Tuesday, January 29, 2013

KJV Questions



Unknown has left a new comment on your post "Study the Issues for Your Shelves, Starting with t...":

Do you have any objections to the NKJV or any modern English translation based on the same texts?

Dave P.


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GJ - The hysterical promotion of bad paraphrases is the hallmark of the Synodical Conference today. The precious ESV marketed by the Missouri Synod and its dim-witted publishing house is better named The Calvinist RSV.

Please suppress all laughter the next time a Missouri pastor calls justification by faith Calvinism. His beloved ESV is Calvinistic, edited by a Calvinist, but spawned in the disease-ridden womb of the National Council of Churches. The NCC owns the RSV.

The leaders of the LCMS play for both teams, as they say in a different context. One team is Rome. The other is Fuller. Both camps adore dynamic equivalency and despise Luther's English Bible, the KJV.

The best solution for having modern translations is to use something from the KJV family. The "old" KJV we use is actually a modest revision and updating of the 1611 version.

Since the Lutherans are too lazy to produce an updated KJV, using versions of the KJV is a second choice. The New KJV is popular. I know of a KJV II, a Modern KJV, and a KJV 21st Century. I own the last one as a reference and use the KJV for all my quotations.

The various KJVs imagine they have the license to make continuous changes to their language, a practice I find annoying. I know the New KJV has done that. 

They also suffer from denominational filters, in various degrees, such as getting rid of communion with the body and blood of Christ, baptism does now save you, and that mantra of Fuller Seminary - manufacture disciples (Great Commission). Each one is so dynamic that it corrupts the original meaning. Means of Grace - exit stage right. No curtain calls.

So, for people who went to public school or WELS schools, the a modern style KJV is the best for their vocabularies, but reading the KJV, especially out loud, will improve their understanding and vocabulary immensely.

The New Testament Text
The NT Greek text is good for a book, and many have written about that topic. The Bible Society types are grifters, too, just like the dynamic equivalency translators.

The modern translations follow Wescott/Hort scam of changing the original text to match what they think at the moment.

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St. Luke, by El Greco
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Pastor emeritus Nathan Bickel has left a new comment on your post "Study the Issues for Your Shelves, Starting with t...":

Ichabod -

I have little doubt that WELS will adopt the dumb-downed new NIV version to accomodate its decreasing synodical membership. WELS synodical officials believe in the principle of appealing to the lowest common denominator.

Nathan M. Bickel

www.thechristianmessage.org
www.moralmatters.org 



St. Matthew, by El Greco
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California added:

You said it well, when you said, "The various KJV's imagine they have the license to make continuous changes to their language, I know the NKJV has done that".

Dave P. asked, "Do you have any objection to NKJV or any modern English translations based on the same texts?"   The question assumes that  the publishers of the likes of NKJV actually have carried out their claims of following the same manuscript evidence as the KJV, but in reality they make exceptions and deviate in bits and pieces.   (Matthew 28:19)   Bible publishing these days is monetarily competitive business, almost as much so as women's fashions and the latest tech toy.  Publishers whose bottom lines depend on numbers of units sold, must keep churning out something new and different to remain in business.   


One means of doing that  to compete with other bible publishers is to periodically come out with the entirely new and innovative .  That appeals to the itching eyes and ears of those who have already abandoned the KJV long ago.

Another useful approach  is to keep the more recent  "runaways from KJV"  (a generation or so)  in their publishing house camp, by publishing revisions of their best sellers, and revisions of revisions to come.   That is the second market to retain. 

But what market has yet to be corralled?  The refuseniks, the resistors, those who haven't taken the bait, and cling to the time tested, reliable KJV.


They won't jump from KJV to NIV and certainly not a NNIV, but if they can be enticed to take that first step away from the KJV, the marketers have achieved two things.  Tapping a market which hasn't responded to the New of everything, but more importantly, they will have succeeded in getting the last holdouts to make that step.   


A next step will be easier and the next and the next......until KJV is all but extinguished.  They can continue to plagiarize the KJV title while the gradual weaning of the last of them away from KJV and family of manuscript evidence Luther and KJV translators used is accomplished.   The Devil will rejoice.

That having been accomplished, who can trust any so-called version, with even what I call the "bridge" bibles (from KJV to the great unknown) versions sure to come in even more rapid succession.    For as you  correctly observed, "The various KJV's imagine they have the license to make continuous changes to their language......".  Why bother with taking the "bridge" when one can simply "leap" directly to NNIIV and any of the other current New Translations and the ones which are sure to follow in short order.   Save the publishers all that trouble to court the KJV holdouts by publishing NKJV and "cousins".  

Bottom line in more ways than one....doesn't anyone wonder why no publisher has published a revision of the KJV which only does some updating of obscure words and nothing more?