[Jeremy]

Originally Posted by stephanos

There are many that would agree with what you've just said. I however am not one of them. I believe God promised to preserve His Word, and He has done just that. He's preserved a perfect Bible in the King James Bible of 1611. This Bible is a faithful and error free preservation of the Greek Hebrew and Aramaic that God, by the hands of men, penned a very long time ago. This Bible is as inspired as those ancient texts.

Amen! brother.

[JMWHALEN]

Originally Posted by tlewis3348

My replies are numbered according to your comments.

1. I understand that God inspired each word of the Bible. I believe this with all my heart. My point is that when the KJV translators translated the Bible from the original languages into English they had to make a decision as to what was meant by certain Greek or Hebrew words since many have multiple meanings. In order to accurately translate they had to have a great understanding of the Greek and Hebrew languages as well as the different cultures and contexts of the Bible. Therefore they had to know the "intended thought" of the specific inspired words that were in the original languages.

2. What specific "assessment/judgment" are you referring to?

3. I do not know how to explain this any better than I did in the second paragraph.

My main point has yet to be answered:

______________________________



" I understand that God inspired each word of the Bible. I believe this with all my heart." -tlewis3348

My comment:

1. Sir, I did not ask you if "God inspired each word of the Bible.” I pointed out that you (repeatedly) said you “used” the KJV. I asked you:

What do you believe? Do you believe that the KJV is the word of God? Yes or no?
(the reasons explained in a follow up article).

And you refused to answer a simple question. So, Do you believe that the KJV is the word of God? Yes or no? As a continuation,

2. You refer to “the Bible” in your “God inspired each word of the Bible” statement, i.e., “the Bible” as being inspired. What is this “the Bible?” Please name it-identify it. Do you have it in your possession? Is it the KJV? I thought you said the KJV is not inspired? If it is the word of God, it is inspired, correct? So, if you believe “God inspired each word of the Bible”, and you have “the Bible” in your possession, and therefore it is inspired(by your own definition), it is thus perfect, correct? Name it.


Again, address the issue/question above, as per below:

"….that we can say that the KJV is as close(my emphasis) as we can get to God's inspired Word(my emphasis) in the English language…" -tlewis3348

Is this "kinda like" "close to being pregnant", "close to being dead", "close to being alive", "close to being saved","close to being a Christian", close to being true", "close to being false", "close to being white", "close to being black"……...…….?

"Almost inspired"? "Closed to being inspired?" I thought you said:

" I understand that God inspired each word of the Bible. I believe this with all my heart." -tlewis3348

These 2 statements of yours together implies that you contend God's "intial"/"original"' inspired word is no longer inspired, does it not? God just could not preserve His inspired word? What was the purpose of the statement " I understand that God inspired each word of the Bible.? Is inspiration past tense?




2. What specific "assessment/judgment" are you referring to? -tlewis3348

My comment: You said:

"….that we can say that the KJV is as close(my emphasis) as we can get to God's inspired Word(my emphasis) in the English language.”

My point is simple: You cannot assess whether the KJV is “as close as we can get to God’s inspired Word”, unless you have the originals to which you can compare the KJV. Do you have “the originals”? No, you don’t, so you cannot make the assessment/judgment. Therefore the "….that we can say that the KJV is as close(my emphasis) as we can get to God's inspired Word(my emphasis) in the English language.” statement of yours is an assertion w/o a foundation(faulty premise-you/we/no one has today “the originals”/no one alive today has seen “the originals”).


Please at least answer, before we can move forward:

1. What do you believe? Do you believe that the KJV is the word of God? Yes or no? Again, I am not interested in what you “use”,”prefer”, “like”…………….Per scripture, which tells you to believe the word(and I cited the passages), Do you believe that the KJV is the word of God? Yes or no?

2. What is this mysterious. “the Bible” in your “God inspired each word of the Bible” statement? We need to “be on the same page”, i.e., this is going to be a non-sensical discussion if we do not know what you are referring to as “the Bible.”

These are simple, 5th grade questions. Please answer, or none of your other questions/points matter.

In and with Christ,

John M. Whalen

[bibleprotector]

I will lay out an overview in a simple way:

Some people think that the "real Word of God" has only been truly preserved in the original languages, and will use a "good" translation of the original languages like the King James Bible. This is a "preference" person.

Other people think that the "real Word of God" has been gathered from the original languages (and other witnesses), and will use the perfect translation, which is the King James Bible. This is a "perfect" person.

**************

This is the question I would ask:

How can you assess whether or not the KJB is “as close as we can get to God’s inspired Word”, unless you have a certain perfect and accurate standard in the original languages? The only thing is that there is not one absolutely correct edition of the original languages which exists today, and every edition disagrees from one to another (perhaps in spelling alone), whether Hebrew or Greek.

Therefore the "...that we can say that the KJV is as close as we can get to God's inspired Word in the English language.” statement of yours is an assertion without a foundation (faulty premise -- you/we/no one has today a perfect and accurate edition in the original languages, nor a sure method of apprehending what is an exact and fully correct edition, nor the ability to form such in the original languages.)

[JMWHALEN]

“Yes, I do "prefer" it to the NASB, NIV, ESV, and all the other modern versions because these other versions greatly weaken many of the great doctrines of my faith(my emphasis)….” -tlewis3348
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _______
My comment:

1. Again, I am only interested in what you believe, not "prefer." Do you believe the KJV is the word of God?


2. The Holy Bible, through objective words, determines, reveals doctrine; doctrine does not determine “what” the word of God is.

That is, it is not “Here is my developed doctrine-now I will find/”prefer”/”favor”/”use” a particular “version” that suits/fits my doctrine-the bible corrector

It is: Here are the objective words of God as contained in the inspired word of God. If you do not understand them, because they somehow “disagree”, “weaken” your developed doctrine, it is you that must change/revise/correct your doctrine to “line up” with the word of God. But “don’t mess” with the objective text of the word of God. You are not to submit the word of God to your correction, for that presupposes an authority of the word of God. Instead, you are to submit to the correction of yourself, including your doctrine, and sanctification(2 Tim. 3:16) to the word of God-the bible believer. That is, the Holy Bible corrects you, and you are to submit to it, as it has authority over you, not vica versa..

The inevitable result of the bible corrector? No one believes a “the” Bible they can correct, “prefer”, “like”, or “use”. The bible corrector thus has the mindset: “This is my doctrine. I will find a ‘version’ that fits my doctrine.” They are thus the final authority(Judges 21:25 principle), instead of the word of God.


In and with Christ,
In the Lord,

John M. Whalen

[JMWHALEN]

Originally Posted by bibleprotector

I will lay out an overview in a simple way:

Some people think that the "real Word of God" has only been truly preserved in the original languages, and will use a "good" translation of the original languages like the King James Bible. This is a "preference" person.

Other people think that the "real Word of God" has been gathered from the original languages (and other witnesses), and will use the perfect translation, which is the King James Bible. This is a "perfect" person.

**************

This is the question I would ask:

How can you assess whether or not the KJB is “as close as we can get to God’s inspired Word”, unless you have a certain perfect and accurate standard in the original languages? The only thing is that there is not one absolutely correct edition of the original languages which exists today, and every edition disagrees from one to another (perhaps in spelling alone), whether Hebrew or Greek.

Therefore the "...that we can say that the KJV is as close as we can get to God's inspired Word in the English language.” statement of yours is an assertion without a foundation (faulty premise -- you/we/no one has today a perfect and accurate edition in the original languages, nor a sure method of apprehending what is an exact and fully correct edition, nor the ability to form such in the original languages.)

___
bibleprotector:

"...Thou hast well said...., "...Thou hast spoken well..."(John 4:17, Exodus 10:29).


In Christ,

John M. Whalen

[JMWHALEN]

Originally Posted by JMWHALEN

“Yes, I do "prefer" it to the NASB, NIV, ESV, and all the other modern versions because these other versions greatly weaken many of the great doctrines of my faith(my emphasis)….” -tlewis3348
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _______
My comment:

1. Again, I am only interested in what you believe, not "prefer." Do you believe the KJV is the word of God?


2. The Holy Bible, through objective words, determines, reveals doctrine; doctrine does not determine “what” the word of God is.

That is, it is not “Here is my developed doctrine-now I will find/”prefer”/”favor”/”use” a particular “version” that suits/fits my doctrine-the bible corrector

It is: Here are the objective words of God as contained in the inspired word of God. If you do not understand them, because they somehow “disagree”, “weaken” your developed doctrine, it is you that must change/revise/correct your doctrine to “line up” with the word of God. But “don’t mess” with the objective text of the word of God. You are not to submit the word of God to your correction, for that presupposes an authority of the word of God. Instead, you are to submit to the correction of yourself, including your doctrine, and sanctification(2 Tim. 3:16) to the word of God-the bible believer. That is, the Holy Bible corrects you, and you are to submit to it, as it has authority over you, not vica versa..

The inevitable result of the bible corrector? No one believes a “the” Bible they can correct, “prefer”, “like”, or “use”. The bible corrector thus has the mindset: “This is my doctrine. I will find a ‘version’ that fits my doctrine.” They are thus the final authority(Judges 21:25 principle), instead of the word of God.


In and with Christ,
In the Lord,

John M. Whalen

________-

"correction"(play on words):

My statement reading "presupposes an authority of the word of God" ,should read "presupposes an authority over the word of God."

In Christ,

John M. Whalen

[George]

Originally Posted by tlewis3348

First of all, I would like to say that I only use that KJV and refuse to use any of these other translations. That said I do not believe that the King James Version was inspired. If it were inspired then all other translations that have been used by the many faithful men before the KJV was finished as well as those that cannot understand English must have been inspired as well. Are we prepared to say this? How do we decide what has been inspired and what has not? If the KJV is the only thing that we have today that has been inspired then what are the Spanish and German and all the other languages supposed to do? Was God's inspired Word not in existence before 1611?

I believe that a much more logical thing to say is that God's Word has been preserved in the existing manuscripts of the Majority Text. I also believe that as a result of the extreme carefulness and great knowledge of the KJV translators that we can say that the KJV is as close as we can get to God's inspired Word in the English language. Therefore, I believe that it can be helpful at times to go back to the Greek or Hebrew to discover different shades of meaning to the words used (many times the English does not have an exact word or phrase to fully describe the Greek or Hebrew word). This can be done by simply looking up the word in a Strong's Concordance. This will give you the Greek or Hebrew word, its meaning and how it has been translated in different parts of the Bible. This makes it possible for anyone to be a Greek or Hebrew 'scholar' without actually knowing those languages.

I do not want anyone to misunderstand me. I do not believe that any of the modern translations are good and I do believe that they all contain drastic contradictions as a result of being translated from the Critical Text. And while I do believe that it is theoretically possible to have a new translation based on the Majority text that would be better for us today as a result of being in our modern language, I believe that such a translation would not be as accurate because it would not use the various more precise forms of different pronouns and words that do not exist today. If anything were to be changed about the KJV today, I believe it should only be the punctuation and some spelling and capitalization (which should be done very carefully so as to be sure that the original meaning was not changed) because much of this has changed today and making those changes would make many passages more clear (the punctuation of a sentence can greatly affect its clarity and capitalizing pronouns and words referring to the deity could help clarify many passages that would otherwise take some study to understand). This very thing was done to the KJV that we have today. I understand that the people who did the NKJV tried to do this; however, I do not believe that they were as careful when they did what they did. Therefore, I am sticking to the KJV.

Aloha tlewis3348,

Please read the following Threads:

AV1611 Bible Forums > Bible Versions > "The Inspiration of Scripture" {by Moses LemuelRaj - India}

AV1611 Bible Forums > Bible Versions > Why I believe in the King James Bible {by myself - George Anderson}

IF you "think" (at this date") that the King James Bible can be "improved" - WHO would you TRUST to do it?

This issue is about FINAL AUTHORITY - What is yours?

[Forrest]

Originally Posted by tlewis3348

I do not want anyone to misunderstand me. I do not believe that any of the modern translations are good and I do believe that they all contain drastic contradictions as a result of being translated from the Critical Text. And while I do believe that it is theoretically possible to have a new translation based on the Majority text that would be better for us today as a result of being in our modern language, I believe that such a translation would not be as accurate because it would not use the various more precise forms of different pronouns and words that do not exist today.

I humbly submit to you that it's this statement you must prayerfully reconsider based on the written Word of God.

...I do believe that it is theoretically possible to have a new translation based on the Majority text that would be better for us today...

“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” (Psalm 12:6–7).

“For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven” (Psalm 119:89).

“Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away” (Matthew 24:35; Mark 13:31; Luke 21:33).

“The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever” (Isaiah 40:8).

Brother, let us reason together with eyes of spiritual understanding. Surely you believe that God is able to preserve and keep His Word--every Word. Has He? If so, has He given it to humankind? Which version?

I remind you that as a follower of Christ, "...ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things" (1 John 2:20). Be still and be small and listen to the still, small voice of the Lord through His Word.

First, I would like to thank those of you who have pointed out my error in logic of saying that the KJV is "as close as we can get to the originals." Please let me clarify myself.

Stick with me on this.

If we take Shakespeare's Hamlet and translate it into Spanish, is this not still Shakespeare's work? I would submit to you that it is if and only if the translator did not add any of his own opinions to it. We had to do something like this in high school English. We were to take a quote from a famous work and paraphrase it without adding any of own ideas. I found this to be surprisingly difficult. Is it possible? Yes, of course. It especially is when one is very good at understanding language. Now when someone is translating a work of literature the idea is to translate it word for word and then rearrange those words into a reasonable thought (since the grammar of different languages call for different sentence structure). I believe that the KJV translators accomplished this when they translated the Bible. Now as we continue with this train of thought, we consider what happens when a translator comes to a word in the original that simply does not exist into which he is translating. What does he do in this situation? He chooses the word in the translation that most closely represents the original word. These are simple facts that must happen when something is being translated. I believe that the KJV translators did a superb job at this. Now some say that these men were unknowingly divinely empowered to choose exactly the right word in the English language. Since we know that there are some words in the original languages for which there exists no English word to fully describe, we must conclude that either one or the other is a fuller description of what was meant. Therefore, if the English is the fuller description then that must mean that the originals were not as good of a description. Now God did inspire the original writers of the Bible (I think we can all agree on at least that); therefore, what they wrote is exactly the inspired word of God. Now as scribes copied the Bible there were differences that appeared (there are differences in the Greek manuscripts that exist, though very few). Does this mean that God has not preserved His Word? NO! Historians say that we still have Homer when we only have a few copies of his work. We have several thousand copies of the scripture, as well as billions of Bibles in circulation. Yes God most definitely does preserve His Word. So although the Greek and Hebrew manuscript do contain differences they are very small and very few and we therefore conclude that they differ very little from the original manuscripts written by the original authors that were most definitely inspired by God. As we have already said, when translating a language there are some words in the original that have no exact translation in the new language. So therefore we see that there is a logical succession here. First there were the original autographs, then scribes copied those autographs, then translators translated from those copies into what we have today. We have many of those copies and we know that they differ slightly from each other and therefore they must differ slightly from the originals. We also know that any time something is translated into a different language there is a slight loss of meaning. Therefore, is it not logical to say that the closer we can get in that succession to the original autographs the more accurate representation we will have of what the originals said? I believe that this is a logical statement. I also believe that this does not remove any of the foundations of my Christian faith. Let me restate something here. I do believe that the KJV is God's inspired Word (just like a Spanish translation of Hamlet is still Shakespeare); however, I believe that the study of a compilation of the Greek and Hebrew manuscripts can give a fuller understanding of what is being said in a certain passage. So while it is not necessary to have knowledge of what the Greek or Hebrew says it certainly is helpful. This knowledge can be had by anyone through the use of a Strong's Concordance.

[atlas]

tlewis3348,

So while it is not necessary to have knowledge of what the Greek or Hebrew says it certainly is helpful. This knowledge can be had by anyone through the use of a Strong's Concordance.

So when Strong's Concordance and the KJV disagree with each other and they do witch of the two is correct?


Maybe you need to read my post, " The Originals and Can translation be inspired? "

http://av1611.com/forums/showthread.php?t=581


Atlas