Our Scriptural Confidence is that We have a Pure, More Sure Word of Prophecy.

[Anthony Pritchard]

Your efforts to dismiss substance and evidence is the noise.

Your quote stacking is still a substitute for argument. It is still noise.

The back and forth with you is repetitive and useless because are not debating me. You are preserving a frame. And once someone is locked into frame‑preservation, no amount of clarity, precision, or correction will move them.

 

[Logos1560]

And once someone is locked into frame‑preservation, no amount of clarity, precision, or correction will move them.

Are you describing your own non-scriptural position concerning English Bible translations?

You do not engage in considering and debating the actual documented evidence presented that conflicts with your unproven assertions.

 

[Logos1560]

In another thread, Anthony Pritchard posted: "Modern English has collapsed that category into “talk,” and modern translations follow the reduced vocabulary of the modern language. That narrowing does not simply affect interpretation; it affects the accuracy of the translation itself.

This is why I argue against modern translations. When the receptor language loses categories that the biblical languages require, the translation inevitably loses precision. Pre‑modern English carried those categories natively. Modern English does not."

Your very own assertions suggested that you are opposed to all modern English Bible translations including those based on the same preserved underlying texts as the KJV, which shows or reveals that your position on English Bible translations can be soundly and accurately regarded as being KJV-only. It is your own statements that display KJV-only reasoning.

The Scriptures do not state nor teach that the word of God cannot be translated into Modern English in the same way or in the same sense that it was translated into Early Modern English.

Modern English does not have a reduced vocabulary. Early Modern English did not have all the categories of language found in the preserved Scriptures in the original languages. Alan Macgregor asserted: “Hebrew makes a gender distinction for second and third person pronouns (singular and plural) as it does also with singular demonstrative pronouns. The Greek has feminine third person plural pronouns, and feminine reflexive and reciprocal pronouns. However, the English language is incapable of effectively translating these” (400 Years On, p. 254). William Mounce noted: “In English all imperatives are second person; in Greek there are second and third person imperatives” (Greek for the Rest of Us, p. 194).

In some ways, Early Modern English was less precise and less standardized than 1900's Modern English.

 

[Anthony Pritchard]

Your very own assertions suggested that you are opposed to all modern English Bible translations including those based on the same preserved underlying texts as the KJV, which shows or reveals that your position on English Bible translations can be soundly and accurately regarded as being KJV-only. It is your own statements that display KJV-only reasoning.

You have added words to my position, then attacked the words you added.

I am not opposed to all modern English translations and I never said I was. I am opposed to translations that mix preserved text with reconstructed text. That is a textual position, not a KJV‑only position.

I have stated repeatedly that I am preserved‑text‑only, not KJV‑only, and that faithful translations in other languages also carry the preserved text. That alone removes me from the KJV‑only category.

My linguistic point is simple. Early Modern English carried certain grammatical categories natively that Modern English no longer carries. That loss affects precision in specific areas. I did not claim that Early Modern English carried all categories of Hebrew or Greek, nor did I claim that Modern English cannot be used for translation.

You are responding to claims I have not made. My position concerns the underlying text and the linguistic capacity of the receptor language, not exclusivity of the KJV.

 

[Logos1560]

You have added words to my position, then attacked the words you added.

I copied and accurately quoted what you yourself posted. In another thread, Anthony Pritchard posted: "Modern English has collapsed that category into “talk,” and modern translations follow the reduced vocabulary of the modern language. That narrowing does not simply affect interpretation; it affects the accuracy of the translation itself.

This is why I argue against modern translations. When the receptor language loses categories that the biblical languages require, the translation inevitably loses precision. Pre‑modern English carried those categories natively. Modern English does not."

Therefore, I was properly responding to assertions that you yourself made. I added no words to what you stated. Your additional extra-biblical or non-scriptural demand concerning "the linguistic capacity of the receptor language" seems to be a rationalization for your exclusive claim for the KJV and rejection of all modern English Bibles. You have not named or identified one modern English Bible that you accept and do not oppose.

Was the KJV in effect mixing preserved text with reconstructed text when its makers of the KJV borrowed many renderings from the 1582 Roman Catholic Rheims New Testament translated from an edition of Jerome's Latin Vulgate?

 

[Anthony Pritchard]

I copied and accurately quoted what you yourself posted. In another thread, Anthony Pritchard posted: "Modern English has collapsed that category into “talk,” and modern translations follow the reduced vocabulary of the modern language. That narrowing does not simply affect interpretation; it affects the accuracy of the translation itself.

This is why I argue against modern translations. When the receptor language loses categories that the biblical languages require, the translation inevitably loses precision. Pre‑modern English carried those categories natively. Modern English does not."

Therefore, I was properly responding to assertions that you yourself made. I added no words to what you stated. Your additional extra-biblical or non-scriptural demand concerning "the linguistic capacity of the receptor language" seems to be a rationalization for your exclusive claim for the KJV and rejection of all modern English Bibles. You have not named or identified one modern English Bible that you accept and do not oppose.

Was the KJV in effect mixing preserved text with reconstructed text when its makers of the KJV borrowed many renderings from the 1582 Roman Catholic Rheims New Testament translated from an edition of Jerome's Latin Vulgate?

My argument in that quote was about modern English, not about manuscripts. You quoted me correctly, but you misinterpreted the point. Actually I believe the shift you made from my linguistic argument to a textual argument was deliberate. You did not address the point I actually made, because the point I made cannot be answered by changing manuscripts. It concerns the capacity of modern English itself. I have said consistently that modern English has lost certain semantic and grammatical categories that the biblical languages require. When the receptor language lacks those categories, precision is reduced. That is a linguistic argument, not a textual one.

I have never claimed that modern English translations are invalid because of their textual base. I have said they are less precise because modern English itself cannot carry certain distinctions without paraphrase. That is the issue.

Borrowing English renderings from the Rheims does not mean the KJV adopted Vulgate textual readings. Translation phrasing and textual foundation are not the same category. You are responding to a claim I have not made.

 

[Logos1560]

I have said consistently that modern English has lost certain semantic and grammatical categories that the biblical languages require. When the receptor language lacks those categories, precision is reduced. That is a linguistic argument, not a textual one.

You have not demonstrated that it is a sound argument. You do not demonstrate that Early Modern English or Elizabethan English was more precise than standardized Modern English.

The lack of standardization of grammar and spelling in Early Modern English does not suggest that it is a more precise and accurate English than Modern English. Jack Lynch quoted the following from Samuel Johnson’s 1755 preface to his dictionary: “When I took the first survey of my undertaking, I found our speech copious without order, and energetick without rules: wherever I turned my view, there was perplexity to be disentangled, and confusion to be regulated; choice was to be made out of boundless variety, without any established principle of selection; adulterations were to be detected, without a settled test for purity; and modes of expression to be rejected or received, without the suffrages of any writers of classical reputation or acknowledged authority” (Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary, p. 25).

In their book entitled The Story of English, Robert McCrum, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil wrote: “In Elizabethan English you could happy your friend, malice or foot your enemy, or fall an axe on his neck. A he is used for a man and a she for a woman, along with many usages that would now be regarded as breaking the normal rules of English” (p. 96). They noted: “Almost any word could be used in almost any part of speech. Adverbs could be used for verbs, nouns for adjective, nouns and adjectives could take the place of verbs and adverbs” (Ibid.). These authors wrote: “And no Elizabethan wrote with greater boldness than Shakespeare. He could out-Herod Herod, he could uncle me no uncle, he used expressions like how she might tongue me, and he wrote that Lord Angelo dukes it well in his absence” (Ibid.). Robert McCrum, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil wrote: “The Elizabethans had initiated a renaissance in spoken and written English” (p. 110). Robert McCrum, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil wrote: “There is probably some truth in the assertion that Elizabethan English would have sounded, to twentieth-century ears, a mixture of West Country and Irish” (p. 106).

David Crystal noted: “The King James Bible looks backward in its grammar, and preserves many of the forms and constructions which were falling out of use elsewhere” (Cambridge Encyclopedia, p. 65). David Crystal maintained that the KJV translators “often opted for older forms of the language, when modern alternatives were available” (Ibid.). David Crystal wrote: “The -eth [ending] was already dying out in Shakespeare’s day, and a century later wouldn’t be seen at all, other than in writers being deliberately archaic – or, as with the taxman cometh, being jocular” (Making Sense, p. 181). David Crystal wrote: “The third person singular of the present tense of verbs is always –(e)th. In other texts of the period, it is being replaced by -s” (Cambridge Encyclopedia, p 65). Concerning the KJV, David Crystal pointed out: “In particular, the modern use of do with negatives and in questions is missing: we find they knew him not instead of they did not know him. By contrast, both old and new constructions are used in Shakespeare, and the do construction became standard by about 1700” (Ibid.).

April Mahon wrote: “As thou slips away moreover, it takes along the matching verb ending – (e)st of forms such as thou goest, thou thinkest, thou seest, which in turn contributes to that general reduction of overt inflectional morphology which, as we have seen, had been under way since the Old English period. In the same vein, the earlier – (e)th verbal marker for the third person singular present tense first comes to alternate with the originally northern –(e)s, and is gradually displaced by it” (Mugglestone, Oxford History of English, p. 182). April Mahan wrote: “In syntax, the furthest-reaching development in early modern English involves the use of do” (p. 183). In this same history of English, Terttu Nevalainen mentioned “two important processes of change in Tudor English: one that affected the third-person singular verbal ending (e.g. he knoweth, which was gradually displaced by he knows), and one that introduced the auxiliary do into English (so that structures such as they know not were gradually displaced by they do not know)” (p. 221). Tertu Nevalainen wrote: “The rise of do is a grammatical development which is, in histories of the language, particularly associated with Tudor English” (p. 244). Tertu Nevalainen referred to “the Tudor period from the late fifteenth to the early seventeenth century (1482-1603)” (p. 222). Terttu Nevalainen wrote: “Most speakers now associate –(e )th with archaic usage” (p. 226).

Some KJV-only advocates also argue that the old English in the KJV is more precise so a linguistic argument is used as part of KJV-only reasoning.

 

[Logos1560]

Gail Riplinger asserted: “We cannot assume, as most have, who have not actually collated them word-for-word, that the language of the KJV reflects updating of the language of the Bishops’ and earlier Bibles” (In Awe, p. 136; Hidden History, p. 51). Gail Riplinger claimed that “only rarely does the KJV change an ‘archaic phrase’ like the Bishops’ ‘forged cavillation’ in Luke 19:8, to the easier ‘false accusation,’ or the Bishops’ ‘they wote not’ to the KJV’s ‘they know not’ in Luke 23:34” (Ibid.). Gail Riplinger wrote: “This author’s word-for-word collation of earlier English Bibles shows that the few changes the KJV made were not done to update an evolving English languages or to represent the language of that day” (p. 17). Gail Riplinger again referred to her “word-for-word comparison of the actual scriptures of Tyndale, Coverdale, Rogers, and the Great Bible” (p. 37). Gail Riplinger declared: “Generally the KJV did not touch the word order of the Bishops’ Bible” (p. 177). Gail Riplinger claimed: “The Bishops’ Bible, like all the early English Bibles, was truly an easy reading Bible” (p. 527). Gail Riplinger asserted: “The evidence proves that the Bishops’ and earlier Bibles had a pedestrian, that is, a very easy and common vocabulary. They actually had a simpler vocabulary than the KJV” (p. 136). “The Bible before the KJV was an easy reading Bible” according to Gail Riplinger (p. 204). Gail Riplinger claimed: “Earlier English Bibles were written in a simpler language” (p. 17). As already noted, Gail Riplinger had declared: “The words that differ in the early English Bibles are pure synonyms” (p. 859).

Troy Clark claimed: “Even the ‘out of date’ and ‘archaic’ words of that time would not be changed remaining in Scripture” (Perfect Bible, p. 49). Troy Clark asserted: “Even the ‘out of date’ and ‘archaic’ words of that time would not be changed remaining in Scripture, because the committee understood that even though these words would need to be looked up in a dictionary at that time, they could not call their translation pure if the text were altered in any way” (p. 161). Troy Clark wrote: “This particular rule [rule 6] guiding the King James Bible translators means that ‘archaic’ or ‘difficult’ words and phrases were left in the text to ensure it remain a pure text with an explanation allowed in the margin” (p. 249). Douglas Stauffer asked: “Is there precedent prior to 1611 for what the modern versions claim to be updating the Bible?” (One Book One, p. 261).

 

[Logos1560]

R. S. Sugirtharajah wrote: “Their preference for the King James Version over the new arrivals is often based on the simple and purely subjective reason that the King James Version is venerably archaic and enticingly more familiar” (Burke, KJV at 400, p. 511). Adam Nicolson wrote: “The Romantics’ hunger for the archaic, which in English consciousness seems scarcely distinguishable from the poetic, is at one with the Jacobean search for the ancient and the primitive, a deeply retrospective habit of mind which searches for meaning in the past. The old, for the English, is holy and beautiful, largely because the language of the King James Bible has conveyed that to them” (God’s Secretaries, p. 237). Adam Nicolson wrote: “Its [the KJV’s] language, archaic even in 1611, derived from a form of English current in the mid-seventeenth century, had come to seem like the language spoken by God” (p. 233).

 

[Logos1560]

Donald Brake noted: “The 1611 translation shows the grammatical variations of two overlapping eras. Because the seventeenth-century translators lived and worked in an era that rode the shifting tides of language, they somewhat capriciously applied various rules of grammar. For instance, they used both forms of past tense: clad and clothed, shone and shined, awoke and awaked, got and gotten, and built and builded” (Visual History of the KJB, p. 184). In a 1775 edition of his book, Robert Lowth indicated that in some cases in the KJV “hid is used for hidden” and “bid for bidden” (Short Introduction to English Grammar, p. 86).

David Crystal maintained that in the KJV “many irregular verbs are found in their older forms: examples include digged (dug), gat (got) and gotten, bare (bore), spake (spoke), clave (cleft), holpen (helped), and wist (knew)” (Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, p. 65). David Crystal wrote: “Helpan (help) had healp as a past tense and holpen as a past participle; but by the 14th century, the verb had become regular, using the normal -ed ending – helped. During the early Middle English period, over 40 other verbs (including walk, climb, burn, and step) were influenced in the same way” (Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, p. 330).

Is holpen (Ps. 83:8, Ps. 86:17, Isa. 31:3; Dan. 11:34, Luke 1:54) in the 1611 KJV an example of 14th century English remaining in many KJV editions? Is holpen more precise and accurate than helped?

 

[Logos1560]

Does Gail Riplinger use a linguistic argument as part of her KJV-only reasoning or argument for the KJV?

Gail Riplinger claimed that the NKJV “and all new versions use many, many, many more words and letters to say something than the KJV does” (In Awe, pp. 269-270). Gail Riplinger asserted that the KJV “says things using fewer words than any of the corrupt new versions” (p. 270). Gail Riplinger declared: “The razor’s edge pen-points of the [KJV] translators trimmed off any unnecessary ‘weight,’ so that the words ‘come right to the point’ and are penetrating and pointed” (p. 269). Gail Riplinger maintained that “the KJV averages less syllables per word” (Language, p. 159). Gail Riplinger claimed that the KJV’s average was 1.310 syllables per word and that the NKJV’s average was 1.313 syllables per word (p. 160). David Cloud asserted: “The King James Bible is composed of simple words (an average of 1.31 syllables)” (Why We Hold, p. 561). Would three one-thousandths [.003] be a statistically significant difference?

Gail Riplinger wrote: “Any minor difference in reading grade level between the KJV-ER [Easy Reading] and the true KJV is not statistically significant” (In Awe, p. 480). On that page in her book, both the KJV-ER and the KJV are listed as having an average of 1.31 syllables per word. Nevertheless, Gail Riplinger inconsistently attacked the King James Easy-Reading Bible, suggesting that it is supposedly one of several “new sleazy reading bibles” and “illegitimate offsprings,” and calling it a “counterfeit” and a “perversion” (pp. 471, 474). Gail Riplinger included it in her list of claimed “corrupt versions” (p. 1184). Gail Riplinger alleged: “The KJV-ER fouls its lines with so-called ‘definitions,’ which copy exactly the same evil tenor found in the text of the Jehovah Witness and NIV versions” (p. 481). Gail Riplinger asked: “How can it be a King James Bible when it departs from the Received Greek Text?” (p. 474). Would Gail Riplinger suggest that the KJV translators departed from the Received Greek text when they borrowed many renderings from the 1582 Rheims New Testament that was translated from an edition of Jerome’s Latin Vulgate?

 

[Jerome]

April Mahon wrote...

Terttu Nevalainen mentioned...

Gail Riplinger asserted...

Troy Clark claimed...

Donald Brake noted...

David Crystal maintained...

Oh, somebody's been applying their A Beka Book lesson on how to use a thesaurus!
How amusing.

 

[Martin Marprelate]

The translators of the KJV wrote in one of their prefaces:
".... We do not deny, nay, we affirm and avow, that the very meanest translation of the Bible in English set forth by men of our profession....... containeth the word of God, nay, is the word of God" ['The Translators to the Reader']

I am not so sure that I would go as far as that - the Message was still 400 years in the future when they wrote it - but I have found that preaching from the NIV (1984 version) causes very few problems to me despite its various imperfections. When difficulties do occur, as, for example, in 1 Tim. 3:16, I give my understanding from the pulpit.

 

[Anthony Pritchard]

Jack Lynch quoted

Samuel Johnson’s 1755 preface

Robert McCrum, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil wrote:

They noted:

These authors wrote

Robert McCrum, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil wrote:

David Crystal noted:

David Crystal maintained

Ad infinitum, ad nauseam... Even your quote stacking appears to be a copy and paste of the words of man.

Jack Lynch quoted, Samuel Johnson quoted. McCrum quoted, MacNeil quoted. Crystal quoted. You quoted all of them. But none of that answers the point. You have neither proven nor disproven anything.

Your quote stacking is itself a quote stack, and still a substitute for argument. It is still noise.

You are not arguing. You are aggregating.

You are not reasoning. You are reciting.

You are not engaging my point. You are burying it under other people’s words.

You have neither proven or disproven anything at all.

 

[Anthony Pritchard]

When difficulties do occur, as, for example, in 1 Tim. 3:16, I give my understanding from the pulpit.

I understand the pastoral concern behind your approach. A man wants to preach clearly and avoid unnecessary distraction, such as translation issues. But when a translation requires regular correction from the pulpit, that fact itself becomes part of the issue. If the text in the reader’s hand does not carry the meaning that must be supplied verbally, the congregation is still dependent on the pastor to repair what the translation lacks. That is not a criticism of your preaching. I appreciate that you fill in the lack. It is simply an observation that the preserved text should not need to be fixed in real time.

 

[Logos1560]

Your quote stacking is itself a quote stack, and still a substitute for argument. It is still noise.

Your subjective opinion is wrong. Documented evidence is not noise. You improperly try to dismiss the substance that conflicts with your unproven assertions.

 

[Anthony Pritchard]

Your subjective opinion is wrong. Documented evidence is not noise. You improperly try to dismiss the substance that conflicts with your unproven assertions.

Documented quotations are not the same thing as an argument. A list of citations does not prove the point under discussion unless you show how they establish your claim. You have not done that. You have assembled sources, but you have not demonstrated relevance, nor have you answered the linguistic point I raised. Repeating quotations is not the same as proving a conclusion.

At this stage, there is nothing further to add.

 

[Logos1560]

Documented quotations are not the same thing as an argument.

The sound research and documented quotations that I present provide evidence to support my points and assertions in contract to your unsupported and unproven assertions.

You have not proven your subjective linguistic point to be true. Your unproven linguistic point is similar to the linguistic argument of KJV-only authors such as Gail Riplinger. You provide no quotations or evidence from experts or authorities on the English language that agree with or support your opinion.

On the other hand, relevant quotations from David Crystal, a recognized expert or authority on the English languages, and from the Oxford History of English countered your point. Your unproven point was engaged and countered. Does that explain why you attempt to dismiss the sound research that was provided?

 

[Logos1560]

Oh, somebody's been applying their A Beka Book lesson on how to use a thesaurus!
How amusing.

Your improper attempt to mock at research instead of engaging in discussion is not amusing.

 

[Anthony Pritchard]

Your improper attempt to mock at research instead of engaging in discussion is not amusing.

Nothing improper there.