Hello and welcome to Issues and Answers. 00:00:31.04\00:00:33.42 My name is John Stanton. I am 00:00:33.45\00:00:34.91 the pastor of the Springfield 00:00:34.94\00:00:36.42 First Seventh-day Adventist Church in Springfield, Illinois. 00:00:36.45\00:00:37.85 With me, again, is David Allen a retired Bible teacher of 35 00:00:37.89\00:00:43.42 years. We have been discussing some important things, David, 00:00:43.45\00:00:46.70 about God's word. I know it's near and dear to your heart 00:00:46.73\00:00:49.62 because you have been teaching youth and kids for 35 years here 00:00:49.65\00:00:54.90 now how to study God's word and really experience God and the 00:00:54.93\00:00:58.46 relationship that they each 00:00:58.47\00:00:59.74 can only find through his word. So we are continuing that 00:00:59.77\00:01:04.09 discussion today. Specifically today what we're speaking of 00:01:04.12\00:01:08.28 is translations and the issues that people often have in the 00:01:08.31\00:01:12.18 different translations. So my question is when you look at 00:01:12.22\00:01:15.35 this, and I know the answer, but I'm kind of prompting for 00:01:15.38\00:01:19.00 discussion, why don't we just go read the original manuscript? 00:01:19.03\00:01:23.56 Let's go find when Paul signed, Love Paul, and go back and read 00:01:23.59\00:01:28.08 the original manuscripts; because then we'll know without 00:01:28.12\00:01:30.36 a doubt what was actually said and written in those times. 00:01:30.39\00:01:32.60 Wouldn't that be wonderful if we could do that? 00:01:32.63\00:01:34.78 It would be wonderful if we could. 00:01:34.81\00:01:36.20 But as you know John, there are no original manuscripts of the 00:01:36.23\00:01:40.22 New Testament at all and that 00:01:40.26\00:01:42.16 sounds such a tragedy that 00:01:42.19\00:01:44.02 we don't have anything that came from the hand of Paul or John or 00:01:44.06\00:01:48.52 Jude or any of those. They don't exist to our knowledge anywhere. 00:01:48.55\00:01:53.03 We haven't found them. And yet there are so many evidences that 00:01:53.07\00:01:56.23 we can trust the Bible and I'm going to share a few with you 00:01:56.26\00:01:59.98 in just a bit here. But I think of what Dr. Frederick Kenyon who 00:02:00.02\00:02:03.70 was librarian and the director of the British museum said. 00:02:03.74\00:02:09.02 He had studied the manuscripts for decades really and he said 00:02:09.06\00:02:14.31 that there are no disputed doctrines based on different 00:02:14.35\00:02:19.03 manuscript readings; that we can know that we have the word of 00:02:19.07\00:02:22.43 God. And he said especially is that true for the New Testament. 00:02:22.46\00:02:27.06 Not only do we not have any of the originals but no two agree 00:02:27.10\00:02:31.66 100%. So we have 1000s of manuscript fragments and some 00:02:31.70\00:02:38.22 whole manuscripts of the New Testament but none of them agree 00:02:38.26\00:02:42.85 100%. That would then seem like well we wouldn't know what it 00:02:42.88\00:02:47.44 really says. So the issue really is we're 00:02:47.48\00:02:50.25 seeing copies of these ancient manuscripts. Exactly. And some 00:02:50.29\00:02:54.01 having been copied longer and more times than others. We know 00:02:54.04\00:02:57.73 what happens when you get farther and farther away from 00:02:57.77\00:03:00.70 the original. Well typically you can deal with issues of copying 00:03:00.74\00:03:03.96 and so forth but we know still God is in charge of his word. 00:03:03.99\00:03:06.76 and I think that's what you're saying is that we don't have 00:03:06.79\00:03:10.27 anything to worry about. God's principles and the way he 00:03:10.31\00:03:13.67 communicates with us through his word are still there in its 00:03:13.71\00:03:17.04 original form, those thoughts. Remember we talked about 00:03:17.07\00:03:19.89 the Holy Spirit in thought inspired the writers to write 00:03:19.93\00:03:22.67 what they wrote; those thoughts are still there. That's right. 00:03:22.71\00:03:25.91 Now I want to just mention four people who were involved in 00:03:25.94\00:03:29.81 trying to discover the most accurate manuscripts of the 00:03:29.85\00:03:33.59 Bible to be able to translate it and these four persons are 00:03:33.62\00:03:37.56 very significant. One is Erasmus. Now Erasmus wanted to 00:03:37.60\00:03:41.47 be the first one to print the New Testament in Greek. We had 00:03:41.51\00:03:45.91 Greek hand writing in the manuscripts. He wanted to get 00:03:45.95\00:03:48.62 the manuscripts that were hand written and come out with the 00:03:48.65\00:03:51.83 printed text. He was in a hurry. Someone else was doing this in 00:03:51.87\00:03:56.50 Spain and a friend of his at the University of Basil said why 00:03:56.53\00:04:01.04 don't you come to our library. We have five manuscripts of the 00:04:01.07\00:04:05.02 New Testament and you can use these. Erasmus spent a few weeks 00:04:05.05\00:04:08.96 going through these five manuscripts and he came up with 00:04:09.00\00:04:14.44 in 1515 with his Greek printed New Testament but the 00:04:14.47\00:04:19.84 manuscripts were dated 1000 A.D. that was the oldest that he had, 00:04:19.87\00:04:25.08 so just 500 years earlier than where he was in time. 00:04:25.11\00:04:29.93 Then we had Tischendorf, a German scholar, and his whole 00:04:29.96\00:04:34.71 life was consumed with finding the most accurate manuscripts 00:04:34.74\00:04:38.86 of the Bible that he could find. He traveled the world over doing 00:04:38.90\00:04:44.72 that. He had gone to Mount Sinai to St. Catherine's Monastery 00:04:44.75\00:04:49.67 there at Mount Sinai a couple times before, but he returned 00:04:49.71\00:04:54.57 in 1844 and when he was looking around he saw them actually 00:04:54.61\00:04:59.26 burning some old manuscripts and he was aghast and he stopped 00:04:59.30\00:05:03.83 them and what he found out was that they had copied them over 00:05:03.87\00:05:07.68 and over again, you know. They had copied these already and 00:05:07.71\00:05:11.45 were getting so old that it was like we don't need these anymore 00:05:11.48\00:05:15.54 and he stopped them. Some of these manuscripts contained most 00:05:15.58\00:05:20.93 of the New Testament and they dated back to 350 A.D. So this 00:05:20.97\00:05:26.16 was in 1844. Obviously much later than when Erasmus did his 00:05:26.20\00:05:30.16 work. Those weren't even available or known about at the 00:05:30.20\00:05:34.10 time that Erasmus did his work. Then we have Westcott and Hort. 00:05:34.13\00:05:38.97 The two of these men spent 28 years in research. They studied 00:05:39.01\00:05:43.24 everything that Tischendorf had, everything that Erasmus had used 00:05:43.28\00:05:47.48 and searched the world over again trying to find the most 00:05:47.51\00:05:51.65 accurate translation. The manuscript that they came up 00:05:51.68\00:05:56.16 with, their printed Greek New Testament then was used for 00:05:56.20\00:06:01.23 Bibles that were translated after that time. From there 00:06:01.26\00:06:06.22 we have studied more and more and more and we've found 1000s 00:06:06.26\00:06:10.39 and 1000s of manuscript fragments and we compared them. 00:06:10.43\00:06:13.15 The United Bible Society now has its fourth edition of that. 00:06:13.19\00:06:18.51 But let me give you another find that shows us how God has 00:06:18.54\00:06:24.04 preserved it. In 1947, a Bedouin shepherd boy was herding his 00:06:24.08\00:06:29.55 sheep near the Dead Sea in the Qumran cave area and he 00:06:29.58\00:06:38.07 lost some of his goats, couldn't find them and so he was throwing 00:06:38.10\00:06:40.56 rocks into the cave hoping that it would scare them and the 00:06:40.59\00:06:44.30 bells that they had would tinkle and he would know where they 00:06:44.33\00:06:48.00 were so he didn't have to scramble up into every cave 00:06:48.04\00:06:49.80 looking for them. One time he threw a rock in and it broke 00:06:49.83\00:06:53.86 some pottery. We have now the Dead Sea Scrolls. They contain 00:06:53.89\00:07:00.06 the entire book of Isaiah to written at 200 B.C. Now notice 00:07:00.09\00:07:06.22 Erasmus and the King James was based on 1000 A.D. 00:07:06.26\00:07:10.10 So the King James version is connected with Erasmus. 00:07:10.14\00:07:13.91 With Erasmus, yes. So now we have the book of Isaiah 1200 00:07:13.95\00:07:20.49 years older, 1200 years closer to when Isaiah actually wrote 00:07:20.52\00:07:27.03 it. Obviously the scholars wanted to compare it and see 00:07:27.06\00:07:31.32 what could they find. When they compared it the beautiful thing 00:07:31.35\00:07:36.05 is that they found the same exact message. Now there are 00:07:36.08\00:07:40.79 some words different and if you were to read in the King James 00:07:40.83\00:07:44.44 and I were to read in the Revised Standard which came out 00:07:44.48\00:07:46.47 right after that find and some of the other Bibles and the NIV, 00:07:46.51\00:07:50.02 the New International, we'd see a few differences, but none in 00:07:50.06\00:07:53.53 doctrine. No teaching has changed. That, John, is why I 00:07:53.57\00:07:57.09 know that I can trust the word of God. I don't have the 00:07:57.13\00:08:01.28 originals, but if I can see that we can go back 1200 years 00:08:01.32\00:08:05.31 through copies and copies and copies and it hasn't changed I 00:08:05.34\00:08:08.83 know God's hand was in it and I know that he preserved that. 00:08:08.87\00:08:12.32 There's no doubt in my mind. 00:08:12.36\00:08:13.47 That's fantastic. So we have a sure word that God has preserved 00:08:13.51\00:08:19.58 throughout the ages. But you know we still have this question 00:08:19.61\00:08:25.49 well okay then which translation that we have now, which one is 00:08:25.53\00:08:30.51 the most accurate, because they are relying on the two main 00:08:30.54\00:08:34.50 manuscript sources and then you can go into that a little bit. 00:08:34.53\00:08:37.94 You know we have Erasmus who looked at the one and then you 00:08:37.98\00:08:41.35 spoke of another one. What are common words for these 00:08:41.39\00:08:43.25 manuscripts that are used today? 00:08:43.28\00:08:44.73 Well we have groups; like we have the Alexandrian text and 00:08:44.77\00:08:48.65 we have the Byzantine texts and those are two of the most 00:08:48.69\00:08:53.13 common ones. I'm going to look at first of all that every 00:08:53.17\00:08:57.55 translation into English can be divided into four groups, there 00:08:57.58\00:09:03.69 are four groups and this helps us in understanding how to 00:09:03.73\00:09:07.43 evaluate them. The first group is the highly literal and I 00:09:07.47\00:09:11.04 brought with me but I left it in my brief case there, but 00:09:11.07\00:09:14.57 I have with me called Young's Literal Translation of the Bible 00:09:14.60\00:09:18.74 and his goal was to put the Bible as close as it was to the 00:09:18.78\00:09:23.44 Hebrew and the Greek. So it reads very awkward. Now the 00:09:23.47\00:09:27.14 advantage is that we can know kind of what the Hebrew and 00:09:27.18\00:09:30.16 Greek sentence structure looked like but the disadvantage is 00:09:30.20\00:09:32.96 for most of us we wouldn't be able to read it and even know 00:09:32.99\00:09:35.68 what we read afterwards. That's one extreme of highly literal. 00:09:35.71\00:09:39.51 Then we have the moderately literal and we have translations 00:09:39.54\00:09:43.31 like the NIV Bible, the New International Bible that are in 00:09:43.35\00:09:47.16 that group. They are very, very close to what the original said 00:09:47.20\00:09:51.35 but they don't stay close to the exact words if it's going to 00:09:51.39\00:09:55.19 lose its meaning. The third group are called the natural 00:09:55.23\00:09:58.92 translations. The translators there they said what we want to 00:09:58.95\00:10:02.27 do is we want to translate the thoughts. We don't care if we 00:10:02.30\00:10:06.20 use any of the exact translation of the words, we just want to 00:10:06.24\00:10:09.72 get the meaning across. What was the author trying to say? 00:10:09.76\00:10:12.93 It would be like if I told you to tell someone in Spanish that 00:10:12.97\00:10:15.77 I went somewhere and I had just a cool time and it was 110 00:10:15.80\00:10:19.27 degrees. Well now if you translated that literally, you 00:10:19.31\00:10:22.71 know, cool is 110? What is it when it's hot? You're going to 00:10:22.74\00:10:27.15 say you know boy I can't translate that literally. I have 00:10:27.18\00:10:31.52 to say what did he mean? So I'm going to translate it for what 00:10:31.56\00:10:34.21 he meant. He had a fun time and a neat time. That's what the 00:10:34.24\00:10:37.61 natural translations do. The natural translations that we 00:10:37.65\00:10:41.34 have are like the New Century Version of the Bible. It gives 00:10:41.38\00:10:45.97 us what they meant. The fourth group is the very free and in 00:10:46.00\00:10:50.31 that fourth group of very free their idea is that we want to 00:10:50.34\00:10:54.49 add information for you to understand it and we will expand 00:10:54.53\00:10:58.27 it. Some of them expand it greatly. In fact, we're going 00:10:58.30\00:11:02.96 to look at now three different graphics on this idea of 00:11:02.99\00:11:07.38 comparing translations on a continuum from very, very 00:11:07.42\00:11:11.77 literal to very free. The first 00:11:11.81\00:11:15.27 group that we look at here has 00:11:15.31\00:11:17.67 Young's Literal Translation at 00:11:17.70\00:11:19.99 the top and it's got the New America Standard. That's one of 00:11:20.03\00:11:22.06 the most literal but readable translations into English today. 00:11:22.09\00:11:27.19 The King James, the Revised Standard and then we get 00:11:27.22\00:11:31.62 over a little bit into the 00:11:31.66\00:11:32.75 moderately literal, we have the 00:11:32.78\00:11:34.52 New International and the New 00:11:34.56\00:11:36.22 English Bible. On our next graphic we will see we pick up 00:11:36.26\00:11:41.03 moving a little bit more toward the natural, we have the 00:11:41.06\00:11:45.80 Jerusalem Bible, the Today's English Version, the 00:11:45.83\00:11:49.35 Contemporary English, the New 00:11:49.39\00:11:51.34 Living Translation and the Living Bible. At that point 00:11:51.38\00:11:55.07 with The Living Bible and in the New Living we're really 00:11:55.10\00:11:58.76 beginning to move into the very free. 00:11:58.79\00:12:00.78 Are you meaning very free as in a term I know as paraphrasing? 00:12:00.82\00:12:04.54 Yes, exactly. Not an actual translation but 00:12:04.57\00:12:07.78 people call it a paraphrase, it's the thoughts. 00:12:07.82\00:12:10.96 They are really adding things to it. Then the last one we 00:12:10.99\00:12:16.30 look at here we have the New Testament in Modern English by 00:12:16.33\00:12:21.21 J. B. Phillips, the Message Bible that I really, really also 00:12:21.24\00:12:25.35 love, but he adds a lot, and the last one I mention is one 00:12:25.38\00:12:29.64 called Clear Word and the Clear Word adds more information and 00:12:29.68\00:12:33.44 has more added things than any of the other Bibles do. So as 00:12:33.48\00:12:37.08 one reads any of these from the last group especially here 00:12:37.12\00:12:40.98 they need to recognize that there are things added in there. 00:12:41.01\00:12:44.84 They actually express some of the thoughts or opinions 00:12:44.87\00:12:48.58 doctrinally of these who are providing that paraphrase. 00:12:48.62\00:12:52.26 It's easier for one to put their own ideas if they are just one 00:12:52.29\00:12:57.44 person doing it as well and that's a possibility. 00:12:57.48\00:13:00.90 But you know when you look at the King James we'll notice 00:13:00.94\00:13:06.16 that the purpose of the King James translators was to put 00:13:06.19\00:13:11.34 the Bible in the common language and we're going to look at right 00:13:11.38\00:13:15.86 now three graphics that give us something from the preface to 00:13:15.90\00:13:19.91 the original King James that I have in my hand that we'll 00:13:19.95\00:13:23.23 show you in just a minute. It's a facsimile, not the original 00:13:23.26\00:13:26.51 one but a facsimile of it. It is so important for us to 00:13:26.54\00:13:30.50 realize that the preface of a Bible tells us how they 00:13:30.53\00:13:34.31 translated it and why and here's what we find in this 00:13:34.35\00:13:38.09 King James, in the 1611 preface 00:13:38.13\00:13:42.58 that says... 00:13:42.62\00:13:51.89 Now it goes on... 00:14:01.53\00:14:12.33 Now you look at that and first of all you go somebody needed 00:14:12.37\00:14:15.88 to use spell check on that. No that's the spelling back in 00:14:15.92\00:14:19.58 1611. There are some real important points to recognize 00:14:19.62\00:14:23.25 in there because we see what their purpose was. The purpose 00:14:23.29\00:14:26.53 of the King James translators was to put the Bible in the 00:14:26.57\00:14:29.76 common language, the language that every single person on the 00:14:29.80\00:14:33.40 street spoke. Because they are saying how can they understand 00:14:33.44\00:14:36.51 and meditate on it if they don't understand what the words are 00:14:36.55\00:14:39.99 saying; it's unknown to them. And what can be more amenable, 00:14:40.03\00:14:43.21 they say, than to deliver God's book unto God's people in a 00:14:43.25\00:14:46.75 tongue which they understand. Lastly, they use this word that 00:14:46.79\00:14:50.13 if you told some one that you're going to read from the vulgar 00:14:50.17\00:14:53.89 translation, you know, they'd go woe! But vulgar in 1611 meant 00:14:53.92\00:14:57.55 common. So they say we're going to translate into the common 00:14:57.58\00:15:01.17 language so that people can really understand it. 00:15:01.20\00:15:04.01 So right here they're telling us what their purpose was 00:15:04.04\00:15:07.05 which was to put that in the common language. 00:15:07.08\00:15:09.16 Let's look at some translations that came out before the King 00:15:09.20\00:15:14.25 James because that will help us. In a graphic, we have some 00:15:14.29\00:15:19.31 English versions of the Bible 00:15:19.34\00:15:21.44 that came out. The first one 00:15:21.47\00:15:23.50 that came out after Erasmus's 00:15:23.53\00:15:26.00 1515 Greek New Testament was 00:15:26.04\00:15:29.45 Tyndale. When his Bible came out 00:15:29.49\00:15:32.49 they persecuted him and he was 00:15:32.52\00:15:34.63 so in fear for his life that he 00:15:34.66\00:15:37.88 had to flee out of England and 00:15:37.91\00:15:40.10 they confiscated every Bible 00:15:40.14\00:15:42.26 they could. Twenty thousand were printed but only two remain 00:15:42.30\00:15:46.64 today. They felt that what he was doing was entirely wrong 00:15:46.68\00:15:50.12 because he was putting the Bible in the common language of the 00:15:50.16\00:15:54.04 people. Now think about that for a moment. Coverdale came out 00:15:54.08\00:15:57.93 10 years later in 1535. In 1537 00:15:57.96\00:16:02.43 we have Rogers. In 1539 we have 00:16:02.46\00:16:05.59 the Great Bible, that's the 00:16:05.63\00:16:08.44 first authorized version; 1560 00:16:08.47\00:16:11.86 the Geneva. In 1568 then we have 00:16:11.89\00:16:15.21 the Bishops Bible. Now our next graphic will show us that in 00:16:15.25\00:16:19.35 1609 we have the Rheims Douay which was the Catholic Bible 00:16:19.38\00:16:24.87 and then just two years later in 1611 we have the King James 00:16:24.90\00:16:30.08 and 90% of Tyndale is found in the King James. The thing that's 00:16:30.12\00:16:34.32 so significant about that, John, is that we see the King James 00:16:34.36\00:16:39.22 as one in a long list of English translations and every single 00:16:39.25\00:16:44.07 one of those translations found themselves under suspicion, 00:16:44.10\00:16:48.20 under persecution and people questioned whether they were 00:16:48.24\00:16:52.85 really right or not. In fact, the reason that King James had 00:16:52.88\00:16:57.14 this translation made in 1611 was to end the argument. Let's 00:16:57.18\00:17:00.74 make one and we'll say that's it and that's the one that we 00:17:00.78\00:17:04.31 want for sure. Part of that argument continues 00:17:04.34\00:17:06.13 to this day. Some say that there is only one, it's the King James 00:17:06.16\00:17:10.11 version. I know we're going to 00:17:10.14\00:17:11.11 get to that, but that argument started way, way back and it 00:17:11.12\00:17:14.07 continues to this day. 00:17:14.11\00:17:15.20 You know, the King James was met 00:17:15.23\00:17:17.93 with suspicion. It was met with 00:17:17.97\00:17:20.60 even hatred. One of the statements that the King James 00:17:20.63\00:17:24.84 translators make tells us about that because they say that it 00:17:24.88\00:17:29.26 was only welcomed with suspicion instead of love. In fact, on 00:17:29.30\00:17:33.19 page 7 of their preface says, this is the facsimile of the 00:17:33.23\00:17:36.84 original King James with the spelling and punctuation exactly 00:17:36.88\00:17:40.31 the way it was and I'll talk about that in a moment, exactly 00:17:40.34\00:17:44.03 the way it was and on page 7 of their preface, which by the way 00:17:44.06\00:17:47.49 it's worth buying it just for the 11-page preface as they tell 00:17:47.53\00:17:51.84 what they were doing and what they said in that is, there will 00:17:51.88\00:17:55.67 be more translations to follow. They were very charitable. 00:17:55.70\00:17:59.75 Some have asked will there be more translations and can they 00:17:59.79\00:18:03.27 be trusted and they say, "Now to the latter we answer that we 00:18:03.31\00:18:06.62 affirm and avow that the very meanest (which means worst) 00:18:06.66\00:18:10.18 translation of the Bible in English set forth by men of our 00:18:10.22\00:18:13.78 profession containeth the word of God, Nay, it is the word of 00:18:13.82\00:18:17.64 God. " So these men who wrote the King James said we want to 00:18:17.67\00:18:21.45 put the Bible in the common language and there will be 00:18:21.49\00:18:23.83 translations after us and even the worst one will still be the 00:18:23.87\00:18:27.88 word of God. Now let me understand this 00:18:27.91\00:18:29.54 correctly then. So these men understood that it was the 00:18:29.57\00:18:32.34 thoughts of God that were inspired like we said from the 00:18:32.37\00:18:35.11 beginning but these were merely words that they were putting 00:18:35.14\00:18:38.33 down and that other translations would come also expressing the 00:18:38.37\00:18:41.52 thoughts of God. In the language of the day, 00:18:41.55\00:18:44.55 exactly. Yes, wonderful, wonderful. Now one of the 00:18:44.59\00:18:47.64 difficulties with the King James, and it's a beautiful 00:18:47.68\00:18:50.68 translation and all of my memorization has come from that 00:18:50.72\00:18:54.57 and many denominations began with, obviously, the King James 00:18:54.61\00:18:57.85 Bible. Let me share some of the problems and that is that the 00:18:57.89\00:19:02.02 language of the King James is really 400 years old. Now I 00:19:02.06\00:19:06.41 didn't understand that until I got my facsimile copy. What I 00:19:06.44\00:19:10.83 did was I copied a page and I took Romans 14 because there 00:19:10.86\00:19:15.18 is some very difficult sentence structure and words in the King 00:19:15.21\00:19:18.59 James in Romans 14. The first thing I wanted to do was what 00:19:18.62\00:19:21.47 they do with all manuscripts when you get another one is to 00:19:21.51\00:19:24.29 compare it. I said, Boy I wonder if it's this hard today what was 00:19:24.33\00:19:28.74 it like when they wrote it in 1611. To my shock, it was the 00:19:28.78\00:19:33.04 same. There were two words different: One they took the 00:19:33.08\00:19:37.91 word you in 1611 and a modern translation puts the would ye 00:19:37.95\00:19:42.15 but it was you when it was written in 1611 and now they 00:19:42.19\00:19:46.84 put ye and the word for was added in verse 10 of Romans 14. 00:19:46.88\00:19:51.46 All the other words are exactly alike. The more difficult words, 00:19:51.50\00:19:55.47 the sentence structure has not been changed. There is a reason 00:19:55.50\00:19:59.74 for that. The reason for that is that people believe that God 00:19:59.77\00:20:03.95 wrote every word and if you change one word you've changed 00:20:03.98\00:20:08.12 what God said. It's sacred and you can't do that. 00:20:08.15\00:20:11.31 A brief note on that: I was at a campmeeting once, and I know 00:20:11.35\00:20:15.25 it was kind of a misspeak, but someone from the front had said 00:20:15.28\00:20:18.66 you know what, and he said I'm reading from the King James 00:20:18.69\00:20:22.03 version and if it was good enough for Jesus it's good 00:20:22.06\00:20:25.29 enough for me. And I said to myself in my own mind, did he 00:20:25.32\00:20:29.91 really just say that? But he did and I know it was kind of a 00:20:29.95\00:20:34.12 mental slip but the impression comes through and that is the 00:20:34.15\00:20:38.12 fact that we hold onto the King James sometimes as if it's the 00:20:38.16\00:20:41.52 very word for word translation of God and that's not what it 00:20:41.55\00:20:45.55 is. Not even did the people who wrote it say that it was. 00:20:45.58\00:20:49.76 Now there are some difficult words in the King James and 00:20:49.80\00:20:53.90 they're words that are archaic. In fact, there's a whole book on 00:20:53.94\00:20:56.93 the archaic and obsolete words of the King James that one would 00:20:56.97\00:21:00.27 really need to understand it. But it's the words that we think 00:21:00.30\00:21:03.57 we know that have changed meaning and let me give you a 00:21:03.60\00:21:05.62 few of those that make it tough for us: Carefulness; Paul said 00:21:05.66\00:21:09.81 I don't want you to have any carefulness. It means worry, 00:21:09.84\00:21:12.91 concern, anxiety. Peculiar; we think about God's peculiar 00:21:12.95\00:21:16.97 people. It means special treasure, treasured possession, 00:21:17.01\00:21:21.38 it didn't mean look weird. Constraineth; actually meant 00:21:21.42\00:21:26.40 compel, the exact opposite. You have the word bowels in the 00:21:26.43\00:21:30.56 Bible, the bowels of Jesus means affections. Prevent meant 00:21:30.59\00:21:35.24 meant precede. Feeble minded; Paul spoke about the feeble 00:21:35.28\00:21:38.71 minded and you go well I don't want to be a feeble minded 00:21:38.75\00:21:42.77 person. It meant timid, faint hearted, apprehensive. Shame 00:21:42.80\00:21:46.96 facedness; now do you want to be shame faced. What it meant 00:21:47.00\00:21:51.54 was decent and sensible. How about conversation. Now we think 00:21:51.58\00:21:56.09 it means what we're having here, John, but in the Bible 00:21:56.13\00:21:58.69 conversation meant your life, your conduct, you behavior, even 00:21:58.73\00:22:01.94 your citizenship. When Paul says let your conversation be in 00:22:01.98\00:22:05.17 heaven he didn't mean your talking in heaven. He meant your 00:22:05.20\00:22:08.06 whole life, the way you live your life, your citizenship. 00:22:08.10\00:22:10.89 The word suffer means to allow and many, many, many times those 00:22:10.92\00:22:16.47 words didn't mean what we think they mean today. I cringe every 00:22:16.50\00:22:21.27 time I hear where in children's Bible classes they teach the 00:22:21.30\00:22:25.39 children from the King James and it says suffer the little 00:22:25.42\00:22:29.47 children to come to me. For kids what does the word suffer 00:22:30.47\00:22:33.38 mean? Why don't we teach them in a language that they really 00:22:33.42\00:22:36.30 understand. So that's what we want to note about that. 00:22:36.33\00:22:41.54 We have to remember the King James was not in the original 00:22:41.57\00:22:45.78 language of the scriptures and it wasn't word for word. 00:22:45.82\00:22:49.96 Let's look at a graphic of that. In John 3:16 there's a text 00:22:49.99\00:22:54.50 that we know so well, for God so loved the world he gave his 00:22:54.53\00:22:59.69 only begotten son. Notice how it is in the Greek. If we were 00:22:59.72\00:23:04.49 to translate it word for word it would read this way: So for 00:23:04.52\00:23:09.55 loved the God the world. Now it's obvious that that is not 00:23:09.59\00:23:13.82 the way it is in the King James and it's good it isn't because 00:23:13.86\00:23:17.88 we can understand. But the point is the King James isn't word for 00:23:17.92\00:23:21.91 word what God wrote to start with. 00:23:21.94\00:23:23.72 You know, there's this issue of what is it textus receptus? 00:23:23.75\00:23:28.05 Going back to that there are even times, and I know those who 00:23:28.09\00:23:31.84 emphasize and hold on to the King James version go back to 00:23:31.88\00:23:35.95 that: Well it's textus receptus. There are cases though in the 00:23:35.99\00:23:40.13 King James version that actually deviate from it where modern 00:23:40.17\00:23:44.28 translations adhere to it and those who claim that it is 00:23:44.31\00:23:47.83 good because it's textus receptus don't even realize that 00:23:47.87\00:23:50.82 what they're arguing about some of the modern translations 00:23:50.85\00:23:53.73 actually do exactly the point that they're trying to argue for 00:23:53.76\00:23:56.61 the King James version. I probably confused everybody 00:23:56.64\00:23:59.01 there, but you know my point. 00:23:59.05\00:24:00.02 That's so powerful, John, because for some the words 00:24:00.05\00:24:05.14 textus receptus, which really means translated text received. 00:24:05.18\00:24:08.90 They sometimes call it affectionately the TR. What they 00:24:08.93\00:24:12.96 believe it means is the text received from God almost like 00:24:12.99\00:24:16.94 our friends of another faith who believe that they received some 00:24:16.98\00:24:20.62 text directly from God. So they believe that the textus receptus 00:24:20.66\00:24:24.27 was the text that Erasmus received directly from God. 00:24:24.30\00:24:26.95 What it was in 1633, 20 years after the King James was 00:24:26.98\00:24:33.33 written there were two brothers, Asaver brothers, who make a 00:24:33.36\00:24:38.78 Greek printed New Testament and what they did in the preface was 00:24:38.82\00:24:44.57 they put you now have the textus receptus which meant it was an 00:24:44.61\00:24:48.77 advertisement blurb which meant you have the text that's already 00:24:48.81\00:24:52.94 been received, so please don't be mad at us, use it. So it 00:24:52.98\00:24:56.54 really meant you've already received this textus just like 00:24:56.58\00:24:59.95 what you had before and it didn't mean anything at all 00:24:59.98\00:25:03.32 about a special text received from God. 00:25:03.36\00:25:05.50 I'm glad you clarified that because a lot of people have 00:25:05.54\00:25:08.58 a misunderstanding of what that term means so it is very 00:25:08.61\00:25:11.61 important to understand that. 00:25:11.65\00:25:12.81 It was in the preface of their Bible which just meant you don't 00:25:12.85\00:25:17.03 have anything different. By the way there were over 150 printed 00:25:17.07\00:25:21.22 Greek texts by the time that they came out. Now you talk 00:25:21.25\00:25:24.46 about people today criticizing oh we've got all these modern 00:25:24.50\00:25:27.13 translations. They're just trying to make money. We already 00:25:27.16\00:25:29.86 have it. We can ready it. Why do we need it. Why did we say 00:25:29.90\00:25:33.50 that about Tyndale and Geneva and the Great and that whole 00:25:33.54\00:25:36.63 line. Why did we need the King James? Because language was 00:25:36.67\00:25:39.78 changing. Do you remember when grass was something you mowed? 00:25:39.81\00:25:43.04 Groovy was the gravel road in front of your house. Gay was a 00:25:43.08\00:25:46.41 happy person. Mouse was the critter in your house that you 00:25:46.45\00:25:50.54 didn't want. I mean language changes so fast. We're 400 years 00:25:50.58\00:25:54.64 away from the time it was written and if the translators 00:25:54.68\00:25:59.86 of the King James were alive today those 47 or 52, evidently 00:25:59.90\00:26:03.57 they started with 52, but by the time they ended there were 00:26:03.60\00:26:07.33 47 of them when they finished their work, if they were alive 00:26:07.36\00:26:12.13 today from the preface of their Bible I know they wouldn't use 00:26:12.16\00:26:14.74 the King James. They would say what do you think we were doing? 00:26:14.77\00:26:18.14 We were putting it in the common language, the vulgar language. 00:26:18.17\00:26:21.50 So we know that they wouldn't do it. 00:26:21.54\00:26:23.07 In fact, the modern translations use the text or the 00:26:23.11\00:26:27.39 manuscripts that are older than the King James version used. 00:26:27.43\00:26:30.69 You already stated that. So to a great degree when you're 00:26:30.72\00:26:34.05 reading some of the modern translations it's a word for 00:26:34.09\00:26:37.17 word when they intend it to be that way from an older 00:26:37.21\00:26:40.23 manuscript. So these are things that don't often enter into the 00:26:40.26\00:26:44.21 debate over what translation should you use. Now I personally 00:26:44.24\00:26:48.28 look at all of them, as many as I can to get the full thought of 00:26:48.31\00:26:52.31 what God was intending and I learn different things from 00:26:52.34\00:26:54.72 different translations and I think that's kind of the point 00:26:54.76\00:26:57.10 that you're making. Yes. When I study for a Bible 00:26:57.13\00:26:59.97 lesson I'll use at least 10 translations and I'll compare 00:27:00.00\00:27:03.55 them and find out exactly anything I can what it says to 00:27:03.59\00:27:07.11 know what I'm doing. 00:27:07.14\00:27:08.78 Well thank you so much, David. I mean these insights are so 00:27:08.81\00:27:11.70 critical and, I think, so important because we get side 00:27:11.74\00:27:15.17 tracked with the little arguments about well this one's 00:27:15.21\00:27:18.57 better than this. It is a matter of preference. So friends what 00:27:18.60\00:27:22.99 we're saying is that as you look to study the word of God 00:27:23.02\00:27:25.94 find a translation that you can study with, that you're 00:27:25.97\00:27:28.85 comfortable with. Find a translation where God is 00:27:28.88\00:27:31.21 speaking to you and you can experience God in his fullness 00:27:31.24\00:27:34.16 the way he intended you to do. That obviously is a language 00:27:34.19\00:27:37.18 that you're comfortable with. The thoughts are there. God 00:27:37.22\00:27:39.95 inspired his word and it still stands to this day. It's the 00:27:39.99\00:27:43.05 sure word of God. So make it a part of your life. And so we 00:27:43.08\00:27:46.21 say on this Issues and Answers program that as you bring that 00:27:46.24\00:27:49.30 word into your life that you'll be blessed abundantly because 00:27:49.34\00:27:52.36 of it. God bless you. Have a great day. 00:27:52.40\00:27:55.97