Contradictions within the KJV

Yep. That's a contradiction there. So what should we do with that? There's a definite disparity there. God says, "Thou shalt not *ratsach*," and then many years later says, "Okay, so there's an exception. It is okay in some instances to *ratsach*" How okay are you with the fact that the Bible does have contradictions? In other words - is this God's fault or was it the author(s) of Exodus and Numbers fault? Maybe this should be another thread, but you do, indeed, bring up a valid point - and a valid contradiction.

 

A true contradiction in the word of God? God forbid! Before coming to such a conclusion I think it would be time for us to admit our gross stupidity and ignorance before (and compared to) our Lord.

But I don't think that's necessary yet

IMO the 7th commandment just isn't the final word concerning ratsach. We have the rest of scripture to fine tune the idea, not unlike what Jesus did with the Sermon on the Mount.

But the KJV, by translating ratsach as kill, more accurately represents the situation in the Hebrew than most of the MV's.

Go team

 

Maybe we need to examine our presuppositions as well.

 

Maybe we need to examine our presuppositions as well. </font>[/QUOTE]Maybe, but if I correctly understand where you're heading I won't go there. I trust my Lord to deal with me appropriately if I've been a little too trusting regarding His word. I think that's better than rashly questioning the inerrancy of His revelation. Since my little brain is about as smart as an amoeba compared with the infinite intelligence of the Lord of all creation I think it's best to assume the problem lies within me and not in His word.

 

Then why dont you correct all of the so called "errors"? and then we will FINALY have a perfect Bible.

Simple,No? </font>[/QUOTE]Hey - that's what the different reprintings of the KJV were trying to do. Fix the errors of the 1611 version of the Bible.

Will we ever have a perfect Bible? Only when we find the original manuscripts. Even then, we will never have a perfect translation - there's no such thing. </font>[/QUOTE]I can just see it now, all of us that likes to debate versions die at the same time. "St Peter Hold those gates open, and where's the originals?" Can't you imagine running past the tree of life, past Gabriel practicing his trumpet, You finally come to Jesus and the first thing you ask is, "Where's the originals? I've got to know if I'm right." I'll roll laughing if Jesus looks at us and says, "The scroll thou art looking for hast been with you all along." He then takes us to the library where we find the TR, UBS and Nestle!

 

Or better yet, the latin vulgate!

 

The UBS is the United Bible Society, which has made a "critical text" from which several BVs are made.

http://www.biblesociety.org/index2.htm

The Nestle-Aland texts were first prepared by Eberhard Nestle in 1898, with the work taken over by his son Erwin in 1927. Kurt & Barbara Aland worked with Erwin until Erwin's death in 1972, & then they took over the work entirely. Kurt wrote a book called The Text of the New Testament which I believe was published in 1979, which is a description of some of the Greek mss & the methods of textual criticism used.(I have not read this book)

The reason the N/A text has been revised so often is that they took the latest ms discoveries into account.

 

True, but this is not the whole story.
"weight" is assigned to MSS both old and newly discovered and a grade of probability is assigned to variants base upon the weighting system one has chosen.

Wescott and Hort placed a heavy weight upon the two uncials Aleph and B because of their early date.

Others said the weight assigned to these MSS was excessive because of the "poor" quality and internal disagreements with each other of these MSS.

Some put a great weight upon the "Majority" text (a kind of distilled text) which because of sheer numbers turns out to be a Byzantine text type.

Then there is the elusive Traditional Text which has been the text coming out of "tradition" eek!
This text is assigned great weight by some because it purportedly comes out of the apostolic Churches of Asia Minor, europe and church councils before the great apostasy of the Church of Rome. This was the text of choice of John Burgon. Unlike the present day radical view his view allowed for the correction (another eek!) of "plain errors" (man-made/scribal of course).

Of course these are over-simplifications for the sake of time and space.

I prefer the Traditional Text.

HankD

 

Genesis 22:1 "And it came to pass after these things, that God DID TEMPT Abraham, and said unto him...Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest...and offer him there for a burnt offering..."

Bible critics and wannabe scholars sometimes bring up this verse as an example of an alleged error or contradiction in the King James Bible. One such self- appointed authority recently criticized the KJB in this typical way.

James 1:13: "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:"

While Gen 22:1 says, "And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am." (KJV)

Even though tempt may mean several things without study, this appears to be a conflict of scripture. Are there any other contradictions in the KJV? If the King James is inerrant, wouldn't they have used a different word in Gen 22:1?

Instead of straining at gnats, this Bible critic would be better served by consulting a dictionary and learning more of his native tongue. The Cambridge Dictionary gives a modern example of the use of the word to tempt in the sense of putting to the test. It lists: "You're tempting fate by riding your bike without wearing a cycle helmet."


Likewise the Wordsmyth Dictionary list four modern meanings of the word "to tempt", and #3 is the meaning found in Genesis 22:1 as well as other places in the Bible.

1. to entice or try to entice (someone) to do something unwise or wrong, as by promising pleasure or reward.
2. to be attractive or strongly appealing to.
   Example   The idea of a swim right now tempts me.
3. to provoke or put to the test.
   Example   Such recklessness tempts fate.
4. to cause to be strongly inclined or disposed.
   Example   I was tempted to reply to their rudeness.
   
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary 1998 also gives these definitions and examples.
Tempt, v. t. O.E. tempten, tenten, from OF. tempter, tenter, F. tenter, fr. L. tentare, temptare, to handle, feel, attack, to try, put to the test, urge, freq. from tendere, tentum, and tensum, to stretch.

1. To put to trial; to prove; to test; to try.
God did tempt Abraham. --Gen. xxii. 1.

Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God. --Deut. vi. 16.

2. To lead, or endeavor to lead, into evil; to entice to what is wrong; to seduce.
Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. --James i. 14.

Not only does the KJB read that God did tempt Abraham, but so also do the Douay version 1950, Webster's 1833 translation, and the 1936 Jewish translation put out by the Hebrew Publishing Company of New York.

Words obviously have more than one narrow meaning, and this is true in Hebrew and Greek as well as all other languages. Notice the context in James 1:13-14 is temptation to sin. "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted WITH EVIL, neither tempteth he any man: (context, context, context "with evil") But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed."

If, as some Bible critics suggest, there is a contradiction in the KJB, then many other modern versions likewise suffer from a similar contradiction in James 1:13. Both the NASB 1995 and the 1982 New KJV say God cannot be tempted with evil. Yet in the NASB we read in Psalms 78: 41 and 56 of the children of Israel: "again and again they tempted God, and pained the Holy One of Israel", and "Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High God.". Also in Psalms 106:14 the NASB says "they tempted God in the wilderness."

Likewise the NKJV has Moses asking the Israelites "Why do you tempt the LORD?", and "he called the place Massah...because they tempted the LORD, saying, Is the LORD among us or not?". The NKJV also says in Psalms 78:41 that "again and again they tempted the LORD and limited the Holy One of Israel."

So if God cannot be tempted with evil as the NASB, NKJV say in James 1:13, and we limit the definition of this word to one narrow meaning, then there is also a contradiction in these other modern versions when they tell us the evil and rebellious children of Israel tempted God again and again. Obviously one of the meanings of the word "to tempt" is to put to the test, to try or to prove.

The King James Bible is not in error in Genesis 22:1 where we are told that God did tempt Abraham. God tried and tested him, and this is one of the meanings of the word. The Bible critics would do well to learn their own English language a bit better before they come up with these silly objections.

What I have always found to be the case with Bible critics who attempt to find just one little error in the King James Bible, is that none of them has any final authority other than their own minds and understanding. If you ask them: "Do you believe there is any text, be it in Hebrew or Greek, or any Bible version in any language that you consider to be the infallible, preserved, complete words of God that you would not alter in any way?", they without exception do not have any. They always have an inflated view of their own importance, their intellect, and their ability to pick and choose which texts they feel are God's words, and how they themselves prefer to translate them. And their particular mystical bible that exists only in their own minds always differs from everybody else's. They are their own Final Authority, and every man does that which is right in his own eyes.

For me and thousands of other Bible believing Christians, we will stick to the tried and true King James Holy Bible and not accept any spurious substitutes.

Will Kinney

 

the various definitions of "tempt", including some not in common use, shows another example of the English of the KJV's now being archaic. We have other examples, such as "conversation" meaning "lifestyle" and "let" meaning "hinder or restrain". Many people are not familiar with these archaic meanings & can thus be easily confused by them.

If one is not thoroughly familiar with Elizabethan English, he/she should also use at least one modern Bible version instead of only the KJV.

 

Dear Brother Will, here you have a standard which I don't believe you can even apply to yourself. But, perhaps you can...?

The 1769 Edition of the King James Bible has several hundred "alterations", "corrections" and differences from the 1611 KJB, many of these differences and "corrections" have been discussed here on the BB.

One of the defining statements of the KJBO folks position (not the KJVP) is "things that are different are not the same".

In light of the defining statement above, which of these KJV editions do you endorse?


HankD

 

One more time... if the Hebrew word in Gen. 22:1 really *means* "tempt" in the sense of "prove" or "test," then why not actually *translate* it as "prove" or "test" and avoid any potential confusion or apparent contradiction? It's a simple solution to the problem. The Geneva Bible did exactly that, so unlike the KJV, there's absolutely no possibility of misunderstanding or apparent contradiction.

"And after these things God did prove Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham. Who answered, Here am I." (Gen. 22:1, Geneva Bible)

"Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God can not be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man." (Jas. 1:13, Geneva Bible)

This position sounds distressingly similar to the Roman Catholic argument for papal infallibility. An RC apologist might say "What I have always found to be the case with papal infallibility critics who attempt to find just one little error in the magisterial teaching is that none of them has any final authority other than their own minds and understanding. If you ask them: "Do you believe there is any body of interpretation of the Bible that you consider to be the infallible, correct interpretation of the word of God that you would not alter in any way?", they without exception say they do not have any. They always have an inflated view of their own importance, their intellect, and their ability to pick and choose which interpretations they feel are God's, and how they themselves prefer to interpret them. And their particular mystical body of interpretations exists only in their own minds always differs from everybody else's. They are their own Final Authority, and every man does that which is right in his own eyes."

If "soul liberty" means anything, it means that the believer is responsible to God and God alone in matters of textual variants and textual interpretation, and not to the allegedly "infallible" judgments of mere men like the pope, Erasmus, or the KJV translators.

I guess the Geneva Bible must be one of those "spurious substitutes." What a pity that English speaking people were deprived of the word of God in their own language until the KJV came along.

 

God cannot be "tempted", I.E. enticed as we can. And when Satan tried to get Jesus to jump off the temple roof, he was trying to get Jesus to TEST His Father's power, or to DARE Him. This meaning can become obscured if the reader of the KJV isn't familiar with the archaic English.