Why the KJV is Better

[Dino246]

Hello thanks for this post.......Well i was raised up many years King James only then i ventured out to many diff versions then some years back i saw how many of the bibles i was using had changed the wording and even the meaning....so well at this time i enjoy the King James again ....love in Christ Sherril....thanks again for sharing .....

This is the reasoning used by many people who advocate for the King James. They compare other versions to the KJV instead of comparing both to an outside source (the original languages).

If you are used to the KJV, and assume that it has the correct wording/meaning, then anything else will appear to be inferior. However, if you compare the KJV to the Greek, you may find that the KJV is inferior.

As another said earlier in this thread, studying the Word is what is most important. Stressing over which version is secondary.

 

[Willie-T]

This is the reasoning used by many people who advocate for the King James. They compare other versions to the KJV instead of comparing both to an outside source (the original languages).

If you are used to the KJV, and assume that it has the correct wording/meaning, then anything else will appear to be inferior. However, if you compare the KJV to the Greek, you may find that the KJV is inferior.

As another said earlier in this thread, studying the Word is what is most important. Stressing over which version is secondary.

Absolutely! Anything and everything is going to be wrong if it goes back to the original and translates THAT correctly when the KJV might not have......... IF you are considering the KJV as more accurate than the original.

 

[Sherril]

i agree with you folks i know the king James is not the purest as compared from the Greek and Hebrew i have never read them to compare.....may i ask what would be even more pure to read from and grow and learn in the closest to the original text? thank so much for any wisdom in this matter .
love in Christ Sherril

 

[wsblind]

This is the reasoning used by many people who advocate for the King James. They compare other versions to the KJV instead of comparing both to an outside source (the original languages).

If you are used to the KJV, and assume that it has the correct wording/meaning, then anything else will appear to be inferior. However, if you compare the KJV to the Greek, you may find that the KJV is inferior.

As another said earlier in this thread, studying the Word is what is most important. Stressing over which version is secondary.

It is interesting too.......many folks who have never even opened a KJV bible will line up in theology with those that say "KJV ONLY!"

And your correct. Any version and a simple understanding of the Greek can go a LONG way.

A simple understanding of the Greek shows many "questionable" words and phrases in the KJV. As with ALL of the translations.

 

[wsblind]

i agree with you folks i know the king James is not the purest as compared from the Greek and Hebrew i have never read them to compare.....may i ask what would be even more pure to read from and grow and learn in the closest to the original text? thank so much for any wisdom in this matter .
love in Christ Sherril

I have a simple understanding of the Greek. And the NASB won't fail ya. Sure it is not perfect, but it does a great job, for the English today. But the KJV is not bad. It's just the fact of those that think KJV is the ONLY version to use. It has mistakes the same as all of them.

 

[wsblind]

For a popular version, I would not suggest the NIV. It has a progressive, liberal agenda. It's not in your face, but it is subtle and indirect. With some study though, it doesn't seem so subtle and indirect!

 

[Sherril]

Some times i have looked up a few word in the Greek or Hebrew online ....but i lack in pressing into that deep study .....i believe it would be good and even if my hubby could help me i know its online or maybe we could buy the Greek and Hebrew to compare even the king James ....pray for me i sure would like to understand Gods heart even more ...thanks for your love of God and His word and caring to share your hearts and wisdom ...love in Christ Sherril....

 

[Willie-T]

i agree with you folks i know the king James is not the purest as compared from the Greek and Hebrew i have never read them to compare.....may i ask what would be even more pure to read from and grow and learn in the closest to the original text? thank so much for any wisdom in this matter .
love in Christ Sherril

I know a fair number of Theologians, and the general consensus among them seems to be that the ESV and the NRSV are two of the more reliable translations. Me, I still use The God Translation (GT)

 

[wsblind]

Absolutely! Anything and everything is going to be wrong if it goes back to the original and translates THAT correctly when the KJV might not have......... IF you are considering the KJV as more accurate than the original.

It is crazy. So not one Christian had it right until 1611? Even Paul was in the dark and God enlightened us is 1611?

1611 was the year God spoke in English, because all other translation in different languages had been lost?

It is nuts to see smart, very smart people fall for KJV only.

 

[Sherril]

Ok this is what we have to study from now ....king James ASV, NAS, Strongs, Matthew Henry, Vines, and we were given a Eptuagint with Apocrypha. i am new on this sight and well it encourages me to see so many with much learning and compassion for Gods word ...so maybe its time i get busy again studying more to show myself approved a workman needing not to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth.....to God be the glory ....Love in Christ Sherril... ps is the Eptuagint with Apocrypha a good study resource? we are not sure....thanks again ...

 

[Willie-T]

Ok this is what we have to study from now ....king James ASV, NAS, Strongs, Matthew Henry, Vines, and we were given a Eptuagint with Apocrypha. i am new on this sight and well it encourages me to see so many with much learning and compassion for Gods word ...so maybe its time i get busy again studying more to show myself approved a workman needing not to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth.....to God be the glory ....Love in Christ Sherril... ps is the Eptuagint with Apocrypha a good study resource? we are not sure....thanks again ...

If you go online to Biblegateway.com, you will have something like 72 versions to study free.

 

[Desertsrose]

Some times i have looked up a few word in the Greek or Hebrew online ....but i lack in pressing into that deep study .....i believe it would be good and even if my hubby could help me i know its online or maybe we could buy the Greek and Hebrew to compare even the king James ....pray for me i sure would like to understand Gods heart even more ...thanks for your love of God and His word and caring to share your hearts and wisdom ...love in Christ Sherril....

Hi Sherril,

Many scholars agree and disagree among themselves, but what I've read from websites is that the NASB is one of the best for a word for word bible as is the ESV.

For thought for thought if you can find the NIV printed before 2011, that would be a better choice than the newer version.

The Holman Christian Bible is a balance between the word for word and the thought for thought. I have an NASB with Strong's which is helpful because it shows the Greek words and the Hebrew words when I click on them.

I bought it through the Olive Tree app. The app is free and you can download some free bibles, books, devotionals and you can purchase other items that you may want to include like I did with the NASB with Strong's. What I like about the Olive Tree app is that I can use it without being online. If you want more info you can go here. https://www.olivetree.com

 

[Willie-T]

I know a fair number of Theologians, and the general consensus among them seems to be that the ESV and the NRSV are two of the more reliable translations. Me, I still use The God Translation (GT)

CORRECTION: God's Word Translation (GW)

 

[Desertsrose]

Here's another helpful tool if you want to go online for help. I love it and it's quite helpful when I'm studying the bible. Read and Study the Bible Online - Search, Find Verses

 

[Depleted]

This is how you can tell that is a lie.

The KJV is not much different than the 1599 Geneva Version; and nothing has been changed in either one to support the accusatory deceptions of the Church & King James. The big difference is the removal of marginal notes which was running against the truths in the written scripture of the 1599 Geneva Bible. Hence .. this is why the KJV is better.

But feel free to peruse and cite proofs of the changes that somehow support the Church & ing james by deceptions at this link below at Bible Gateway

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1 Corinthians 1:18-21&version=KJV;GNV

Funny. The reason the KJV is so similar to the Geneva is because the KJV scholars were well acquainted with the Geneva. It was something like today most folks are well acquainted with the ESV. It just happened to be a good translation from around the same time period.

AND you certainly can tell the Geneva hasn't been updated since the 1600's. Ever try reading one? (A real one. Not an Internet-translated version.) The thing they did with F = S drives me nuts. It is understandable, but with the same difficulty of trying to read the Bible in Pig Latin -- understandable, but way too much effort to translate it.

All you've managed to do with this "unbiased" comparison is show me you've never opened a Genova in your life. Which tends to point you're about as unbiased as MSM today.

 

[Depleted]

I believe that Bible translators today do translate an English Bible version into a foreign language rather than starting from scratch again from the Greek & Hebrew.

You believe wrong. Translators do exactly what the name implies "translate." Interpreters are called on when two people with two different languages want to speak in a third language.

 

[Willie-T]

Funny. The reason the KJV is so similar to the Geneva is because the KJV scholars were well acquainted with the Geneva. It was something like today most folks are well acquainted with the ESV. It just happened to be a good translation from around the same time period.

AND you certainly can tell the Geneva hasn't been updated since the 1600's. Ever try reading one? (A real one. Not an Internet-translated version.) The thing they did with F = S drives me nuts. It is understandable, but with the same difficulty of trying to read the Bible in Pig Latin -- understandable, but way too much effort to translate it.

All you've managed to do with this "unbiased" comparison is show me you've never opened a Genova in your life. Which tends to point you're about as unbiased as MSM today.

True. And I am kind of surprised at the number of people who often get the intended meanings of many verses in those old Elizabethan-Language Bibles COMPLETELY backward..... reading just the opposite of what a passage is actually saying.

There's a bit of an art to reading Shakespeare.

 

[Depleted]

i agree with you folks i know the king James is not the purest as compared from the Greek and Hebrew i have never read them to compare.....may i ask what would be even more pure to read from and grow and learn in the closest to the original text? thank so much for any wisdom in this matter .
love in Christ Sherril

Think of translating in a more modern sense. At the time of the KJV, you couldn't just pick up every earliest manuscript (MS) from around the world to study it. Earliest MSS (manuscripts) was kept by the person who discovered it or by the country he lived in. And they were found throughout Europe and Asia by that time. (Probably in Africa too.) It wasn't like the scholars could hop a jet to Italy to take a peek at what they had. They had to journey by horse, which took quite some time. So the Englishmen who translated took from what they had and what they knew.

But they didn't know what we know today. No one had found the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) yet, and the DSS was a 100 AD library, so our earliest translations of the OT today. (Parchment disintegrates in less than 2000 years, which is exactly why they do translate from earliest MS and the earliest are skimpy even today.)

And they're Englishmen. They see words from a language that's all but dead for 1500 years, so they make their best guess on what a word means by use in context in old MSS. One small example is the word "giant" from the Bible. At the time they translated that word, they only saw it four times in all MSS about anything. Twice in what we call The Bible and twice in unrelated writings. The best the scholars could come up with was that word meant "giant" or "feller." Do you know what a feller is? I don't, and yet feller was a known word in the 1600's, so they understood it. (And I could look it up again to learn what they meant, but I much prefer the mystery of the word. lol) So, based on their scholarly efforts, they went with giant.

In like kind, they found a rodent of some kind that, according to what they found in ancient MSS (again, both in the Bible and apart from it), they translated it to "rabbit." It seems like a fair word, since there are rabbits in the UK and the Middle East, except we've learned something else they didn't know back then. There are rabbits in the Middle East now because they were imported and let loose. (Same reason Australia has to combat rabbits. Somebody imported a couple to Australia, they escaped, and poor Aussies. There are no animals there that naturally eat rabbits, and rabbits breed like... well rabbits, so now they have rabbit problems.) But the KJV stuck with the word rabbit, even though now we know it was a wilderness-dwelling rodent that leaves in the Middle East, not the fluffy cottontail critter from the UK.

Those are two of the easy-to-deal-with mistranslations (or not. To this day, scholars aren't exactly sure if that word is giant), mistranslations. I'm not a scholar. I don't have a list of all the mistranslations.

And, along with that problem because of the other advancements that have happened since those men translated the KJV. we now have jets to travel, and something better. The Internet. (The NIV was the first translation created at the beginning of the Internet, and yet, even since then, it has become easier to translate from the Internet.) So different governments have photographed their well-protected earliest MSS, as well as archaeologist finding even more, and sometimes earlier ones, so scholars can work towards better and better translations. The closer we get to what the original words were and meant, the better the translators translate.

The KJV was an amazing feat for its time, particularly knowing that James wasn't out to make a better Bible. He was out to make the Bible fit him for the power behind making it fit him. And yet, the scholars tried to stay true with what the words said. It just gets better and better the more scholars learn what the original language says.

 

[Depleted]

It is interesting too.......many folks who have never even opened a KJV bible will line up in theology with those that say "KJV ONLY!"

And your correct. Any version and a simple understanding of the Greek can go a LONG way.

A simple understanding of the Greek shows many "questionable" words and phrases in the KJV. As with ALL of the translations.

Meh. I'm old and never did have the gene required to understand languages easily. Yet, a concordance or two works fine for me, when I want to truly understand a word in the Bible, or if I want to do word studies. I'd hate to think we all need to understand ancient languages just to understand scripture.

 

[Depleted]

For a popular version, I would not suggest the NIV. It has a progressive, liberal agenda. It's not in your face, but it is subtle and indirect. With some study though, it doesn't seem so subtle and indirect!

Excuuuuse me? NIV was a reformed effort. We reformed folks aren't usually liberal nor particularly progressive.

I knew the scholar who translated Jude (and a few Psalms. He's the guy who taught us about how he did it. It took him over ten years. In the beginning, he had to take jets to different countries to visit the earliest MSS. By the end of the time, he was able to use the Internet. If you could do a better job with more effort than that for the smallest book in the Bible, go for it. BUT don't put down the people who already have put in the effort.

Try not to pass off urban legend as fact.

Just because you don't like a translation doesn't automatically make it by Democrats! American political parties aren't even into translating Bibles. Yeesh!