More KJV WORDS

I will only post a few from the Webster's 1828;
You said it is not possible to find the terms' meanings using a dictionary. I will prove this is not true.

mean

MEAN, a. L. communis, vulgus, minor and minuo.

1. Wanting dignity; low in rank or birth; as a man of mean parentage,mean birth or origin.

2. Wanting dignity of mind; low minded; base; destitute of honor; spiritless.

Can you imagine I so mean could prove,

To save my life by changing of my love?

3. Contemptible; despicable.

The Roman legions and great Caesar found

Our fathers no mean foes.

4. Of little value; low in worth or estimation; worthy of little or no regard.

We fast, not to please men, nor to promote any mean worldly interest.

5. Of little value; humble; poor; as a mean abode; a mean dress.

meat

MEAT, n.

1. Food in general; any thing eaten for nourishment, either by man or beast.

And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb--to you it shall be for meat. Gen.1.

Every moving thing that liveth, shall be meat for you.

Gen.9.

Thy carcass shall be meat to all fowls of the air.

Deut.28.

2. The flesh of animals used as food. This is now the more usual sense of the word. The meat of carnivorous animals is tough, coarse and ill flavored. The meat of herbivorous animals is generally palatable.

3. In Scripture, spiritual food; that which sustains and nourishes spiritual life or holiness.

My flesh is meat indeed. John.6.

4. Spiritual comfort; that which delights the soul.

My meat is to do the will of him that sent me. John.4.

5. Products of the earth proper for food. Hab.3.

6. The more abstruse doctrines of the gospel, or mysteries of religion. Heb.5.

7. Ceremonial ordinances. Heb.13.

To sit at meat, to sit or recline at the table.

peculiar

PECU'LIAR, a. L. peculiaris, from peculium, one's own property, from pecus, cattle.

1. Appropriate; belonging to a person and to him only. Almost every writer has a peculiar style. Most men have manners peculiar to themselves.

2. Singular; particular. The man has something peculiar in his deportment.

3. Particular; special.

My fate is Juno's most peculiar care.

Most cannot, in strict propriety, be prefixed to peculiar, but it is used to give emphasis to the word.

4. Belonging to a nation,system or other thing, and not to others.

PECU'LIAR, n. Exclusive property; that which belongs to a person in exclusion of others.

1. In the canon law, a particular parish or church which has the probate of wills within itself, exempt from the jurisdiction of the ordinary or bishop's court.

Court of peculiars, in England, is a branch of the court of arches. It has jurisdiction over all the parishes dispersed through the province of Canterbury, in the midst of other dioceses, which are exempt from the ordinary jurisdiction, and subject to the metropolitan only.
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I will not go into the others since that will only use up too much band-width.
My poiint is simply this;
For ANY definition of a word, one must go to a dictionary fitted for its purpose.
For example, one would not normally go to an elementary level dictionary for the definitions of medical terms. One would go to a medical dictionary.
So, we find that in order to know what certain terms are we can do one of two things. We can define the words in context OR we can use a dictionary which is most closely related in the time of the usage of the word.
You do this with the Greek don't you? Of course you do. You seek out resources that will guide you into the knowledge of the meaning of the words AT THE TIME IT WAS USED.
So, why not the English of the KJV? OR for that matter, why not the English of the ASV? Surely you will not pretend that the American language has not changed since then, will you?

I didn't think so. I said all that to say this;
A LITTLE common sense will go a LONG way!

In HIS service;
Jim

 

I also use a "The King James Bible Word Book" published by Nelson Publishers.

I still contend that the "archaic English" is the weakest reason for non-use of the KJV.

I agree Jim, I study KJV words the same way I study Greek words. "Peculiar" listed above, is a word which really doesn't have a modern equivalant. I also prefer the word "careful" in Phillipians 4.

This is one area where I tend to side with my KJV brethren .

 

Well, gee, I guess everyone should rush out and buy a 1828 Webster's...NOT!!!

We speak modern English, not 17th century English. Words today mean things a lot different than they did in 1611...or 1828 for that matter. Besides, the 1828 Webster's was written for the KJV, not the man on the street to use in normal conversation.

In Christ,
Trotter

 

Yep, modern English sure changes things...take the word "gay", for instance...

 

I knew we would be in trouble when i
saw a TV report showing that "Johnny come
marching home again, Hurrah! Hurrah!"

Were you fundamentalists watching
and praying about your newspapers in
1993 when the following meaning of "fundamentalist" came into being?

fundamentlist - bigot

 

I would like to know why you think this would be one of the weakest reasons for abandoning the use of the KJV? I contend it is one of the strongest reasons why the common use of the KJV should be discontinued. My church uses the ESV, although a couple of our elders, who are older gentlemen, have used the KJV while preaching their messages, and this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Our senior 'teaching/preaching' pastor uses the ESV as it is easier to understand because it uses modern English. At any rate, a point I'd use in saying that it would be better to use a modern version is because God used the Koine' Greek (common Greek) that was in everyday use in the 1st century. It is also demonstrated that many quotations from the OT were from the LXX, which was a modern translation (at the time of the 1st century) of the OT. Granted that the LXX was at least a couple of centuries old by the time Jesus and the Apostles had used it, the LXX was modern in their time. Why bother using a translation of the Bible that is archaic and could be misunderstood by readers and listeners to the Word of God today? Why bother having to dig out a dictionary to understand the Word of God?

On the other side, there are translations in the KJV which are demonstrably superior to those of modern versions, even with the 200-400 year gap in language! I wouldn't say that the KJV should be put into a museum, but rather that it should be a compliment to the library of any believer. I just don't think it is helpful that it is still being used commonly in churches today.

 

I apologise, I thought I made my basic reasoning clear. I think the word choices are superior in the KJV and most of the words are still understandable today.

As to why bother having to dif out a dictionary, I fail to see the point of the argument. Why bother to dig out a Greek of Hebrew dictionary? Are you suggesting that we take the words of modern translators as face value and not look into the words? I am sure that is not the case. Whatever version one uses he does best to study difficult passages with whatever tools he needs.

 

Good point. Most of the KJV is understandable today, although it is becoming more archaic as time goes on. For me, the KJV is a valuable reference tool because it does have superior translations in some places than modern versions do, regardless of textual variants.

I'm not arguing in favor of using a dictionary to look up Greek & Hebrew words, but rather that some of the archaic language is difficult to understand to the common English Bible reader. To put my argument in better context, I was stating that it's better to have a modern version (if you are TR-only or TR-preferred, the NKJV is a very good translation!) that uses modern English than to read the KJV (or other 'older' translations, i.e. Geneva, Bishop's, Great Bible) and have to occasionally look up archaic words in an English dictionary. I'm saying that it's better to not to have to make less work for oneself if I am using a modern translation. Obviously, there will always be words, regardless of the modernity of the translation, that will have to be looked up in a dictionary. Having to look up archaic English words from the KJV is very distracting, and some people aren't very careful to distinguish archaic words from modern English; sometimes one will assume that a word in the KJV means the same thing today when it doesn't. That could be another argument for discontinuing the use of the KJV.

As to your statement that I was "....suggesting that we take the words of modern translators as face value and not look into the words?", I am assuming that the average English-speaking Christian does not have any or little knowledge of the Biblical languages. If one cannot understand an archaic word in the English language, how is it that that same person could ever understand a Hebrew or Greek lexicon? That is why the use of several English translations is profitable to gain the sense of any Bible passage. I won't go as far as to say that you may have been begging the question, but you're correct to point out that it's good to have as many tools as possible when doing an inductive Bible study.

 

I suppose we are back to the point of personal preference. If one finds himself challanged by the word usage in the KJV than by all means it is better to use a modern version than to be frustrated in one's Bible study.

I am not TR preferred, exactly. That is a technical difference. My view is that I am convinced that the body of texts underlying the KJV are superior to the body of texts used in most modern versions. Therefore my choice of "MV"s is the NKJV.

The topic here is archaic words. I honestly do not find that a hinderance to my own study. I use my language studies first, which is what I would do with any version. Then, if I find the KJV difficult I look further into that word using English tools.

BTW, I wonder what those posters who swear that I am anti-KJV are thinking about now .

 

C4K,

Yep, it's definitely and issue of 'personal preference'. I think I can understand why you think discontinuing using the KJV on the basis of 'archaic language' is somewhat weak. Perhaps a flaw in my reasoning is that there is a great variance in the abilities of people to understand their Bibles, regardless of one's grasp of the English vocabulary and one's grasp of understanding archaic terms that are no longer in modern usage. In my argument, I am assuming that one is only using the KJV for their reading and Bible studies. It could be said that using only the ESV would somewhat handicap the reader in gaining the fullest sense of the Scriptures! I am sure that if one is confused about a word or term in whatever version one is reading, then that person can look up some kind of reference to appreciate the fullest meaning of that word. Hmmm.... methinks I must rethinks my thinking.

In regard to the underlying texts, it could be said that having a preference for one text type over another is just that: a preference. My preference, even bias, toward the modern Greek texts is one that I base generally, although I prefer to take a more eclectic route in which I seldomly believe that some readings in the MT are preferable. Despite my preference/bias in favor of the MV's based on the UBS4th/Nestle-Aland Greek NT, I would NEVER go as far as to say that it is the 'ONLY' text that was (1) inspired, (2) perfectly providentially preserved (mmmmmm..... PICKLES! ), or (3) that the 'other' text is 'perverted'! Going in that direction, either KJV/TR-only or MV-only, is based on error and falsehood. The Word of God is preserved today, but not as some would say that God somehow 'perfectly' preserved it from errors in the transmission of the copied manuscripts.

 

KJV-onlies here on the BB will still think that you condemn/hate/vilify the KJV, and probably wouldn't think otherwise despite that you have a preference for using the KJV/NKJV.

You..... anti-KJV???

 

I apprecaite your thoughts and apologise for not being more clear in my point of view. I think that wise Bible study includes investigation of the passage no matter what version we choose to use.

If I used the ESV I would still look into the words that it uses.


On a sad note - it looks like I am losing support from one of my churches due to my "weakness" on the KJV .

[ February 20, 2005, 07:05 AM: Message edited by: C4K ]

 

I mentioned above that the NKV is my "MV" of choice. I use it along with my KJV and use it for personal devotions.

 

I think that most high quality dictionaries would include archaic meanings of the words.

Or, you can check out Websters 1828 here;

WEBSTERS 1828

Where you can find this definition of passenger:

Of course, one could always look up the meanings of the Greek words.

[ February 20, 2005, 03:24 PM: Message edited by: C4K ]

 

I might point out that Noah Webster titled his dictionary, "American Dictionary."
To make the claim that it was made FOR the KJV is highly suspect, IMO.

Although this thread is about the "archaic" words of the KJV, it has been rightly pointed out that one will find difficult words in ANY version; therefore I think the old saw "archaic" words is a very very weak argument against using the KJV.

For examplet here are a multitude of words in the NIV which are not as clear as they are in the KJV, and one "average" christian would be just as likely to need a dictionary for their meaning.
How is "gauntness" easier than "leanness" in Job 16:8? The modern reader can't understand "leanness"? Baloney! Ever been to the MEAT dept. in a supermarket? Most folks know what lean is. Or "gecko" the same as a "ferret" in Lev. 11:30? Or "gloat" the same as "rejoice" in Ps 30:1?

Admittedly these are just a few, and are taken from a "list". But one gets the point. The "archaic" word thingy is very weak indeed.

"Study to shew thyself approved unto God..."
Wouldn't this include knowing what the words mean? Go to the "Greek"? Sure! Why not? But even then you NEED a dictionary.

As Mr. Ed would say, TEE HEE!

In HIS service;
Jim

 

I suspect that the meaning of all these words would become apparent if given in their context.

 

Simple truth is, the AV 1611 was Good News for 17th C. Englishmen.