KJV-onlyism and Unification of Heb & Greek

This argument varies from congregation to congregation.

It isn't a good one because simple history, simple theology, simple hermeneutics, simply reading the biblical text shows that the original languages were Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.

Of course, as I have noticed, most KJVO proponents deny basic study in any of these fields. Anyone with a workman's knowledge of the issues can easily defeat them.

 

It seems you have an unhealthy obsession with KJVO. Why are you so angry about KJVO? Wouldn't it better for you to concentrate on things that help build you up in the faith rather than these things that tear you down?

 

I fail to see any anger here in the OP. Being against the study and mention of Greek or Hebrew is a prideful earmark of many KJVOnlyists.

 

Bottom line for the KJVO position....

Did God preserve the Word for us today?

YES, but as in original language texts, NOT any english version

is the 1611 KJV ANY more special than NIv/NASV etc for today?

NO, as all competent english versions can claim to be word of God to us for today!

 

Gail Riplinger contended that “the resident evil and heresy in the New King James Version (NKJV) . . . lies in their editor’s use of lexicons, all of which are corrupt” (Hazardous Materials, p. 29). Riplinger claimed that “all lexicons and Bible study ‘helps’ should be buried to prevent the spread of their deadly hazards” (p. 70). Riplinger even asserted that “the words seen today in the NKJV . . . were spawned in a cesspool of Satanic unbelief” (Ibid., p. 14).

A consistent application of Riplinger’s accusation that all lexicons “are corrupt” would seem to apply to the Hebrew and Greek lexicons used by the KJV translators. It is known that the Hebrew-Latin lexicons and Greek-Latin lexicons available to and used by the KJV translators sometimes or even often had Latin definitions for Hebrew words or for Greek words that were borrowed from the Latin Vulgate of Jerome, which would be classified a corrupt translation according to KJV-only reasoning. Other Latin definitions in those Hebrew-Latin and Greek-Latin lexicons would have likely come from commentaries by unsaved Jews and from commentaries by the Roman Catholic church fathers. Riplinger’s seeming use of the ad hominem fallacy to attempt to smear all lexicons and modern translations is misleading and wrong, and a consistent application of her faulty reasoning would even condemn the lexicons and original language texts used by the early English translators and the KJV translators.

The Hebrew-Latin and Greek-Latin lexicons available to the KJV translators were said to use often the words of the Latin Vulgate as their definitions. That was likely true of the Greek-Latin lexicon and Hebrew-Latin dictionary printed with the Roman Catholic Complutensian Polyglot. In 1847, The Churchman’s Monthly Review maintained that “the Thesauraus of Santes Pagninus [1470-1541] was one of the earliest Hebrew Latin lexicons” (p. 129). This source noted that Pagninus was “a Jesuit” and that his lexicon “contains the Latin Vulgate translation of every word in the Hebrew Bible” (Ibid.). It also indicated that this lexicon by Pagninus was used by Protestants as well as by Roman Catholics. Bishop Grindal is said to have had a copy of an edition of the Lexicon of Pagninus printed in 1577 that he left to the library at Queen’s College at Oxford. David Norton observed that KJV translator Edward Lively had a copy of “Pagninus’s Thesaurus Lingue Sanctae” (KJB: Short History, p. 69). Jones, Moore, and Reid noted that KJV translator “Henry Savile himself gave to the library a copy of Pagninus’s Thesaurus Linguae Sanctae” (Moore, Manifold Greatness, p. 96). R. Cunningham Didham contended that the “Hebrew lexicons of those days rather perpetuated the errors of the Vulgate than the sense of the Hebrew” (New Translation of the Psalms, p. 7). Didham added: “Even the Lexicon of the celebrated Sebastian Munster was no more than that, as Wolf assures us, the Latin words of the Vulgate” (Ibid.). Herbert Marsh noted: “When Sebastian Munster composed his Dictionarium Hebraicum, he added to each Hebrew word the sense in Latin. And whence did he derive those Latin senses? From the Vulgate” (Lectures, p. 521). Munster also compiled a Latin-Greek-Hebrew dictionary. Henry Kiddle and Alexander Schem maintained that until the 1800’s “the Greek language was studied through the medium of the Latin, and there were no Greek-English, but only Greek-Latin lexicons” (Cyclopaedia, p. 224). The KJV translators may have had the Greek Lexicon or Thesaurus of Henry Stephens and the Greek Lexicon of Robert Constantine (1502-1605). Ward Allen pointed out how John Bois cited the lexicons of Hesychius and of Henry Stephens (Translating, p. 33). Gail Riplinger admitted: “The few lexicons the KJB translators did use were generally in Latin, not English” (Hazardous, p. 1187). Would a consistent application of the reasoning in her book suggest that the KJV translators were wrong to use any lexicons that borrowed any definitions from a corrupt Bible translation--the Latin Vulgate of Jerome and any from secular pagan authors, unbelieving Jews, or Roman Catholic church fathers? Is Riplinger implying that use of any lexicon with definitions from a corrupt translation such as the Roman Catholic Latin Vulgate of Jerome would have contaminated the KJV? Perhaps lexicons today derived some of their materials from their predecessors used by the KJV translators.