Featured The KJV Translators Superior Language Skills

Given what I've read of their skills for the time, I'd stack them up against any scholars today.

As for the Late Middle English, I'm used to it, and I find it hard to use anything else in my personal studies, especially translations that conflict with it in passages.
Am I KJVO?

You might refer to me as "KJV Preferred", or "AV Best".

 

That is fine, but do also think modern original language scholars have the benefit of knowing more in the languages than they were able to know at that time.

 

While most of the AV men were smart dudes, they didn't have the knowledge to work with that we have now. An example is their belief in the existence of unicorns. They didn't have the knowledge to know that unicorns as depicted on KJ's coat-of-arms didn't exist.

Another was their "cure" for migraine - trepanning, that is, cutting a hole in the skull to allow the "bad humours" to escape. (I dunno how they treated the headache trepanning caused! The process is still used to relieve the pressure of a subdural hematoma, but with somewhat-different tools!)

 

The truth though is still that there have been advancement in the fields of languages, textual criticism, knowledge of the culture/hitorical backgrounds of the Bible, so modern experts do have more to draw from to make translations!

 

Y1,
To me, the textual criticism of today is basically, " Did God really say what the TR says?"
As a subset, " Did God have a hand in giving me the Bible in my own language, and if so, what translation did He cause men to dedicate their time to?"

In the fields of languages, scholars of today have actually lost some of the old languages...not gained them, IMO. To me, most biblical scholars today are generalists who do it for money. What I'm looking for, is someone who does it for the body of Christ, and trusts God for his livelihood.

As for cultural / historical backgrounds, I do not feel that those are important, when all I really want is God's very words.

 

The historical/cultural backgroungs have been useful in being able to furhter define libical words used, and the many manuscriptes used have also aided us iton getting closer to thsat the originals were to us. The knowledge of the biblcal hebrew/Greek ddi not cease after 1611!

 

Well said!

 

I am not discounting what the 1611 team did, as they did a wonderful job with what they had, but the modern scholrs do have more to draw upon...

 

Perhaps because their efforts were full time for the King and they didn't take time off to make a living.
Ok I get that.

I think it's time I bow out of these discussions about translations, and just let people be convinced that anything they use is going to be "good enough", even though the words differ...even in meaning.
Example:

Philippians 2:6.

" who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:" ( Philippians 2:6, AV )

" who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped," ( Philippians 2:6, ESV )


The difference is amazing, yet most people I talk to don't seem to have a problem with it.
I have a personal problem with "textual criticism", and I don't like the fact that there was a "snowball effect" after 1881 that's resulted in dozens of English translations that say things different ways.

May God bless you all.

 

"Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep [market] a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches.
3 In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water.
4 For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.
5 And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years.
6 When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time [in that] case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole?
7 The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.
8 Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.
9 And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the sabbath." ( John 5:2-9, AV )


" Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades.
3 In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed.

5 One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.
6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?”
7 The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.”
8 Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.”
9 And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked." ( John 5:2-9, ESV )


Where is it?
If it is God's word, then why is it missing in the ESV?
If it isn't, then why does the KJV lie and claim to be God's words, when some of it has been put there by men?

 

Same for Acts 8:36-38.

Gentlemen, these are questions with genuine concern...
I want to know why God's word is being messed with, and for what purpose.

Either tell me why the KJV translators made mistakes that are being corrected after 1881, and are taking next to forever to get it right, or tell me why I should believe that today's translators are interested in getting to the heart of the matter, and simply haven't arrived yet.

Other than riding on a money train, what motive is there for the dozens of English translations of the Bible that have surfaced within just my lifetime of 52 short years ( prior to my birth, one could almost count the number of English translations on one hand, now it's unbelievable )?

If it was scholarship, that bird should have come home to roost ages ago.
I know of engineers that have confessed that the internal combustion engine, that will never be any more efficient than 35%, was perfected within the past 50 years...yet modern scholars would have us believe that the Bible is in constant need of updating.

For what purpose?