Parallel Bible Passages, Allusions, Phrases, Metaphors, Echoes and Types, etc., ARE ALL O.K.

from:
Quotations on Biblical Interpretation.

“[Dynamic equivalence] translations (again, most Bibles today)
often change the language, images, and metaphors of Scripture
to make understanding easier.

"But for serious study, readers need a translation
that is more transparent to the ‘otherness’ of Scripture.

"We need a translation that allows the Bible to say what it says,
even if that seems strange and odd to readers at first glance.

"If God is ‘other’ than we are, we should be willing
to work at the ‘otherness’ of the Bible,
in order to understand what the Lord is saying through his Word.

"The purpose of the Bible is not to make Jesus like us, but to make us like Christ.
The Bible is designed to change us, to make us different,
heirs of Abraham according to the promise fulfilled in Christ (Acts 2) ...

"By seeking familiar modern meanings, these newer translations
make it much harder to see the deep biblical pattern of Paul’s thought.
They obscure the words and metaphors by which the Spirit
has woven a coherent tapestry of meaning that stretches from Genesis to Revelation.

"This practice removes the information we need to understand
because it hides the Bible’s dynamic unity and coherence ...
Biblical metaphors drop into our hearts like a seed in soil and make us think,
precisely because they are not obvious at first.

"The translator who removes biblical metaphors
to make the text ‘easier’ for readers
may defeat the purpose of the Holy Spirit,
who chose a metaphor in the first place.

"Metaphors grab us and work on us and in us. They have the spiritual power
to transform our minds. The abandonment of basic biblical metaphors
in many translations follows naturally from [dynamic equivalence] theory,
because the target languages may not use such expressions.

"But it is the foreignness of metaphors that is their virtue.

"Metaphors make us stop and think, Now what does that mean? ...

The Bible creates a vast context of meaning through cross-references
and allusions, phrases and metaphors, echoes and types.

"For readers to discover this type of biblical meaning in their translations,
translators of the Bible must be constantly aware of parallel passages,
expressions, and images.

"Where this does not happen,
much of the text’s actual meaning may be lost,
often to be replaced by modern meanings.”

—Raymond C. Van Leeuwen,
“We Really Do Need Another Bible Translation,”
Christianity Today, Vol. 45, No. 13 (October 22, 2001), p. 28.

The KJV translators introduced variety that seems to be unnecessary. Observe the differences when an Old Testament verse (Deut. 32:35) was quoted in exactly the same Greek words:

Rom. 12:19b

Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.

Heb. 10:30

Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord.

Again, notice the variation in two quotations of the same verse (Psa. 95:11) in the same context when there is no difference in the Greek:

Heb. 3:11

So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.

Heb. 4:3

As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest

The same words from Genesis 15:6 are given the following variations: "It was counted unto him for righteousness" (Rom. 4:3), "It was imputed unto him for righteousness" (Rom. 4:22), and "It was accounted to him for righteousness" (Gal. 3:6).

From Proverbs 10:12, the same words are translated differently in James 5:20 (shall hide a multitude of sins) and 1 Peter 4:8 (shall cover the multitude of sins).

What justification did the KJV translators have to introduce these distinctions in English that did not exist in the original languages? Do KJV-only advocates believe that the KJV translators improved on the original by introducing these variations?

If variations within the KJV are good and right, how can KJV-only advocates validly claim that all variations between the KJV and other translations are wrong?


Sometimes variations were introduced in the Gospels when the same words are found in the Greek. For example, the same words in Matthew 19:20 and Mark 10:20 are translated with these variations: "All these things have I kept from my youth up" and "All these have I observed from my youth." Exactly the same Greek words in Luke 7:50 and Luke 17:19 are rendered with the different English words: "Thy faith hath saved thee" and "Thy faith hath made thee whole." Matthew 26:41 and Mark 14:38 are identical in the Greek, but they are translated differently in KJV. Look up and consider the differences in these parallel verses: Matthew 16:26, Mark 8:36, and Luke 9:25. What is the compelling reasons for the differences in the KJV in these phrases: "He that received the seed into stony places" (Matt. 13:20) and "they which are sown on stony ground" (Mark 4:16)? At Matthew 27:45 and Mark 15:33, the Greek words are translated “over the whole land” while at Luke 23:44 they are translated “over all the earth.“ The same Greek noun is translated by the following different English words in the KJV: revelation (Rom. 2:5), manifestation (Rom. 8:19), coming (1 Cor. 1:7), and appearing (1 Pet. 1:7). The same Greek word is translated "Areopagus" in Acts 17:19 and "Mars' Hill" in Acts 17:22.

Paisley observed that "in James 2:2-3 one Greek word is translated in three different ways--apparel, raiment, clothing" (My Plea, p. 47).

Logos1560 said:

Do KJV-only advocates believe that the KJV translators improved on the original by introducing these variations?

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Boy, oh boy.

Logos1560 said:

If variations within the KJV are good and right, how can KJV-only advocates validly claim that all variations between the KJV and other translations are wrong?

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Man, oh man. If they'd have been here, you would have surely gottem today!

Alan Gross said:

Boy, oh boy.

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You avoided or dodged answering the question.

Logos1560 said:

If variations within the KJV are good and right, how can KJV-only advocates validly claim that all variations between the KJV and other translations are wrong?

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Logos1560 said:

You avoided or dodged answering the question.

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You're not asking me.

And whoever you are asking better know the difference
between this trick question attempting to bring justification
to there being complete and utter changes in Species,
from One Species to Another, on one account,
by being asked a question that would have an answer regarding
Variations-Only (if you will) Within a Species, on another subject entirely,

and in so doing, would deceptively be trying to equate
A Change from One Species to Another,
TO BE THE SAME AS Variations-Only (if you will)
taking place Within a Species.

They better.

They better know what they are getting into.

It's a trap.

Set to snap.

But check out these Crocodile tears
in this 'sincerely' forlorn 'appeal', to sucker me back in.

Logos1560 said:

You avoided or dodged answering the question.

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YOU TALKIN' TO ME?

Ask a Third-Grader.

Alan Gross said:

between this trick question attempting to bring justification

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It was not at all a trick question. It is a valid question based on consistent application of the same exact measures/standards. I advocate the applying of the same exact measures/standards consistently and justly.

One serious problem with many of the KJV-only accusations against other English Bibles is the fact that many of those accusations involve use of divers measures or double standards since the same exact measures/standards are not applied consistently and justly including to the KJV. The truth is consistent.

I have not advocated nor recommended the Critical Text so my valid question did not concern textual matters based on it.

Logos1560 said:

What justification did the KJV translators have to introduce these distinctions in English that did not exist in the original languages? ...

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You already know from their essay to the readers about the first part of your question, I believe. While they did take special care with rendering some particulars with specific meanings intended consistently (in red, below), their Artistic License inherent in their calling (as they may have felt led by The Lord) and chosen profession, as Translators/Writers, afforded them the prerogative to obligate themselves to be tied, or "not tied", as they said to, a strict "uniformity of phrasing, or to an identity of words", (in blue, below).

The Translators to the Reader.
The Best Things Have Been Calumniated.

Reasons Inducing Us Not To Stand Curiously upon an Identity of Phrasing.

"Another thing we think good to admonish thee of (gentle Reader) that we have not tied ourselves to an uniformity of phrasing, or to an identity of words, as some peradventure would wish that we had done, because they observe, that some learned men somewhere, have been as exact as they could that way.

"Truly, that we might not vary from the sense of that which we had translated before, if the word signified the same thing in both places (for there be some words that be not of the same sense everywhere) we were especially careful, and made a conscience, according to our duty.

"But, that we should express the same notion in the same particular word; as for example, if we translate the Hebrew or Greek word once by Purpose, never to call it Intent; if one where Journeying, never Traveling; if one where Think, never Suppose; if one where Pain, never Ache; if one where Joy, never Gladness, etc.

"Thus to mince the matter, we thought to savour more of curiosity than wisdom, and that rather it would breed scorn in the Atheist, than bring profit to the godly Reader. For is the kingdom of God become words or syllables? why should we be in bondage to them if we may be free, use one precisely when we may use another no less fit, as commodiously?

"A godly Father in the Primitive time showed himself greatly moved, that one of newfangledness called krabbaton skimpouV, though the difference be little or none; and another reporteth that he was much abused for turning Cucurbita (to which reading the people had been used) into Hedera.

"Now if this happen in better times, and upon so small occasions, we might justly fear hard censure, if generally we should make verbal and unnecessary changings. We might also be charged (by scoffers) with some unequal dealing towards a great number of good English words.

"For as it is written of a certain great Philosopher, that he should say, that those logs were happy that were made images to be worshipped; for their fellows, as good as they, lay for blocks behind the fire: so if we should say, as it were, unto certain words, Stand up higher, have a place in the Bible always, and to others of like quality, Get ye hence, be banished forever, we might be taxed peradventure with S. James his words, namely, To be partial in ourselves and judges of evil thoughts.

"Add hereunto, that niceness in words was always counted the next step to trifling, and so was to be curious about names too: also that we cannot follow a better pattern for elocution than God himself; therefore he using divers words, in his holy writ, and indifferently for one thing in nature: we, if we will not be superstitious, may use the same liberty in our English versions out of Hebrew and Greek, for that copy or store that he hath given us."

Logos1560 said:

If variations within the KJV are good and right, ...

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This was, in my mind, to avoid the "letterism" and "woodenness"
that they had read in other translation efforts.

It was simply an Executive Decision favoring the use of a device,
in "writing style".

Logos1560 said:

The KJV translators introduced variety that seems to be unnecessary.

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"Thus to mince the matter, we thought to savor more of curiosity than wisdom, and that rather it would breed scorn in the Atheist, than bring profit to the godly Reader. For is the kingdom of God become words or syllables? why should we be in bondage to them if we may be free, use one precisely when we may use another no less fit, as commodiously?"

"Now if this happen in better times, and upon so small occasions, we might justly fear hard censure, if generally we should make verbal and unnecessary changings. We might also be charged (by scoffers) with some unequal dealing towards a great number of good English words."

"...we might be taxed peradventure with S. James his words, namely,
"To be partial in ourselves and judges of evil thoughts."

"...we cannot follow a better pattern for elocution than God Himself; therefore He using divers words, in His holy writ, and indifferently for one thing in nature: we, if we will not be superstitious, may use the same liberty in our English versions out of Hebrew and Greek, for that copy or store that He hath given us."
...

On the other hand;

Logos1560 said:

...how can KJV-only advocates validly claim that all variations between the KJV and other translations are wrong?

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While the second part of the question again asks about, "variation", and how it is viewed with regard to "other translations", being "wrong", is actually introducing a very different concept with which Bible believers find to be of great concern, although, within the question, it is referred to by using the same word, "variation".

Logos1560 said:

Do KJV-only advocates believe that the KJV translators improved on the original by introducing these variations?

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Beats me. Ask them.

Why don't ya?

Logos1560 said:

It was not at all a trick question.

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I found it to be attempting to equate and therefore confuse two unrelated issues.

Logos1560 said:

It is a valid question based on consistent application of the same exact measures/standards. I advocate the applying of the same exact measures/standards consistently and justly.

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The invalidity of assuming that there can be a "consistent application of the same "exact measures/standards" is because the two arenas within which those "exact measures/standards" would be applied (the KJV vs other translations) is not the issue, but what it is that is being termed a "variation", and whether "variation" is the appropriate term to describe both situations being observed and "measured".

Logos1560 said:

One serious problem with many of the KJV-only accusations against other English Bibles is the fact that many of those accusations involve use of divers measures or double standards since the same exact measures/standards are not applied consistently and justly including to the KJV. The truth is consistent.

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There is no intention on the part of Bible believers to apply "the same exact measures/standards", "consistently and justly" when their concern is not regarding the same category of subject matter.

They do not attempt to employ "the same exact measures/standards",
"consistently and justly", to a tree as they would an apple.

They are two very different classifications in horticulture
(one a member of the tree family vs an edible vegetable) and would need to be evaluated very differently, of necessity of course.

Logos1560 said:

I have not advocated nor recommended the Critical Text so my valid question did not concern textual matters based on it.

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Ah! Hah! There we have it. Despite the regard we may have for the Critical Text, the subject matter being investigated is "textural matters", about the concerns raised by Bible believers over differences found between the KJV and other translations, and not the issue of employing the stylistic "variation" of translating different words into English that derive from the same word in the source language.

So, we can't expect to ask about;

Alan Gross said:

Variations-Only (if you will)
taking place Within a Species.

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(the stylistic "variation" of translating different words into English
that derive from the same word in the source language)

to get an answer involving;

Alan Gross said:

A Change from One Species to Another,

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(differences in words derived from one underlying original text manuscript(s) in one instance (the KJV), in contradistinction from words under consideration in the other instance (in other translations) which have been derived from another underlying original text manuscript(s) entirely.)

That is the "principal determinant" that must be adopted toward leveraging a resolution to this standoff dilemma.

re:

Logos1560 said:

One serious problem with many of the KJV-only accusations against other English Bibles is the fact that many of those accusations involve the use of divers measures or double standards since the same exact measures/standards are not applied consistently and justly including to the KJV....

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Logos1560 said:

...The truth is consistent.

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And in light of the inestimably monumental ill-advised decision that has transpired in The History of Christianity by the wholesale abandonment of the Bible Doctrine of The Preservation of the Scriptures, bringing down with it the counterpart of this Twin-Doctrine, The Divine Origin and Inspiration of The Original Autographs, as being Directly God-Breathed Scripture,

even the foremost proponents of the Westcott and Hort influences on the resulting Critical Texts would readily confirm and confess and admit that there is a differentiation of "The Flesh" and "The Spirit" between the very nature and characteristics of the two completely divergent schools of thought and philosophies in translation,

and the conflicting collations of underlying original language manuscript evidence,

The Byzantine text-type (also called Majority, Traditional, Ecclesiastical, Constantinopolitan Text), which underlies the Textus Receptus used for the King James Version, as one example,
vs
The Eclectic Critical Text-type used for the Modern translation editions that conform more often to the Alexandrian text-type.

All of which makes the deliberation in discussion and exemplifications
brought out from between the two, to be an Eternal Matter, of no small moment, obviously.

One issue with the inconsistent assertions of Alan Gross and others like him is that they display the type of presumption that the KJV translators condemned.

In the 1611 preface, this is stated: “doth not a margin do well to admonish the reader to seek further, and not to conclude or dogmatize upon this or that peremptorily? For it is a fault of incredulity, to doubt of those things that are evident; so to determine of such things as the Spirit of God hath left (even in the judgment of the judicious) questionable, can be no less than presumption.” The 1611 preface also noted that “diversity of signification and sense in the margin, where the text is not so clear, must needs do good, yea, is necessary, as we are persuaded.”

According to the large number of marginal notes in the 1611 edition, its makers must have found many places where they considered the text not to be so clear in its meaning.

The makers of the KJV gave many more word-for-word, literal renderings in their marginal notes, and they also offered many acceptable, alternative renderings. In some marginal notes, they provided examples of where they gave no English word/rendering for an original-language word of Scripture in their underlying texts. These marginal notes clearly contradict any suggestion that all their translation decisions should be considered certain and unquestionable.

The marginal notes could also raise doubt concerning some of their textual criticism decisions. The 1611 preface noted: “They that are wise, had rather have their judgment at liberty in differences of readings, than to be captivated to one, when it may be the other.” KJV defender Laurence Vance cited the report to the Synod of Dort about the translating of the KJV as stating: “where a Hebrew or Greek word admits two meanings of a suitable kind, the one was to be expressed in the text, the other in the margin. The same to be done where a different reading was found in good copies” (King James, His Bible, p. 47). F. H. A. Scrivener noted that 4,111 of the 6,637 marginal notes in the Old Testament of the 1611 "express the more literal meaning of the original Hebrew or Chaldee" and "2156 give alternative renderings (indicated by the word 'Or' prefixed to them) which in the opinion of the Translators are not very less probable than those in the text" (Authorized Edition, p. 41). He also pointed out that 67 marginal notes in the 1611 O. T. "refer to various readings of the original, in 31 of which the marginal variation (technically called Keri) of the Masoretic revisers of the Hebrew is set in competition with the reading in the text" (Ibid.). Scrivener maintained that in the N. T. of the 1611 that 37 marginal notes relate to various readings (p. 56). He also listed those 37 notes (pp. 58-59) [Matt. 1:11, Matt. 7:14, Matt. 9:26, Matt. 24:31, Matt. 26:26, Mark 9:16, Luke 2:38, Luke 10:22, Luke 17:36, John 18:13, Acts 13:18, Acts 25:6, Rom 5:17, Rom. 7:6, Rom. 8:11, 1 Cor. 15:31, 2 Cor. 13:4, Gal. 4:15, Gal. 4:17, Eph. 6:9, 1 Tim. 4:15, Heb. 4:2, Heb. 9:2, Heb. 11:4, James 2:18, 1 Pet. 1:4, 1 Pet. 2:21, 2 Pet. 2:2, 2 Pet. 2:11, 2 Pet. 2:18, 2 John 8, Rev. 3:14, Rev. 6:8, Rev. 13:1, Rev. 13:5, Rev. 14:13, Rev. 17:5]. The 1762 Cambridge edition added 15 more textual marginal notes (p. 59). The 1769 Oxford edition is said to have added at least one more.