Did God Write the Geneva Bible?

^^He was probably kidding, his take-off on a typical KJVO post. At least, I hope he was kidding.

 

Amazing! I thought the Bible was written in Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic, and now I hear it was written in 16th century English. Wow!

Seriously, if anyone would like to take a look at the Geneva Bible online, StudyLight has some of the older English Bibles available at their web site. Check it out at

http://www.studylight.org/

Here are a couple verses which everyone should recognize:

For God so loued the worlde, that hee hath giuen his onely begotten Sonne, that whosoeuer beleeueth in him, should not perish, but haue euerlasting life. (John 3:16)

For there is no difference: for all haue sinned, and are depriued of the glorie of God. (Romans 3:23)

Amazingly, the spelling and the language are very much like the original King James Version, but some of the readings are a bit different. Who can say whether some of the different readings are closer to the original meanings than the corresponding readings in the KJV? Romans 3:23 is a good example - do we "come short" of God's glory, or are we "deprived" of God's glory because of sin? Do some parallel readings using the Geneva and either the KJV or one of the more modern translations. You may be in for a surprise!

God bless us all as we study the Word!

[ December 17, 2002, 03:51 PM: Message edited by: Keith M ]

 

The Geneva Bible is more faithful to the original Greek in Romans 3:23 when it says "are deprived of the glorie of God". The underlying verb which the KJV renders "come short" is a present tense passive indicative which may be rendered as the Geneva Bible did, or as "...are being deprived of the glory of God".
Both KJV and Geneva are weak
in this verse in that they both render the verb for "to sin" as a perfect, "have sinned", when in fact it is an aorist and ought to be rendered "sinned". Thus the verse literally would read:

"For they all sinned and are being deprived of the glory of God"

The sinning in this verse is Adam's sin in the garden of Eden, and the consequense of it is that the group of people under consideration "are being deprived of the glory of God" in their own personal character and conduct. In Romans 5:12 we have the exactly same word, êmarton, "sinned", an aorist tense. The KJV here also would have it to be a perfect ("have sinned"), thus again removing the reference to Adam's sinning in the capacity of the federal head of his race in the garden, thus plunging all the race into condemnation. The infant rhantizing KJV translators may have been scholarly men, but were not infallible in their translating, let alone inspired in their effort.

Harald

 

How so? elaborate.

 

How so? elaborate.</font>[/QUOTE]He did. The sentence you quote from has 37 words... Why did you stop on #5? The rest of the sentence explains his claim.

 

Then you would have us believe everything from 1881 on is,right??

 

Where did he say or imply that???

 

DEAR JYD. You seemingly make a small thing I said into a big thing. Why go about conjecturing when you full well see what I stated, as the two others pointed out to you.

Harald

 

Dear Harald,I wanted to know what is your basis for this false assumption was.Who told you the KJV/Geneva was weak?? I mean, what would you suggest the modern Christian use??

[ December 19, 2002, 05:20 PM: Message edited by: JYD ]

 

Dear Harald,I wanted to know what is your basis for this false assumption was.Who told you the KJV/Geneva was weak?? I mean, what would you suggest the modern Christian use??</font>[/QUOTE]How incredibly dishonest of you! He did not say that they were weak in general. He said they were weak in "this verse."

I think most of us here including Harald would agree that the KJV is an very strong translation in general. However, that doesn't mean it gives the best possible translation in every instance or that it always translates verbs in a way that best represents the original meaning.

 

I was always told that a chain is ONLY as strong as it's weakest link. Most folks who can not understand a verse or does not agree with what God said in a verse,or it cuts them to the quick(Heb 4:12)will say that the KJV (or Geneva)is in error; How incredibly dishonest.

 

Dear JYD. You would do well to look at what Scott J just said. It was almost as if I myself had said it. It is obvious that God the Lord has honored both the Geneva Bible and the KJV, and they have been two of the most divinely blessed translations, and have ministered quite well to God's people in English speaking countries during the centuries. Only a fool would take issue with that. Yet there are verses or instances where a clearer rendering of verb forms would be in place.
An example I come to think of is the ever popular John 3:16. Free will religionists like to use KJV to support their heresy of a once for all "decision for Christ". This may in part be attributed to the KJV's rendering of the present participle pisteuôn as "believeth". Now "believeth" in our day can be taken for a simple present or possibly an ongoing present. A present active participle like pisteuôn is more properly rendered as ending with an -ing, "believing". The KJV translators knew in quite a few other instances that this was how it was to be done, and accordingly rendered present participles as -ing verbs. A present participle speaks more of a state in some instances than of an action. Thus in this particular verse it would not have been wrong to render "...in order that every believer in Him not should destroy himself.." If the inspiring Spirit had inspired an aorist form then there would have been more support for the arminian heresy of a once for all "decision". In my opinion a good translation effort seeks to distinguish between aorist and present tense verbs as far as possible, but the KJV is in my opinion weak in this thing in many places in that it employs an -eth verb regardless of whether the underlying verb is aorist or present (non-participal) or present participle. In some instances the difference is between error and truth, heresy and orthodoxy.

Harald

 

The Bible isn't a chain. The fact that the translators did not translate every passage in the best possible way doesn't render the whole translation weak... In fact, it doesn't even render the phrase unuseful or necessarily untrue. By saying a translation is weak, the assertion is simply that a better one is available.

No. I would say that this generalization is false both ways. Folks who do not understand or agree with God's Word could usually care less how technically good the translation is. On the other hand, people who evaluate translation work rarely do so in an effort to change the meaning to avoid conviction.

I doubt very seriously that Harald critqued this translation with the intent of evading the truth that all of us are sinful and come short of God's glory.