Commentary on the entire Bible, part 7, why I trust the KJV over other Bibles

 

From 1967 until 2002 one of the prominent editors of the United Bible Societies translating committee was Jesuit Cardinal Carlo Martini. Think about that for just a minute. Let it soak in. An important member of the organization that creates 80% of the world’s Bibles was a Jesuit priest, once even thought of as a candidate for pope. The United Bible Societies includes the American Bible Society, best known for The Good News translation and the Contemporary English Version. Without accusation, just asking, do you believe that there is no Roman Catholic influence in modern Protestant Bibles? The online catechism of the Catholic Church uses quotations from the Revised Standard Version and the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible. The Revised Standard Version was a revision of the American Standard Version from a translating committee led by Philip Schaff, mentioned previously. His version was the American version of Westcott and Hort’s Revised Version, beloved by the fundamentalists of the era of the publication of The Fundamentals and applauded in those essays as the most accurate Bible.

            Without being as bold as Ruckman and leaving out a lot of other evidence what do you think is most likely? Many of you will say, “what difference does it make?” As I quoted previously the Bible is the foundation to Protestant belief, and the Bible only. The Roman Catholic Church places the opinions of its men of letters, the “Doctors of the Church,” Popes, and tradition on an equal par with the Bible or even higher. That puts an important division between myself and them regarding the question we are pursuing here regarding the Bible. I cannot regard Augustine or Pope John Paul II on an equal par with Jeremiah or Paul. But, let’s move on.

            Modern evangelical scholar Eugene Nida, of the American Bible Society, classified translating types. The King James Bible is considered as translated using “Formal Equivalence” or word-for-word translating trying to maintain not only what the words actually mean but even the grammar and syntax of the original languages. Modern Bibles are translated using “Dynamic Equivalence,” or, “Functional Equivalence,” a sense-for-sense translation using the translators’ opinions, worldview, biases, and prejudices to render what they think or want you to think is what the text actually means rather than what it actually says. Think about that for a few minutes. Just wrap your mind around it.

            The King James translators were the finest minds of their time and secular scholars like Olga Opfell and Adam Nicolson in books like The King James Bible Translators and God’s Secretaries have affirmed this was so and that the King James Bible was produced at a unique point in history and was a project that could not have been made, in their estimations, at any other time. Secular scholars who contributed to the Harvard Literary Guide to the Bible expressed how faithful it was to the grammar and syntax of the manuscripts from which it was translated. Many others have confirmed how important that Bible was to the development of the English language.

            The way it is designed and constructed is incredible and I would say beyond human planning. For instance, in most cases if you look at words connected by the word and you will typically find their meaning in synonyms. By looking at this verse can you tell me what a cumbrance is?

Deuteronomy 1:12  How can I myself alone bear your cumbrance, and your burden, and your strife?

It is a burden, a hindrance, and an impediment, a burdensome strife. On rare occasions and does not contact words with synonymous meanings in context but links opposites, antonyms, as in the following.

Philppians 4:12  I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.

At other times, words that might be difficult for us today are defined by looking at the words surrounding them in other passages nearby. In this example I want to point out that the word eschew is not that uncommon today as I even read it in a sports article online not long ago. It’s just that we don’t normally use it in everyday speech.

1Peter 3:10  For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile: 11  Let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and ensue it.

 

So, you see eschew means in this context to refrain one’s tongue from evil

There are italicized words that denote the editors filling in a word that is not found in one language but is clearly meant to be there by comparison to a Bible quote from another language although that’s not the only usage of italicized words. Here, I italicize Bible verses I’m using anyway so you will need to look at a King James Bible to see this.

Deuteronomy 8:3  And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.

In this verse word is italicized, meaning that it is not literally in the Hebrew text but is implied. How can you know they understood at the time of Jesus that word should be in that verse? Well, because it is provided in the Greek text from which the New Testament came.

Matthew 4:4  But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

Italicized words are important. To include them is honest and to exclude them is deceitful.

Sometimes the Bible defines words by word substitution. This provides us the meaning the Holy Spirit wanted from the context. In the following Jesus is quoting from the prophet Isaiah. When you compare the two verses you can see by word substitution that, in the contexts, gospel means good tidings or good news, the poor are the meek, along with other concepts that require a study of their own to understand.

Luke 4:18  The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, 19  To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

 

Isaiah 61: 1 ¶  The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;2  To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;