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Is the Greek reliable?

Discussion in 'Bible Versions & Translations' started by Salty, Jan 28, 2019.

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  1. Salty

    Salty 20,000 Posts Club
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    Here is a Facebook disucssion:
      • David: If you have to use Hebrew and/or Greek to make your doctrinal point, your point is WRONG

      • David What I mean is that if the English of the King James Bible doesn't evoke the point you are trying to make, your point is WRONG. Only an ignorant person doesn't realize that you can tamper with the translation of the scriptures to MAKE them say whatever you want. The Jews say that every Hebrew letter has 7 meanings, and every word has 70 meanings. While I am not agreeing with this saying literally, it makes my point. I just saw one of these Bible-corrupters use the Hebrew and Greek to eliminate the deity of Jesus Christ. Other heretics use it to get rid of hell.
        The fact is, once one crosses the line from reverence for and trembling at God's words, to adjusting/changing them to fit one's ideas, one cannot be corrected by the Bible, because the Bible is no longer the authority - one's opinion of what the Bible "should" say has become the authority
    • Salty Why?

    • David you don't believe in an infallible Bible, anyway, so there's no point in me explaining it to you, since you think God was too incompetent to give us his words in English in EXACTLY the way he wants us to have them.
      Salty Is the Greek Text infallible

    • David there's no such thing as "the" Greek text.

    Open for discussion
     
  2. SovereignGrace

    SovereignGrace Well-Known Member
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    Well, Andrew Sluder, an avid IFB’Er, stated if a pastor preaches from the Greek and not a KJV, run from that church.
     
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  3. HankD

    HankD Well-Known Member
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    Of course the Greek and Hebrew are reliable. True there are some areas of difficulty.
    e.g. Nuances, semantic flavors of words which die out with the culture of origin.

    Both biblical languages (well 3) Koine Greek, Classical Hebrew and Aramaic are "dead" (so-called) languages as they are not used in a dynamic fluent conversation anymore.

    HOWEVER they are probably the most documented "dead" languages in history because they are "living" languages in that they are the original languages of the inspired word of God.

    Subsequently there are multitudes of grammars, lexicons, dictionaries and commentaries as well as thousands of translations of the books of the bible and histories of the culture they thrived in going back to the very origins of the early development of these languages along with enhancements through archeological discoveries today.

    So, Yes they can be trusted.

    The real problem: Mankind.Both willing and unwittingly who twist and misrepresent the word.

    2 Corinthians 2:17 For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ.

    2 Peter 3:16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
     
  4. Rob_BW

    Rob_BW Well-Known Member
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    I would like to see this bio on this Bible-Corrupter he's speaking about.
     
  5. HankD

    HankD Well-Known Member
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    Those who abuse the word of God for gain.

    e.g. Churches who teach a salvation by works or a sacramental system in order to hold their devotees in spiritual slavery.
     
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  6. rlvaughn

    rlvaughn Well-Known Member
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    Yes, they are both reliable. Sometimes those reading and interpreting them are not.

    While I do not agree with all your Facebook friend is saying, I do hold to the maxim If you can’t find a doctrine in the translation of the Bible you are using in your own language, you can’t find it in the Greek or Hebrew.

    Note: by that I am not saying that original language readers do not pick up nuances, etc., that others miss.
     
  7. Yeshua1

    Yeshua1 Well-Known Member
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    The Holy Spirit Himself inspired the very words of the Originals in Hebrew/Aramaic and Koine Greek, so would think those languages take precedent over our English words in the ultimate sense of what was said and meant!
     
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  8. Logos1560

    Logos1560 Well-Known Member
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    Do KJV-only advocates think God was too incompetent to preserve the exact, specific words He gave by inspiration to the prophets and apostles after 1611 the same way He did before 1611?

    What kind of preservation do KJV-only advocates claim that the Scriptures teach? Do they suggest an exact word preservation or jot-and-tittle preservation of the actual original-language words given to the prophets and apostles before 1611 but only a vague, unclear, dynamic-equivalent meaning preservation in different words after 1611?
     
  9. Logos1560

    Logos1560 Well-Known Member
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    Do KJV-only advocates make that assertion because they know that the KJV translators did not translate solely, completely, or faithfully from any one printed edition of the Greek New Testament available to them?
    Are KJV-only advocates in effect admitting that textual-criticism decisions were involved in the making of the KJV?

    Do KJV-only advocates condemn the KJV translators for referring to "the" Greek?

    According to its title page and its preface, the KJV professes to be translated from the original languages. According to its title page for the New Testament, the 1611 KJV's New Testament was "newly translated out of the original Greek." The first rule for the translating referred to “the truth of the original.” The sixth rule and fifteen rule referred to “Hebrew” and to “Greek.”

    Lancelot Andrewes, a KJV translator, wrote: "Look to the original, as, for the New Testament, the Greek text; for the Old, the Hebrew" (Pattern of Catechistical Doctrine, p. 59).

    In the preface to the 1611 KJV entitled "The Translators to the Reader," Miles Smith favorably quoted Jerome as writing “that as the credit of the old books (he meaneth the Old Testament) is to be tried by the Hebrew volumes, so of the New by the Greek tongue, he meaneth the original Greek. Then Smith presented the view of the KJV translators as follows: "If truth be to be tried by these tongues [Hebrew and Greek], then whence should a translation be made, but out of them? These tongues therefore, we should say the Scriptures, in those tongues, we set before us to translate, being the tongues in which God was pleased to speak to his church by his prophets and apostles." In this preface, Smith wrote: “If you ask what they had before them, truly it was the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, the Greek of the New.” Earlier on the third page of this preface, Smith referred to “the original” as “being from heaven, not from earth.”

    In the dedication to King James in the 1611, Thomas Bilson also acknowledged that the KJV was a translation made “out of the original sacred tongues.“ John Eadie noted that the account of the Hampton Court conference written by Patrick Galloway, the king’s Scottish chaplain, [“an account revised by the king himself”] stated “that a translation be made of the whole Bible, as consonant as can be to the original Hebrew and Greek” (English Bible, II, p. 179).
     
    #9 Logos1560, Jan 30, 2019
    Last edited: Jan 30, 2019
  10. Logos1560

    Logos1560 Well-Known Member
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    KJV-only advocates cannot find their modern KJV-only doctrine in the KJV that they are reading and using in their own language so they definitely could not find it in any Hebrew OT text or in any Greek NT text.
     
  11. Dave G

    Dave G Well-Known Member

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    Which "Greek"?
    There are many.

    The "Greek" of Erasmus ( which evolved into the Textus Receptus, IMO ), Beza's "Greek" ( pretty much the same as what came to be called the TR ), the "Greek" of Westcott and Hort, the "Greek" of Nestle / Aland ( 27 revisions ), the UBS "Greek" that has changed or been revised now 4 times, Scrivener's "Greek", Hodges and Farstadt's "Greek"...

    David has a point, IMO.
     
    #11 Dave G, Jan 30, 2019
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  12. Yeshua1

    Yeshua1 Well-Known Member
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    They would seem to be stating and holding with the Holy Spirit had inspired them to translate the 1611 translation in same way He inspire the Originals to be recorded down !
     
  13. Yeshua1

    Yeshua1 Well-Known Member
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    The simple truth, despite KJVO not wanting this to be true, is that all of them would be considered as the Greek word of the Lord for us now!
     
  14. Yeshua1

    Yeshua1 Well-Known Member
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    Is there any Greek text that would show a direct and exact correspondence to the 1611 kjv then?
     
  15. 37818

    37818 Well-Known Member

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    Don't forget the family 35 Greek New Testament assembled by Willur N. Pickering.
     
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  16. Yeshua1

    Yeshua1 Well-Known Member
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    What is that?
     
  17. Salty

    Salty 20,000 Posts Club
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    I am not sure what education David has in regards to all this.
    I would suppose that his opinion of the KJV is only based on what his pastor/s have taught.
    I have not had any formal training in Greek/Hebrew.

    All I know is that when David said "there's no such thing as "the" Greek text."
    that rather blew my mind. Evidently he thinks that the KJV is more important then the original
    Greek/Hebrew texts.

    I appreciate all your comments.
     
  18. Rob_BW

    Rob_BW Well-Known Member
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    I suppose I don't see why he mentions that a heretic can use a non-KJV Bible to produce heresy.

    No kidding.

    A heretic is going to heretic no matter what version they use. Plenty of those of Puritan stock marched right off into Unitarianism with a KJV bible, while I can pull my seldom used NRSV (gotta have something with the Apocrypha, after all) and find the deity of Christ all throughout (even if I don't agree with some of the translational choices).
     
  19. Dave G

    Dave G Well-Known Member

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    Evidently, but perhaps not.

    Perhaps his position isn't fully understood, as there is quite a bit of detail behind his comments, like there are mine.
    Knowing both sides of the issue, I think I know what he's referring to.

    He trusts the AV above any other English translation today, and his "Greek" is probably what his independent research has convinced him as being the most trustworthy...the Received Text.
    He also probably throws out the Critical Text as being developed, not by men who truly love God, but by men who seek to cast doubt on His word.
    Which means they don't love God.

    But that's just my impression of him.;)



    With that, my comments in this thread are at an end...because if it's one thing I've seen on this forum, what I believe and why I believe it are in the smallest minority.
    But, I'm getting used to it. :Biggrin





    May God bless you all.:)
     
    #19 Dave G, Jan 30, 2019
    Last edited: Jan 30, 2019
  20. Heretic Hunter

    Heretic Hunter Active Member

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    #20 Heretic Hunter, Jan 30, 2019
    Last edited: Jan 30, 2019
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