don't beleive they or they work are the "spawn of Satan." I do wonder about passages like this.

This passage was part of the SBC Sunday school lesson two weeks ago. The SBC literature prints the HCSB and KJV in parallel columns.

Usually minor variations do not cause much of a stir, but this one did, particularly since the explanation in the lesson did little to resolve the problem ("the HCSB translators followed a different manuscript [sic] than the translators of the KJV"].

The perceptive people in the SS class (all adults) raised the issue that "both cannot be correct", and that "if it is only the matter of one manuscript against another, who is to know which is correct?" (obviously taking the wording of the SS commentary at face value.

Thankfully, I happened to have (as always) a Nestle Greek NT with me and pointed out that it was an issue of 5 Alexandrian MSS omitting (Aleph B L W 1241 versus all other Greek MSS of all other textyypes, and all other versions except the Old Syriac Sinaitic MS, the Egyptian Coptic Bohairic and part of the Egyptian Coptic Sahidic version (the latter two normally expected to be in agreement with the Alexandrian MSS).

I pointed out that the only issue was the opinion as to which group of MSS was considered the best, and the the HCSB reflected the judgment of their translators.

The class (without any further input from me) voted to overrule the HCSB translators (i.e. "we think they missed the boat here"), and also agreed that the comments as printed in the SS literature were very misleading, and were so written only to justify the HCSB decision at that point.

 

Thanks for the information - brilliant!

 

Deborah,
It is obvious that certain people in the KJVO crowd are still throwing out issues that confuse people and make them doubt the Word of God. Just as the Holman may have a few translational mistakes, so has it proven that the KJV does.

Only the original manuscripts (which we do not have today) contained the exact "words" God inspired. There is probably a good reason for the lack of originals. If we had them, people would be making "holy trips" to see them and would worship them instead of God.

God promised (as shown by everybody) to keep his "Words". Obviously, this is often misquoted because His Words are in another language. Therefore, we rely on translations. The KJV is just one of those translations. Every mainstream translation contains the "Words" of God. They can say all they want to about leaving out a line here, changing a word from "Jesus" to "His", when it is obvious who the Bible is talking about. The modern translators simply felt that at looking at the manuscript evidence that they were doing the best they could to maintain the accuracy of the originals when translated into English. We don't know which of these ancient documents are exact.

BUT, HERE IS THE POINT, the Word of God is preserved in all of the mainstream Bible translations----this is the reason the KJVO's cannot go to the thread where Dr. Bob asked: "Where is the doctrine of Salvation changed?"

They stay away from doctrinal changes and if they do try to answer a doctrinal change, they can only quote a single passage here and there. The Bible is a set of books combined into ONE -- Word of God. Therefore, in its context, they have been unable to prove that ANY doctrinal changes have occurred.

Now to answer your question on what MV to use for your study Bible.

Here is the bottom line. Most people tend to believe the KJV stuck mostly to the Textus Receptus (received text) -- just another name for a set of old manuscripts put together (to keep it simple). Many new versions use older manuscripts, but, like the NIV, it will often tell you whether or not manuscripts contain a certain passage in the footnotes. So, you have to make your own choice about whether or not those particular sentences were added by a well-meaning scholar who was trying to strengthen his message when he copied the scriptures (and this was known to have happened).

The real problem is, the KJV was not so much a NEW translation, it used a LOT of the wording of the Geneva Bible and the Bishop's Bible. When in doubt, on manuscript info, it would often resort to using the Vulgate (Latin) translation to fill in the blanks. The translators of the KJV did a decent job in translating what they had and with the corrections that have occurred since 1611 (including dumping the apocryapha) the KJV has become a fairly accurate translation.

Like you, though, many of us find it hard to read. Regardless of people who say: "Oh, my six year old reads it without problems. I seriously doubt that. The six year old may THINK she knows what some of the words mean, but in reality they have different meanings today. Dr. Bob once provided us a list of some of those words (at least I believe it was him.)

Many of the KJVO somehow think because God said He would preserve His words, that the KJV is somehow mystically inspired. The KJV is ONLY 400 years old out of 2000 years. This does make it a long running Bible, but if we were to use this as criteria, we would be better just translating the Latin Vulgate to English, because it has been around much over 1000 years.

Translations are just that---translations. God promised to keep His Words.

If you want to stick to the Textus Receptus (that the KJV doesn't even stick to very well.) then use the NKJV. If you have doubts about the manuscripts used in the translation, then simply use the NKJV. Remember, this only effects the New Testament, I don't think there is much doubt that the Jews maintained the Old Testament with great accuracy and very few changes occur between the two major text groups.

It is always habit for us to compare a new translation with the KJV. This is because we grew up with the KJV. When the KJV was modified in the past, there was out outcry. Then a generation later, people accepted it.

The KJV was only accepted as the only Bible in the English realm because King James made it so by decree. When you burn all of the other translations and force one translation on the group of people then you will find out that YES it will be a primary translation. But, then again there are millions of copies of the Koran, do we believe it. NOOOO.

If we are incapable of reading Greek, then we look for differences in DOCTRINE among translations. To date, except for verses pulled out of context as above, they have yet to see a change in doctrine. You see, the Word of God is not one verse, it is the entire book. A drop of a few words at any one place will not effect the book because doctrine is shown to us in numerous places. This is the reason God gave us four seperate witnesses (the gospels) to Jesus Christ. Any single one of those gospels would be enough, but He provided us more, so that we could use "logic" to see that more than one person witnessed this Christ of ours.

I hope this helps a little, I tried to stay away from the deep technical conversation and stick to common horse sense that God gave us.

If we feel that the Lord is telling us something, then we must see if it is in variance with the Bible. If it is, we are to question it. We are told in the Bible to question the spirits. If God "tells" someone that the KJV is the ONLY Bible, then what does the Bible say about this? Even in the KJV, you do not find it saying there will only be one translation in this later day language of English.

Therefore, we must be wary of people who say "God told me". The Mormons believe God told them that the Book of Mormon is an addition to the Bible by a "burning feeling in the bossom." This is later day revelation and so is KJVOnlyism. It is just not in the Bible, even the KJV.

 

If I am in your list it will be the very first time I have been called that. A lot of those folks have very little regard for me .

 

If I am in your list it will be the very first time I have been called that. A lot of those folks have very little regard for me . </font>[/QUOTE]You are not on my list unless you believe the KJV is "inspired".

Personally, I have no problems with KJV preferred. Textus receptus preferred, etc.

But, "KJV ONLY is the only Word of God in English", I have a problem with that.

I have never heard you say that. I myself tend to lean towards the Textus Receptus, but that is a personal opinion that I would not place on anybody here because, like I say, it is only my opinion. God has spoken to me often through other MVs too. But, then I am not going to claim any new revelations.

I think we are in sync. I was simply trying to show her the difference between the manuscripts so that she can make up her own mind. The absolute truth of everything in this world will only be known when we have a glorified mind that is capable of understanding it.

Again, just my opinion. . .


Added with edit: By the way C4K, there is absolutely nothing wrong with trying to compare translations and determine which one contains the most accurate wording based on what we believe were the original words. I tend to believe the ending of Mark is okay, but it does not apply to us today because he was talking to first century Christians when miracles were still being used by God to prove His Son was Jesus.

 

Philip: "except for verses pulled out of context as above, they have yet to see a change in doctrine. You see, the Word of God is not one verse, it is the entire book. A drop of a few words at any one place will not effect the book because doctrine is shown to us in numerous places."

While not disputing the doctrinal integrity of any well-translated version, the "out of context" claim is not valid.

To return to the SS lesson mentioned above: in that passage of Lk 4, this was *not* the only instance, with merely one single verse "pulled out of context". I mentioned Lk 4:4, since that was where the discussion began. Within that same Lk 4 passage, the SS literature also showed the HCSB and the KJV differing over the additional phrases:

Lk 4:5 KJV "And the devil, taking him up into a high mountain, shewed unto him...."
Lk 4:5 HCSB "So he took Him up and showed Him..."

Lk 4:8 KJV "And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get the behind me, Satan: for it is written...."
Lk 4:8 HCSB "And Jesus answered him, It is written..."

In each case, the SS commentary simply dismissed the difference on the ground that the HCSB translators followed a different "manuscript" than the KJV translators, without any further comment or explanation. As I continued to point out, in each of these three cases, it tended to be the same grouping of MSS and versions on either side, and the HCSB translators were following the line that they deemed to be "best".

As noted, the class chose to disagree, not only in Lk 4:4, but in all three instances.

There was also some annoyance over the fact that the phrase "answered and said" was reduced to "answered" in the HCSB, even though there are *no* Greek MSS that omit the phrase "and said" (this was being done for dynamic equivalency readability purposes).

There was some comment that "if the translators eliminate 'by every word of God' following some 5 MSS, no surprise that they might do the same when *no* MSS omit." I had to let that comment pass, since this was getting to be too touchy a discussion.

Philip: "certain people in the KJVO crowd are still throwing out issues that confuse people and make them doubt the Word of God.

BTW, I do not use and never have used the KJV since my conversion many years ago (just in case anyone might think that or try to suggest some sort of guilt by associaton).

 

What does Matt. 16:23 say in the Holman. I honestly don't know. I do not have a copy here. If it says what I think it is going to say, then understand my point that no "doctrine" is changed.

Your class may vote that the original manuscript said "Satan" instead of "he", what does the Greek say? Sure, it could be a weak spot in the translation, but weak spots can be pointed in in the KJV also.

Then again, it is obvious what either Bible is referring to, so just because your class voted which way it should be does not mean that the original manuscript said it that way. A class in the Mormon church will vote that Satan is Jesus' brother, and we all know that is ridiculous.

 

Philip: "just because your class voted which way it should be does not mean that the original manuscript said it that way."

Our class would *never* presume to be able to "vote in" or "vote out" any given texts solely on their own inclination.

The class consensus was that -- in their *reasoned* opinion (these are intelligent adults, mostly all college-educated), *after* hearing the state of the evidence from the Nestle-Aland Greek text and apparatus -- they *considered* that the HCSB translators *may* have followed the wrong MSS. Nothing more.

Mt 16:23 is not the parallel; rather it is Mt 4:4, 8, 10. And, unless you want to get into the textual/manuscript issues involved in the Matthean passages (where other variants exist in relation to the same phrases), let me suffice to say that the wording of those parallels -- regardless of texttype -- are *not* strictly "parallel" to what appears in *either* text of Lk 4 at those points.

Philip: "weak spots can be pointed in in the KJV also".

As noted previously, this is *not* a KJV issue, nor even a TR issue, but a division between one texttype (Alexandrian) reading one way, and all other texttypes (Byzantine, Western, Caesarean) reading the other way. I think only one person in our class actually uses the KJV, and the only reason the KJV was mentioned was due to the KJV being published opposite the HCSB in the SS lesson.

 

I believe we agree. I just wanted to make sure it was clarified so that some people on the board would not mis-use what you wrote.

By the way, I am at my office where all I have is a NKJV that I can barely read because of the fine print. My study Bibles and Greek texts are at home. I was simply trying to remember verses from memory and I do have difficulty with strict memorization. I am good at concepts, but not good with specific word memory.

Also, I don't believe you did, but it sounded a bit like you were implying that education made a person better. I have two advanced degrees and two BS degrees. I am no better than someone who did not finish high-school. I honestly don't feel you meant it to sound that way, but that is the way I first perceived it. Others may do the same.
Your answers work well. Thank you!

 

How pleasant it is when brethren dwell in unity....

My mistake was in speaking colloquially in my first post on Lk 4:4 by saing "voted", when all I was speaking of was a general common consent, with no opposition expressed.

I likewise don't want anyone to misuse or misinterpret what I said; hence the clarifications.

 

If we ever remember anything in looking at leaders it ought to be in Hebrews 13:7, "Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you; and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith."

I want to see the results of the person's life before I will follow them. That tells me about the faith they possess not just claim to have.

 

Deborah, a good investment for any serious English-using Bible student is a replica AV 1611, such as the Hendrickson Edition, which duplicates every word between the covers of the original.


James... speaking of opposite meanings...What does SUFFER often mean in the KJV? And how about "let"? If the reader isn't familiar w/archaic English, quite a bit of confusion can result!

I've often told the story of the Korean-immigrant doctor who hade been saved while living here, and asked me if he could borrow a Bible to read until his Korean-language version arrived. W/o thinking I handed him one of my KJVs. No prob till he came to "Suffer little children"! Even though he spoke excellent English, it was modern "schoolbook" English and he had no idea of the old meanings of words used both then and now. he did NOT know 'suffer' in those days also meant 'allow'.