if the actual words of God have not been preserved, what has?

Dear HankD. I had some thought that it may be we understood "dynamic equivalence" differently. All the examples I gave are technically speaking called DE translations. Other terms for the same would be free translation or thought-for-thought translation, or meaning-based translation. It is indeed taking liberties with God's word(s), yea, adulterating the word of God for gain, 2Cor. 2:17.

It is not always easy to classify versions so as to know exactly where the line goes between DE and FE. Most FE versions occasionally resort to DE, example the KJV - "God forbid". But they are upon comparison with the Greek shown to be formal translations or "essentially literal translations", to cite Ryken whom I have referred to earlier.
FE translations would be e.g. KJV, Geneva Bible, Tyndale, Wesley's NT, Noah Webster's Bible, Alexander Campbell's Living Oracles NT, ERV, YLT, Darby Bible, ASV, NASB, NKJV, MKJV, WEB, Exegeses Bible, EMTV, ALT, VW-Bible, Beza's Latin NT (1556), Reina Valera 1602, Dutch Statenvertaling, Russian Synodal Bible 1876, Luther's Bible, Italian Diodati, LITV, Version Osterwald 1996 revision, Olivetan Bible, Spanish Sagradas Escrituras version 1569, Norwegian translation of the KJV, etc. etc.

DE versions, e.g. NIV, CEV, TEV, GNB, GW, The Message, NLT etc.

Then myself would say some modern versions are kind of crossbreed between DE and FE, quite hard to classify. Such would be RSV, NRSV, NET Bible, and I would almost want to include ESV as well, although it is claimed to be an essentially literal translation. ISV I think also fits into this group.

But note that these are my opinions, other might beg to differ somewhat, but on the whole I think my judgement is quite accurate. Then I want to say that many versions classified as DE do at times resort to clear FE, yet as I have pointed out the general and guiding philosophy of the projects have been that of thought for thought translation. That is sinful upon considering God's admonitions not to steal His words from our neighbour, and others of the like calibre in the Scriptures.

Harald

 

The NIV does not belong with this group of Bibles. There is a major difference between them.

I think some assume that DE automatically means the worst when, in the case of the NIV, it has produced a faithful and very accurate translation. Don't paint with too broad a brush. Allow the versions to stand on their own.

I would also again, argue that accusing DE of being incompatible with God's word is beyond the pale. It simply isn't true. I agree that too much liberty can be taken and indeed has been. I would not recommend any of the versions from your quote above. But that does not mean that DE is bad. It means that those are bad translations, or at least, not as good.

The KJV and NIV both use DE. The ESV is probably less DE than both of them. The NASB is probably the least.

 

Pastor Larry,

You said: [Generally, I have found your persuasion among those who grew up with the KJV. Among those who did not, they do not share this view.]

I am an exception I guess. I was not raised in a Christian home. The Lord saved me at age 23 after living a very wayward life for 7 years. Without going into specific details, my conversion was very powerful. I turned from crime, drugs, fornication and many other things. God cleaned me up, I got married to a good Christian girl, and began attending a Southern Baptist Church in rural East Tennessee. The pastor used the KJV, but never really addressed the version issue from the pulpit or in his Sunday School class. He was a very hard line preacher. His sermons were calls for repentance, reproving error, and how God’s love is available for anyone who seeks it with a broken and contrite spirit. I went there for 6 years while working on my undergraduate and graduate degrees. While attending college we tried dozens of local Churches (near the University) but finally decided to make the 45 minute drive to our old home church.

After finishing school we moved away to middle Tennessee. We were able to find a conservative Southern Baptist Church to our liking and we were active there for two years. This pastor used the KJV, but he too did not push, or really even mention the versions issue. While there, I became interested in new versions. I try to be practical in my theology, so I immediately felt making the Bible more readable had to be a good thing. What could be nobler than to make God’s word understandable to the simple? It was not very long before I discovered that far more than updated language had occurred. I became intrigued with the multitude of changes, a great number of which completely change the meaning of verses, and other changes which do not present things with quite the same level of energy. I purchased an application from Biblesoft that would allow me to pane multiple versions. I was pleasantly surprised when I found it had the CT and TR, and you could flip between the two to see if a change was manuscript related or not. It will also allow you to do an Englishman’s search which lists every place in the NT a specific Greek or Hebrew word was used. I mentioned in an earlier post the amount of time I have directed at this effort over the last 6 years. My conclusion is that MVs are significantly different than the KJV. These differences are due to the influence of the Alexandrian manuscripts, modern textual criticism, translation methods, and differences in the spiritual discernment of the translators (translator bias, if you like).

Four years ago we had the opportunity to move back to Knoxville. We visited 40 Baptist Churches (160 in the Knoxville area) over the course of a year. None we visited used the KJV. We also noticed the preaching was much weaker. Stern repentance sermons we had listened too for years were non-existent here. The congregations seemed much less interested in the Bible, and much more interested in social activities. There were women teaching men in Sunday school in many of these churches. The music was more modern and sometimes had a beat. I was a big fan of rock and roll as a lost man. The AC/DC song “Highway to Hell” was one of my all-time favorites as a lost person. Music with a beat always stirred me up, but never in a spiritual way. I adamantly reject the notion that music is neutral, and that the lyrics are all that is important. After a year we went back to our old home Church, the same pastor still there after all these years. I told him after one of his awesome soul-stirring sermons one morning about our plight. My comment was “either this is not a Baptist Church, or the Churches in Knoxville are not Baptist Churches”. This difference was that striking. He is a very quiet man personally, and offered no comment on the matter. After that a man preached at our old home church for a Knoxville pulpit committee. His father had preached revival at our old home church once and we had 15 people saved (the church runs about 150 for worship). This man got the job and we began attending this Knoxville church just 15 minutes from our home. This preacher was only 23 years old, 11 years my junior at the time, and his preaching was like nothing I had ever heard. We became fast friends. Under his ministry I lead a coworker to Christ (who I got to attend church with me after witnessing to her), my 5 year old son got saved, and I accepted the call to preach. My call to preach was resisted by some of my closest family members. I probably would not be a preacher today if it were not for the prayers and spiritual insights from God’s word this pastor provided. A whirlwind two years to say the least. This pastor too is KJV only.

Although I cannot prove to anyone beyond doubt what I believe about contemporary Christianity, one thing is for sure, I believe it, and I believe it nothing wavering. As God almighty is my witness, I believe us as Baptists are moving farther and farther into apostasy, and I also believe MVs are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Pastor Larry, I know you believe the Bible is the word of God. You may even believe as I that the creation, flood, and every miracle in the Bible are 100% true and accurate, but we differ on this issue of versions. Your definition of the “word of God” is different than mine. Correct me if I misstate your position, but it is my impression that the “word of God” to you is any Bible that reasonably translates the manuscripts at their disposal such that in general, and by predominance, the meanings of the individual messages in scripture are conveyed textually. Now many may disagree on the significance of a difference in the way a passage is rendered from one version to the other, but by and large, they are correct. Although, based on your knowledge, you reserve the right to say one is more correct here, and another is more correct there. By contrast, my position is that God preserved his literal words, and the fullness thereof, in the KJB. I believe he preserved them divinely through people chosen for this purpose by Him in the Masoretic Hebrew, and the Syrian Greek. I believe any perceived differences between the TR and KJB are either non-existent, or are virtual equivalents. I believe versions for other languages can use either the TR or the KJB, but will not turn out an accurate translation without immense spiritual guidance. I also believe God can replace the KJB for the English speaking world, I just don’t believe He has yet, and I don’t know if He will before his eminent return.

My belief is not born out of my upbringing. My belief is born out of honestly looking for the truth in the confusion of Bible versions and worship practices so prevalent today.

 

I can not believe that the simple truth of the only evadence we have of uor only chance to know the Grace of God sending himself to leave the splenders of heaven to be beat, cursed ,spit on,and to enduer the most horific pain ,and suffering by the best of torchering by the Romans.They were experts on this kind of judgment on the human bodie.And we the people still want to keep God in this posistion on the cross? Why with all our knoledge of history we can not convence that the only evadence that any one has is the Word of God that the sorce of our books which are our only evadence is in over 200 translations.No wonder that the world runs from those who saposedly have the corect way to recieve salvation!That goes for who knows the sutistics on how many once true believers turn thier backs on God just for this reason.We are trully liveing in the last days,And I pray right now that GOd to show Himself to all that are seeking his Knoledge,and give all preachers of Alldenomanations to start asking God What is the true Words of our only Hope.God reviele your self to the World!To me Lord I want no confuseing docteran,Your WOrd is Our salvation .Let us not allow satanto confuse us with false doctoron!

 

FFF,
We can discuss this privately, and don't read any more into this, but being from the Knoxville area, I find it hard to believe that you have found 40 Baptist churches that don't use the KJV here in our town!!! I don;t think you'll find 40 non-KJV Baptist churches/pulpits if you drew a 50 mile circle around Knoxville!!!

 

Very well put, as usual, Dr. Bob

 

You are welcome to think what you like, but I actually visited all 40 of them. In fact, I kept an Excel spreadsheet and kept track of some of the ones I visited. There are 160 churhes in the Knoxville area, how many of them have you visited?

 

Check your PMs, FFF.

 

Inerrancy and inspiration of the Bible

The Christian Church as a whole claims that the Bible is inspired and inerrant. This means that God is the one who moved through the writers to communicate to us the words which God wanted us to hear. This inspiration, however, is not a dictation, but a movement of God's spirit through the writer, utilizing the personality and style of the writer. Inerrancy means that all that is written in the inspired documents is without error. Now, there is a comment worth mentioning here. Inspiration and inerrancy applies to the original writings, not to the copies. In other words, it is the original writings that are without error. The copies, sadly, have copyist errors in them.

Therefore, when critics of the Bible point out apparent contradictions, what they are doing is either failing to understand the context of the passages they are examining, or they have encountered a scribal copying error. The fact is that there are indeed copyist errors on the biblical documents and they account for many alleged contradictions. Remember, it is the autographs (original writings) that are inspired and inerrant, not the copies. The copies we have now are copies of inspired documents. The copies are not themselves "inspired"; that is, they have no guarantee of being 100% textually pure. Does this then mean that we can't trust the Bible? Not at all. The copies are so accurate that all of the biblical documents are 98.5% textually pure. The 1.5% that is in question is mainly nothing more than spelling errors and occasional word omissions like the words "the", "but", etc. This reduces any serious textual issues to a fraction of the 1.5%. Nevertheless, nothing affects doctrinal truths. In fact, nothing in ancient history even comes close to the accuracy of the New Testament documents. If the New Testament is disallowed, then all other documents of ancient history (Plato, Aristotle, Homer, etc.), must also be disallowed because the biblical documents are far superior in their copying accuracy than any other ancient literature in existence. See the chart below for further information on this.

Nevertheless, following is a list of the types of errors that have crept into the Bible:

Dittography - Writing twice what should have been written once.

A good example would be writing "latter" instead of "later." "Latter" means nearest the end. "Later" means after something else.

Fission - Improperly dividing one word into to words.

Example: "nowhere" into "now here."

Fusion - Combining the last letter of one word with the first letter of the next word.

"Look it is there in the cabinet... or Look it is therein the cabinet."

Haplography - Writing once what should have been written twice.

A good example would be "later" instead of "latter." "Later" means after something else. "Latter" means nearest the end.

Homophony - Writing a word with a different meaning for another word when both words have the exact same pronunciation.

Meat and meet have the exact same sound but different meanings. Also, there and their and they're are another example.

Metathesis - An improper exchange in the order of letters.

Instead of writing "mast," someone writes "mats," or "cast" and cats."

Does this mean that the Bible we hold in our hand is not inspired? Not at all. Inspiration comes from God and when He inspired the Bible, it was perfect. Our copies of the original documents are not perfect, but they are very close to being so. The critics often mistakenly assume that even the copies are supposed to be perfect. But when I point out that God never said the copies would be perfect, they then ask how can the Bible be trusted at all? Quite simply, it is redundant in its facts and information sufficiently to guarantee accuracy.