Vorkosigan

The newer translations are not based on the KJV, but on superior texts. The KJV is the translation that is at the greatest distance from the originals; indeed, it is partly based on a Greek text that was created by back-translating from the Latin, and contains numerous errors, misreadings, and mis-interpretations. That is why no scholar uses the KJV as her textual tool. The modern translations are superior to the KJV in almost every way, with the possible exception of the NIV, which is highly corrupted by doctrinal problems.

Daniel Wallace, an evangelical scholar, explains why the KJV is not a good translation.

Vorkosigan

inquisitive01

Do you, Vorkosigan, agree with the following quote by Wallace?

QUOTE: "First, I want to affirm with all evangelical Christians that the Bible is the Word of God, inerrant, inspired, and our final authority for faith and life."

inquisitive01

Once again, I would like to ask the poster Spookie Here the following question:


:huh:

Joshua Adams

Since his belief in the inerrancy of scripture is not a conclusion of his research on textual traditions (or vice versa) but a matter of faith, there's no reason why we would have to:

a) Accept this belief
or
b) Reject his research

since this isn't the two-for-one special. If a Muslim astronomer told us something about the path of an asteroid, we do not need to accept his belief in Allah in order to believe him. Not even if he tried to persuade us, for instance, that orbital paths are caused by Allah meticulously guiding celestial bodies through space.

Furthermore, we are not necessarily taking Wallace on his own authority, but the fact that he agrees with the majority of other experts in his field who espouse compelling arguments in favor of their conclusions. Vorkosigan was kind of hoping you'd read his arguments and see why scholars think the KJV is unreliable. That is how scholarship works; it is not a vote like church councils, where the majority opinion becomes The Truth™. All beliefs and theses are open to rational scrutiny, and the case is never closed; conclusions are only published if they withstand such strenuous testing. We should, therefore, trust their conclusions at least provisionally (with the understanding that one day, we just might be proven wrong, no matter how remote the possibility).

Right now, here is what will need to happen in order to vindicate the KJV: we will need to dig up some manuscripts that are earlier than the earliest ones we have, and they will have to just happen to match the Textus Receptus, even in places where Erasmus made parts up. This would, of course, reveal a chain of manuscript quality like so, chronologically: Very accurate -> very inaccurate -> inaccurate -> somewhat inaccurate -> somewhat accurate -> accurate -> Same as the first ones. In other words, the further removed in time the manuscripts are from the originals, the better.

Note the operative phrase, "remote possibility". Just to throw out a number, .0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 sounds reasonable.

inquisitive01

Just how significant are these inaccuracies in the KJV then? Are they similar in simplicity to "the difference between who and whom" (a quote from Wallace's article I believe), or are the differences significant enough to warrant not vindicating it?

Joshua Adams

Most are not that important (Especially given the staggering numbers cited--indeed, they probably rival the number of verses in the Bible), but a few are. For example, off the top of my head, the whole debacle involving the "virgin" in Isaiah 7, which is quoted as a Messianic prophecy in the Gospels. It turns out that a more accurate reading is "young woman" or something similar and is not a miraculous virgin birth. This infamous error--corrected in certain modern translations like Today's English Version, but left in others for obvious doctrinal reasons--was made in the Septuagint and subsequently carried over into the Latin Vulgate, upon which the Textus Receptus relies. Thus, it's in the KJV, and other older translations as well.

There are also numerous references to "Lucifer" found in the KJV that simply do not belong there. I think Wallace noted a couple of other doctrine-affecting renderings in the KJV, unless I'm thinking of a different site linked to in Garnet's thread asking for the best Bible translation...

The point isn't to impugn the KJV specifically, but to note that we must not stagnate as far as translating goes. The newer ones are almost guaranteed to be better, provided they set out to be faithful, literal translations (i.e. not the CEV or The Message or similar "paraphrase Bibles") of the most ancient manuscripts possible. We must settle for the best thing we have available. One day we might--probably will, in fact--refine our understanding of Hebrew even further (ever notice all those "meaning of Hebrew uncertain" footnotes?), or discover more scrolls--and we will need to update yet again. But our imperfect current translations are still certainly preferable to demonstrably inferior ones. So next time you quote the KJV, please make sure its reading isn't significantly different than more or less every other translation that exists; you can bet which one is wrong.

Sven

I have posted no evidence or discussion about evolution, I just clarified the discussions there (this can be done in any forum, I'd say) and asked one simple question.

It's (1) of course approximate (2) not only my opinion, but that of almost all people who studied the evidence. And I didn't ask you if you agree with the 99.9999999%, I asked you if this percentage isn't good enough - remember, you asked for 100% certainty. The above is simply an evasion of the question.

[snipped, Toto already responded]

Vorkosigan

No, but what does that have to do with anything? Do I need to accept all the values of everyone I read or draw knowledge from? Wallace has impeccable evangelical credentials, he's a skilled translator, and he has written a reasonable and easy-to-understand piece. Therefore I recommended it to you. The fact that Wallace and I disagree on many things does not invalidate his scholarly research in my eyes, nor should it.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

How about the real, third choice: the differences between the KJV and the later scholarly texts are serious enough to warrant switching texts when engaged in serious Bible discussion.

Note that this does not invalidate your position. You can, if you like, believe that the KJV is the inspired word of god, better than all other translations. That is a value which no fact will bear on. You can continue to worship with the KJV and no one can challenge you.

However, when you start to claim that all other translations depend on the KJV, or that it is closest to the original texts, you make fact-claims that are open to dispute with evidence. The KJV is clearly not closer to the original texts, and it is clearly an inferior translation to all modern translations, since the field has made much progress since the 17th century, in both the number and quality of manuscripts, the skill of the translators, and knowledge of Greek and of the larger cultural context.

Again, you can worship with the KJV -- that is a value. But if you want to use the text in a serious discussion, the KJV is not a text that people take seriously and accept widely for scholarly work. It is full of errors, based on inferior texts, and is inferior to modern critical and scholarly editions.

Vorkosigan

spin

Our original poster should realise that you cannot use good reasoning alone when confronting a professing xian, because that profession will cause the xian to take positions which will seem totally irrational, yet coherent to him/her, as the text is by faith coherent.

What is necessary is totally textually based problems which require no external "good sense", for example the two differing genealogies for Jesus: only one can be correct, so the xian apologist concocts the story that one really refers to Mary, a story impossible to derive from the text. You could look at the three different ways Saul died and try to guess the way out apologetics, which include the notion that the text says that when he died he hadn't actually died but that something else happened just before his death. With the contortions that can be observed, xian apologetics is a true spectator sport.


spin