Featured What are the true differences between the KJV and other versions?

I finished my collation of Eph. 1. I used Scrivener's TR (the Greek text behind the KJV) and the UBS3. (Sorry to the purists, I can't afford UBS4.)

There are 404 Greek words in the TR. There are only 5 differences in the Greek texts where meaning is affected, and most of those are only slight differences. The main difference is that the modern Greek text omits the prepositional phrase "in Ephesus" in v. 1.

To give an idea of the differences that do not affect meaning, two of those are what are called the "moveable nu," in which the letter nu is added to the end of a word, changing neither the grammar or the meaning.

So, the differences in Ephesians 1 between the TR and the modern Greek text amount to 5/404, or a 1.2% difference.

Caveat: The Greek text of Ephesians is fairly stable, as is also most of the NT; there would be more differences in the Greek texts of Acts and Revelation than we found in Eph.

(And yes, I'm prejudiced against the UBS Greek NT. )

 

Thanks for the kind words. Anyone who works on translation must put a great amount of effort and thought into the work. It's not something to be casually approached. While I may disagree with the original language texts of most of the modern versions and the translation method of some of them, what the translators are doing is a huge task.

My son's mentor for the Ph. D. was Dr. David Alan Black, who I am privileged to have gotten to know. He has worked on a couple of the MVs, and we would disagree on the Greek text (though he supports the longer ending of Mark) and we differ somewhat on translation method. However, I've been impressed with his love for the Lord and the Word, and his work in worldwide missions. He considers himself a missionary first and a Greek teacher second.

One strong KJVO advocate who studied under him, Jesse M. Boyd, wrote about Dr. Black, "No biblical scholar that I have had contact with has exhibited such humility and selfsacrificing devotion toward his students" (http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Bible/1john57-exegesis.htm). So, KJVO brethren who depend on ad hominem attacks in their defense of the KJV do not have any sympathy or agreement from me.

 

Very nice effort, John. Of course, this comparison of Greek-to-Greek does not shed any light upon how the English of the KJV compares to the MVs (which was the essence of the OP question)

In fact, Scrivener's TR is not exactly the same as the TR used in 1611; and MVs have followed various different critical texts other than UBS3. Additionally, most translations do not slavishly follow just one particular text. So, isn't true that just because your comparison has a 1.2% difference does not mean that this is the actual difference between any MV and the KJV? Taking into consideration differences in translational methodology and theological bias, indeed, English-to-English is likely to be much, much higher than 1.2%.

 

No, not exactly. The critical text that the MV was translated from would likely have had "in/at Ephesus" in the apparatus (a technical footnote that acknowledges the existence of a significant variant). Translators may choose to follow the main text or a variant from the apparatus at any given place in their translation. As I stated in another post, translators often don't stick solely to a single source particularly where in their opinion the textual evidence might be stronger outside original language sources. However, you are correct that variants found in most modern critical texts (such as UBS) would often be in agreement with the TR.

The reason given for this particular variant is that the letter was to be copied for multiple congregations with each subsequent copy having a different city named in that place of the text. Thus there are several manuscripts where "at Ephesus" was effectively left blank (intended to be filled in later). So, many translations it seems choose to include the traditional city name of the book we have come to know as Ephesians, even though they may not think that the actual words "at Ephesus" was in Paul's first manuscript. The decision here to include "at Ephesus" in an MV therefore has almost nothing to do with any weight of TR evidence.

Forgive me, I know I'm not John but I like to answer questions.

 

First of all, the Byzantine/Majority manuscript family has "in Ephesus," not just the TR (which is subsumed as a Byz./Maj. text). So the Byzantine Textform Greek NT (Robinson/Pierpont) and the Majority text of Hodges and Farstad both have the phrase.

Secondly, it may be that the UBS4 Greek NT has the phrase while my UBS 3 does not. The editing process continues.

Thirdly, often translators do their own textual criticism, so chances are the translators of the modern versions you checked did so and thus disagreed with UBS. I have several modern versions at the church which I can't check, but the NIV I have here includes the phrase, but has a footnote saying "some early manuscripts" do not have it.

 

It sheds light on the MVs to the exact extent that each one of them used UBS 3 as their NT translation. As that, it's a start towards understanding the differences in the KJV and some MVs.

The KJV translators did their own textual criticism, just as MV translators do. Scrivener aimed at producing the TR underlying the KJV. Usually he succeeded, sometimes he missed it.

This is all true. But to have more information we must know which MV is being referred to and what original texts the translators used. For an essentially literal MV, taking into account the difference between 1611 and modern English, I think 1.2% in Eph. 1 is not that far off the mark. My study was not intended to be applied to an entire translation, just to give Ann a benchmark to correct the mistake of her KJVO friend (apparently based on Rippy's opinion).

 

believe that for the CT, the figure is roughly 99 %, so essential whether one uses the MT/BZT/CT, and yes, even the TR , can be aurred thatany of them are essentially the word of God preserved to us , and all of them can have good translations made off them, as NO major doctrine/practice are changed.affected by using ANY of them!

 

Faulty premise, as they argue from assuming thre TR is the closest/best to the originals...

truth is that either the CT/MT would have a closer claim to being copies of the originals to the best extent...

And truth also is that the TR/MT/CTall agree around 95 % of the timeany ways, and NO najor doctrines affect where they disagree!