Originally posted by gb93433:
Originally posted by charlie parker: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />
I regreted for years that I quit high school at the beginning of the 10th grade, but that regret ceased after I started encountering the products of "higher learning" especially "christian higher learning" The few friends I have that went to christian collages or seminary came out of them believing THE bible in spite of their education, not because of it. my nephew left GA believing one book, he returned ridiculing that book. To me,personally, the highth of hypocricy is to claim that the "thee's" and "thou's" dont belong in the bible and then stand up in church and with all the piety and sincerety of a great horned owl sing "How Great Thou Art" and "My Jesus, How I Love Thou" and Have Thine Own Way"
Charlie
Well, those are quite the statements you have made. I found that what I studied in seminary helped me a lot to witness more and to understand God’s compassion for the world.
Your friends didn’t know much before going into that college other wise they would have not been so easily swayed. Did your church not do its job? I saw the same thing happen in seminary. I learned to love God more and I saw others who were in seminary for a “job.” Before I went several told me to not let the seminary ruin me. The fact was that I saw professors who had dealt with the tough issues. They were and are still my examples. I had heard more trash form the pulpit and got straightened out finally in seminary. The fact that I heard so much religious nonsense and the more I read the Bible and asked questions the more troubled I became.
You have to understand that I reached a point where I stopped reading the Bible and started attending church less frequently. The one thing that kept me going was that I knew God existed. But I was still troubled by al the questions I had and pastors and laypeople would give me and answer and then I would ask a follow up questions and then they would admit they really didn’t know that what they told me was what they had been told. That all changed when I went to seminary. Finally I got answers to my questions that changed my life. Because I that I am able to much better help others.
You also need to realize that God has never used ignorance. I trust that you do read the Bible. In doing so you read some very well educated people. For anyone to have written in the OT or most any other time they would have had to be a part of the elite. It is most likely that two to five percent of the population could even read. It was usually much closer to two percent. Paul was very well educated. Just think about where Moses grew up.
Because of my education and knowledge I have been able to turn others around and point them in the right direction. There was a day when the Sunday Schools gave grades each quarter. Now so many require little more than attendance. In the Bible studies I teach I give weekly homework. They are accountable to get it done and memorize one verse of the Bible each week. </font>[/QUOTE]A very interesting response. I too would like to respond to the statements by Charlie Parker. Charlie, I do have a higher college degree a Master In Business Administration. It was at a Methodist university and the course was strictly secular, I took it through the private university because it was provided by night classes so I could obtain it while I worked, although it was extremely expensive. My point; however, is that I have no higher degree in Religion of any sort, nor did I take ANY courses that related to religion with the exception of what little is taught in history and humanities classes (which as you are well aware is not religious or Christian related). I was taught evolution in biology, but I am a staunch 7 day creationist.
I do have 23 college credit hours of Old Testament History which taught the background of what was occuring during the Old Testament (who the Kings were, where they came from, who was in control of what country at what time, etc.) Nothing was taught concerning the Bible's origin or translations.
My whole point here is that I do NOT have an education in Biblical origin except what I learned on my own. Now, I am a voracious reader. I read constantly and have read almost every version of the Bible that I could get my hands on, except the 1611 which is too difficult due primarily to the spelling. I have read parts; however. I am a collector of old Bibles including a German 1732 Bible, a King James 1611 (printed in 1612) among Bibles up through the civil war and later. I also have as many copies of ancient manuscripts as I can find, although these are not originals and some are on computer.
I do read some Greek, with the help of some dictionaries and phrase "meaning" books. I can translate from Greek at a very, very slow pace with my study aids. I am now attempting to learn Biblical Hebrew, which I consider much, much harder.
I simply wanted to give you my background to show you that I have not been tainted by liberal college professors such as those you claim and no doubt some exist. But, my conclusions do indicate that the KJV is a translation in English, it may have been translated in directly from Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic; but I will say that it is also a compilation of Bibles before it such as the Geneva Bible, the Bishop's Bible and even the Vulgate. I love the latest revision of the KJV, the one being sold today, but it is a translation and although it is God's Holy Word, so are other main-stream accepted translations such as the NIV, NASB, ESV and others. Let me ask you a question.
If you were to translate a Bible today into a language which has not yet been translated to, how would you go about it. This happens even today as we reach to a lot of countries that have small populations and unreached people groups.
Would you translate it from the KJV or would you attempt to translate it from some Greek/Hebrew documents, and if you did where would you get those?
KJVO people talk down about textual criticism used in the translation of MV's. This is NO different than when the translators of the King James Version studied 13 different pieces of conflicting manuscripts of the Revelation Of Jesus Christ and came away deciding which different parts of the different manuscripts they chose--no doubt influenced by certain biases of the Anglican faith from which they came.
Calling a Bible corrupt or some other name literally scares me. I know one lady who posts that we should be scared of God because we do not accept the KJV as the only translation that is God's Word. Well, I challenge that in the other direction because I think it is far more dangerous to call something as precious as God's Word as being corrupt. If the Bible teaches the truth about Jesus Christ and the gospels as we believe today and is translated properly, even from older documents, then the Bible is His Word. By calling it corrupt, you are literally calling God's Holy Word corrupt.
I will give you one simple example that you can find. Many people say that the NIV dumbs down the Bible and plays down the Godship of Jesus Christ. I believe in Acts 3 (I cannot remember the verse) You will find that when Peter and John healed the lame man and entered the temple, they were talking about Jesus. The King James Version says he is the "Prince of Life". Okay, that is a good translation, but it was and had much more power back in 1611 when it was first penned due to the difference in the language. To me it sounds like he is a "prince" which is lower than a "king" and it says nothing about what he did with life except that he is the "prince" of it.
Now take a look at the NIV which says (and is correctly translated, just like the 1611 in its day) the "author" of life. To me, this tells me that Jesus "made" life, that he wrote the genetic code and all of the information required for living beings.
In today's language, it is my opinion that the NIV holds a much stronger portrait of the actual Greek words and will be understood in a "stronger" fashion that the KJV. NOT because the KJV was not a good translation, but because the English language HAS changed whether we like it or not. And English WILL continue to change, if God does not come back first, until we would not even be able to understand it. At that point in time, the KJV will be an unacceptable translation because it will simply be outside of the realm of understanding by English speaking people.
You can say what you want to, but the actual KJV you carry today is only a few hundred years old. This means that other English translations predating it had to be God's Word. At the risk of sounding sooooo redundant, it is like the joke that if the KJV was good enough for Paul, it is good enough for me.
Here I am, self educated with no liberal biased professors and my conclusion is that the KJV is an excellent translation, but difficult to read, especially by younger generations and will become more so as time passes. We are used to it because we grew up with it, but the unchurched have a lot of difficulty even understanding many of the words. Therefore, new translations are and will be more important as time goes by. You may feel assured your KJV IS the Word of God, but I can also assure you that my ESV is also the Word of God.
