Perfect Translation

Hello again C4K

I have never heard, that “Other English version were illegal”:
(I will check into that.)

But regardless of it being a “government authorized translation” or not, God Blessed it.
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As for the charge, that I called everyone who didn’t use it, as suffering from unbelief:
(That is not exactly what I said.)

What I was saying was that, anyone thinking that God’s Word can not be found in a single Bible and being forced to “do their own search”, through countless versions of the Bible, have a problem with unbelief.

Don’t you agree?
-I know you don't, but you should.-

 

Of course I do not agree with this modernistic teaching. I hold to traditional conservative Christian views of translation. Your consistent charge that others struggle with belief is unjustified, untrue, and uncalled for.

If you could provide one shred of Bible evidence for 'one translationism' you would give me reason to consider your view. Otherwise. my faith and belief is based on scripture, not modern reasoning.

 

In the early church about 2% of the people could even read. At the time of the start of the NT the people did not have a NT. Were they filled with unbelief?

 

You might want to re-word your question. Nobody says that God's words cannot be found in a single Bible nor do they say in a single version. The fact is that the Bible wasn't written in English. We use translations done by scholars to read the Bible in our language. There is nothing wrong, nor anything to do with unbelief, to read multiple versions. If anything, it is unbelief in one set of translators.

 

Good morning jbh28

Thanks for the correction: I should have said “version” instead of “Bible”.

And your right; My main concern is in the area of “today’s scholars”
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The old saying is, “the most accurate translation is the newest translation”.
But that is only true if the wickedness of man remains static.

But the Bible does say.......
2 Timothy 3:13
“But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.”

 

There you go again - calling Bible translators 'evil men and seducers.'

With that logic we should reject the KJV because those men were more evil than the Geneva Bible team, and they were more wicked than than the Bishop's team, etc.

And who said 'the most accurate translation is the newest?' No one here would make that claim.

 

Hi C4K

I never attributed it to this forum:

It is just something that I have heard; meaning that as man’s wisdom increases, and more scrolls are found, therefore the Bible improves.

But the fly in that ointment, is the work of Wescott & Hort.

 

The Bible doesn't improve. What improves is our ability to accurately translate the Bible. If you don't agree with the critical text, then stick with a TR translation. There is nothing wrong with that, but don't say that all modern translators are deceiving.

Westcott and Hort's Greek text isn't used for todays translations. It is similar because a similar process is used. But putting more weight on older copies is not a bad way to look at textual criticism.

 

Well, I don't agree that the true word of God is hidden away somewhere. God wants us to know his Word, I cannot imagine he would hide it from us.

And yes, I know about the differences between the Oxford and Cambridge. Many claim the Cambridge is the jot and tittle perfect translation. I tend to actually believe this myself, although I own a Cambridge that has several of the so-called "errors".

For the average person these so-called errors would be almost meaningless. They are almost always a spelling or capitalisation difference only. Here is a list showing the differences between many various KJBs.

http://www.bibleprotector.com/editions.htm

So, as anyone can see, in almost every case the difference is spelling or capitalisation, and does not change the context and meaning of a verse whatsoever.

Those who hate the KJB love to point these differences out, which is just about as hypocritical as you can get. The differences between the MVs is not simply spelling and capitalisation, thousands of verses are completely different, and many times a different understanding is construed from them.

 

I completely disagree with you here. I do not believe today's scholars are better than those who translated the KJB. The men who translated the KJB were some of the most knowledgeable men concerning the ancient languages ever assembled.

These were just some of the men who translated the KJB. I seriously doubt you could find a man on earth who could compare to just these three men in ability.

Modern man loves to pride himself as being more intelligent than men of the past, yet we still cannot understand how the Egyptians built the pyramids or mummified people.

So, this idea that somehow men are more intelligent or skilled than men of the past is absurd.

And concerning Wescott and Hort's methods, this is the greatest problem with MVs. They relied on Dynamic Equivilence which means a person can interpret scripture to mean anything they wish it to mean. The translator acts as a teacher, who doesn't actually translate, but interprets the scripture not as to what it says, but how HE understands it. The KJB was translated using Formal Equivilence, which means they translated the scriptures as to what they directly said, and left the interpretation up to the reader.

So, with Dynamic Equivilence, the translation necessarily is written according to the author's bias or theology. It is unavoidable. With Formal Equivilence there is no bias of the translator included.

 

So why did He hide it from English speakers until 1611? Why does he hide it from untold numbers today who don't have a Bible in their language? Why does He hide it from those who don't understand the English of 400 years ago?

Also, you admit that your 'jot and tittle' perfect edition of the KJT (King James Translation) is not jot and tittle perfect but still has a few 'little' mistakes? So is it jot and tittle perfect?

Smart guy. Is the one who wrote?

Maybe we should take the advice of these brilliant men?

 

The scriptures weren't hid before 1611, how in the world could they have translated them if they were hid? Silly argument.

And I wouldn't say they are hid today either. Oh, I suppose there are men down in the deepest jungles who haven't heard the gospel, but you can bet there are missionaries out there trying to find them and give them the good news.

This last Sunday we had a missionary in our church who is bringing the Word of God to China and North Korea. It was fascinating. I will not go into detail how they do this, because it is very dangerous for those who do so.

He also spoke of how they preach the gospel in China. Again, I probably should not disclose how they do this. But they have thousands of converts all over the country and in many cities.

So, the Word of God is not hidden, it is usually man himself who prevents the gospel from being spread.

And as far as the differences between various KJBs, I do not consider them erros. I don't care if you spell a word "color" or "colour", they are the same word and carry the same meaning. I would not consider either spelling an error.

 

How about 1 John 5v12?

Do you claim jot and tittle perfection necessary? Jots and tittles were minor markings. Would you consider a comma difference an error if it changed the meaning of a sentence?

Or is that an 'okay error'?

And again, since these guys (KJT translators) were so smart should we not heed their advice on using a variety of translations? They knew they were not doing a perfect translation, else why would they say that?

 

Call it silly if you want, but my argument was that if the KJT is perfect than English speakers went almost 1000 years without a Bible in their language. Why would God do that?

How do you know that those tribal translations you speak so blithely about are accurate translations?

Did you know that only now is a Japanese translation from the Byzantine text body being translated (by a member of this board)? Why would God hide his word from the Japanese people until now?

 

Well of course, if a comma changed the meaning of a verse, I would consider that important.

Now to those who claim the Cambridge is the jot and tittle perfect translation, if that is indeed true (which I believe it is), then we have a standard.

Look, saying the scriptures are perfectly preserved does not mean there will never be copies withour error. Men make mistakes. There are all kinds of KJBs with famous typographical errors in them (the Murderers Bible). That is an error by man. But the fact that these errors are spotted and corrected shows than an infallible standard exists.

Maybe you don't understand that. I work in Quality Assurance and have for much of my life. We have what we call "standards". These "standards" are based on "perfect" standards held in Washington D.C.. When we suspect a standard has been damaged or has shifted, we send it to labratories that compare it to even better standards than we have. That is how you contain error.

The fact that that author can compile all those so-called "errors" is because he has a "perfect standard" to compare them to.

So, the perfect Word of God is here.

 

So God is not strong enough to preserve a perfect Bible from printing and typesetting errors?

Why would He allow there to errors in a perfect Bible?

So do you think we should heed the advice of the agreeably brilliant KJT translating team and use a variety of translations?

 

I'm not saying that the Scholars are better than those of the KJV, I'm saying that they have much better resources.

Again, not saying we are more intelligent as far as our skills, but we do have better research today. We have what they knew plus new stuff. (you notice we have computers today but didn't before. It wasn't because we are necessarily smarter, but keep advancing on what we know)

I'm not familure with Wescott and Horts English translation, but the formal vs dynamic has nothing to do with textual criticism. And, not all modern versions are a dymanic translation. The NIV is more dynamic, but the NASB is more formal than the KJV. The ESV is essentially litteral like the KJV is. All translations use dynamic equivalence in some places in their translation. (well, except maybe youngs literal translation). Even in the dynamic, you are translating the work, but as you said, you are also interpreting. There is some level of interpretation that must happen in translating to be sure you don't change the meaning. You cannot always translate something literally. Especially phrases like idioms.

Now for me, I'm with you on wanting a more formal translation. That's why I like the NASB and the ESV and the KJV. They are more formal than the NIV. Just don't think that the KJV is the only formal translation and also don't think that the KJV is always formal.

Example: The KJV has this for Psalm 23:6
KJV: I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.
NIV: I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever

Now, in Hebrew, there is no "forever" there. The word is "to length of days" So, in English translations, we give the dynamic equivalence of "to length of days" as "forever.

Now, look in Proverbs 3:2
For length of days and long life and peace shall they add to thee. This time, they keep the length of days literally here and give the formal equivalence. This is because the meaning is the same. In the Psalm 23 passage, the meaning would be different in English if we went literally there.

 

Rom 10:13-14 "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?"

IF a person has not heard of Christ and dies, will God send him to hell?? Would it not be reasonable to believe that God would ensure that ALL would hear his Word and be given the opportunity to accept or reject Christ? The Word does not have to be written for it to be passed down from generation to generation.

 

Modern Bible scholars have access to a great deal more information than did the KJV revisers.

You haven't a clue. Even Charles Spurgeon said of the RV's New Testament that it was strong in Greek and weak in English.

You say the silliest things -- sinfully silly. Go ahead and tell the translators of the NLTse that with their dynamic or functional equivalence method that they felt they could run rough-shod in translation.

There is no Bible translation that does not interpret.

Yet even more lies gushing forth from your keystrokes.

 

ALL translators and translations have biases- even the KJV- God save the King!