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Is The Spiritual Content of Scripture Compromised by Many Modern English Translations

JD731

Well-Known Member
Jesus Christ, who is the God Man, said the words that he speaks are spirit and they are life (Jn 6:63). He said this about the words he spoke. He made this statement in the context of demonstrating how to understand that the miracles of God of the past are to be a metaphor of future realities. He explained this in a Jewish synagogue in Capernaum the day after he had fed 5000 with two loaves and five fishes. In this exchange with the Jews he explained that he is the bread of life and that his presence now in the physical is a fulfillment of the manna that Israel had received miraculously from God in heaven, but just the sending of it did Israel in the wilderness no good until they ingested it into their bodies. The bread must become part of them to sustain life. Once the Father miraculously sent the bread they must go to where it was and purposely eat it. These that Jesus miraculously fed on the mountain to set this lesson up had heard of his fame and had come from all directions, some from as much as one hundred miles away and they ate the bread the Father had sent on the mountain. The disciples who were traveling with Jesus could do nothing for these people until Jesus broke the bread. Then they could only serve. These were the common people on that mountain with a few of the ruling class there and who saw the physical advantage of making him the king. These are those who followed him across the sea in other ships.

So now in the synagogue with these Jews, Jesus draws the metaphor down closer and says he himself is the bread, the life, whom the Father has sent for that purpose of giving them life. He said that unless they would eat his flesh and drink his blood they had no life in themselves. The manna under Moses was only physical and must be consumed daily but the bread Jesus would give was his own body and just as the manna did no good in it's physical form on the ground and must be eaten, likewise Jesus must be on the inside of them for them to have life. As the manna was eaten every day it was not so with Jesus. His life is eternal and receiving this bread from the Father one time is all that is needed because this life is eternal. Jesus brought up the blood in this context because believers in what God says can justify the believer before the physical sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and the shedding of his blood but it cannot take his sins away because without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. Those men in John 6 could have believed and been justified by those words of Jesus and later received the Spirit of Jesus (Acts2 &19) into their bodies and been born again, but they didn't.

1 John 5:12 He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.

Now here is my point as it relates to the KJV and all the other English translations. Jesus was giving this information to a family of people whose family tree had been highlighted all through history from Adam. They had been chosen to form the nation through whom he would get a name of being the one true God and he would receive fame among the other nations and families as God worked his miracles and revealed himself through them. He had appeared to them and through them and had made his Law known through them and all 66 books of our Bible were written by them. They did not need a new language or for the words to be updated or revised so they could understand them better. That would not help if they were not taught of the Father. God can teach the Christian the words of the KJV.

Here is what he did say to his audience and I think it remains the key for us today.

Jn 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
45 It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.

These men in the synagogue were aware of all the words of the Father in the OT. They read them and heard them all their lives but many did not grasp the spiritual quality of them. They read the words but they were not taught them by God. They had performed the daily and weekly and yearly sacrifices dutifully for1500 years without grasping that God was giving them a figure of his son whom he would send to redeem them. These men who rejected Jesus that day and walked no more with him were some of the same men who called for his crucifixion. Only a very small remnant of Jews were taught by God and recognized that Jesus Christ fulfilled his OT promises of a redeemer because they not only heard the words but believed them. Jesus Christ fulfilled his promises concerning the Christ and the son of God.

My conclusion is that God has an inspired Bible with his words in it and they are spiritual truths that must be understood through those words that he has chosen.. We must be taught of God which means we must believe his words. Jesus Christ told the men in that synagogue that day that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood and then he said his words are spirit and they are life. Eternal life depends on believing them. Who thought he meant eating his flesh and drinking his blood literally? Those former disciples took it that way and left him. But Jesus Christ related that believing in his death and resurrection was the meaning of eating his flesh and drinking his blood.

Most Baptist denominations who post here do not believe the words of God the Father, especially those of the OT, and believe rather the errors of their founders and other high profile teachers. How does a man translate the spiritual content of scriptures if certain words carry particular themes and truths through the whole Bible and are changed in critical places by translators?

Jn 6:53 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.
59 These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum.
60 Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?
61 When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you?
62 What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?
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.

Believe the words and honor their context and stand in awe of this wonderful Book.
 

David Lamb

Well-Known Member
Most Baptist denominations who post here do not believe the words of God the Father, especially those of the OT, and believe rather the errors of their founders and other high profile teachers.
That seems a very sweeping judgment. Not quite sure what you mean by "Baptist denominations", especially as you then say that they post here. Individual Baptists post here. I am one of them, and I certainly do believe the words of God, whether Father, Son or Holy Spirit. I don't see how that relates to whether I read those words in 17th century English, 21st century English, Mongolian, Icelandic or any other language, providing the translation from the Hebrew and Greek is accurate.
 

Logos1560

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
My conclusion is that God has an inspired Bible with his words in it and they are spiritual truths that must be understood through those words that he has chosen..
The preserved Scriptures in the original languages have the original-language words of God that proceeded from His mouth by inspiration to the prophets and apostles.

God has not said or taught in Scripture that the word of God is bound or limited to the textual criticism decisions, Bible revision decisions, and translation decisions of any one exclusive group of men. The word of God is not bound to 17th century English [Early Modern English or Elizabethan English].

The wisdom from God above is without partiality (James 3:16), and God would not lead people to sin by having respect to persons (James 2:9) to one exclusive group of Bible critics/translators. The word of God can be and has been translated into standard Modern English.
 

Logos1560

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Did God in effect provide English-speaking believers with multiple differing authorities in English for many years? Did those believers accept each of those differing English Bibles as its own final authority in and of itself or did they accept them as equally the word of God translated into English?

In his prologue to the Christian reader in his 1535 English translation, Miles Coverdale wrote: "Whereas some men think now the many translations make division in the faith and in the people of God, it is not so."

In their comments to the brethren of England, Scotland, Ireland, etc. in the 1560 edition, the Geneva Bible translators acknowledged that “some translations read after one sort, and some after another, whereas all may serve to good purpose and edification.“

Jack Lewis quoted Matthew Parker and Edmund Grindal as writing: “For though one other special bible for the churches be meant by us to be set forth as convenient time and leisure hereafter will permit yet shall it nothing hinder but rather do much good to have diversity of translations and readings” (Day after Domesday, p. 10).

In their preface to the 1611 KJV, its translators themselves argued that "variety of translations is profitable for finding the sense of the Scriptures."

In many churches in England, people may still have heard the version of the Psalms in the Book of Common Prayer read even if they may have read a different version of the Psalms in their homes. Many people may have continued to have more than one version of the book of Psalms bound together in their Bibles. Bibles in the 1500’s, 1600’s, and 1700’s were printed and even purchased unbound so that an unbound Bible had to be taken to a separate book binder to have it bound.

The KJV translators did not stop the reading or condemn the reading of a psalm in their churches that was read from the Great Bible, the 1602 Bishops’ Bible, or the Book of Common Prayer, which demonstrates or proves that they were not KJV-only. The KJV translators evidently rejected the modern KJV-only opinion that the truth of Scripture was compromised by having multiple, varying translations of it.
 

Logos1560

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
David Norton wrote: “Though the Sternhold and Hopkins Psalter held sway, it gives many of the Psalms in two or three versions, and they might also be heard in the PB [Prayer Book] version and the differing versions of the Bible translations. Since the Bible, the PB and the singing Psalter were often bound together, it would not be uncommon to have within the covers of one volume as many as five different versions of a Psalm, two prose and three verse. For at least a century following Tyndale’s NT the people would have had a sense that the English form of the Bible was unfixed” (History of the English Bible as Literature, p. 76).
 

Deacon

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Many versions/many blessings

The Bay Psalm Book of 1640 was the first book printed in America.

"It's a book that was not created to be fancy or splendid or valuable in any way other than the significance of its content," says Derick Dreher, the director of Philadelphia's Rosenbach Library, one of the few institutions to hold a Bay Psalm Book. But because the congregation for which it was created literally used the book to death, very few of the copies have survived.

One of the few remaining copies was sold in November of 2014 for 14.2 million dollars.

In the introduction it says:

"If therefore the verses are not alwayes so smooth and elegant as some may desire or expect; let them confider that Gods Altar needs not our pollishings: Ex. 20. for wee have respected a plaine translation then to smooth our verses with the sweetnes of any paraphrase, and soe have attended Conscience rather then Elegance, fidelity rather then poetry, in translating the hebrew words into english language, and Davids poetry into english meetre…" [bay Psalm Preface, page 13]

Quite a while ago I formatted the Bay Psalter into a Logos Personal Book (if you use Logos, you can use it in the program) HERE

Rob
 

Logos1560

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Is the spiritual content of Scripture compromised by many pre-1611 English Bibles and yet another one in 1611?

Was the spiritual content of Scripture compromised by the Church of England makers of the KJV borrowing many renderings from the 1582 Roman Catholic Rheims New Testament?
 

Logos1560

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
The Bay Psalm Book of 1640 was the first book printed in America.
Thanks for the remainder about the 1640 Bay Psalm Book.

I have a copy of the 1956 facsimile reprint edition of The Bay Psalm Book by the University of Chicago Press along with a companion volume about it entitled The Enigma of the Bay Psalm Book by Zoltan Haraszti.

William Barker noted that John Cotton (1584-1652) “had a hand in producing the Bay Psalm Book” (Puritan Profiles, p. 265). Zoltan Haraszti concluded that John Cotton was the author of the preface to the 1640 Bay Psalm Book (Enigma, p. 18). David Daniell maintained that translators of the Bay Psalm Book included John Cotton, John Wilson, Nathanael Ward, Peter Bulkeley, Thomas Shepard, and John Norton (Bible in English, p. 519). Many editions of the Bay Psalm Book were printed from 1640-1762. Zoltan Haraszti noted that “the work won popular favor even among the Puritans of England and Scotland” (Enigma, p. 29).

The 1640 Bay Psalm Book translated by Richard Mather (1596-1669), John Eliot (1604-1690),Thomas Welde, and others has Jehovah more than 100 times (Ps. 3:8, 4:5, 5:1, 6:9, 7:17, 8:9, 13:1, 20:1, 21:1, 24:1, 27:11, 30:1, 37:39, 40:5, 46:7, 50:1, 71:1, etc.).
 

Wesley Briggman

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
"Most Baptist denominations..."
No such thing as a Baptist denomination. Each Baptist congregation is self governed - no higarchy overseeing them.


Key Layers of a Denominational Organization
Regardless of the specific polity model, a fully organized denomination typically features several institutional layers:
  • The Local Congregation (Parish/Assembly/Shul): The grassroots unit where daily worship, pastoral care, and local community life take place.
  • Regional Bodies (Dioceses, Presbyteries, Districts, or Conferences): Mid-level administrative layers that coordinate groups of neighboring churches, support clergy licensing or ordination, and pool resources.
  • National or Global Governing Bodies (General Assemblies, Synods, or Vatican Curia): The highest legislative and doctrinal authority responsible for setting official policy, writing constitutions or creeds, and addressing schisms or ethical stances.
  • Auxiliary Institutions: Seminaries for training clergy, publishing houses, global missionary boards, and social service or charitable arms.
 

JD731

Well-Known Member
That seems a very sweeping judgment. Not quite sure what you mean by "Baptist denominations", especially as you then say that they post here. Individual Baptists post here. I am one of them, and I certainly do believe the words of God, whether Father, Son or Holy Spirit. I don't see how that relates to whether I read those words in 17th century English, 21st century English, Mongolian, Icelandic or any other language, providing the translation from the Hebrew and Greek is accurate.
Okay, strike that phrase "Baptist denominations" and replace it with" Christian sects." The reason there is divisions is because of different sects treating the words of scripture differently. The instructions that God gives to his church is found in 1 Corinthians 1:10. He says this:

1 Corinthians 1:10 King James Bible​

10 Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.

The adjectives in the Baptist titles (Fundamentalist, Reformed, Free Will, etc, etc) describe the divisions. If Baptists were not divided then we would not need more than one Bible and we would be just Baptists. His will as expressed in 1 Cor 1:10 would be obeyed and there would be harmony, at least among Baptists.

What I can't figure out is why God changed his mind beginning in AD 1901 and decided to lead Baptists and other sects to produce maybe 150 new translations in the same language but with different words after he had clearly said what he did in the scriptures above.

What God is interested in as I see it is that men believe the simple gospel that God sent his son, Jesus the Christ, to redeem us by his substitutionary death in our place and that he was buried and on the third day rose again and lives forever. This is the only doctrine in the scripture where a man has liberty to include his own personal testimony of the scriptures in his presentation and God will honor a man presenting Jesus Christ in his own words. Going forward, the indwelling Holy Spirit becomes the teacher of God's supernatural preserved words. They must be somewhere and they are not in 150 different translations that lend themselves to more and more divisions as time goes on.

God uses and equips those who believe him. Here is proofif you will allow me:

Acts 28:16 And when we came to Rome, the centurion delivered the prisoners to the captain of the guard: but Paul was suffered to dwell by himself with a soldier that kept him.
17 And it came to pass, that after three days Paul called the chief of the Jews together: and when they were come together, he said unto them, Men and brethren, though I have committed nothing against the people, or customs of our fathers, yet was I delivered prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans.
18 Who, when they had examined me, would have let me go, because there was no cause of death in me.
19 But when the Jews spake against it, I was constrained to appeal unto Caesar; not that I had ought to accuse my nation of.
20 For this cause therefore have I called for you, to see you, and to speak with you: because that for the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain.
21 And they said unto him, We neither received letters out of Judaea concerning thee, neither any of the brethren that came shewed or spake any harm of thee.
22 But we desire to hear of thee what thou thinkest: for as concerning this sect, we know that every where it is spoken against.
23 And when they had appointed him a day, there came many to him into his lodging; to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets, from morning till evening.
24 And some believed the things which were spoken, and some believed not.
25 And when they agreed not among themselves, they departed, after that Paul had spoken one word, Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers,
26 Saying, Go unto this people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive:
27 For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.
28 Be it known therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it.
29 And when he had said these words, the Jews departed, and had great reasoning among themselves.
30 And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him,
31 Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.

That was the last chapter in Acts and circa AD 63/64 and I turned the page and came to Romans where it says and the Jews as a nation were cut off from the light because they refused to believe. He did not give them new and different words so they could understand. He gave understanding to those who will believe his words.

Ro 16:25 Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began,
26 But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith:

Mysteries cannot be understood by the natural or the carnal man.
 

Logos1560

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
What I can't figure out is why God changed his mind beginning in AD 1901 and decided to lead Baptists and other sects to produce maybe 150 new translations in the same language but with different words after he had clearly said what he did in the scriptures above.
The word of God had been translated into English many years before 1611, but you do not apply the Scriptures you cited consistently and justly to the pre-1611 word of God in English.

According to a consistent application of your own stated reasoning, how can you figure out why God supposedly changed his mind in 1611 and decided to lead doctrinally-unsound Church of England men to produce yet another translation in the same language but with hundreds of different words including many borrowed from the 1582 Roman Catholic Rheims New Testament after He had clearly said what He did in the scriptures that you cited but do not apply consistently and justly?

Was the Spiritual content of Scripture compromised by yet another English translation in 1611 when English-speaking believers already had an English Bible that they read, loved, and trusted?
 
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JD731

Well-Known Member
The word of God had been translated into English many years before 1611, but you do not apply the Scriptures you cited consistently and justly to the pre-1611 word of God in English.

According to a consistent application of your own stated reasoning, how can you figure out why God supposedly changed his mind in 1611 and decided to lead doctrinally-unsound Church of England men to produce yet another translation in the same language but with hundreds of different words including many borrowed from the 1582 Roman Catholic Rheims New Testament after He had clearly said what He did in the scriptures that you cited but do not apply consistently and justly?

Was the Spiritual content of Scripture compromised by yet another English translation in 1611 when English-speaking believers already had an English Bible that they read, loved, and trusted?
You have not proven that God had anything to do with the translations you referenced, much less led them who produced them. He is not a trial and error God. Neither have you proven that being church of England members, if they were, disqualified them from being used of God to accomplish his will. I do not think they attributed their work to that sect. I know that I have spent my lifetime studying this marvelous book and not once have I been tempted to adopt the doctrines that make the Church of England distinct from other Christian groups. I believe God did not choose them because they were Church of England but because he had providentially equipped them for the task of producing a Bible in the language that would be for those who will believe and honor it and for such a time in which they lived and going forward..

It is one thing to learn the word of God but men also must learn his ways, and it is my opinion that you haven't.

Deuteronomy 32:4
He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.
 

Logos1560

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
You have not proven that God had anything to do with the translations you referenced, much less led them who produced them.
Your statement seems to be asserting that God did not have anything to do with the pre-1611 English Bibles of which the KJV is a revision. Do you seem to suggest that God is a "trial and error God" in His involvement with the pre-1611 English Bibles which the KJV translators identified as being the word of God?

Are you seriously asserting that God did not have anything to do with the pre-1611 English Bibles from which the KJV translators borrowed 60 to 80% of their English renderings?
 
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Logos1560

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Neither have you proven that being church of England members, if they were, disqualified them from being used of God to accomplish his will. I do not think they attributed their work to that sect.
There is no "if" about it. All the makers of the 1611 KJV were members of the state Church of England. Archbishop Richard Bancroft was the overseer of the translating. In their preface, the KJV translators referred to Richard Bancroft as the "chief overseer and task-master under his Majesty, to whom were not only we, but also our whole Church, much bound." Some of the KJV translators would not have been much bound to Archbishop Bancroft if they were not members of that state church. King James as the head of the state Church of England and his Archbishop Richard Bancroft made the rules for the making of the KJV.

In his dedication to King James I in the 1611 KJV, Bishop Thomas Bilson, co-editor of the 1611 edition with Miles Smith, may have indicated possible Episcopal bias when he noted the “great hope” that the Church of England would reap “good fruit” from the translation. Did Bilson’s comment possibly even indicate a firsthand awareness of renderings that were intended to help strengthen Church of England Episcopal and apostolic succession views?

The third rule for the making of the KJV was that "the old ecclesiastical words to be kept; as the word church, not to be translated congregation, etc." After listing this third rule, Adam Nicolson commented: “Bancroft, and almost certainly the king, was not prepared to give any ground in the language of the translation to the Presbyterians” (God’s Secretaries, p. 75). David Daiches noted that the third rule was "directed against the Puritan tendency to abandon the traditional terms which had associations with Catholic ritual and is an interesting reflection of the essentially Anglican nature of A.V." (The KJV of the English Bible, p. 169). John Nordstrom asserted that the third rule “reveals Bancroft’s Anglicanism more than any other and shows that Bancroft wanted to guide the new revision back to a high-church position, taking away any congregational power” (Stained with Blood, p. 169).
 
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JonC

Moderator
Moderator
Jesus Christ, who is the God Man, said the words that he speaks are spirit and they are life (Jn 6:63). He said this about the words he spoke. He made this statement in the context of demonstrating how to understand that the miracles of God of the past are to be a metaphor of future realities. He explained this in a Jewish synagogue in Capernaum the day after he had fed 5000 with two loaves and five fishes. In this exchange with the Jews he explained that he is the bread of life and that his presence now in the physical is a fulfillment of the manna that Israel had received miraculously from God in heaven, but just the sending of it did Israel in the wilderness no good until they ingested it into their bodies. The bread must become part of them to sustain life. Once the Father miraculously sent the bread they must go to where it was and purposely eat it. These that Jesus miraculously fed on the mountain to set this lesson up had heard of his fame and had come from all directions, some from as much as one hundred miles away and they ate the bread the Father had sent on the mountain. The disciples who were traveling with Jesus could do nothing for these people until Jesus broke the bread. Then they could only serve. These were the common people on that mountain with a few of the ruling class there and who saw the physical advantage of making him the king. These are those who followed him across the sea in other ships.

So now in the synagogue with these Jews, Jesus draws the metaphor down closer and says he himself is the bread, the life, whom the Father has sent for that purpose of giving them life. He said that unless they would eat his flesh and drink his blood they had no life in themselves. The manna under Moses was only physical and must be consumed daily but the bread Jesus would give was his own body and just as the manna did no good in it's physical form on the ground and must be eaten, likewise Jesus must be on the inside of them for them to have life. As the manna was eaten every day it was not so with Jesus. His life is eternal and receiving this bread from the Father one time is all that is needed because this life is eternal. Jesus brought up the blood in this context because believers in what God says can justify the believer before the physical sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and the shedding of his blood but it cannot take his sins away because without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. Those men in John 6 could have believed and been justified by those words of Jesus and later received the Spirit of Jesus (Acts2 &19) into their bodies and been born again, but they didn't.

1 John 5:12 He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.

Now here is my point as it relates to the KJV and all the other English translations. Jesus was giving this information to a family of people whose family tree had been highlighted all through history from Adam. They had been chosen to form the nation through whom he would get a name of being the one true God and he would receive fame among the other nations and families as God worked his miracles and revealed himself through them. He had appeared to them and through them and had made his Law known through them and all 66 books of our Bible were written by them. They did not need a new language or for the words to be updated or revised so they could understand them better. That would not help if they were not taught of the Father. God can teach the Christian the words of the KJV.

Here is what he did say to his audience and I think it remains the key for us today.

Jn 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
45 It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.

These men in the synagogue were aware of all the words of the Father in the OT. They read them and heard them all their lives but many did not grasp the spiritual quality of them. They read the words but they were not taught them by God. They had performed the daily and weekly and yearly sacrifices dutifully for1500 years without grasping that God was giving them a figure of his son whom he would send to redeem them. These men who rejected Jesus that day and walked no more with him were some of the same men who called for his crucifixion. Only a very small remnant of Jews were taught by God and recognized that Jesus Christ fulfilled his OT promises of a redeemer because they not only heard the words but believed them. Jesus Christ fulfilled his promises concerning the Christ and the son of God.

My conclusion is that God has an inspired Bible with his words in it and they are spiritual truths that must be understood through those words that he has chosen.. We must be taught of God which means we must believe his words. Jesus Christ told the men in that synagogue that day that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood and then he said his words are spirit and they are life. Eternal life depends on believing them. Who thought he meant eating his flesh and drinking his blood literally? Those former disciples took it that way and left him. But Jesus Christ related that believing in his death and resurrection was the meaning of eating his flesh and drinking his blood.

Most Baptist denominations who post here do not believe the words of God the Father, especially those of the OT, and believe rather the errors of their founders and other high profile teachers. How does a man translate the spiritual content of scriptures if certain words carry particular themes and truths through the whole Bible and are changed in critical places by translators?

Jn 6:53 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.
59 These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum.
60 Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?
61 When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you?
62 What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?
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.

Believe the words and honor their context and stand in awe of this wonderful Book.
But they did get a New Testament in a different language than what was spoken. I think this may have been because they (the whole initial audience of the New Testament) DID need a different language (it was written in Koine Greek, the common everyday language).

I am sure God could have taught all of them Hebrew. He could make us understand Hebrew as well.

Perhaps there is more to God using the everyday common language (instead of a more eloquent and percise Greek) than many identify.
 
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