[PaulB]

I don’t know whether this is a good or bad allegory but I see the Word of God (in a its universal sense) in a similar way as the law of mathematics. “One, two, three …. Right through to infinity hold a universal connection with every tribe, tongue, culture etc, even though they sound different in every language in which they are voiced. Aik… Do… Teen, are the not merely the dynamic equivalents of One two three but actually are one…two & three in the Urdu language of Pakistan.

The word of God is “spiritual revelation” in written form, just as Aik Do & Teen are the first three numbers in any language. The Bible (as preserved in our KJB) doesn’t change or lose one bit of what it is even though it is an English representation of the received text.

I believe that the word of God transcends culture & time in a far greater way than do numbers or colours or anything else that we can fathom with our natural minds.
Whether it be …up or down…blue…green or yellow….every culture understands this & have no problem accepting these realities.

I firmly believe that honest searchers of truth concerning the bible version issue will come to the truth concerning the preserved word, if only they would approach the matter with a humble heart, and not an arrogant one that sees the faith as a evolutionary process. (i.e. “Yes, they used to believe that a one time, but now in our enlightened understanding we have moved on from those ignorant superstitions that our ancient forefathers once believed”).

I don’t come across many students who are honest in their approach to the matter, their minds are made up before they even read anything (and that is if they will even do that).
In a way it is a bit like witnessing to someone who takes pride in being an atheist. All that they are concerned with is silencing you no matter what you may prove.

So many today enter the issue to either grind an axe or make themselves appear “scholarly”, and most who address the Bible version issue from their pulpits give the same old spiel that they were taught in seminary (it is almost predicable what they are going to say).

It’s almost as if they don’t want to think about the issue because it is too taxing for them or too controversial. I find that they tend to get aggravated when my convictions are made known. It happened to me only the other week by an elder of a church who use the NIV as their standard version. After I had given the reading that morning from the KJB many commented on how good it was to hear something read that everyone is familiar with. I said to them that I could not read from anything else….not because of preference but conviction, after which it got hotter as he defended the need for the NIV.

I used to be “NASV only” until I was honest enough to really weigh the evidence and look at the history of it all, now I won’t even touch one.
Funny isn’t it but even as a new believer I recognised that there was something just not ringing true about the NIV that someone gave me and told me to read, even though many told me that it was just “updated English”. I drove people mad in my early days because I was always going on about the Bible version issue….I tried so many of them “the Jerusalem Version”… “Young’s Literal Translation”… “The NKJV”…. “The ESV” and even the “Revised authorised Version”.
Every one of them left me searching and many told me the same old saying that “no translation is perfect”. Yet, after hearing some good KJB defenders I soon learned that they were the only ones claiming that we actually possess the very "“Word of God" and thanks be to God for these people.

I say this to encourage all of you who are defending the KJB, because there are people out there who are genuinely seeking truth on the matter and only those who fly the flag will be in a position to help them.

God bless you all

PaulB