Perfect VS Accurate

I just want to make on comment about the NKJV being more accurate than the KJV. If this were the case then the NKJV OT would agree with the NKJV NT. It doesn't. In Galatians 3:16 Paul says that God told Abraham "to your seed" rather than "seeds." Go look it up in the NKJV OT and it says "descendants." Not only is it not the same word, it's a plural word, which totally destroys the ultimate meaning of that promise and Paul's theological point in Galatians.

If that is more accurate, I'll take inaccurate every day of the week.

 

WHICH verse in Genesis are you referring to? And "seed" may be plural OR singular in English.

 

Take your pick. Genesis 12:7, Genesis 13:15, Genesis 22:17

Seed may be plural or singular in English, but descendants is always plural.

 

Descendants are from the seed of Abraham. Seed is the offspring. All the descendants are the seed of Abraham.

 

Yes, I may be dense but I don't see what the "inaccuracy" is here.

 

I don't see any inaccuracy either. I think it is almost like a class with students. Seed=class students = descendants. It's talking about the same people.

 

Paul is saying that God told Abraham this: "to your seed...". Now, follow me here, Paul is quoting the OT. Paul is saying in Genesis 12:7, 13:15, etc, God told this to Abraham, "to your seed." God was ultimately talking about a single person, Jesus Christ. Paul's point was, God was talking about a singular individual ultimately. That promise was made to and confirmed in Christ.

So, when an individual reads this in the english translation of Galatians 3:16 and then turns over to the english translation of Genesis to look up where Paul was referring to, what does he/she see? Well, in the NKJV, that person will find that God said, "to your descendants." Wait a minute, Paul said God told Abraham "to your seed." Paul specifically said God did not tell Abraham "seeds as of many" but "seed" singular, which is Christ. But my english translation is saying that what God really said was descendants, a plural noun that is always plural.

Thus is the whole reference and theological point destroyed. The whole point of Galatians 3:16 is that the promise God made to Abraham was made singularly in Christ. The NKJV destroys this by translating that word in Genesis into a plural noun.

 

In Romans, Paul uses it as the plural.

Romans 4:18 "Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be."

 

That is a different place. Paul there, isn't quoting Genesis 12:7 or Genesis 13:15, he is quoting Genesis 15:5 where God told Abraham to count the stars if he could, and thus would his seed be.

Seed is used in two ways in the bible. It can refer to a collective whole, or to an individual. That is the genius of the word seed. It is used both ways in the OT. The word descedants can only speak of a plural number, a collective whole, and not of an individual. Thus, it being used in passages like Genesis 12:7 and 13:15 set it at odds with Paul's usage of those passages in Galatians 3:16.

 

tomAto, tomAHto. While to some this (obviously) disrupts their theology, it doesn't bother mine in the least.

Is not Jesus a descendant of Abraham? Is He not one of the "seeds"? What difference would it make to call it singular or plural, then? Jesus is the one the OT spoke of and prophesied about as He is the only One who fulfills the prophesies. There have been millions upon millions of Abraham's descendants, but only one Jesus Christ. The point is moot.

 

I guess Paul was a fool for writing Galatians 3:16 since it really doesn't matter.

 

I think this thread has gone to seed.

 

You know, you'd think a text in the NT where a clear distinction is made between plural and singular would mean something. It just boggles my mind that so many Christians on here just don't care that something so clear and fundamental was so haphazardly translated and don't see the big deal.

 

From http://www.biblegateway.com/resources/commentaries/IVP-NT/Gal/Understanding-Promise:

We can see by the way Paul uses the term seed in verse 29 that his emphasis on its singularity in verse 16 does not restrict the seed to one individual person. Christ, the one seed of Abraham, includes within himself a new community of all believers where there are no racial, social or gender divisions. Just as the seed is one (v. 16), so "you are all one in Christ" (v. 28). So the emphasis on the oneness of the seed in verse 16 prepares the way for the emphasis on the unity of all in Christ in verse 28. Whereas the law made a division between Jews and Gentiles, Christ, the promised seed of Abraham, is the center of a new unity of Jews and Gentiles. The people of God are no longer identified by ethnic origins, but by union with Christ.

More to follow.

 

From http://bible.org/article/plain-sens...rpretive-singularity-galatians-3-and-romans-4



At first glance, Gal 3.16 seems to be an example of careful grammatical exegesis; Paul observes and interprets the minutia of the text, stopping to parse a single word in the Biblical text: “But to Abraham the promises were spoken, and to his seed. [and] it does not say ‘and to seeds’ as if [they were spoken] to many, but as if [spoken] to one [recipient], ‘and to your seed,’ who is Christ.”8 After a cursory reading, one might assume that this text serves as a template for grammatical exegesis, but further consideration reveals complication in Paul’s argument. When considering the blessings YHWH vowed to Abraham in Genesis, singularity does not seem to be the most natural reading. In fact, much of the content in these promises revolves around the extreme plurality of the seed (that they will be as plentiful as the dust of the earth (Gen 13.14) and more numerous than the stars of heaven (Gen 15.5). Further lexical study demonstrates that the singular form is not as acutely descriptive as Paul may have let on.9 Later he will even use a singular form of seed (σπέρμα in 3.29) as predicate nominative with a pural antecedent,10 and so seems very familiar with this term’s collective usage.
So far, there are two levels of tension for this test case. Galatians 3.16 presents its own interpretive hurdles. Even if the reader overcomes those, he must accept the compounding effect presented by Paul’s development of the Abrahamic seed in Rom 4.13-18. Here Paul uses the same language to refer (plurally) to believers without any mention of the seed’s singularity. Exegetes, who move beyond the assumption that Paul is simply paying attention to textual detail, acknowledge the difficulty and offer a variety of solutions as grids for understanding Paul’s use of the OT.
One potential option lies in identifying Paul’s source text for his quotation. Most references to Abraham’s seed in Genesis are immediately preceded or followed by plural pronouns or other referents for which the seed serves as antecedent, seeming to make plain the term’s collective sense in the context.11 Gen 22.18 emerges from the promises in Genesis fitting for a singular referent and works well theologically as looking forward to Christ’s redeeming the Gentiles. In the context of Gen 22, it is much easier to find an individual referent in verse 18. Verses 16 and 17 still deal with the multiplication of Abraham’s seed, but in verse 18, the seed is named as the agent of blessing for the nations, a unique statement among YHWH’s promises concerning Abraham’s seed. It parallels the original promises of Gen 12.2, 3, in which Abraham is said to be a blessing for others and it is in him that all the families of the earth will be blessed.12
F. F. Bruce finds textual difficulty in attributing Gal 3.16 to Gen 22.18 directly (as will be discussed in greater detail below). To remedy this and still recognize the content of Gen 22.18, he views Paul’s language as other than direct quotation from any Genesis text, but as more closely approximating a thematic allusion referencing the agent of blessing concept in Gen 22.18. He concedes direct quotation as a possibility given Paul’s attention to textual detail as a premise for the argument, but seems to identify the citation as τῷ σπέρματι αὐτοῦ (rather than τῷ σπέρματι σοῦ) relegating the quotation to the earlier portion of the verse.13 By doing this he is able to keep it in line with Gen 22.18 (as well as Sir 44.12). Mary’s language in the Magnificat (cf. Luke 1.55) lends biblical warrant to see this general thematic usage of “Abraham’s seed” as a technical Messianic reference in the first century.14
One final, plausible resolution is a corporate solidarity model:15 that Paul is using Christ here as the personal Messiah with a view to his organic union to the redeemed people of God, reminiscent of his use of ἐν Χριστῷ language throughout his epistles or his development of the σῶμα Χριστοῦ themes of in Eph 4 and 5. This argument is closely tied to and supported by Paul’s own corporate use of σπέρμα in 3.29. This option preserves both the singular and corporate senses of the term without pitting the two verses against one another.16 Augustine argued the legitimacy of this interpretive scheme in the late fourth century: “we need not be in a difficulty when a transition is made from the head to the body.”17 If Paul is using the language to refer to body and head as Augustine suggests, then there is no reason for the individual sense to war against the corporate, because the two are so closely tied to one another.

 

It has 4000+ places it is more accurate.

What are you really trying to ask because your question is illogical. Of course, all translations have different ENGLISH words. There is more than one way to translate a word into a language.

 

Then the Geneva was more accurate than the KJV because the KJV has way more than 4,000 different words than the Geneva.

 

Or, we could ask...

How would you say that KJV is more accurate translation having 4,000+ different words?

logic?