Featured Four reasonable questions concerning KJVO

So could yours.

How would you know?

 

Oh, didn't you know? Logos is never wrong.

 

To be more clear. I personally prefer the NKJV over any other translation but my point was that both of the renderings Acts 5:30 are perfectly fine. Neither one is necessarily "more accurate" than the other. Translation of one language into another is very simply not an exact science and I think people expect a level of precision that is not only unreasonable but flat out impossible to achieve.

The reason the NKJV is superior to KJV isn't because they did a better job of translating, per se, but because they translated it into modern English with modern word usage, proper sentence structure, paragraphing, etc.

 

How would you know that?

 

The KJV, as well as every translation and paraphrase, claims it is the word and words of God. The internal evidence does not even suggest it is a translation or a similitude of the words of God and it does not say it is the best words the translators could think of to present the truths of God. It just says it is the words of God.
The scriptures are an eye witness account of those who wrote it. Even the Revelation of future events that have not even occurred yet in time were witnessed and written by John the apostle of Jesus Christ, the truths of which are denied regularly by large segments of the professing church. Generally the same people who promote and sanction a never ending line of new translations and paraphrases.

God has given us two witnesses to himself. One is through natural revelation and the other is through special revelation. One cannot know him personally through nature but he can know that he is. His special revelation is Jesus Christ and his word, both the same.. Here is David, a personification of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament writing a song about both.

1 ¶ «To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David.» The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
2 Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.
3 There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.
4 Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,
5 Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.
6 His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.

7 ¶ The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.
8 The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes.
9 The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.
10 More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
11 Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward.
12 Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults.
13 Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.
14 Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.

I love these words!

 

All I have done is lay out the historical facts. The KJV translators would not have held your position. They even encourage further scholarship to improve upon their work in the preface to the reader.

 

I do not believe it is accurate to say that either you or anyone else is arguing for improvement through translations and paraphrases. If this is the thrust of your argument then I have missed it along the way. And I doubt you are arguing for the latest to be published translation or paraphrase since it would no doubt be the best thus far.

 

The truth is established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.

Witness 1: The natural order all around us and in us. From this alone, we can know that God exists, that He is personal, relational, rational and that He brilliant and clever and wise and much more.

Witness 2: The word of God. From this we can know everything else we do know about God. It serves not only to confirm but to flesh out, augment and add to all that can be gleaned from His creation.

Witness 3: Miracles. Every kind of miracle including countless fulfilled prophecies, the burning bush, the crossing of the Red Sea, manna from Heaven, Arron's rod the budded, countless healing, various feedings, and of course Christ's resurrection from the dead, etc. etc. etc. all testify to not merely God's existence and His power, righteousness and mercy but also proves His immediate involvement in the affairs of man.

 

That was sarcasm.

 

I’ll put it this way. I would not give a new convert a KJV where the archaic language may be a hindrance. I also would not give them a paraphrase such as NIV or NLT either because those do need seek to accurately reflect the original languages. Unfortunately, the updated NASB has become a paraphrase with its gender inclusivity. The NKJV is good for its textual critical notes but most new readers would probably skip over that. I would more likely give them the ESV.

 

Hi Baptist4Life, I learned the following trick on another forum. When you are using sarcasm most people can pick up on it but there are some who don't get it. So here is the safe way;

Baptist4life said: ↑
Oh, didn't you know? Logos is never wrong (sarcasm off).

JD731 said
He is the sharpest knife in the drawer (sarcasm off)

 

I see that now. At the time, I was in a hurry and thought that it was Logos1560 who had said that to me. I took it as him being sarcastic! LOL! Sorry for the confusion.

The question stands!

Since I know he won't answer....

Logos1560 wants to talk about "human logic" as if there's any other kind and and as if he isn't using it to undermine that which he disagrees with. He can't read a single syllable of God's word without the use of logic. He can't type the first letter of the sentence "Your human logic might be wrong." without using "human logic" to type it.

There is no such thing as "human logic"!!! There is just logic. That which isn't logical is the irrational and is false - by definition. There is right and there is wrong. There is yes and there is no. Your eyes, ears and nose could not see, hear or smell without having been created for that purpose through a process of reason. Logic, is the only tool that any mind can use to perceive, understand, categorize, communicate or otherwise process any information of any kind whatsoever. And when Logos1560 undermines the our ability to use sound reason, he undermines his own ability to make such a claim and defeats himself because he could never have detected such a lack of ability if it actually existed because that ability is precisely the tool needed to detect any error whatsoever.



The Nature & Necessity of Logic by Craig S. Hawkins APOLOGETICS INFORMATION MINISTRY

 

The problem with that is that the opinion is subjective. Others will not agree with your good and bad choices. Therefore I conclude that you are measuring by the wrong standard and when you are in a roomful of these guys you will not be speaking the same things.

PS
Let's just go ahead and forget about that command in 1 Cor 1:10 because it is not going to happen. (sarcasm off)

 

The NIV would not qualify as a paraphrase by any definition.

Just sayin'

 

I have read their website and know what they say about it and what they say in my opinion makes it worse than a paraphrase. They do not translate they use a method called "dynamic equivalence." It is more of a thought translation.

 

It certainly can't be called a word-for-word or dynamic equivalent translation.

James 2:20-24 (NIV) - You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar. You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.

James 2:20-24 (ESV) - Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

 

"Dynamic equivalence" as apposed to a "formal equivalents", which is a more literal, word for word translation practice. It is all but impossible to do an actual word to word translation. All good translations, I don't care which one you pick, will be, to one degree or another, an "dynamic equivalence" translation. Even the LSV (Literal Standard Version) which specifically claims to be "the most literal translation of the bible into modern English" is, to some degree, a dynamic equivalence because there are some words in both Hebrew and Greek that cannot be directly translated into English and there are others that can be but aught not be because the meaning of that word in English is quite different that what it meant in the original language several centuries ago. The two options, thought for thought vs. word for word, sort of define what should be understood as a spectrum where paraphrases are on one end and practically unreadable versions like Young's Literal Translation on the other and most everything else is somewhere in the middle.

Words are just sounds that we make to convey ideas. Any translation that conveys the word but misses the meaning isn't really translating what has been said. It's more of a transcribing than a translation and even that isn't a great term for it. It's all but useless whatever it you call it.

For example, if I say to a Spanish speaking person, "Let's hit the road!" and the person who is translating for me does so in a very literal, word for word manner, my Spanish speaking friend is going to be confused because there is no Spanish equivalent to that particular figure of speech that can be communicated by translating the saying word for word. It is REQUIRED to state the IDEA in Spanish using whatever Spanish words it would take to accomplish that goal, like "vámonos!"

Now, I do not want to be misunderstood. I am not saying this as some sort of an endorsement of the NIV per se. There are far better translations of the bible - far better! I'm just saying that the NIV is, in fact, a translation and not a paraphrase. As for their "dynamic equivalence" methodology, it could be that they take it to a level that is unjustified, I don't know if they do or not. My comments are restricted to the concept itself and not the NIV's actual practice.

 

I can understand why some would have a problem with the use of "considered righteous" vs "justified" in this verse but that doesn't mean its a horrible translation and it certainly doesn't disqualify it as a translation at all and move it instead into the category of a paraphrase.

This is a terrific example of what I've said a couple of other times in this thread already. The shear volume of the material in the bible simply overwhelms the impact of such differences in translation. Even if one wanted to absolutely insist that this was a totally incorrect and grossly wrong translation, it wouldn't change anyone's actual doctrine because this isn't the only place that justification is discussed. It isn't even the only place that Abraham's justification was discussed, for that matter. As such, the NIV can easily be used to preach the gospel and get people saved.

Are there better translations? OH! So many! Absolutely, yes there are much better translations! Is the NIV so bad as to be worth freaking out over (not that you're freaking out), certainly not.

 

Well what did James write? If the definition of ἐδικαιώθη is justified then it should say justified. Could "considered righteous" be what James intended for it to mean? Sure. The problem for me is that if you're translating it to say what you think it should say then it really isn't a translation, it is an interpretation and the interpretation should be left up to the reader.

2 Peter 1:20-21 - Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

 

I am not sure how you arrive at the conclusion that the KJV 1611 acknowledges it's updates and says there should be more. You did not attempt to prove this and show the source of this allegation. So I am going to guess at what you mean and attempt an answer.

In John 6 Jesus Christ said the following;

Joh 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

I have determined that this statement is one of the most profound statements in the scriptures of the subject of inspiration. This is God in the flesh speaking and saying this. He did not say anything about the message and he did not say anything about the scriptures. He said his words are spirit and life giving. He equates his words as being spirit and able to give life because they are by his definition, life. I do not know how other translations present these words of Jesus Christ our Lord, I have not looked to see. These words in the KJV are easy enough for me to understand.

This whole chapter is designed to interpret practices that were established hundreds of years before that were types and foundations for the truths that would be revealed later. Jesus Christ in the beginning of the chapter feed 5000 men plus women and children with 5 loaves and two small fishes. This was outside the norm but it was a setup for proof of what he would say the next day about himself in John 6:35, "And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.." The point is that bread must be ingested in order to give life. Jesus Christ was teaching that he must be inside of them in order to save them.

48 I am that bread of life.
49 Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.
50 This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.
51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.

At the end of this meeting there were few of his disciples left who were still willing to follow him and trust him because of his words.

Here are things in this chapter that Jesus Christ says are the same and equal.

The bread
His Life
His words
His body
His blood
The spirit

53 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.
54 Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
55 For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
56 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.
57 As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.
58 This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.

The whole problem is that these men were thinking in terms of the norm and were not thinking like God thinks. This is a lesson in how he thinks. He thinks one thing represents another thing with the same properties. He thinks in specific words and while he was on the earth he spoke in those words. One must not change them. The bread must be eaten for life. It can do nothing outside the body.

If one of these things in this chapter is Divine, so are the others.