No manuscripts, no Bible?

As I have said to others, don't quote me without the context. I said that it was said as an exaggeration and was tongue in cheek. If I was honest enough to say it I expect others to be honest enough to quote it. To do otherwise is to make a lie.

 

I knew there was something I liked about my TNIV translation!

Winman, translations are approximations -- not exact duplicates of the originals. Jesus is the express image of His Father but the KJV's aren't identical with the autographs penned by the authors of Holy Writ.

 

I really have no idea what you are talking about, I have been very forthcoming on my position, I even wrote in depth how I came to be KJVO in another thread.

My position is this, I believe that God promised to preserve his inerrant and pure word many times in the scriptures. So, if that be true (and I believe it is), then the inerrant and pure word of God must exist in the world today, and always will exist in the world.

Now the question becomes "Where is that inerrant and pure word of God?"

It can't be in the original autographs because they were lost centuries ago. If all we have today is a corruption of God's word, then it cannot be said to be preserved, inerrant or pure.

So now we have to look at all the various versions of scripture. Is it the KJV? Is it the NIV? Geneva Bible?

I cannot prove that the KJV is the pure and inerrant word of God. And I have asked from the beginning, if the KJV is not the pure and inerrant word of God, then which version is? To which I never get an answer.

You MVs say that only the original autographs were inerrant. Well, if that is true then God did not preserve his word as these texts disappeared ages ago. There is no way to recover them, and there is no way to know what they contained at the beginning.

The funny part is, you MVs are just as much an ONLYIST as I am, only you claim texts you have never observed are inerrant. At least I have a version of scripture that can be held in your hand, studied, and examined for accuracy. If you consider me foolish for trusting by faith in the KJV, you are more foolish for trusting in texts you have never seen and cannot possibly be tested.

I don't doubt the originals were inerrant, I fully believe they were. But I believe people made accurate copies just as the Jews did thousands of years ago with the OT.

I don't believe a copy has to be error, and I don't believe a translation has to be error. Much of the scriptures is a translation to start with, Jesus and his disciples did not speak Greek, so when you read the words of Jesus you are reading a translation right there.

If a translation must be error, then why do pastors teach in English? We should immediately get rid of all English translations including the KJV and start studying Greek in church. After all, we don't want to teach people error do we?

And why did God cause the apostles to speak in tongues on the day of Pentacost if a translation must be error?

Acts 2:5 And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven.
6 Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language.
7 And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans?
8 And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?
9 Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia,
10 Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes,
11 Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.

They didn't just hear the apostles speak in their language, they heard the word of God in their language. And notice God's word was not limited to Greek only.

If a translation must be error, then God himself introduced error on the day of Pentacost, as each man would go back to his country and introduce error to others.

So, you see this is a poor argument that actually defies common sense and the example shown in scripture on the day of Pentacost.

Can a translation be error? Of course. And if you have ever studied how the KJV translators put the scriptures together you will see they had all sorts of texts, not all that agreed perfectly. They had books which some considered scripture which they rejected. They had very strict tests they put together to weed out error, it is a good study you should do sometime.

But my trust is not in the translators, they were fallible men and said so. My trust is that God preserved his inerrant and pure word as he promised to do.

 

AMEN!!!! :applause::applause::applause::applause:

 

Good post, Brother. Thank you for the stand you take on behalf of God's Word. :thumbsup:

 

And you've probably said that about....oh.....a million times? :laugh:



For those who are confused.....Winman has made his position clear. He believes that God preserved His word not ONLY in the originals, but also in translations.

The opposing side says God ONLY preserved His word in the originals. If anyone holds to this belief, logic dictates that we do not have the preserved word of God today.

That is the way I see it. Now you can :tonofbricks:

:saint:

 

The answer is that according to your definition, it does not exist on earth (but in heaven).

Psalm 119:89 LAMED. For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven. ​

The KJV does not qualify because no one knows which of the differing Editions is "pure" and "inerrant" because after all "things which are different are not the same".

Both Israel and the Church have failed in their responsibilty to do their scribal part in this work including the Church of England who spent over 150 years correcting the AD1611 First Edition which also included the heretical Apocrypha between its covers and treated these books containing romish heresy as if they were the word of God.​

Again, it cannot be proven because you are in exactly the same boat we “original onlyists” are in Winman.

There is no 1611AV archetype English manuscript as it has been destroyed in a fire as Dr Bob has said.

There are actually three differing editions which have been claimed to be the KJV Authorized Version.

The AD1611 Cambridge Authorized First Edition with Apocrypha.
The AD1769 Oxford Edition (with corrections to both text and margins).
And even more modernly the Thomas Nelson edition which does not include the Apocrypha).

Again you are in the same situation winman. You have not and probably will never see the original English text from whence came the 1611 First Edition.

Do you know that I can also hold in my hand the reconstructed Greek text underlying the AV.

It’s called THE NEW TESTAMENT, THE GREEK TEXT UNDERLYING THE ENGLISH AUTHORISED VERSION OF 1611. Published by the Trinitarian Bible Society. Originally published by the Cambridge University Press, edited by FHA Scrivener; 1894.

It has no critical apparatus or marginal notes (as did the AD1611) but is a composite of the Greek texts which the KJV translators had at their disposal and a “quilt work” if you will of those texts to align perfectly with the Jacobean-Elizabethan English of the 1611 AV.

The only rare exception is the divergence of the 1611 English from the Greek to the Latin text of the Vulgate. Scrivener found Greek texts in obscure mss to use for these (or perhaps in these cases even translated the Latin to Greek).

These several texts are “traditional” texts and are collations of the Majority/Byzantine families of texts compiled by contemporary scribes,
e.g. Erasmus, Robert Stevens, Theodore Beza and others.

These “Traditional” (according to Church Tradition) are virtually the same text with 99% agreement.

Scrivener reviewed the 17th century English text; then he used the Stephanus Greek AD1550 text as his base. Where there were variances in the English from the text of Robert Stevens, he chose the closest scribal text (as listed above) to align with the English. The Scrivener Text is NOT a back translation but a composite of Greek texts to align with the AD1611 KJV English text.

This is the text which I always revert to in any textual dispute.
Others are more comfortable with the Wescott/Hort Nestle-Aland Greek Text.

For the same reason Spanish pastors teach in Spanish, Italian pastors teach in Italian. German pastors teach in German, because they are realists.

Speaking of “error”. The very first sentence in the KJV contains an “error”:

AD1611 First Edition Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the Heauen (sic) and the Earth (sic).

The 1611 AV has "heaven" (singular). In the original Hebrew language the word “heaven” is plural (actually dual) and should be

NKJV Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

This is only partially the truth. Being realists we know that folks just won’t do this.

Personally, When people are brought into whatever ministry the Lord privileges to give me, I look for the fruit of the Spirit as Jesus instructed (by their fruits shall you know them) not the Bible version they carry to know if they are obedient to the translation they do use.

It is probably safe to say that no local church is perfect and that in one sense the gates of hell have prevailed against each local church because of the infiltration by the enemy of the “tares”.

But the rest of the story is that at the appropriate time Jesus Christ will take care of His business with His church and send angels to cleanse that which calls itself “Christianity”.

Whatever God has ordained and man touches becomes prone to degradation.

I have no doubt that God not only could but would restore to us the originals in perfection if we obeyed Him: “Love one another” and spent a tiny fraction of our resource (prayer, time, wealth) in research to that end as we do bickering about it.

HankD

 

I have said the very same thing as Winman but he will not accept it. I hold that God has preserved His inerrant word in the autographs, the manuscripts, and in translations. Winman asserts that the KJV is the one and only repository of God's word whereas I accept most other translations. that some of them are not identical is not a problem to me since God is God and His word will be His word no matter what.

Where Winman errs is that he is trying to make it an all or nothing argument by trying to only give two choices... either the manuscripts were it and they are gone so we have no word of God... or only one single translation is the actual word of God and all the others are not.

 

What Winman is saying (yes, I know he can speak for himself ), is that the manuscripts used for the KJV and the manuscripts used for MV's are very different, therefore they cannot both be the preserved word of God. I agree and that is why I prefer the manuscripts used for the older translations. I do not believe that a sovereign God would deliberately keep "the older and best" manuscripts hidden for 1800 years. That is my opinion and I know that there are others on the BB that agree with me. That does not make us KJVO.
But I think Winman has been very upfront and honest in his views on this subject.

 

I don't try to limit God in any way. Penicillin went undiscovered for thousands of years when it could have saved untold numbers of lives if God had seen fit to give it to Adam. For some manuscripts to be "lost" for 1800 is nothing to God. Odds are there are many more out there waiting to be found, but only on God's timetable. Honestly, I figure when we get to heaven we will all be surprised at what we thought was God's word and will here on earth when compared to what God has for us.

I believe Winman is being honest in his beliefs and the reasons for it. I have no problem with that at all. It is a personal conviction. So long as it remains a personal one everything is fine and dandy. I have my own personal convictions. If I try to force them on someone else I am out of line and am trying to make my convictions doctrine. that works both ways.

I guess what upsets me the most is when Winman tries to narrow God down to two choices. God is God and He will do as He pleases. He does not listen to what we want or expect Him to do. There is no box we can put Him in. When I see that it tears me up. I guess I get a little too zealous with it as I do the same thing when I go out on visitation and am confronted by some of the stuff people believe.

 

How exactly am I trying to force my personal convictions on you? I have never started a thread on this issue ever. I have read hundreds of posts where folks listed scripture from the MVs and never complained. If giving my opinion is forcing my convictions on you, then you are doing the same.

What is the title of the other thread going, "Queries for KJVO" or something like that? If you people don't like to hear the opinions and convictions of those who are KJVO, then simply quit asking us questions.

 

You've used that in about your last three or four posts! Learn a new word or something? :laugh::laugh:

 

If you can't prove it -- don't believe it. Don't make it a mission of yours.

But you contradict yourself. You have also said:"A translation does not have to contain error, that is a ridiclous point of view." Which is it Winman?

Have you ever heard of the Apocrapha? They included those non-canonical books.

And fallible men make mistakes -- they made errors in their revision.

 

Do you believe Jesus rose from the dead? You do? Prove it.

A translation of anything can be correct or error, depending upon whether it was correct or error (That will surely go right over your head).

Yep, and they took them out in 1629 didn't they? If they believed them to be scripture they wouldn't have done that would they?

Does a fallible man make mistakes 100% of the time? Can't a fallible man be correct many times? Even you are probably correct once in a great while.

I tell ya, your arguments are way out there and you lack logical reasoning skills.

 

No Bible translation is without error. None are perfect.

The Apocrapha wasn't removed from most Bibles until the 1880's. The KJV came out in 1611. It contained books which were not biblical. They erred. That proved their fallibility along with other errors.

Yes, it's quite possible.

Yes, it is also possible. Different people -- different levels of fallibility. But all are fallible fellows. There is no perfect person. Christ -- the God/man is the only Perfect One.

If a fallible man makes a mistake he is officially considered fallible. The KJV revisers were fallible men -- they erred a number of times -- hence the KJV is a fallible production. It was correct much of the time -- but not in its entirety. God still uses it for the furtherance of His Kingdom as He does with translations such as the NIV. (Fallible men also translated that work.)

All people are fallible. The imputation of Adam's sin to his progeny is a major doctrine in all valid Bible translations. The KJV teaches the Federal Headship of Adam in Romans 5. So do all valid Bible translations.

 

The 1611 Royal Version was never perfect in the past or present and won't be in the future.