For MV users, why do you hold this stance?

I was raised on the KJV. I memorized it as a child, read from it as an adolescent, heard it from the pulpit, and was, in a sense KJVO. It was all that I knew.

After examining all of the evidence, such as understanding the different textual variants in the Greek manuscripts, taking 18 hours of Greek and Hebrew at a university, doing research on both sides, and looking at the historicity of the KJVO position, I am clearly NOT KJVO. Personally, in ministry, I find that the modern versions have an incredible impact on the life of our students here at my church. Of significance is the way that God has used paraphrases such as the Message and the New Living Translation to bring young people to a saving knowlege of him.

 

My first Bible was a KJV Bible, but the first Bible that I read through was a 1967 Scofield Reference Bible (an edited KJV Bible). During this time I read through the New Testament 12 times using a KJV New Testament that I carried with me. Having read through the Scofield Reference Bible three times and my KJV New Testament 12 times, somebody gave me a RSV New Testament which I somewhat reluctantly began reading. I had heard some very bad things about the RSV, and other contemporary translations, and at first I almost felt like I was sinning by reading it.

As I was reading through the RSV New Testament, some of the verses didn’t seem to be familiar, so I compared them with the KJV New Testament and saw that they said essentially the same thing in both translations, but that I really had not grasped the meaning of these verses in the KJV. Soon after that, a friend gave me a NASB New Testament and I read the preface and read parts of text and liked it, so I bought a NASB Bible and read it. This sparked my interest in the Greek and Hebrew languages and I began to study them.

Sometime later I was asked to teach the young adults Sunday school class at my church. I did not like the churches curriculum material, so I prepared my own lessons using the text of the NASB, and the students very much enjoyed the lessons and found the NASB text easy and enjoyable to read. No less important, however, was the fact that the NASB text was so accurately translated that I didn’t have to “correct it” in my lessons.

That was all some years ago, and I have since then gotten a good education in linguistics and theology and I have come more and more to appreciate what a very fine translation the NASB is, especially in its handling of the Greek verb system. I have also come more and more to realize the fact that very much of the propaganda being published by the KJO sect is based on deliberate misrepresentations of historical facts, linguistics, and theology. Mistaken ideas regarding Bible translations are bad enough, but deliberate misrepresentations are outright lies and thus outright sin, and I find some of the proponents of the KJO sect not to be simply ill-informed, but maliciously evil.

There are several popular contemporary translations of the Bible that are very poor and of questionable value, and paraphrases of the Bible like the Message Bible, the Living Bible Paraphrased, and the New Living Translation (really a paraphrase) disturb me greatly, but I have seen God use even these to be a blessing to those who read them.

 

Wasn't there another thread with a very similar topic?
Personally, I came out of the KJVO sect when I saw the fruit of the KJVO's that I know. "By their fruits..." they were mean, arrogant, etc Also the double standards, inconsistencies, supression of facts, minimizing the translation "errors" in the KJV, and magnifying the translation "errors" in the MV's.
I came to realize, as Orvie said the Word of God is not "pickled" in our English Version which is almost 400 years since its translation. And it denies logic in my view to say God can not speak to us today in our everyday tongue (as He did in the NT in the Koine Greek, not the Classical Attic Greek, which the English of our KJV is like a classical English, chained to the proverbial pulpit.....huh? ) As the Scripture says, the Bible is to be "Unbound" and to limit God to the Classical English effectually binds the Scripture for so many today, even though some of our KJVO brethren would not acknowlegde this fact. I am truly thankful for the peace in my heart and the liberty to read an excellent MV, especially the NKJV. (having said that, I do not accept many MV's per se, I'll read them, but my prefernce is that the NT should be based on the Traditional Text). No, I'm not going to argue pro-con Traditional Text versus Critical Text. We have liberty in Christ and I would (and do) fellowship with Pastors, outside the IFB movement, who use MV's (NT) based on the Critical Texts, such as the NIV....
Take care!

 

All my early BC life, a Bible was a Bible. I was saved in 1979, being "educated" about Jesus from the NASB. After my dad and I were hassled by some very stupid and obnoxious KJVOs for publicly reading aloud from the NASB in a Cincy park, I set out to see if there was actually any truth in their words. I made myself as neutral as possible, remembering some SENSIBLE friends who used only the KJV.

I read the books by Wilkinson, Ray, Fuller, Riplinger, Ruckman, Moorman, Hyles, Reagan, Waite, Watkins, White, Hudson, Kutilek, Burgon, and articles by many of these people, and many others by the likes of Chick, Khoo, Norris, Gipp, Marrs, Morton, Hushbeck, and many others whose names I don't recall on short notice. In fact, I've read as much as possible for me from both sides of the issue, and furthermore, checked out the veracity or lack thereof of the statements from both sides. After all this reading, I can safely conclude that the KJVOs haven't presented any viable proof to raise their doctrine above "myth" status. I know that for hundreds of years of the history of the Bible in English, there have been multiple versions in use, with little to no thought given to it. The 16th century comes to mind in this regard. This continued up into the 20th century when a few new translations appeared, and the modern KJVO monster was born. Since it's the KJVOs who tried to introduce a new doctrine into the body of Christian theology, it's incumbent upon them to *PROVE* their theory, which they haven't even begun to do. It's THEIR burden of proof, & they've dropped it every time.

While I use the KJV and often even the AV 1611, I'm not at all limited to them. There's simply NO TRUTH in the KJVO myth. That's evident right here on this board, as several of us have asked several KJVOs for the source of their AUTHORITY for their doctrine, AND NOT ONE of them has provided anything near a straight, direct answer!!!!!!

I REJECT THE KJVO MYTH BECAUSE OF ITS SINGULAR LACK OF PROOF AND SUPPORTING SCRIPTURE OR ANY OTHER EVIDENCE THAT WOULD LEND IT ANY CREDENCE. Knowing it's a false doctrine, I battle it fervently.

 

[non-related question snipped]

[ February 27, 2004, 01:16 AM: Message edited by: Dr. Bob Griffin ]

 

While I was never KJVO, my first Bible was a KJV, and then my pocket NT given by the Gideons was also KJV. Then I got a Living Bible when I was 15, knowing that it is paraphrase, and not a true translation. It was with this LV that I established a foundation for biblical knowledge. Today I still prefer the NASB. I can compare the essentially literal translations KJV and NASB with the LV paraphrase, and there is virtually no difference in doctrinal understanding. I've known that for a long time, so I tend to scoff sometimes at those who think a translation makes all the difference in the world.

But one key incident along the way which put me further away from KJVO (though I had not heard such a tenet at that time) was when I befriended a deaf guy I worked with and became, for a while, his ears and voice, as he was alone in my town away from any family or other friends. I was trying to share the gospel with him while in the car, and the only Bible I had was my pocket NT, which was KJV. I pointed out certain scriptures, such as John 3:16 and Acts 16:31, and he could not understand words like "thy" and "thou." He got the idea that the Bible is 'funny' in its language and refused to be serious about the idea of salvation. So the KJV language was a detriment to sharing the gospel in that case. We need to remove as many stumbling blocks as we can.

While there might conceivably be some circumstances where failure to use a KJV may be a detriment to relevant biblical discussion, in such a case I would use a KJV. The fact that it is not my preference would not be the point. The point is: dont' let the translation issue stand in the way.

 

KJVO has never been an issue for me.

I like using the KJV/NKJV because I prefer the TR variants. I use the NASB for semantic accuracy and the NIV for a vernacular rendition of figures of speech, archaisms, etc.

I have always agreed with the idea of a proliferation of translations to capture the "sense" of the Scripture.

HankD

 

I grew up in a church that uses a 'modern' (the translation we use was published in 1951) version.
There is a Dutch AV in existance, the Statenbijbel, that on the whole even translates the OT a little better than the KJV does (with a couple of noteworthy exceptions), but it has all the issues the KJV has and the relations between my church and the Dutch AV onlyïsts happen to be... strained...
Not very profound I know, but that's why I am on the mv side.

 

Well, I grew up in a household with a dad who always read straight from his Greek NT. Quite often, its the only Bible he carries. A KJVO stance would be completely foreign to me.

 

Amen, Sister Russell55, thank you
for sharing your testimony!!!

 

Amen, Sister Mioque -
Thank you for sharing your testimony with
us.

 

Let me tell one story that helps show why i'm a Modern
Version user. (Actually on Dr. Bob's scale I'm a
KJVO#1 - King James Version preferred).
About 1980 i got a Jack Chick comic:
SABOTAGE? (Chick Comics, 1979).
It is a KJVO#4 propoganda tool. It has sources
cited in the margin. I never found one of those
sources. The documents cited are out of print, more
were never in print, cause nobody would print them.

But i hear that sources like TWO BABYLONS by Alexander
Hislop are now reprinted and being sold by
KJVO#5s like Texe Marrs. Also i hear that these
documents have margine notes that reference eachother.
(I.E. they are like the myth of Atlantis books,
some 4,000, last time I looked, that are all interdependant
upon each other and upon no legitimate learned writing).

So, i found out that the KJVOs have a Theology (I.E. "doctrine")
based on a house of cards. No serious theologian, Baptist
or otherwise, buys into the KJV being the ONLY BIBLE.
So i read the Modern Versions (MVs) of the Bible.

BTW, When can i get my copy of the HCSB = Holoman Christian
Standard Bible, the Southern Baptist Bible?

Praise Jesus!

 

The HCSB New Test. is out already and the whole Bible should be out sometime this year. I bought the N.T. at a local christian bookstore.

 

I have the N.T. also.

 

Actually, I don't believe we have an "MV stance" per se; we simply don't try to limit God. We believe He has the power ro do ANYTHING, and that includes His presenting His words for us AS HE CHOOSES. And that certainly isn't limited to just one version.

An "MV stance" would indicate we reject the KJV, which I don't think anyone here does. What we reject is the man-made myth about Bible versions in general that seeks to limit God.

 

It would seem that this fact is EXTREMELY obvious! (But then it probably is to those who don't have an agenda to embellish and foist on others!?)

 

It would seem that this fact is EXTREMELY obvious! (But then it probably is to those who don't have an agenda to embellish and foist on others!?) </font>[/QUOTE]Except who is it that is really trying to limit God? is it the Bible believer who accept that God's ways are not our ways nor His thoughts our thoughts, or is it the mv lover who keeps trying to limit God to something that his/her finite mind can understand?

the facts clearly indicate that it is those who "defend" the plethora of mv's that are trying to limit God and keep Him in their tiny man-made boxes, rather then letting Him be God Almighty.


Jim