Finally, an answer to the KJV issue!

Well I am back for a quick look.I dont get on here often but I do like to check in periodically I don't see what scholars or scholarship & above all manuscript study has to do with anything.It really doesn't except to those that have chosen to do so.No where are we told to look for the best manuscripts,but to read & study the Word of God.I would say that the average church member doesn't even know about the manuscript evidence so how can they study it.I really wish I had never heard of it because watching christian men fighting over where the Word of God is turns my stomach.Every version compares themselves to the KJV & almost every christian,wether a KJV only or not says that they prefer the KJV.So why worry about it.Just take it by faith.

 

just as the KJB compares itself ("diligently," one might add) to every version before it

hmm, how then to "Just take it by faith"?

 

GOD </font>[/QUOTE]Does he? Is he sitting up there waving the "original manuscripts" around??? How did he get them? Did he steal them off us so we couldn't have a perfect Bible any more and would have to fumble around in the "accurate" or "more reliable" copies, and have to follow human wisdom to decide what was in the bible and what wasn't, never being sure?
The "original manuscripts" are a red herring. There is NO biblical evidence to go around looking for the "originals", and thinking that only they can be perfect (unless, that is, the "originals" actually DID contain that bit, but the bad old KJV took it out!). God promised to PRESERVE his word. If he can make the original authors write perfect inspired scripture, he can make others copy or translate that same inspired scripture perfectly. And how would we know it? Well, it would be PRESERVED in the hands of the ordinary believers!!! And that is true of the KJV above any other English bible. Ever.

Your friend and brother,

Bartholomew

 

Yet he forgot the printers.

Bartholomew, just because God *can* do something doesn't mean he *did*.

 

Exactly. That is why I wonder why it was being asked. We are not going around looking for original manuscripts. God did promise to preserve his word but there is absolutely no reason to believe that he waited 1600 years to do in the KJV. Nor did God tell us how he preserved it. The evidence that we have shows us that God preserved it in the multitude of the manuscripts.

We would know it because two or more manuscripts would match. But as it is, there are no two manuscripts that match. God could have perfectly preserved his word but he did not do it as is clear from the evidence.

Unfortunately there is a lot of misinformation going around about manuscripts and it was accurately said that most Christian do not know anything about it. That is why the KJVOnly argument is so rampant -- people do not understand the issues.

Wayne says:

I share your dismay at people fighting over where the Word of God is. It is an unfortunate part of standing for biblical doctrien however. I don't know of many versions that compare themselves to the KJV however and most believers that I know do not prefer the KJV although it is fine with me if they do.

We need however to take our job of biblical education seriously and I am convinced that when we begin to teach people the truth, these petty disagreements will go away.

 

I think it was because near the bottom of page 5, you said "We should compare English translations, not with other English translations, but rather with the original langauge manuscripts." I think trumpet thought you were talking about the "original manuscripts" and not the "original language manuscripts", and thus did not understand how we could compare English translations to them.

 

Here is something I want all you brethren who have been on this thread to print in large letters, frame it, and hang it on your wall! It's a quotation from William Secker in 1660 from a publication that is now on line called The Nonsuch Professor... You determine what it means!

'GOD REJECTS ALL RELIGION BUT HIS OWN"

Brother Glen

 

I wonder what relevance this has to the topic at hand and if you might explain to us what Secker was saying so that we might be able to determine the meaning from the intent of Secker.

 

Yet he forgot the printers.

Bartholomew, just because God *can* do something doesn't mean he *did*.</font>[/QUOTE]...yes, Couldn't God have given men the wisdom to perfect the papermaking process and typesetting BEFORE the originals rather than 1300 +/- years later? The answer is: yes He could, but He didn't. His preserved Word does not require an inspired, exclusive set of words. If it did, we would have no hope of knowing God's Word.

 

To all of you out there who don't believe God preserved his word perfectly:
Why did he bother to inspire it perfectly in the first place? That's a bit pointless if it's going to get irreversibly corrupted, isn't it??? If he only preserved it "accurately", and not perfectly, why didn't he just inspire it that way? And WHERE'S YOUR BIBLICAL EVIDENCE THAT ONLY THE ORIGINALS WERE INSPIRED AND PERFECT??? (Unless, of course, that was one of the bits that got corrupted and we don't have it any more!!!)

 

"...yes, Couldn't God have given men the wisdom to perfect the papermaking process and typesetting BEFORE the originals rather than 1300 +/- years later? The answer is: yes He could, but He didn't. His preserved Word does not require an inspired, exclusive set of words. If it did, we would have no hope of knowing God's Word."

Indeed he could. But God isn't bound by printing presses, typesetting, original languages or anything else. The same God who inspired his word perfectly also perfectly preserved it. Just because you can't hold up a neatly printed, leather-bound copy of the perfect word of God pre-1611, that doesn't mean it wasn't perfectly preserved then. No more than the fact that nobody seems to have kept those stone tablets Mr. Moses broke means that the Ten Commandments could never be reproduced perfectly after that day.

Your friend and brother,

Bartholomew

 

Bartholomew said:

To all of you out there who don't believe God preserved his word perfectly:

Who would that be? (I believe God preserved his word perfectly, just not in the way the KJV-onlyists claim he must have.)

Why did he bother to inspire it perfectly in the first place? That's a bit pointless if it's going to get irreversibly corrupted, isn't it???

The whole point of lower textual criticism is that the text isn't irreversibly corrupted. Otherwise, why would they be trying to reconstruct it, eh?

And WHERE'S YOUR BIBLICAL EVIDENCE THAT ONLY THE ORIGINALS WERE INSPIRED AND PERFECT???

It's probably somewhere in the vicinity of the biblical evidence that the KJV is inspired and perfect.

 

He didn't "bother" to inspire it. It is impossible for God to give any other kind of revelation other than that which is inspired. It is inspired because it is the revelation of God to man.

No.

Because it is impossible for God to give a revelation that is not perfect.

Quite obviously, the Scriptures themselves do not speak to a perfect preservation vs. any other kind of preservation. The testimony of Scripture is that revelation from God is perfect and therefore inerrant. Since we have a number of copies of the text that are not perfectly matching, we realize that God did not perfectly preserve it. It would be impossible for anyone to claim a perfect preservation without relying on additional revelation from God for this reason: If there is a perfect preservation, it would of necessity lie in one of the extant manuscripts. Since no two manuscripts match, it would require revelation from God to tell us which one of the 5000+ manuscripts is that perfect one.

It is quite obvious that that is not the way that God chose to work.

 

Bartholomew, we believe in preservation, we just don't agree with the *how* it was preserved.

But think about what you are saying. If the KJV is perfectly preserved (in the way that you mean), where/what was the "perfectly preserved" word of God prior to 1611? Why did the KJV "correct" what was already perfectly preserved, since the KJV is not identical to any Bible prior to it?

You see, your definition of "perfectly preserved" is a paradox - for if there was a "perfectly preserved" Bible before the KJV, the KJV was wrong to correct it, and if there wasn't a "perfectly preserved" Bible before the KJV, then "perfect preservation" didn't even happen in the first place. Either way, the very *existence* of the KJV proves that KJV-onlyism wrong.

 

This is a GREAT thread and I’ve enjoyed keeping up with it. But while doing so something came to mind I had seen about Elvis Presley. In his early days he entered an Elvis look-a-like and singing contest. Well guess what he came in third place. He was the original and still lost, ( I know who cares? ) but what makes us think if God gave us the ORIGINALS we would even know we have them?? Do you think we would argue over that also? You cotton pickin right we would!
No matter how you slice it, dice it, or chop it, it still comes down to what each one has learned and chosen to believe to be correct from some one we’ve been taught by, learned out of a book some one has written whether new or old, and on and on it goes.
Doesn’t it still come down to personal opinion as to what one wants to believe? YEP

 

No, never. This is subjective relativism, and reworded it is the world's favorite slogan "your truth is true for you, and my truth is true for me". This then would apply to all things - including Christianity. But there are objective truths, apart and distinct from simply learning and reading what others have said. And one of these truths is that God has preserved his word for us in the myriad of extant manuscripts of both the Hebrew and Greek copies. Its also true that He has chosen not to hand down to us from Sinai one perfect copy of the Bible.

 

Bartholomew: To all of you out there who don't believe God preserved his word perfectly:

Ransom: Who would that be? (I believe God preserved his word perfectly, just not in the way the KJV-onlyists claim he must have.)

Pastor Larry, for one!

Bartholomew: Why did he bother to inspire it perfectly in the first place? That's a bit pointless if it's going to get irreversibly corrupted, isn't it???

Ransom: The whole point of lower textual criticism is that the text isn't irreversibly corrupted. Otherwise, why would they be trying to reconstruct it, eh?

So let me get this right: The originals were originally perfect, but all the copies etc. got corrupted. This process only began to be reconciled in the 19th Century by textual critics who used Roman Catholic manuscripts to try to correct it...

Bartholomew: And WHERE'S YOUR BIBLICAL EVIDENCE THAT ONLY THE ORIGINALS WERE INSPIRED AND PERFECT???

Ransom: It's probably somewhere in the vicinity of the biblical evidence that the KJV is inspired and perfect.

Clever answer: but I have biblical evidence that God CAN and DOES perfectly translate and preserve his word. You have no biblical evidence that he doesn't. In fact, your whole argument about "only the originals were inspired" is proved wrong from the very verse that talks about scripture being inspired! (2 Tim 3:16)

 

He didn't "bother" to inspire it. It is impossible for God to give any other kind of revelation other than that which is inspired. It is inspired because it is the revelation of God to man.</font>[/QUOTE]
So.... It's "impossible" for God to give inspired scripture imperfectly; yet this same God not only can, but only ever does, preserve these words imperfectly???!!!!! Where did you get this idea from? The "originals"???

No. </font>[/QUOTE]

Yes it is! He may as well have just inspired them imperfectly.

Because it is impossible for God to give a revelation that is not perfect.</font>[/QUOTE]

WHAT??? If it's "impossible" for him to GIVE revelation that isn't perfect, why isn't it impossible for him PRESERVE revelation that isn't perfect???

Quite obviously, the Scriptures themselves do not speak to a perfect preservation vs. any other kind of preservation. The testimony of Scripture is that revelation from God is perfect and therefore inerrant.[/qb]</font>[/QUOTE]And I think you'll find that most of the time the Bible talks about God's revelation, it's not the originals. Yet it is still spoken of as being perfect and inerrant.

Sorry - I never learnt that logic at school! I might as well say, "since we have a number of different religions and non perfectly agree, we realize that non of them is perfectly true". Just because you can't find something that agrees with something else, that doesn't mean that neither can be true!!! And anyway, have you (or anyone else) studied all 5000+ Greek manuscripts, comparing each to all the others? And what about the 10,000 or so old Latin Manuscripts? You're assuming something and you have no idea whether it's true or not. And what if tomorrow I found two Greek texts that perfectly agree with the KJV? You can't argue against God's perfect preservation just because there are holes in your knowledge!

Your friend and brother,

Bartholomew

 

Bartholomew, You seem to missing the point here. Which of the 5000+ manuscripts is the perfect word of God? And how do you know?

And secondly, If God perfeclty preserves his revelation, then why is creation (general revelation) in such a mess?

 

Bartholomew said:

Ransom: The whole point of lower textual criticism is that the text isn't irreversibly corrupted. Otherwise, why would they be trying to reconstruct it, eh?

So let me get this right: The originals were originally perfect, but all the copies etc. got corrupted. This process only began to be reconciled in the 19th Century by textual critics who used Roman Catholic manuscripts to try to correct it...

Your facts are in error. The early Church had to deal with copyists' errors as well. It's not a 19th century issue.

Clever answer: but I have biblical evidence that God CAN and DOES perfectly translate and preserve his word. You have no biblical evidence that he doesn't.

You're right, but it is insignificant since I do not believe that God does not preserve his word perfectly. I also have no evidence, biblical or otherwise, that Jesus did his earthly ministry wearing a pink taffeta dress and a feather boa, but I don't lose sleep over it.

Be that as it may, just because I can't show you to be wrong does not prove you're right. That is illogical. (If you don't believe me: I hereby declare that I am God Almighty. You have no evidence to the contrary.)

If you have irrefutable evidence that God has perfectly translated and preserved his word AND he has done so in the KJV and nowhere else (in English at least), then by all means present it. The entire English-speaking world will owe you a debt of gratitude for being the first.