Acts 7:59 (KJV)

Concerning Acts 7:59 in his commentary, J. A. Alexander maintained that “upon God is introduced by the Geneva version and King James’s, no doubt with a good design, but with a very bad effect, that of separating Stephen’s invocation from its object, and obscuring, if not utterly concealing, a strong proof of the divinity of Christ” (pp. 311-312). Alexander added: “Calling upon God and saying Lord Jesus may have been intended by the translators to identify these objects in the strongest manner; but besides the impropriety of such interpolations, even for such a purpose, the actual impression is most probably the contrary, to wit, that there are two distinct acts here recorded, that of calling upon God, and that of saying Lord Jesus, whereas these acts are spoken of as one and the same, in the Greek and in several of the older versions” (p. 312). Tyndale’s, Matthew’s, Great, and Bishop’s Bibles have the rendering “calling on and saying, Lord Jesus” at Acts 7:59. The 1842 revision of the KJV by Baptists has “calling, and saying, Lord Jesus.“ The Companion Bible has a note at this verse that affirmed that “there is no Ellipsis [omission] of the word God” after “calling upon”(p. 1594). Barnes’ Notes asserted that “the word God is not in the original and should not have been in the translation” (p. 428). In Jamieson’s Commentary, David Brown commented: “A most unhappy supplement of our translators is this word ‘God’ here--as if, while addressing the Son, he was really calling not upon Him, but upon the Father. The sense is perfectly clear without any supplement at all” (Vol. 3, p. 47). A. T. Robertson observed that Stephen “was calling upon the Lord Jesus and making direct prayer to him as ‘Lord Jesus’” (Word Pictures, III, p. 99). Alexander wrote: “This prayer of Stephen is not only a direct imitation of our Lord’s upon the cross (Luke 23:46), but a further proof that he addressed him as a divine person, since he here asks of the Son precisely what the Son there asks of the Father” (p. 312).

 

When Stephen called upon JESUS, he was calling upon GOD.

 

I think "God" italicized in Acts 7:59 is a matter of English language, not the matter of texts or mss.

Calling upon need an objective as it is a transitive though there was no objective in Greek texts.
In Greek texts such case may be seldom, but in OT, KJV added the objective ( especially it) many times.

Read the Hebrew OT, you will find many additions of Objectives.
Not only KJV, but also many other English versions add such objectives, because Hebrew often omit the objective when the sentence is clear in the context, while English translation doesn't make sense without the objective for the transitive verb.

NIV completely omitted " epikaloumenon" or " legonta" but just created a new word " pray" which doesn't exist !

TNIV has the same :
While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit."

NASB states "he called on the Lord and said"
( I often said NASB is the exact translation from the wrong texts! In this case Lord is not wrong !)

NLT Stephen prayed,

Message : As the rocks rained down, Stephen prayed, "Master Jesus, take my life." ( Very much Creative Bible !)


Modern Versions show much bigger problems, I believe!


Finding fault with this kind of Italicized words comes out of the ignorance of the Greek or Hebrew practices.

 

Are you implying that William Tyndale, the father of our English Bible, was ignorant of the Greek or Hebrew practices?

William Tyndale is probably due the credit for more of the renderings found in the KJV than any other one man.

Tyndale translated Acts 7:59 as
And they stoned Steven calling on and saying: Lord Jesus receive my spirit.

Are you suggesting that A. T. Robertson and many other Greek scholars were all ignorant of Greek practices?

 

I told you this is not the matter of Greek text. Can "calling upon" without an objective be acceptable in English? Of course we may not be able to judge it properly unless we return back to the 17c English grammar.

I am on the principle of very much Word-to-Word and would omit " God" in that verse, as I reject " God forbid" but I think it is understandable that KJV inserted the italicized " God" at that time.

As I told you, if you check OT, there are many verses where KJV added " it" and the context has such meaning too.

 

I explained Calling upon needs an objective in English and therefore the translators can insert an object in italicized letters.

I mentioned there are many cases like that ( I don't like to call it an Interpolation) in OT.

Yesterday I was reading Numbers 11 and 12 and found some cases like that.

Numbers 12:2
And they said, Hath the LORD indeed spoken only by Moses? hath he not spoken also by us? And the LORD heard [it].

Do you see? In Hebrew, the verbs are stated without the Objective in the sentences, but in English, the LORD heard what? There is no word for it in Hebrew OT there, but the translator inserted it.

If you translate it into " calling upon and saying", one may ask " calling upon what? calling upon a devil? calling upon the High Priest? Calling upon Mary, the Mother of God? Calling upon King Herod? Therefore the Italicized "God" was just helping the readers to understand the context.
If the readers can understand it without the Italicized letters, I would eliminate it.

However, I disagree with God forbid! because it doesn't exist in the original texts and the word " God" shouldn't be used lightly.

Another interesting example of the Insertion is the following:

Numbers 11:11
Lo matsati hen beeineka Lasum et masa kol ha-am ha jeh alai.

Wherefore have I not found in thine eyes, that thou layest the burden of all this people upon me?

Where is the word for thou in the above Hebrew text?

Here is a difference between Hebrew and English and an example is here:

He insisted on going to New York.
This cannot be " He insisted that I should go to New York" but can mean only " He insisted that he should go to New York"

If it should mean " He insisted that I should go to New York" then we should state - He insisted on my going to New York.

Now in Hebrew it is different.

The above sentence can be both:

Wherefore have I not found in thine eyes, that I should lay the burden of all this people upon me


Lasum is just an infinitive and the translator must discern and decide who should be the subject! There is No word for " thou" there. Without " thou" the sentence doesn't make sense, and therefore I guess all the translations have inserted " thou" or " you"



In acts 7:59,
Changing " Calling upon and saying" to " prayed" in NIV is really a Bible Manufacturing!

If you find faults with such insertion, you are in the trap of Straining at the gnats and swallowing the camels, and you need to pluck out the Beams and Electric lighting poles in your eyes before you criticize the dusts and motes of KJV.

I don't claim the inerrancy or infallibility of KJV, even the TR is not flawless, but do admit KJV has many errors. However, we must see thru the forest instead of trees only.

The ultimate source of Modern Versions is the Vatican Texts and the other manuscripts such as Aleph, p75, A, are the bridesmaids for Vaticanus which has been preserved by the Roman Catholic, the Center of Idolatry and Goddess worship which tortured and killed the Bible translators, prohibited the Bible, the enemy of God.

 

Maybe this verse helps balance things out --

For this [man] was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honour than the house. (Hebrews 3:3, KJV) ​

"Man" is not in the Greek text. It is an 'interpolation'. Here, the not-so-zealous Trinitarians have unnecessarily forced yet a different theological point (of Christ's humanity) into the reading.

 

The difference between God or Lord for the insertion or interpolation is very minor thing as both do not exist in the original text and are only for the understanding. This cannot be a problem except for the childish critics. The childish critics cannot see the bigger problems manufactured by NIV, in the same verse !
Is Epikaloumenon kai legonta " prayed" ? Ridiculous and Ludicrous !

 

Have you ever debated with JW's?
JW's hate KJV ! NWT, the Bible by JW are based on the same Greek texts as the one for the modern versions!
The Deity of Jesus is powerfully displayed in KJV. You cannot convince anyone about the Deity of Jesus by the interpolations inserted by the translators.

Also, one can claim the deity of Jesus from acts 7:59 in KJV, because he can say Calling upon God was the calling upon Jesus who is God !
Therefore no one try to prove the deity of Jesus by translator's insertion, except the Greek illiterates and the people who never read the original texts.

 

Next time, you'd better try to point out 1 Tim 3:16 in KJV

"God was manifested in flesh" They will vehemently reject the word " God" there. There is no other verse in the Bible which is more powerful in convincing the Deity of Jesus Christ.
If you need one more verse, you'd better refer to 1 John 5:7 in KJV.
They will vehemently reject this verse of KJV.

As long as they accept KJV as the accurate translation, JW cannot stand.

JW can stand only on Modern Versions. The Greek text that is underlying NWT is the same as the one for the most of Modern Versions. Roman Catholic which is a paganism also uses the same texts basically.

 

Do you prayb to yourself? What religion is that? Is the Basic Reading a kind of Brain Washing for TC? You must check what is the underlying text for JW Bible. They use the same basis which is used for the most of the modern versions.

 

If that was true, why did they make more copies of it?
Jehovah's Witnesses have published their own editions of the KJV. In 1907, they published the Bible Students Edition of the KJV (Jehovah Witnesses, p. 606). In 1942, they purchased plates for an edition of the KJV with marginal references from the A. J. Holman Company, and printed over 1,858,000 of these KJV's by 1992 (Ibid.,
p. 607). They produced an edition of the KJV (perhaps the one just mentioned), which is "complete with a concordance especially designed for use by Jehovah's Witnesses in their field ministry" (Ibid., p. 93).

 

Eliyahu, did you catch the import of this, when comparing this to what I previously posted in another place, regarding the ASV?

The JW organization has been distributing the Bible version, of which you are claiming they are in opposition, namely the KJV for more than a century. Further, they have even been printing this same version for 3 years longer than they have been printing the ASV (65 yrs. and counting), which they printed and supported, the reason being, according to your claim, that of the basis of the text (NT ONLY, of course ), in some places.

And this doesn't even mention they have distributed >100K more of the KJV (~1.86 M, by 1992), than double the number of the ASV (~885K).

Something isn't adding up here, and it is not the raw numbers.

I suggest rather it's some of the "trash" you have elsewhere ascribed to another, that you have swallowed and now 'spue out' without any real knowledge and understanding of what it was you swallowed to begin with, and the 'puke' you are regurgitating because of this, IMO.

Ed