Featured Kent Hovind KJV

Not many can rock a maize colored shirt.

 

Never watched Michigan basketball, didya?

 

In a word, 'superficial'.

 

A video of Kent Hovind on the topic of Bible versions was the subject of another thread several years ago. The link to his video found in my OP is still good. The BB thread --
http://www.baptistboard.com/showthread.php?t=44214

 

Haven't checked out the link in the OP yet (and not sure if I will at all), but if I recall one of Hovind's main arguments on this is that the texts from Alexandria were purposely corrupted by a cult, right?
When I was reading up on KJOism I never found much about that and ended up dismissing it as not at all well-founded since the only people mentioning it were those who wanted to believe the MT is corrupt. Do you happen to have any information on it?

 

My thoughts now on this video are consistent with my thoughts on the other video over six years ago: Mr. Hovind makes a lot of mistakes in his presentation. You have to listen carefully because he talks fast.

After giving a brief personal testimony of his early days as a new Christian, he presents a comparison of Psalm 12:6-7 in the KJV and NIV. I will only comment that his presentation is superficial and completely biased.

At about 2:30 into the video Mr. Hovind mentions copyright law asserting that a new translation must be "10% different from the original". He claims at that time of the video there may have been 151 English translations available. Then he asks this misleading exaggerated question: "Are there a 151 ways to say each of the verses of the Bible?" In order to answer properly, Mr. Hovind should first define what "the original" is. Secondly, the new translation only need be 10% different on the whole, not each verse. Thirdly, I pretty certain that there nearly 151 English Bibles all under copyright protection at that time.

At about 3:00 into the video Mr. Hovind states that "horrible persecution" hit the church for "the next 1000 years". Later (3:40) he says that this persectution "lets up" around 1500-1600. That is an historical error. Some one should tell Kent about Emperor Constantine.

At about 3:25 he states that "it takes about 10 months to write out a Bible using a pen". The statement itself is basically true, but it out of place in his historical context. It would be somewhat later that entire Bibles (complete with both testaments) would be handwritten. In the early centuries there were collections of books (the Gospels together, or Pauline epistles) but rarely entire Bibles. He gives the impression that there are almost innumerable copies of the entire Bible floating around.

At about 3:45 he says "people decided to collect the Bible copies together from all over the world, and compare them, and put them into English." Who does he think these "people" were, and how did they get together to decide such a thing? How would they manage to collect all these Bible from all over the world? He even mentions copies from "China". And where does he think this grand scale comparison was done? Very dangerous thought to have the world's Bibles all at once in one place.

Speaking about scrolls (when he should have been talking about the codex format that Christians used) at about 4:30 in the video Mr. Hovind immediately follows with "after about a 1000 years you might be on your 4th or 5th generation from the original". Actually, you might be on your 4th or 5th generation copy in under 100 years.

The above is probably enough. Too much bias, too much confusion, too much misinformation in the first 5 minutes to be beneficial.

 

I don't want this post to come off as confrontational. But I want to dig deeper. I'd like more information on both sides of the argument.

Judging from what I am reading, you went into the video with the wrong attitude. Your attitude seems to be, "This guy's a hack, how can I discredit him?" This is shown by your inattention to detail on your bashing him.

For instance, the "1000 years - 4th or 5th generation" idea came from his earlier statement that you could make a scroll last about 300 years with proper care.

"The Original" in his case about copyright doesn't point to any particular work. It points to any currently copyrighted work. So, each subsequent work would have to be 10% different than every other currently copyrighted work. Obviously, I don't imagine that all 151 works are still under copyright. As I understand it, copyright lasts for 70 years and then can be renewed for about 25 more years. So, each new work has to be 10% different than each work done in the last century, give or take.

I have to ask how his comparison of PS 12:6-7 was superficial and biased? In this particular case, they do say things that are totally different. Maybe you mean he was biased towards the KJV being the correct translation?

Lastly, for my own historic knowledge, what about his claims of 5000 scrolls vs 3 and 40 something partials? Is there truth to this?

Edited to correct "24000" to "5000".

 

You're not being confrontational. Its good to dig deeper. I'll try to provide more info.

Your are partially correct. If you view the other thread on a Hovind video you'll see that I have dealt with his material before (quite fairly, I'm told). Actually, I could have attacked his comments in several other areas. For example, I didn't initially call him out on his unkind slur of the RSV (0:20 --"the reviled substandard perversion") or his comments about how modern versions have to lie by intentionally translating "it the wrong way just to make it different" so that they can make a profit because he slanders them as evil lovers of money (at about 2:50 in the video).

Yes, he said that. I give the approximate time of everything I quote because it may encourage people to check it out in context. His scenario of a "scroll" (again, Christians didn't use scrolls) lasting 300 years is unrealistic. While not hypothetically impossible (but no hard evidence that it did, even once), his best-case just gives an entirely wrong impression of reality. The Christian Scriptures were copied in the early centuries very rapidly. Many copies were destroy copiesed in the Diocletianic persecution (303 to about 324 AD). After that, copying began rapidly again under the protection of Constantine. I believe he implies a vertical thrust of only a few generations stemming from a limited few very early exemplars. The reality was that it spread horizontally with many more manuscripts following a 3rd, maybe 6th, or even 9th generation copies than 1st generation copy. Hovind may believe that dozens or hundreds of copies came directly from the 1st generation; I think (with backing of scholarship I trust) it is more probable that very few copies were made from the 1st generation and later many more copies were made from subsequent generations.

So at the very least, he should have said something to the effect 'currently protected works' (not "the original"). But I suspect that Hovind thinks the KJV is "the original".

Yes, it was clearly not an objective comparison. First, after reading Psalm 12:6-7 from the KJV he asks the question: What does "them" refer back to in that verse? falsely presuming that every pronoun's antecedent must be in the same or immediately preceding verse. Second, after reading the NIV verses he asks: What "people" is it talking about? but then makes not even the slightest attempt to explain the context from which the NIV draws its rendering. To make matters worse, the issue he raises here isn't even a direct parallel to his comment on the KJV verse: the NIV's "people" isn't the word replacing the KJV's "them"; it is the NIV's word "us" that corresponds to the KJV's "them" (the NIV's "people" is the parallel to the KJV's "generation"). Does Hovind botch the comparison deliberately or through incompetence? Note that I'm not condemning his ultimate conclusion (although I disagree with it), only his presentation.

I only watched the first 5 minutes, so I'd have to get back to you.

 

This seems to be a variation of a typical unproven KJV-only claim concerning derivative copyright law.

Where are the direct statements from actual copyright law that asserts that each translation of uncopyrighted original language texts has to be 10% different?

Should it be assumed that the same exact copyright laws that may apply to a derivative revision of an author's previous copyrighted work would actually apply to the making of new translations from old original language texts that are not under copyright protection?

Perhaps an invalid comparison or assumption is being made.

 

According to what I can Google, including the copyright law on derivatives, translations are considered a derivative. And I can't find a percentage that it has to be different (as a novice author and songwriter, I've always heard 20%, bit can't find that), just that it has to be different enough to be able to pass as it's own work.

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.pdf

Upon further digging, each translation copyright has its own allowances. Most say that up to 1000 verses can be used, or that any works can only be comprised of 20% of their work.

You'd have to check each one to see what they say. But this has some serious implications to it.

This contains information on the NIV copyright law.
http://mobile.biblegateway.com/versions/New-International-Version-NIV-Bible/

500 verses or the new work cannot be comprised of more than 25% of the NIV. I realize that this isn't exactly the same. But to me it illustrates that a new translation has to be significantly different.

 

Yes, all translations are a derivative or are derived from uncopyrighted original language manuscripts and texts.

Translations are not a derivative of a previous copyrighted translation unless they are merely a revision of an earlier translation instead of being an actual translation.

According to a consistent application of Hovind's faulty reasoning, if each translation supposedly has to be 10% different from the previous one, than after ten translations, the tenth translation should be 100% different from the first one. Especially after the claimed 150 translations, each one should be expected to be completely or 100% different than the KJV, which is simply not true.

Kent Hovind's claims about this do not hold up to close examination.

 

Mr Hovind musta been bored while in jail.

 

I was curious what Kent Hovind would say next.

He had just made comments about there being several generations of copies of the Scriptures when (about 5:00 into the video) he begins to talk about the accuracy of the copying process: "A good way to check that copying process and see was it accurate is after each of these, you know, the French ones, German ones, English ones, Chinese ones each goes five generations now let's get the 5th generation and see how accurate they are. And that's what happened in the 1500 and 1600s."

Wow. Where do you begin to unravel this inaccuracy? First, checking copies against other copies would not be a good way to check accuracy. The best way to check accuracy is to check the copies against the exemplar. Unfortunately, lacking the known exemplar then copies must be compared to other copies but this takes a great deal of effort and reduces the certitude of accuracy.

Second, there were not any "copies" or "scrolls" in French, German, English, or Chinese. There were translations in Latin, Arabic, Syrian, Coptic, Armenian and others. The French and Germans would have been using Latin Bibles; complete translations of the Bible in most European languages don't begin to appear until late 1300s (too late to be in their 5th generation by 1500-1600). The only complete translation of the Bible into English was Wyclif's of 1383 (but it was out of Latin, thus not useful in a comparison). The first Chinese translation may not have been until 1919. It seems he may (and should) be referring to copies of the Greek manuscripts, based on the "5000 copies of the Bible" he uses (at about 5:15). I am not sure what he means, but there have been over 5000 Greek manuscripts discovered. But certainly no Greek manuscripts had been made or kept in England or China at this time. Remember, printing of the Latin Bible occurs 1450ish beginning the decline of handcopying.

Third, there is no way to know that you'd be actually comparing a 5th generation copy with another 5th generation copy.

Fourth, even if there had been such copies, there would have been no way to locate and obtain them all.

Lastly, why is Mr. Hovind so imprecise about his date? The "1500 and 1600s" could cover up to 200 years, which is longer than an individual's lifespan (was this project passed on from one generation to another?). Or does he think it happened more than once? (first in the 1500s and then again in the 1600s?)

Again, a lot of problems produced in just one 15-second comment.

 

I'm not sure why I feel compelled to defend Hovind's arguments. I'm not even KJVo. Equality maybe?

But your reasoning in the above quote is faulty. The second one would be 10% different. The third one could take that SAME 10% and make it different. Meaning that all three are 10% different than each other. It's not additive at all. The changes can overlap.

 

James White soundly destroys Hovind in these 2 videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-r7ZsUBn9nQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0PeoTAKH1g

 

And this one too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxwLnuza6R4