1 Cor. 1:18-"are saved" or "are being saved"?

Think that the point proved here though is that other rendering would e acceptable based upon Greek Grammar!

 

One difficulty that I find with the KJV is that it uses what I will call the 'Present Perfect' without discrimination. Let me illustrate what I mean.
1 Corinthians 1:18. Present Tense. KJV, 'Are saved.' NKJV, 'Are being saved.'
Romans 6:2. Aorist Tense. KJV, 'Are dead.' NKJV, 'Died.' Martyn Lloyd-Jones spends quite a lot of time explaining why 'died' is better.
John 19:30. Perfect Tense. KJV & NKJV, 'It is finished.' Meaning, 'It has been finished.'

I feel that the Holy Spirit will surely have used the different tenses to communicate different shades of meaning, and these differences should be carried over into the English. However, my Greek scholarship, especially in Koine Greek, is by no means comparable with that of @John of Japan, let alone Robertson et al.

 

Well the ASV has the KJV type reading in the text and the NKJV reading in footnotes. The NASB reads as the NKJV in the text with the KJV type reading in the footnotes.

 

I wonder if the AV makers were simply using the English diction of their time, I. E. "Hard by the copse of birch a lake is found"?

 

For those who do not thing "ones being saved" refers to the event of positional sanctification (being placed into Christ) what is your view of the "process" that you think is in view?

 

I'm sure that's right. Language changes over the years.

 

There would be something true in that, for the language anyone was/is using is in their own time. However, I do not think that explains their word choices in 1 Corinthians 1:18, for they were also using the language of Tyndale's time (that perish/are saved), Great Bible's time (that perish/are saved), Geneva's time (that perish/are saved), Bishops Bible's time (that perish/are saved), ASV's time (that perish/are saved), etc. And even as late as 2020, the NASB (as 37818 points out above) still gives that reading in the margin.

 

and you quoted Robertson to show that I am wrong on 1 Cor. 1:18! :rolleyes:

 

This topic is an excellent illustration why it is best to trust that God has given us his words in the way he wanted to say them and demonstrates why it is devisive to have all these different opinions and ideas.

1 Corinthians 1:10
Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.

The problem comes when the words we are reading are different and one man contests the other man's opinion of what God meant by what he said.

If you haven't noticed, there is a lot of instruction from God on the idea of speaking and words in the letters to the Corinthians. All words in the English language instructs us that God has spoken to us English speakers in the KJV bible. Why, one should ask, would God violate the very instructions that he has given to us by giving us scores of bibles that causes all this speculation and guessing about what he meant to say.

God says to speak the same things and have the same judgement and then sanctions twenty or thirty different bibles with different words, not saying the same things???

Wait. Maybe it is to prove the Greek speakers don't speak the same things and have the same judgements either and the last person you want to trust your ever lasting soul to is the fellow that cannot even figure out context. The most confused people on the planet are the Greek speakers. They all seem to wind up on the bible translation board after disagreeing with the former Greek translation teams.

 

Very simply put is the KJV and those who have translated the Greek as they have are wrong in this verse. They have misunderstood the present participle in the context.

 

Looks more & more like the matter is coming down to translators' choices.

 

No, I quoted Robertson to show that there were two possibilities for 1 Cor. 1:18. Sorry you took it personally. I think it is astute that you found a quote from him on your side, but that doesn't negate his teaching that there are two possible verbal aspects for the present tense.

 

indeed, as it is in places like Philippians 2:6, ος εν μορφη θεου υπαρχων, etc

 

Exactly right.

 

Robertson, when dealing with the verse in question, is clear that the use is "progressive". As you no doubt know, there are many instances where the context must determine how we understand what the Greek is saying, like τεταγμενοι in Acts 13:48, where the context says that it is middle and not passive, etc

 

I think you are saying the KJV is wrong. Okay. How many times does it need to be corrected? More than once seems an overkill.

Someone told me, and I believed them, that the KJV is a translation of Greek manuscripts with different words than the manuscripts that most of the MV's are taken from. It would make perfect sense to me that differences would show up. I am a believer that most, if not all the MV's, are a great translation of the words of those manuscripts. They are just different.

The bottom line is that it causes those who practice the philosophy of a variety of bible translations to have a difficult time of obeying God and speaking the same things and having the same judgements, it seems to me.

 

The KJV has for the point of reformed theology, and not in accordance of Greek grammar, rendered, "αινουντες τον θεον και εχοντες χαριν προς ολον τον λαον ο δε κυριος προσετιθει τους σωζομενους καθ ημεραν τη εκκλησια", as "Praising God, and hauing fauour with all the people. And the Lord added to the Church dayly such as should be saued" (1611). Whereas the correct reading is, "praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved".

In 2 Peter 1:1, for reasons that are beyond me, the translators of the 1611 KJV have the Greek completely wrong!

"συμεων πετρος δουλος και αποστολος ιησου χριστου τοις ισοτιμον ημιν λαχουσιν πιστιν εν δικαιοσυνη του θεου ημων και σωτηρος ημων ιησου χριστου", as "Simon Peter, a seruant & an Apostle of Iesus Christ, to them that haue obtained like precious Faith with vs, through the righteousnes of God, and our Sauiour Iesus Christ"

Notice in verse 11, it reads, " του κυριου ημων και σωτηρος ιησου χριστου", with the only difference being "κυριου", instead of "θεου", and here the KJV correctly reads, "of our Lord and Sauiour Iesus Christ".

In verse 1 they make it 2 Persons, while the SAME Greek construction in verse 11, is ONE Person, Jesus Christ, which is what verse 1 should be, "our God and Savior Jesus Christ"!

Yet there are some who almost "worship" this Version!!!

 

So does this mean τασσω does not have a verb form to be in a perfect middle participle for the Holy Spirit to say it in that way?

 

contextually τεταγμενοι can only mean the middle. It corresponds to verse 46, where it was the Jews who rejected the Gospel Message, and as Paul says, "considered themselves unworthy of eternal life", all of which is SELF, and therefore middle, and this will determine τεταγμενοι in verse 48. Those who like to use this verse for "predestination", try to force its meaning, but τεταγμενοι (τασσω) never has this meaning in the Greek.

 

Robertson did not say that an aoristic (instantaneous) present was wrong. He translated according to the wider context of the Pauline Scriptures. In his Word Pictures in the NT, he wrote, "Salvation is described by Paul as a thing done in the past, "we were saved" (Ro 8:24), as a present state, 'ye have been saved' (Eph 2:5), as a process, 'ye are being saved' (1Cor. 15:2), as a future result, 'thou shalt be saved' (Rom. 10:9)" (Vol. 4, Epistles of Paul, p. 77).

So, the personal translation of Robertson, "but unto us which are being saved" (op cit), is not said by him to be based on an interpretation of the Greek that demands the imperfective (progressive) aspect, but on the wider context of Pauline Scriptures.