Glen Scrivener, an evangelist in Eastbourne, UK and blogger at KingsEnglish.info, masterfully works through 100 phrases we commonly use in the English language which came from the King James version of the Holy Bible. Read his blog for a new phrase each day to celebrate its 400th anniversary.
Category: Translation
Most Christians have heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls and their importance to biblical scholarship, but few have ever actually seen them. Now, that no longer has to be the case. The Israel Museum has teamed up with Google to not only make the images of the scrolls available digitally, but to make them searchable with interactive English translation. Not only can you search the text on the Museum’s website, but now it will show up in Google search results (including in custom search results on soulliberty.com) as well. They have even put a little bit of “flare” to it by animating the paper appear to be unrolling as you scroll through it. Check it out here: http://dss.collections.imj.org.il/
There have been numerous articles and books written in the last 20 years proving that the NKJV, NASB, NIV, etc. are all products of Occult (Westcott and Hort) and Roman Catholic (Vaticanus) inspired bible scholarship. Therefore, I will not attempt to re-invent the wheel here. Instead, I will pose a new question: Is it possible that your favorite “Bible” has been re-written by those who have a fundamental belief in common with those who claim the Quran, the Book of Mormon, or the Watchtower Society to be true?
Muslims, Mormons, and Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that the Bible contains many mistakes because after 2,000 years, the Bible no longer contains the original words from the original languages it was written in. This is why they believe that the Quran was given to Muhammad or the Book of Mormon was given to Joseph Smith. Both books are said to be God’s attempts to correct the errors in the Bible wrought by years of man-made copyist mistakes.
Ironically, this is the same argument that many Bible-correcting Evangelicals use to justify why they have abandoned the King James Bible in favor of modern “translations” that delete entire verses and change anywhere from 16,000 words (NKJV) to 60,000 words (NIV) of God’s Infallible Scriptures. Just like Muslims, Mormons, Atheists, and every other religious group that denies the inspiration and accuracy of the Scriptures, they do not believe that God is powerful enough to preserve His holy words for all generations. They deny the biblical doctrine of preservation and focus solely on the inspiration of the “originals” (which no longer exist).
Consider the following examples:
1) Muslims emphasize the original (just as all textual critics and “fake bible” users do)
“First of all, it is important to know that if the “Bibles” of today, with all their versions and differences in the quantity of their “books” and “gospels”, were in fact the Original Holy Word of GOD Almighty, then there would be no need for the Noble Quran.” http://www.answering-christianity.com/warning.htm
2) Compare the words of Joseph Smith (Mormon) with the words of Hank Hanegraff (typical Evangelical):
Joseph Smith: “I believe the Bible as it read when it came from the pen of the original writers” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith [1976], 327).http://lds.org/study/topics/bible-inerrancy-of?lang=eng&query=bible+errors
Hank Hanegraff: “The Holy Scriptures… are therefore infallible in the original writings”http://www.equip.org/site/beliefs
3) Or the Jehovah’s Witnesses with the words of Christianity Today (speaking on textual criticism):
The Watchtower: “The copyists made only a few minor errors, and a comparison of these has established the original text inspired by God.” http://www.watchtower.org/e/lmn/article_03.htm
Christianity Today: “In the New Testament only one word per 1,000 is in any way doubtful, and no point of doctrine is lost when verses not “in better manuscripts” are omitted.” http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/october7/31.102.html
Modern Evangelical scholars think that God is a liar when He tells us in Psalm 12:6-7 that he will preserve his words forever. Psalms 12:6-7 “The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.”
They think that God is a liar when he tells us that not one jot or tittle will pass from the law: Matthew 5:18 “For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” Luke 16:17 “And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail.”
These same Bible-correcting hypocrites have no problem telling Muslims, Mormons, and Jehovah’s Witnesses that they are “wrong” to change the Quran, Book of Mormon, and New World Bible over time. For example, James White (who helped produce the NASB counterfeit bible): “By placing parallel passages in the books of Moses and Abraham side by side, an evolution of thought is clearly demonstrated within the Pearl of Great Price itself.” http://vintage.aomin.org/ldstheology.html. How Bible-correctors such as James White can lambast Mormons, Muslims, or J.W.’s with a straight face after changing 16,000 to 60,000 words in their own “bibles” is beyond the scope of comprehension. A modern Textual Critic producing a NKJV, NIV, NASB, etc. to fit his personal theology is no different than a Jehovah’s Witness changing words he doesn’t like to fit his personal theology.
Sadly, many well-intentioned Christians have built their ministries on attacking God’s words and replacing them with “better translations” and “better meanings.” Like the Pope, they elevate themselves above Scripture in their desire to pontificate on God’s Holy Bible (essentially making them God). They further imply that the “laity” cannot truly understand the scriptures without their exposition (and years of studying dead languages). These well-intentioned yet carnal Christians can be summed up with three passages:
1 Timothy 6:10 “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”
Revelation 22:18-19 “For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.”
1 Corinthians 11:19 “For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.”
It does not matter if you are Spurgeon, Moody, Ironside, etc. If you have the gall to change God’s words, you are treading into heresy. Interestingly, one of the main arguments that non-Christians use as to why they don’t believe the Bible is because there are so many different versions. Unlike carnal Christians, non-Christians realize the logical inconsistency in claiming an all-powerful God can somehow lose his infallible/perfect Bible to the sands of time. But of course, since you are a Bible-believer, you witness to non-Christians on a frequent basis about Jesus Christ and you already know about this regular objection.
For the record:
1) There are no originals anymore. Anybody who refers you to the “originals” is either a liar, ignorant, or insane.
2) There is a King James equivalent Bible in every major language on Earth. Also for you Anglo-phobes, English is the modern equivalent of a universal language in all facets of life, just as Greek and later Latin were. Doesn’t it make sense God would communicate His message in the most prevalent language of each time period?
3) It is far easier to open up a dictionary for 400 words you don’t understand than it is to compare multiple fake Bible versions with conflicting words and verses you don’t understand. Studying the Bible in Hebrew/Greek is a waste of time if you can’t understand the Bible in your own language. This is why most “scholars” can spend years learning languages yet not possess an elementary knowledge of the Bible itself.
4) You don’t have to have a Bible of any kind to be saved. However, if you want to learn more about your Lord and Savior, it helps to have his Real Bible (the KJV today) as opposed to some man-made counterfeit (NKJV, NASB, NIV, etc.).
Christians: Do you side with God’s pure words or do you side with cults (mainstream or fringe) who continue to revise those words? Do you believe in God’s promise of preservation or do you believe in the heathen’s doctrine of Bible corruption? Is your heart so hardened that you refuse to admit that you’ve been wrong for all these years? Admittedly, we are all fallen sinners. It’s tough to admit you lack the discernment to recognize God’s words when you see them. It’s equally tough to apologize to both God and your fellow Bible believers for maligning both God’s words (preserved in English through the KJV) and those Christians who actually believe their Bibles to be true.
I’m a little late joining the bandwagon on celebrating the 400th anniversary of the KJV, but here’s my contribution to the mix. I found an interesting web site called Bible Reader’s Museum which, among other things, has extensive listings of Bible versions throughout time. Being the chart junkie that I am, I converted their English Bible version list (used by permission) to an interactive graph of versions over time. It begins at quarter-century intervals and then changes to smaller intervals as you filter out the years. The list at the bottom filters along with it, making it simple to find one or several, then click the name to go to that version’s website. It’s amazing to see just how many translations there have been over the years. Take a look!
Categories
Multiversions Onlyism
It’s easy to think that the “King James Only” movement is limited to the English-speaking Western world. A Principal at Far Eastern Bible College in Singapore explains why it goes beyond that, and how the mainline trend can be characterized as “multiversions-onlyism.”
In this day of rapid change, when many Christians have suddenly started using one of the many modern English translations of the Bible (NASB, NIV, NEB, NRSV, NKJV, etc.), abandoning the long-used King James Version read and loved by English-speaking people of all ages and walks of life for over ten generations, it may be appropriate to review a few of the reasons why many creationists, including this writer, still prefer to use the latter.
There is a lot of work being done in the area of Bible translation to reach people of different languages. One language we typically don’t think about is the digital language read by computers. We have many options available to read and download digital editions, but as I have written before, these formats have limits. MetaV is a new digital version which makes it easier for programmers and non-programmers alike to link each word to useful metadata and perform a wider range of analysis.
Metadata is information that describes other information. Take a photograph, for example. The picture captures information on a scene which, when described some other way, may take 1,000 words or more. Information describing that photograph (metadata) might include: photographer, date, film type, camera settings, and location. Modern software uses this type of information to efficiently organize large sets of digital photos. MetaV organizes large sets of words using similar methods.
The main limitation in freely available digital copies of the Bible is that each line contains a full verse. What I have done with MetaV is break it down to individual words, with columns describing more about each one. Currently, it can tell whether the word is italicized, what punctuation follows it, whether it is the beginning or end of a parenthetical statement, and whether it is at the beginning of a new paragraph. Of course, it also stores the book, chapter, verse, and position within the verse.
This serves as a foundational building block to efficiently add more pieces of metadata for simple searches and advanced analysis. First, I’ll add Strong’s numbers. Then, location information, genealogical relationships, speakers, timelines, and nearly anything else that can be linked back to the root text. The diagram below illustrates how this information will be joined together.
Even before any new modules are included, some useful analysis can be performed, such as: readability statistics for individual books (or any subset of your choosing), writing style analysis (How long are the sentences and paragraphs? What words does the author favor?), or just simple word counts (How many italicized words are there? How many unique words are there?).
MetaV is a new translation in the true sense of the word – it “slides” the words to a new position to make it more readable by a database language. I have done nothing to remove words or change their meaning (as too many modern translations do) and have taken great care to ensure each programming detail is correct in every way. In the coming weeks and months I will be publishing results of some analysis made simpler by this new tool, so stay tuned!
Update 6-11-2011: Version 1 has been deprecated. You can download MetaV 2.0 here.
Three important words have been removed from most popular Bibles that make our Lord Jesus look like He sinned – twice!
Christian denominations generally differentiate themselves according to their varying ways of interpreting the Bible. Now we are faced with a very different argument over whether the words themselves belong as part of the canon of scripture. Translation committees toil over which words may have been in the “originals” and which they believe were added later. Today’s theological conservative would proclaim that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant word of God, but we must face the question of which “Bible” actually meets this qualification. Is it only the originals that qualify, or does this perfect Bible still exist today?
The typical statement defining inerrancy proclaims that God inspired the writers of the original documents and that these manuscripts are infallible – perfect in every way. But the defense usually stops there. Few today will stand up for any translation or copy. What we must remember is that skeptics are attacking the validity of the Bible we read and study today, not writings in a forgotten language penned centuries ago. It is the one we have, not the one we had that must be preached as if it were spoken directly from our Creator. We can do so while standing on God’s promise in Psalm 12:7: “Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.” (emphasis mine)
What use is it for Christians to trust in a manuscript that perished not long after the writers themselves? No one can visit a museum and gaze upon these original documents to study them, learn from them, teach from them. The only thing we have are copies, translations, and indeed revisions of the words God first spoke through holy men in days past. In effect, by holding only to inerrancy in the originals and not to any available translation or copy, Christians unwittingly bend to the skeptic’s claim that no Bible currently exists that is totally error-free.
This would seem to be a minor point to those who believe there are no major differences among most popular English Bible versions or that newer translations have remained true to the first editions. Naturally, if each translation is simply a more readable or understandable presentation of the very same words, then we may be straining at gnats. Let me assure you that aside from the doctrine of inerrancy, there are several other teachings which are affected by divergent wording of modern Bibles.
Before there were such disagreements over the content of the originals, the English-Speaking world knew only one Bible: the Authorized Version of 1611 (AV 1611), also called the King James Version (KJV). Sure, there were other English versions available, but none came anywhere close to the wide distribution of the KJV and all used the same trusted manuscripts to derive their work. It was only later with the advent of of textual criticism that these sources began to fall into disfavor by scholars. They now prefer to use older, fragmented, incomplete manuscripts to “correct” the Textus Receptus (TR) used by Christian translators during the Reformation period. As this article shows, manuscripts not associated with the TR are extremely untrustworthy. Each new translation which deviates from the TR based on wording in these older copies can more correctly be called a revisionof God’s pure, holy words. The result is a watering-down or confusion of doctrines such as believer’s baptism, the Holy Trinity, and aspects of spiritual warfare.
Acts 8:37 is the clearest scriptural passage teaching that baptism is for those who believe the Gospel, not for those who have never heard it, such as infants. Philip preached about Jesus by explaining prophecies from Isaiah to a eunuch. The eunuch then asks “what doth hinder me to be baptized?” Most Bible versions then skip to his baptism. The King James Bible answers his question: “And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” Philip said if you believe Jesus is the Son of God, you may be baptized. Logically this also means that without this profession, Phillip would not have baptized him. If your Bible skips from Acts 8:36 straight to Acts 8:38, you would come away with this question unanswered. You may find yourself confused.
Without a KJV, you would also miss this definitive statement on the trinity: “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.” You could find other evidence of the triune Godhead, but none have the clarity of 1 John 5:7. This stands in wonderful parallel with the next verse explaining the witnesses of God in the earth.
If you are seeking to learn about casting out demons, where would you go in the Bible? Naturally, there are many passages which would encourage you to pray. In most cases this is the best anyone can do. Yet in some cases it would require not only prayer but fasting as well. In Matthew 17 we see the story of a child who was “lunatick.” The disciples, who already had some experience casting out demons, were unsuccessful in doing so with this boy. Jesus gives two reasons: their unbelief (Matt 17:20) and because this kind of demon must be cast out through prayer and fasting (Matt 17:21). Yet the latter explanation is relegated to the footnotes or else vanquished altogether from today’s bible revisions.
While all these omissions (plus many more listed here and here) do not constitute a complete removal of the doctrines I’ve discussed, they do reduce the clarity that children of God so desperately seek. It should be no surprise when we discover to increasing degrees the lack of conviction among our leaders. Let us stand with boldness on the living, powerful, sharp-edged words given by God Almighty. The Bible is alive today in the most commonly spoken language of our time. It is the King James Bible. Open it up and let it come alive in your heart as it has for me.
Many claim that the King James Bible mistranslated Acts 12:4 as “Easter” when it should be “passover.” A full examination reveals that the former is the only correct rendering of the word “pesach” (or “pascha”).