Logic and the Bible

Ed Edwards sig line:

All VALID English Language Bibles
Collectively and Individually
contain and are
the Inerrant and Perfect
Written Word of God
preserved by Divine Appointment
for the generation in which they are translated.


Amy G. Ed Edwards, how does one determine what a "valid translation" is? Especially if one isn't a Greek scholar? What do we use for comparison?

First a short History: Ed said in 2004:

All English Language Bibles
Collectively and Individually
contain and are
the Inerrant and Perfect
Written Word of God
preserved by Divine Appointment
for the generation in which they are translated.

But people said things like:

1. What about the NWT (New World Translations) that is translated to support the Jehovah's Witness (JW) POV (point of view)?

2. What about the Fisherman's Bible?

So I put in 'Valid' to make my statement technically correct.

In fact, it really is hard to tell that a 'suggested Bible' is indeed a 'valid Bible'. But it sure is easy to spot the invalid Bibles.

Being a Baptist, on a Baptist Board, I always suggest the Doctrine of Soul Competency and the Doctrine of the Priesthood of the Believer. Use the Bible that the Holy Spirit leads you to use. That Bible is the inerrant and perfect Written Word of God.

If there appears to be a conflict between two of your Bibles or within one Bible -- God sure didn't make that conflict/confusion. The Lord will show what the meaning is FOR YOU.

IMHO, the the purpose of this Version/Translation Forum is to discuss and share what we posters have found to be the best understanding of the Versions and Translations that we use, including the original languages, where there are those of us who know how to read such languages.

 

Ed, I have great respect your thoughts on translation topics however, doesn't you post contridict your position as stated in your sig? You say one is right and one is wrong, yet your sig says all "valid" versions are correct. How do you determin valid? Please tell me which Bibles are valid. According to your post there can only be one. Please clarify.

 

Which of the 30 or so TR's are you speaking of?

Does it bother you that the most commonly used KJV has added verses and is missing portions of Scripture that modern versions include?

 

I agree with your concept, but how do we know which is correct other than prayerfully search? For example I am not a KJO but have a strong leaning and preference for the KJV. What confuses me and most "common folk" I know, is how are the differences arrived at and which manuscripts are more reliable, I know the terms texus receptus and critical text, but really do not understand what give one more credibility than the other? Is there a simple explanation?

 

All of them disagree each other to minimum. All of Critical texts disagree each other to maximum. The Gospel of Mark, for example, TR showed 19 times and the CT showed 650+ times. Which one do you trust?

 

thegospelgeek: // You say one is right and one is wrongYou say one is right and one is wrong //

I did NOT say that. Someone else said it and I identified such a statement as WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. I'm sure everyone knows that // is used by me instead of " I can see the // much better

 

Both.

Read my LIPS:

 

It is a great blessing for us that we do not have the original manuscripts. If we did, people could claim that they had been altered and so we don't know what the originals say. Then every bible version would always be suspect.

Not having the originals and just the copies, even though some of those disagree on very minor points that do not affect doctrine, shows us that there are originals, and that the variances in the copies that we have are minimal.

 

Ed, have you read "The Message"? Is it inspired by God?

Ed, in some translations, the word "Jesus" is replaced by "God" in alot of places.
Do you think that this could skew the meaning of the text?

I do.

AJ

 

Logic?

Is Ed's argument logical? I dont for a second doubt that God could inspire a modern translation if He chooses to. But it is not logical that God would inspire every one of the hundrends of english translations we have today.

Just as every church doesnt teach the true gospel, every MV is NOT inspired by God.

AJ

 

:applause:

 

Well, it would be convenient if there were clearly just two distinct types of manuscripts. However, reality just isn't surgically precise. You're ignoring that there are other textual 'families' (like the Western text type), and that these are just subjective manmade categories. MSS have been sorted in numerous ways (while many have been hardly examined at all). In addition, many individual manuscripts exhibit mixed variants which would align them with multiple families.

 

Actually, there are complete manuscript Bibles in existence. Most of these would be Latin Bible and be fairly recent (such as from the 13th - 15th centuries). Remember, manuscripts were even being made AFTER the advancement of Gutenberg's moveable type. The word "complete" can also be misleading since many early Bibles intentionally exhibit different contents (by including apocryphal works, or excluding some late NT books). You must specify if you mean ancient original language MSS.

 

OK, That makes more sense based on what I have read from you previously. For a moment I thought you jumped the fence.

Didn't know you used // inplace of ". I'll keep that in mind from now on.

 

I think we do have the complete text. I believe that we have the complete texts of both the Hebrew scriptures and the apostolic Greek writings from the first century in the combined ancient witnesses. In part, this must be accepted by faith (although there is a lot of good evidence to support this proposition).

As you have pointed out, there are differences [variants] in the source manuscripts. Obviously, some of these variants are not original (some are even clearly errors of the pen); therefore, we have extra words (more than enough). So, we should prayerfully work toward eliminating the extraneous text that we think we can logically exclude (safely ruled out as non-original words). People's presuppositions [bias] affect the criteria through which these variants are viewed and evaluated. This is why some variants are accepted by some groups and rejected by others.

Trying to frame this as a dualistic issue is a gross oversimplification.

 

Marcia is making a VERY important point, which I would like to expand. God has determined that we should not have the original documents on which the prophets and apostles wrote upon. God could have several other reasons for this, which I will not attempt to enumerate here.

But it is the very fact that the manuscripts we have ARE COPIES that assure us that the God's words have been preserved. You see, all those copies (with their blemishes, errors, and variants) allow us to reconstruct the original text with a very high level of certainty. How? Because the many diverse witnesses that agree with a common reading expose the error of a few manuscripts with a peculiar variant.

However, we must be careful about how the witnesses are gathered. I think that geographic and chronologic diversity is key. For example, the witness of three people (all strangers to each other) is more credible than the witness of six people that are all family members. Why? Not just because of the prospect of natural bias; but perhaps all the family relatives could suffer from the same poor visual acuity (or something else). A group of witnesses should be regarded more trustworthy when exhibiting a diverse provenance.

 

There are some of these same type differences in "the line of received MSS." There are some of these same type differences in the pre-1611 English Bibles of which the KJV was a revision. Some examples where some printed Greek Textus Receptus N. T.'s and where the KJV disagrees with the majority of Greek manuscripts in "the line of received MSS" can be found in the thread entitled "Majority (Byzantine) Text English Translations. It seems that KJV-only advocates avoid dealing with that evidence and fact.

 

One important fact is that they still disagree with the same type of differences [regardless of whether the number of differences is more or less].

For example, the first two editions of the Greek text edited by Erasmus did not have three verses [Mark 11:26, Luke 17:36, and 1 John 5:7] that are found in some later editions. Those first two editions of the Textus Receptus by Erasmus did not have some other phrases or clauses [Mark 15:3c, John 8:6, John 8:9, John 8:59c, James 4:6b, 1 John 2:23b, Revelation 18:23a, Revelation 21:26] according to the pre-1611 English Bibles based on them. The third, fourth, and fifth editions of the Greek text by Erasmus do not seem to have had Mark 11:26 and Luke 17:36 and some of those same phrases or clauses. Edward F. Hills acknowledged that the first three editions of the Greek text by Stephanus also omitted Luke 17:36 "with the majority of the Greek manuscripts" (KJV Defended, p. 221).