Did the Granville Sharp Rule mean KJV made mistakes in translation

In what passage?

 

Likely, he would be referring to verses such as 2 Peter 1:1 and Titus 2:13 where some modern translations present the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ more clearly or strongly than the KJV.

Those are two verses that are cited concerning the Granville Sharp rule although they were earlier Bible scholars such as Theodore Beza that mentioned or asserted the same principle.

 

Okay, got it. Thanks.

 

2 Peter 1:1

Several early English Bibles and many modern translations clearly, precisely, and accurately identify Jesus Christ as "our God and Saviour" at 2 Peter 1:1. William Tyndale in 1534 and John Rogers in 1537 translated the last part of this verse as "righteousness that cometh of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ." The Great, Whittingham's, Geneva, Bishops', Haak’s 1657 English translation of the Dutch Bible, Wesley's, 1842 Baptist or Bernard's, NKJV, Majority Text Interlinear, and many other translations render it "righteousness of our God and Saviour [or Savior] Jesus Christ."

James White maintained that this is the proper translation of the Greek according to the Granville Sharp's rule (King James Only Controversy, p. 268). Granville Sharp (1735-1813) cited 2 Peter 1:1 as his first example “of sentences which fall under the first rule, and are improperly rendered in the English version [KJV]“ (Remarks, p. 20). James D. Price noted that “the Greek grammatical construction here identifies Jesus Christ as God and Savior” (King James Onlyism, p. 323). Concerning this verse in his multi-volume commentary, David Sorenson wrote: “Though it is not quite as evident in English, in the Received Text, the phrase literally reads, ‘the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ’” (p. 228). Kenneth Wuest asserted: “The expression, ‘God and our Saviour’ is in a construction in the Greek text which demands that we translate, ‘our God and Saviour, Jesus Christ” (In These Last Days, p. 17). John Ankerberg and John Weldon maintained that “Greek scholars Dana and Mantley, in their A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament, confirm the truth of Sharp’s rule, and then explain: ‘Second Peter 1:1 … means that Jesus is our God and Savior” (Facts On Jehovah’s Witnesses, p. 24).


John Dagg indicated that the rendering in our common English version at 2 Peter 1:1 should be emended to “the righteousness of our God and Saviour, Jesus Christ” (Manual of Theology, pp. 183-184). Timothy Dwight (1752-1817) wrote: “According to the original, of our God and Saviour, Jesus Christ” (Theology Explained, I, p. 525). Thomas Goodwin asserted that “Beza reads it, ‘our God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” and that “it is clearly meant one person, viz. Christ” (Works, VIII, p. 283). Goodwin contended that “as by God and the Father is meant God the Father so by God and our Saviour is meant Jesus Christ” (p. 283). In his commentary on 1 and 2 Peter, Gordon Clark translated the phrase as “of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (New Heavens, New Earth, p. 170). Clark noted: “Other references to ‘our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ’ do not diminish the deity asserted here in 1:1” (p. 171). At his verse, the MacArthur Study Bible stated concerning “our God and Savior Jesus Christ:” The Greek construction has only one article before this phrase, making the entire phrase refer to the same person” (p. 1952). At this phrase at this verse, The Henry Morris Study Bible stated: “This expression could better be rendered as ‘our God and Saviour Jesus Christ’” (p. 1947). In his commentary on 2 Peter & Jude, John MacArthur noted: “The Greek construction places just one article before the phrase God and Savior, which makes both terms refer to the same person. Thus Peter identifies Jesus, not just as Savior, but as God (cf. 1:11; 2:20, 3:2, 18; Isa. 43:3, 11:45, 21; 60:16; Rom. 9:5; Col. 2:9; Titus 2:13; Heb. 1:8), the author and agent of salvation. The apostle made the same relation clear in his Pentecost sermon, in which he took the Old Testament truth of God and applied it to Jesus (Acts 2:21-36; cf. Matt. 1:21; Acts 4:12; 5:31)” (p. 23).

 

Surprisingly, the 1611 edition of the KJV has a comma after God at 2 Peter 1:1 [God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ], and that comma seems to have remained in most KJV editions printed up to the 1769 Oxford edition.

The 1743 Cambridge and 1760 Cambridge editions had actually removed it before the 1769. Even the first KJV edition printed in America in 1782 and KJV editions printed at Oxford in 1788 and in 1795 still have a comma after God at 2 Peter 1:1.

How does this comma in most KJV editions up to the 1769 Oxford affect the understanding and interpretation of this verse? Concerning this verse in his 1633 commentary on 2 Peter, Thomas Adams observed: “Some read these words by disjoining them; of God, and of our Saviour,“ which would seem to refer to the rendering in the 1611.