KING JAMES VERSION BIBLE VS. MODERN ENGLISH BIBLES

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Dec 28, 2016
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The "For God so loved the world" world.
Well, seeing God does not change, and His love is an eternal love, world in John 3:16 does not equal all whoever lived.


[FONT=&quot]We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, [/FONT][FONT=&quot]because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people—[/FONT][FONT=&quot]the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel[/FONT][FONT=&quot] [/FONT][FONT=&quot]that has come to you. In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace.[Colossians 1:3-6]

’Whole world’ here can NOT mean all whoever lived. Many died in remote areas when Paul wrote this, and never heard the gospel. [/FONT]
 
Nov 23, 2013
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Yes that is quite correct. My point is that to translate that means accomplished or completed as believed requires activity beyond the scope of translation.
Ok I think I see your point, the KJV translators added to the text of the copies of the original Greek. Am I understanding you correctly?
 
Nov 23, 2013
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Well, seeing God does not change, and His love is an eternal love, world in John 3:16 does not equal all whoever lived.


We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people—the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospelthat has come to you. In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace.[Colossians 1:3-6]

’Whole world’ here can NOT mean all whoever lived. Many died in remote areas when Paul wrote this, and never heard the gospel.
So who do you think Christ died for?
 

Angela53510

Senior Member
Jan 24, 2011
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Im curious as to how you determine which copes of extinct manuscripts are reliable and which are not?

My last post was not addressed to you. But, since you ask an even weirder question what is your... ? Never mind!

Animals go extinct. Plants go extinct. That means, there are no more of them. Manuscripts are extant. That means they have survived from the past to the present. We don’t use manuscripts we don’t have, right? We use manuscripts we have.

Reliable means older, certainly not from the 9th or 10th centuries, a millennium after the NT was written.

What you don’t know about the science of textual criticism, which it would behoove you to learn about, is that literally every single copy, fragment, scroll, book from the NT has been catalogued, dated, and completely copied and studied. So, if a new manuscript from the 10th century is discovered, and it has a specific error that a certain family of Byzantine copies have, then it becomes part of that family. So, imagine a sigma was dropped off a word in Luke 2:14, other extant manuscripts from the 8th century. Then, that error is followed through the remainder of the century, the 9th century, and then how it arrived in the 10th century. So, it is known (and this is hypothetical, of course, I don’t know WHEN the sigma was dropped off), that this is a corrupted copy.

Oh, and this is not about me! I am no manuscript expert, reading the actual manuscripts, involved in cataloguing the errors, and following them through the families, down to the 15th century, where Erasmus and KJ’s translation committees translates it as best they can, with what they have available at the time. 7 corrrupted copies. That was what the KJ translation committee uses So why were they corrupt? Because they had so many errors in them, which are easily traced. Not just one later, or 10, but hundreds of small errors, and some BIG ones like the longer ending of Mark, for example.

Now, there are almost 6000 copies of the NT, completely known as to each single word, letter and accent mark. The later ones always have the greatest issues, as the copying gets farther and farther from the source. That is why UBS, (not me!) can say, with CERTAINTY, the word had a sigma in the earliest texts, and it dropped off and was incorporated in the M manuscripts, or whatever. Got it?

So, please study about lower criticism of the Bible. This has nothing to do with tearing down the Bible or theology at all. It has to do with the range and contents of extant manscripts.

https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/430/what-are-higher-and-lower-criticism

https://bible.org/seriespage/appendix-two-textual-criticism-0

A. How the variants occurred1. inadvertent or accidental (vast majority of occurrences)
a. slip of the eye in hand copying which reads the second instance of two similar words and thereby omits all of the words in between (homoioteleuton)
(1) slip of the eye in omitting a double letter word or phrase (haplography)
(2) slip of the mind in repeating a phrase or line of a Greek text (dittography)
b. slip of the ear in copying by oral dictation where a misspelling occurs (itacism). Often the misspelling implies or spells a similar-sounding Greek word.
c. the earliest Greek texts had no chapter or verse divisions, little or no punctuation and no division between words. It is possible to divide the letters in different places forming different words.
2. intentional
a. changes were made to improve the grammatical form of the text copied
b. changes were made to bring the text into conformity with other biblical texts (harmonization of parallels)
c. changes were made by combining two or more variant readings into one long combined text (conflation)
d. changes were made to correct a perceived problem in the text (cf. I Cor. 11:27 and I John 5:7-8)
e. some additional information as to the historical setting or proper interpretation of the text was placed in the margin by one scribe but placed into the text by a second scribe (cf. John 5:4)
B. The basic tenets of textual criticism (logical guidelines for determining the original reading of a text when variants exist)
1. the most awkward or grammatically unusual text is probably the original
2. the shortest text is probably the original
3. the older text is given more weight because of its historical proximity to the original, everything else being equal
4. MSS that are geographically diverse usually have the original reading
5. doctrinally weaker texts, especially those relating to major theological discussions of the period of manuscript changes, like the Trinity in I John 5:7-8, are to be preferred.
6. the text that can best explain the origin of the other variants
7. two quotes that help show the balance in these troubling variants
a. J. Harold Greenlee's book, Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism, p. 68:
"No Christian doctrine hangs upon a debatable text; and the student of the NT must beware of wanting his text to be more orthodox or doctrinally stronger than is the inspired original."


https://www.biblicaltraining.org/library/history-biblical-criticism

But do be careful! You might just learn something, and realize that no, God didn’t show you the KJV was the only inspired version. But, we will love you anyway!
 

Angela53510

Senior Member
Jan 24, 2011
11,782
2,952
113
Ok I think I see your point, the KJV translators added to the text of the copies of the original Greek. Am I understanding you correctly?

I actually do NOT think the KJV translators added to the copies of the original Greek. Seeing the errors that exist in later, corrupted manuscripts, like eudokia being in the nominative, and the translators faithfully translating it that way, I think they did their best, with what they had. So, they translated correctly, given what was in the 7 corrupted manuscripts they had access to.

The issue is that the manuscripts themselves were not good. See my last post!
 
Nov 23, 2013
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My last post was not addressed to you. But, since you ask an even weirder question what is your... ? Never mind!

Animals go extinct. Plants go extinct. That means, there are no more of them. Manuscripts are extant. That means they have survived from the past to the present. We don’t use manuscripts we don’t have, right? We use manuscripts we have.

Reliable means older, certainly not from the 9th or 10th centuries, a millennium after the NT was written.

What you don’t know about the science of textual criticism, which it would behoove you to learn about, is that literally every single copy, fragment, scroll, book from the NT has been catalogued, dated, and completely copied and studied. So, if a new manuscript from the 10th century is discovered, and it has a specific error that a certain family of Byzantine copies have, then it becomes part of that family. So, imagine a sigma was dropped off a word in Luke 2:14, other extant manuscripts from the 8th century. Then, that error is followed through the remainder of the century, the 9th century, and then how it arrived in the 10th century. So, it is known (and this is hypothetical, of course, I don’t know WHEN the sigma was dropped off), that this is a corrupted copy.

Oh, and this is not about me! I am no manuscript expert, reading the actual manuscripts, involved in cataloguing the errors, and following them through the families, down to the 15th century, where Erasmus and KJ’s translation committees translates it as best they can, with what they have available at the time. 7 corrrupted copies. That was what the KJ translation committee uses So why were they corrupt? Because they had so many errors in them, which are easily traced. Not just one later, or 10, but hundreds of small errors, and some BIG ones like the longer ending of Mark, for example.

Now, there are almost 6000 copies of the NT, completely known as to each single word, letter and accent mark. The later ones always have the greatest issues, as the copying gets farther and farther from the source. That is why UBS, (not me!) can say, with CERTAINTY, the word had a sigma in the earliest texts, and it dropped off and was incorporated in the M manuscripts, or whatever. Got it?

So, please study about lower criticism of the Bible. This has nothing to do with tearing down the Bible or theology at all. It has to do with the range and contents of extant manscripts.

https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/430/what-are-higher-and-lower-criticism

https://bible.org/seriespage/appendix-two-textual-criticism-0

A. How the variants occurred1. inadvertent or accidental (vast majority of occurrences)
a. slip of the eye in hand copying which reads the second instance of two similar words and thereby omits all of the words in between (homoioteleuton)
(1) slip of the eye in omitting a double letter word or phrase (haplography)
(2) slip of the mind in repeating a phrase or line of a Greek text (dittography)
b. slip of the ear in copying by oral dictation where a misspelling occurs (itacism). Often the misspelling implies or spells a similar-sounding Greek word.
c. the earliest Greek texts had no chapter or verse divisions, little or no punctuation and no division between words. It is possible to divide the letters in different places forming different words.
2. intentional
a. changes were made to improve the grammatical form of the text copied
b. changes were made to bring the text into conformity with other biblical texts (harmonization of parallels)
c. changes were made by combining two or more variant readings into one long combined text (conflation)
d. changes were made to correct a perceived problem in the text (cf. I Cor. 11:27 and I John 5:7-8)
e. some additional information as to the historical setting or proper interpretation of the text was placed in the margin by one scribe but placed into the text by a second scribe (cf. John 5:4)
B. The basic tenets of textual criticism (logical guidelines for determining the original reading of a text when variants exist)
1. the most awkward or grammatically unusual text is probably the original
2. the shortest text is probably the original
3. the older text is given more weight because of its historical proximity to the original, everything else being equal
4. MSS that are geographically diverse usually have the original reading
5. doctrinally weaker texts, especially those relating to major theological discussions of the period of manuscript changes, like the Trinity in I John 5:7-8, are to be preferred.
6. the text that can best explain the origin of the other variants
7. two quotes that help show the balance in these troubling variants
a. J. Harold Greenlee's book, Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism, p. 68:
"No Christian doctrine hangs upon a debatable text; and the student of the NT must beware of wanting his text to be more orthodox or doctrinally stronger than is the inspired original."


https://www.biblicaltraining.org/library/history-biblical-criticism

But do be careful! You might just learn something, and realize that no, God didn’t show you the KJV was the only inspired version. But, we will love you anyway!
NIce work, you answered my question - older means more accurate right? How old is the oldest copies we have?
 
Nov 23, 2013
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I actually do NOT think the KJV translators added to the copies of the original Greek. Seeing the errors that exist in later, corrupted manuscripts, like eudokia being in the nominative, and the translators faithfully translating it that way, I think they did their best, with what they had. So, they translated correctly, given what was in the 7 corrupted manuscripts they had access to.

The issue is that the manuscripts themselves were not good. See my last post!
The vaticanus was around when the KJV was written, why do you think the KJV translators chose not to use it?
 

MarcR

Senior Member
Feb 12, 2015
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Ok I think I see your point, the KJV translators added to the text of the copies of the original Greek. Am I understanding you correctly?

I have not addressed additions or deletions I am talking about people who produced a very accurate translation overall translating the first 3 verses of Luke [especially verse 3] more clumsily than first semester students [and that is being generous].
 
Nov 23, 2013
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I actually do NOT think the KJV translators added to the copies of the original Greek. Seeing the errors that exist in later, corrupted manuscripts, like eudokia being in the nominative, and the translators faithfully translating it that way, I think they did their best, with what they had. So, they translated correctly, given what was in the 7 corrupted manuscripts they had access to.

The issue is that the manuscripts themselves were not good. See my last post!
Mankind tends to change things based on societal norms and the custom of the times, we see that today in the latest version of the NIV - Gender Neutral. We are also seeing homosexuality take firm root in society and now we have the Queen James homosexual bible.

So called "Christians" are changing the "word of God" to fit their needs. Do you think it's possible that happened back in the time of the wriiting of the bible? Is it possible that some of the older writings that you say are more accurate are possibly corruptions of the gnostics because from what I've studied about the gnostics, their terminology was almost a word for word match to the real McCoy... the only difference is their Christ was not the real Christ.
 
Nov 23, 2013
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I have not addressed additions or deletions I am talking about people who produced a very accurate translation overall translating the first 3 verses of Luke [especially verse 3] more clumsily than first semester students [and that is being generous].
KJV translators changed and added many words no doubt.
 
Nov 24, 2017
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I have not addressed additions or deletions I am talking about people who produced a very accurate translation overall translating the first 3 verses of Luke [especially verse 3] more clumsily than first semester students [and that is being generous].
"People" meaning the King James Bible translators?
 

MarcR

Senior Member
Feb 12, 2015
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KJV translators changed and added many words no doubt.

As I expected, an honest answer!

Two questions remain:

1) were those changes errors or were they inspired? I don't believe that they were inspired but I will honestly consider anything you present in support of such a notion.

2) do the instructions that James gave the translators leave room for special inspiration

I don't think so! Again, I will honestly consider anything you present in support of such a notion.
 

MarcR

Senior Member
Feb 12, 2015
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Yes I agree God foreknew and knows everything past present and future. I'm saying that God is speaking of Esau in the same way that he spoke of Agar in Galatians. God is not talking about the literal Agar, he's talking about the figurative Agar.

Galatians 4:24 Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.

I firmly believe that scripture should always be interpreted literally unless there is a compelling linguistic reason for doing otherwise. In Gal 4:24 we have a compelling linguistic reason. I don't believe that Jesus literally mistook the pharisees for whitewashed coffins.
 
Nov 24, 2017
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I have not addressed additions or deletions I am talking about people who produced a very accurate translation overall translating the first 3 verses of Luke [especially verse 3] more clumsily than first semester students [and that is being generous].
Luke 1:1-3 according to MarcR


"Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are fulfilled (or accomplished) among us,"

"Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and servants of the Word;"

"It seemed good to me also, having accurately followed after all things from above, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus,"


I this correct? How about verse 4, is it correctly translated?
 

MarcR

Senior Member
Feb 12, 2015
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Luke 1:1-3 according to MarcR


"Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are fulfilled (or accomplished) among us,"

"Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and servants of the Word;"

"It seemed good to me also, having accurately followed after all things from above, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus,"


I this correct? How about verse 4, is it correctly translated?
Yes to both questions.

I accept your label according to MarcR with the stipulatation that both Thayer's and Arndt and Gingrich's lexicons support my reading.
 
Nov 24, 2017
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Yes to both questions.

I accept your label according to MarcR with the stipulatation that both Thayer's and Arndt and Gingrich's lexicons support my reading.
I am talking about people who produced a very accurate translation overall translating the first 3 verses of Luke [especially verse 3] more clumsily than first semester students [and that is being generous].
Which Bible translations agree with your rendering of the phrase "all things from above" in verse 3 in place of "all things from the very first" or as many modern translations read the "beginning?"
 

MarcR

Senior Member
Feb 12, 2015
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Which Bible translations agree with your rendering of the phrase "all things from above" in verse 3 in place of "all things from the very first" or as many modern translations read the "beginning?"
Off the top of my head I neither know or care. Translators are concerned with being acceptable to both publishers and sponsors. I am only concerned with using words in a lexically acceptable way. Occasionally I fall short of that but very seldom and never intentionally. You are as capable as I am to determine which, if any, versions agree with me.
 
Nov 24, 2017
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Off the top of my head I neither know or care. Translators are concerned with being acceptable to both publishers and sponsors. I am only concerned with using words in a lexically acceptable way. Occasionally I fall short of that but very seldom and never intentionally. You are as capable as I am to determine which, if any, versions agree with me.
So you are saying that you all of these bibles are wrong and you are right concerning Luke 1:3?

Geneva Bible
King James Bible
RSV
ASV
NASB
NIV
HCSB
ESV
NKJV to name just a few!

Did they also translate this verse more "clumsily than first semester students" as the King James Bible translators did?