Is the KJV the "restoration" of God's words?

[Lacy Evans]

Originally posted by Matt Black:
Brother Lacy, HankD made some jolly good points about the 1611 KJV. Do you have any answers to them?

Yours in Christ

Matt

Dear Matt and all,

I have to leave the posts for a couple of days. Perhaps Bartholomew or someone can "fill in" . My wife's aunt died and I have to attend the funeral and comfort my mother-in-law. I love all you guys. Pray for us. I'll be back in a few days and have you all heating your homes with your NIVs in no time.

Lacy

 

[Matt Black]

Sorry to hear that Lacy . Love and prayers

Yours in CHrist

Matt

 

[Lacy Evans]

Originally posted by Matt Black:
Brother Lacy, HankD made some jolly good points about the 1611 KJV. Do you have any answers to them?

Yours in Christ

Matt

Ok here we go (as best as I can anyway) Here are some of Brother Hank's points:

What fruit?
The KJV fails every point that the KJVO claim for "corruption" of the MVs.
The translators of the MVs are/were "heretics" or "corrupt" say the KJVO.

The main reason I never get into the "Westcott and Hort" issue is because of the point Hank just made. (Although I do think the holiness scale would still slant slightly towards the KJV translators in a "steel cage match", but that is very shaky ground.)My point about fruit has nothing to do with King James, his translators or Westcott & Hort. The fruit which we can examine is the state of the church for the centuries leading up to the KJV and then what happened afterwards. Sure folks have gotten saved and there has always been a remnant, but you have to go back to the early church to see ANYTHING that rivals the true, godly, revivals in the 17&1800's. I believe that if the Laodician church is the one we live in then surely the 1700's and 1800's was the Philidelphian church age prophetically speaking. (Of course I can't be dogmatic about my interpretation of prophecy.)

During this time the KJV was the DOMINANT force in literature and in Christianity. This opinion is shared by many Christian and non-Christain historians, linguists, and authors. (I can document this.)

The KJV has a history of Church of England "corrections" over the centuries and while the disagreements and differences between the revisions of the KJV are "refinements", changes and corrections in the MV's are "satanic" according to the KJVO even I suppose those which are more faithful to the TR than the KJV.

This has been beaten to death on these boards recently but my opinion is clear in my article.

I usually don't argue about the specific word changes in the KJV compared to the MVs because it gets away from the heart of the matter. However to address the point:

1)The sheer magnitude of changes and the nature of the divergence from the Recieved Text based KJV to the more Alexandrian based MVs make this an unfair comparison.

2) If it is true that resurrection is a process, then the changes are no big deal. Scotty didn't beam up the dry bones. They had to come together from all over the valley, then came the sinews then the flesh then the skin, then the breath. (Note: without understanding the other arguments in the article this picture is far fetched.) For further study see http://www.kingdombaptist.org/article443.cfm+

The KJV IS NOT in the language of the common man. Has God changed His mind about this as well as the Apocrypha?

The KJV was NEVER written in the vulgar venacular of the common man and yet it served for 300 years as the common man's Bible. I'm not a scholar. I'm a simple preacher. It still serves a the common man's Bible

The apocrypha issue is a non-issue. It is not in the 1769. It was never intended to be taken as scripture by anyone involved in the translation. It was never accepted by the Christianity as canon. It was placed between the two testaments for posterity. I have a copy of it on my shelf. It is interesting, but I never quote it when proving a doctrine.

In actuality, you can no more prove your thesis that the 1611 (or whatever year) KJV is the "inspired" text than I can prove the TR is the inspired text.

I challenge you to honestly meditate a couple of questions. It is a difficult thing and will take time so don't answer now.

How do you prove that the 66-book canon is closed? Why are we certain that the apocrypha doen not belong there?

How do you prove that the Christian revelation in general is true? (as opposed to other religions.)

Proof is a difficult thing and it comes down to looking around in the light God gives us and seeing what is out there. The 66-book closed canon and the general Christian revelation require faith based on evidence to prove. I submit to you that the same fruits that prove them (honestly examined) will prove one of two things. Either the KJV is the Restored Word of God, or we need to look elsewhere for better fruit. Sceptics can revise history but the honest man will see truth proven.

I thank you for considering my perspective. I love you guys.

Lacy

 

[timothy 1769]

How do you prove that the 66-book canon is closed? Why are we certain that the apocrypha doen not belong there?

How do you prove that the Christian revelation in general is true? (as opposed to other religions.)

Proof is a difficult thing and it comes down to looking around in the light God gives us and seeing what is out there. The 66-book closed canon and the general Christian revelation require faith based on evidence to prove. I submit to you that the same fruits that prove them (honestly examined) will prove one of two things. Either the KJV is the Restored Word of God, or we need to look elsewhere for better fruit. Sceptics can revise history but the honest man will see truth proven.


I agree Pastor Evans, you said that so much better than I could

 

[RaptureReady]

Originally posted by timothy 1769:
How do you prove that the 66-book canon is closed? Why are we certain that the apocrypha doen not belong there?

How do you prove that the Christian revelation in general is true? (as opposed to other religions.)

Proof is a difficult thing and it comes down to looking around in the light God gives us and seeing what is out there. The 66-book closed canon and the general Christian revelation require faith based on evidence to prove. I submit to you that the same fruits that prove them (honestly examined) will prove one of two things. Either the KJV is the Restored Word of God, or we need to look elsewhere for better fruit. Sceptics can revise history but the honest man will see truth proven.


I agree Pastor Evans, you said that so much better than I could

Same here. Keep it coming.

 

[BrianT]

No one here denies the KJV has been fruitful. But how does "fruit" equal "textual perfection and pure representation of what was orinally written"? It doesn't. Nowhere are we exhorted to have faith that "fruit = perfection", or "KJV = the only Bible that is 'the word of God' in English".

 

[Scott J]

Originally posted by Askjo:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Scott J:
The NASB is perfect (ie. complete).

What?? It disagrees with 5,000 MSS 4,000+ times. Can NASB be perfect? [/QB]</font>[/QUOTE]Not true. The NASB has different words from all of the mss as does the KJV. It is content that counts, not words.

 

[Dr. Bob]

Take a little Greek word (used thousands of times in the NT) 'kai'. It may be translated as "and, also, but, as well, too" and countless others. All good and acceptable English words.

So one version opts to say "and" and another version chooses "also". Which is CORRECT?

Both.

And so, almost every other Greek word can thus be translated by an ARRAY of English words. And others must use 5-6 English words to ATTEMPT to translate a single Greek word.

 

[Lacy Evans]

Originally posted by Dr. Bob Griffin:
Take a little Greek word (used thousands of times in the NT) 'kai'. It may be translated as "and, also, but, as well, too" and countless others. All good and acceptable English words.

So one version opts to say "and" and another version chooses "also". Which is CORRECT?

Both.

And so, almost every other Greek word can thus be translated by an ARRAY of English words. And others must use 5-6 English words to ATTEMPT to translate a single Greek word.

I don't play both sides of the fence. When "every version onlyists" want to show how stupid the KJV translators are (and subsequently how much smarter they are), they appeal to the multiple choice "Greek". ( ie "replenish", "whale/fish", "conversation, "hell" etc. come to mind.) All their "Greek" definitions are OK. (context notwithstanding)

But when you show them that the problem is not with your "Greek" but instead with their "English" they just don't get it. How can you claim that "Whale" is a bad translation or "Hell" is a bad translation if you have no idea what the English word means, or if you ignore all but the "Dollar-General Dictionary For Idiots" definition of the English word. All English definitions (except the one that corrects the KJV) are wrong! (context notwithstanding . . . again)

Why can "both" be right as long as one of the "both" is not a KJB?

Lacy, The Single-Standard One

 

[Scott J]

Originally posted by Lacy Evans:


Why can "both" be right as long as one of the "both" is not a KJB?

I for one believe that the KJV is "one of the both." But that is as far as I will go because scripture and historical facts warrant no more.

 

[HankD]

I don't play both sides of the fence. When "every version onlyists" want to show how stupid the KJV translators are (and subsequently how much smarter they are), they appeal to the multiple choice "Greek". ( ie "replenish", "whale/fish", "conversation, "hell" etc. come to mind.) All their "Greek" definitions are OK. (context notwithstanding)

But when you show them that the problem is not with your "Greek" but instead with their "English" they just don't get it. How can you claim that "Whale" is a bad translation or "Hell" is a bad translation if you have no idea what the English word means, or if you ignore all but the "Dollar-General Dictionary For Idiots" definition of the English word. All English definitions (except the one that corrects the KJV) are wrong! (context notwithstanding . . . again)

Dear Lacy,

Have you forgotten the fact that in the original 1611 KJV of the Bible the translators admitted to the very fact that the choice of English words of translation was often a subjective matter?

In fact in some cases (in the 1611 original) they put word variations in the margin of the page for the reader to choose.

Also you say

when they want to show how stupid the KJV translators are (and subsequently how much smarter they are), they appeal to the multiple choice "Greek".

While the KJV translators being human had their weaknesses, faults and doctrinal inclinations, I don't believe anyone here on the BB would have called them "stupid".

Most of us know that they were all scholastically well pedigreed. This however does not gaurantee perfection of their work.

Do you actually know anyone here on the BB who called them "stupid"?

HankD

 

[Scott J]

Originally posted by Lacy Evans:
My point about fruit has nothing to do with King James, his translators or Westcott & Hort. The fruit which we can examine is the state of the church for the centuries leading up to the KJV and then what happened afterwards. Sure folks have gotten saved and there has always been a remnant, but you have to go back to the early church to see ANYTHING that rivals the true, godly, revivals in the 17&1800's. I believe that if the Laodician church is the one we live in then surely the 1700's and 1800's was the Philidelphian church age prophetically speaking. (Of course I can't be dogmatic about my interpretation of prophecy.)

The problem with statements such as these as that they are subjective and for the most part anecdotal or Eurocentric or even Anglocentric.

A missions expert named David Barrett compiled the following statistics.(As recorded on "Truths that Transform"). In 1900 there were about 60 million self-professing Bible believing evangelical Christians in the world- approximately 4% of the total population. Today that number has grown to 540 million. Nine times the number and better than twice the percentage. In the last 12 years, the number has almost doubled which is much greater than the population growth.

If one were to employ Lacy's logic, they could rightly say that this century long, worldwide revival is the direct results of lower textual criticisms "resurrection" of the Word of God as found in modern texts and translations. Certainly the vast majority of native language missions Bibles being produced today utilize a version of the critical texts.

If one is fooled into narrowly looking at the recent history of the English speaking people then such arguments as Lacy's appear impressive (and this is by no means to downplay the significance of the great revivals of the past 300 years). But God is concerned with all of mankind. The Great Awakening was largely isolated to England and America. It fostered a missionary movement that began in the 1800's and grew well into the 1900's (even after the supposed beginning of the Laodecian age).

God appears to be working mightily in China now. Man nor His works present a limitation to God. God used and uses the KJV but He is by no means limited by one English translation. To attribute any revival to any work of men (which includes the KJV) borders on blasphemy. It was the power of God that caused the revivals, not the scholarly word choices of Anglican churchmen.

The apostasy in American churches is real but it doesn't warrant the generalization employed by those who would call our era the "Laodecian church."

[ October 10, 2003, 03:03 PM: Message edited by: Scott J ]