Ephesians 1:6

[Solrac22]

Hi,

I am having trouble reconciling two different translations of this verse, as they seem distinct to me.

In the KJV it reads, "To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.";

Whereas, in the NIV, "to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.".

In my understanding, giving something to someone does not mean accepting the one we give to.
I would appreciate it if someone could clarify this for me.


Thank you,
Carlos.

 

[InSpiritInTruth]

Another translation of accepted (G5487) could be this...

Luk 1:28
And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, G5487 the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.

Eph 1:6
To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made G5487 us accepted G5487 in the beloved.

So it could also read "made us to be favoured"

 

[Solrac22]

Hi InSpiritInTruth, thank you for answering.

I guess my confusion was related with the meaning of Grace.

(Christianity / Ecclesiastical Terms) Christianity
a. the free and unmerited favour of God shown towards man
b. the divine assistance and power given to man in spiritual rebirth and sanctification
c. the condition of being favoured or sanctified by God
d. an unmerited gift, favour, etc., granted by God

It makes more sense now.

Thank you,
Carlos.

 

[pshun2404]

Dump the NIV...

So you rely on the NIV translators. Let’s see if they are trustworthy…

First issue is that it is based on the Westcott/Hort critical text as their default text…

Secondly, it has a built in bias being primarily translated by the National Association of Evangelicals (who’s president that approved the translation was exposed as having a relationship with a homosexual prostitute for quite a long time). These translators were not objective because as we know, they favor a “standard evangelical doctrine” and thus reworded portions of text from the original Greeks to support their doctrine..

Now though no modern translation is totally reliable here are some of the problem factors with the NIV translation:

Genesis 2:7 says “"but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die."

While the NIV Translators (from now on the NTs) change the text to say

“but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for when you eat of it you shall surely die"

Again in Genesis 2 they are confused by the second set of animals created after Adam, and thus add the word “had” which is not in the text.

'It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.' Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name."

In Genesis 15:2, they render Adoni YHVH, the covenant name of God, usually translated ‘Lord GOD’, as ‘Sovereign LORD’. Thus hinting at a meaning they more fully implant later which agrees with and allows them to preach their view of what being Sovereign means.

In many other places all throughout they switch “the Lord of hosts” to “the Lord Almighty” and though this IS another name or title for God its inference in the context carries a different meaning altogether.

In Psalm 23:6 they change “mercy “ to “love” giving the first time readers a whole different understanding compared to the Author’s intent (who is the Holy Spirit…may the lord forgive them)

Look at Isaiah 9:3 the Greek clearly says You have multiplied the nation and NOT increased the joy but the NTs deleted the word not so that it says “and increased their joy” The total opposite of the inspired word.

Jeremiah 7:22 says "For I did not speak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices,” as it was some 40 days later.

But the NTs being confused by what they erroneously saw as a contradiction with Exodus 18 and 20 again added to the word of God and say

“For when I brought your forefathers out of Egypt and spoke to them, I did not just give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices."

Which now makes the story in context incorrect (as to the timeline), making the day He spoke to them the very same day that they left. Aburdity!

The Hebrew particle “na” which means an urgent entreaty or request is ignored sometimes softened to mean a casual request or in some cases like having Abram say to Sarai “Say you are my sister” or Moses tell God “show me your glory” they make these entreaties a hard command (which is simply not in the text). Or in Judges 19 when speaking to the sodomites at the door, instead of saying “No my brethren, I pray you, do not so wickedly” the NIV says “no my friends, don’t be so vile” see how it is softer in its rebuke?

They utterly delete the word “Behold” in many places (ex. Genesis 1:20 and 12:11 and more) thus “taking away”.

They totally omit John 5:4 (why, who says they may pick and choose what to “take away” when God says they may not do it?) as well as Matthew 17:21; 18:11; 23:14; Mark 7:16; 9:44; 9:46; 11:26; 15:28; Luke 17:36; 23:17; Acts 8:37; 15:34; 24:7; 28:29; Romans 16:24, and others. They just cut them out as irrelevant or not meaningful but was that really the motive? Hmmm? As if this is not bad enough they have taken away over 6,000 words. In the Lord’s prayer in Luke 11 they totally remove “who is in heaven” “Your will be done, as in heaven so on earth” and “deliver us from evil”…WHAT? Can we really cut and paste as we see fit? In Matthew 27:35 they take away notice that this was a fulfillment of prophecy (a very important aspect of that verse totally gone)

“Christ” has been taken away from Romans 1:16; Acts 16:31, and more)

Jesus name has been removed from Matthew 8:2; 2 Corinthians 5:18, and more, and even the word “Lord” in relation to Jesus has been removed in some places.

Why did they change 2 Samuel 21:19 to make it seem like another killed Goliath inviting accusation of contradiction where none exists in the LXX or the pre-JPS Masoretic (or the Peshitta, or the Byzantine Majority Text, or the Vulgate, or the Geneva Bible, or the KJV, and on and on)

They change “light bearer” (which is allegedly Satan) of Isaiah 14:12 into “morning star” (which is clearly Jesus in Revelations 22:16)…why? What are they trying to say? Are they meaning to make people misunderstand the text or leave open the possibility our Lord is Satan? Or are they saying Jesus rebelled against Gid and was cast out of heaven? See the confusion these NTs have caused…the undiscipled and unlearned pass right over these issues and make the connectiuons unconsciously believing what they are reading are God’s breathed words…

They seem to take these liberties, adding to the text in many places, what they think clarifies the text (making it to agree more with their preconceived conclusion) all the way up to and including 1 Peter 4:6 (where they make “the dead” those who are “now dead”.

Now in light of God’s command not to add to or take away from, they should have at least been faithful to the corrupted Westcott/Hort text they relied on and not corrupted it further.

Thirdly, their approach was the modern Dynamic Equivalent method which means that to them the alleged thoughts, phrases, or truths expressed in the writings are more important than the actual words, however what we always end up with in these translations is what the translators think were their thoughts, phrases, or truths. This method is notorious for unintentionally (and in the case of the NRSV intentionally) implanting the human factor into the text (sometimes choosing obscure never used meanings to most commonly rendered words). So what happens is the translators opinion of what the reader needs to see takes precedence over the actual words and phrases of the inspired text (making themselves lords of the text). One might as well read the NWT as they follow the same approach.

So my vote? No! They are not trustworthy translators….

But do as you will…

In His love
Paul

 

[hedrick]

The issue is how to translate echaritosen. This is a verbal form of charis, grace. A literal translation would be "his glorious grace with which he graced us in the Beloved." TDNT, which is one of the standard NT Greek lexicons, suggests "blessed." The NIV "freely given" is the same as NRSV's "freely bestowed on us." Word commentary has "with which he has highly favored us." Other current translations have variants of this. I'm actually not a great fan of the NIV, but I think they got this one right.

I haven't found any explanation for where the KJ translators came up with their translation. Unless you believe that God inspired the KJ translators (as one poster does) I'd stick with the consensus translation, which is represented by the NIV.

 

[miamited]

Hi Carlos,

You know, far too many of those who walk around waving the flag of 'christian' before their name get bogged down in what a 'specific' word means.

Now, your issue is: Should the word in Ephesians 1:6 be 'accepted' or 'given'?

Ok, Hedrick has given you a good start. Here are the steps that you need to take to find the answer to your question:

1. What is the Greek word that the two different words are translated from?

We must surely be smart enough to understand that when Paul sat down to write this letter to the church in Ephesus that he wrote a word, right? What was that word?

2. Once you know what word Paul wrote, what is the proper English word or phrase that best translates the intent that Paul meant to be understood when he sat down to write the letter and wrote the word that he wrote.

Of course today we do not have the original letter that Paul wrote and so we have to pick, among the various copies that we have, which one is the copy with the actual word that Paul wrote. In order to do this you will need as many of the manuscript copies of the letter that you can find to compare. If they are all the same, then you are highly blessed and your search for the truth just got considerably easier.

3. Determine the proper translation of the Greek into English.

As with many English words, if you go to any dictionary and look up a word, you will find that there are often several choices for another word or phrase that defines the initial word. This can also be seen in a thesaurus. This is also often a matter of personal choice, but is often guided by context.

There you have it! Easy!

Now, Hedrick has said that the Greek word in the English spelling is: echaritosen.

I don't have a clue. I rarely ever really bother to look up individual words to see if they have been translated correctly from the Greek or Hebrew to a correct English equivalent. I trust that the men, who often translate the Scriptures as a life's work, have done a reasonably good job. I fully understand and allow that they are much better versed in the Greek or Hebrew languages and so sometimes I will compare translations, as Hedrick has done, and unless there is some glaring issue, will generally accept the most common English equivalent.

After some 17 years of walking with God, here's what I have come to know:

Reading the Scriptures is all about our understanding what God is intending to convey to us through the written word. It isn't about this word or that word, but about our asking ourselves as we read, "Do you understand what you are reading?"

Now, let's look at this passage in that manner:

You say that you find some great difference in God's word telling us that 'He has given...' over having written, 'He has made us accepted...'

Can we agree that only God can forgive sin?

If He has made us accepted by the forgiveness of our sin, isn't it equally true, since He is the only one that can do that, that he has just as equally given us forgiveness?

So, as a piece of Scripture, whether we use 'accepted' or 'given' the meaning that God intends to convey to us is that we should give Him praise and glory and honor because He has made any of this possible through the blood sacrifice of His Son. I firmly believe that this is exactly the meaning that Paul intended to impress upon the people at Ephesus when he sat down to write this letter.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

 

[ebedmelech]

I don't think there's an issue with either translation...both make it clear it's God doing it...and not you.

When was it done? BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD...so how does it involve you anyway?

Be thankful God chose you...and give Him praise for that!!

 

[Solrac22]

Hi all, thank you for taking the time to reply.

@pshun2404 Thank you for the heads up. However, I don't use one Bible version alone when making my studies. When I'm doing my daily reading of The Word, I like a simple easy-to-read Bible, but when studying scripture I tend to use several versions along with Bible commentaries and other resources. I did take a quick look into the issues with the NIV that you mentioned though, but, while I agree that some verses might be mistranslated, I failed to see the greater wrong with it. For instance:

Isaiah 9:3

• You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy - NIV
• Thou hast multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy - KJV
• You have multiplied the nation And increased its joy [Following Qere and Targum; Kethib and Vulgate read not increased joy; Septuagint reads Most of the people You brought down in Your joy.] - NKJV
• God, you have caused the nation to ·grow [expand; enlarge] and ·made the people happy [increased their joy] - EXB
• You [O Lord] have multiplied the nation and increased their joy - AMP

Isaiah 14:12

• How you have fallen from heaven, morning star - NIV
• How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer - KJV
• How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer [Literally Day Star] - NKJV
• How you have fallen from heaven, morning star [or day star; or shining one; still addressing the king of Babylon, though sometimes applied to Satan] - EXB
• How have you fallen from heaven, O light-bringer and daystar [Read note] - AMP

1 Peter 4:6

• the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead - NIV
• the gospel preached also to them that are dead - KJV
• the gospel was preached also to those who are dead - NKJV
• the Good News [Gospel] was preached to those who are now dead - EXB
• the good news (the Gospel) was preached [Most commentators interpret this preaching to be a past event, done not after these people had died, but while they were still alive; in their lifetime] even to the dead... - AMP

And so on. I did not look in detail at all the issues you mentioned though.

@hedrick Thanks for your input.

@miamited

You know, far too many of those who walk around waving the flag of 'christian' before their name get bogged down in what a 'specific' word means.

I'm sorry, but I missed your point.

Reading the Scriptures is all about our understanding what God is intending to convey to us through the written word. It isn't about this word or that word, but about our asking ourselves as we read, "Do you understand what you are reading?"

I agree with you, but sometimes one word can change the meaning of a sentence, difficulting and confusing our understanding of God's Word.

So, as a piece of Scripture, whether we use 'accepted' or 'given' the meaning that God intends to convey to us is that we should give Him praise and glory and honor because He has made any of this possible through the blood sacrifice of His Son. I firmly believe that this is exactly the meaning that Paul intended to impress upon the people at Ephesus when he sat down to write this letter.

I came to this issue when I was reading Charles Spurgeon's Morning and Evening devotional, which seemed a little off when reading the NIV verse. But as I said, my main confusion was related to the meaning of Grace. I understand now that the Grace God gives us makes us accepted in Christ. I still find it somewhat confusing when comparing both verses though.
Thank you for sharing your wisdom.

@ebedmelech Thank you for your reply. I don't think you really understood my issue though, which was about being confused and somewhat unable to reconcile both versions. Not about whether it's God doing it or not.

Thank you all.
Carlos