I can see you like it.PSALM 23 (KJV)
THE LORD is my shepard; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou annointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.
Beautiful. Elegant. Poetic.
This is much more beautiful, elegant and poetic for me:PSALM 23 (KJV)
THE LORD is my shepard; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou annointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.
Beautiful. Elegant. Poetic.
I agree, it is beautiful because of its simple elegance. Form follows function. I don't have ape-hanger handlebars on my Harley because they serve no purpose. I think tall handlebars are stupid and ugly. We don't need to dress up the bible in archaic language to make it beautiful either. It's beautiful because it is God breathed.This is much more beautiful, elegant and poetic for me:
Psalm 23 (NIV)
1 The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
3 he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
for his names sake.
4 Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
5 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
6 Surely your goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.
Sincerely, Oz
I agree. I studied that archaic 'elegance' when I was in high school and studied Shakespeare's Henry VIII, Merchant of Venice, etc. But to continue to use that language is an anachronism.I agree, it is beautiful because of its simple elegance. Form follows function. I don't have ape-hanger handlebars on my Harley because they serve no purpose. I think tall handlebars are stupid and ugly. We don't need to dress up the bible in archaic language to make it beautiful either. It's beautiful because it is God breathed.
Well, yes I agree. Unfortunately, I can't read Hebrew.However, its "God-breathed" nature applies not to the NIV (KJV or any other translation) but to the original Hebrew of Psalm 23.
Oz
The KJV is so inspired that I'm convinced blessings should pass from it just by holding it's binding in our repentant hands.
It's not what I read in it, but rather its heritage and its impact on our walk in Jesus Christ. I'm not hear to blow holes in anything, or to take seriously KJV haters.Have you read this, it's quite an interesting read, blows whopping great holes in your belief that the KJV is an inspired translation:
Preface to the King James Version 1611, Part 1 of 10
You could very well be right on some of the things you've said, but the funny thing is, here in this thread, I'm defending the KJV while at the same time I'm in another thread defending its alternatives.The KJV is a good translation (not the best) but, like all translations, it has its weaknesses. Here are a couple of the significant weaknesses of the text.
1) There have been many advancements in the study of biblical Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew over the centuries since the KJV was translated. We have many, many more manuscripts available to us today than did the translators of the KJV.
2) The English langauge has changed significantly since the KJV was translated. Many passages that were correctly translated and correctly understood by the original readers of the KJV are misunderstood by modern readers today. The difficulty isn't, for the most part, the archaic langauge but words that are commonly used today with very different meanings than were used in the 17th century. Some examples are: let, meat, conversation; all of these words (and many more) carried a very different understanding in the 17th century when compared to English today and since very few KJV only people have bothered to learn 17th century English misunderstandings of the text are prevalent in KJV only circles. Even things about the langauge that are valuable to understand, like the differentiation of the 2nd person singular and plural pronouns in 17th century English, are rarely understood by KJV only people today. To truly understand 17th century English requires one to stop making assumptions about the words they think they understand and go and look up those words in dictionaries that provide 17th century English definitions. It is hard work that is rarely ever done by KJV only advocates.
You could very well be right on some of the things you've said, but the funny thing is, here in this thread, I'm defending the KJV while at the same time I'm in another thread defending its alternatives.
I have been on both sides of the fence myself at times. One of the things that often strikes me funny is that people will often try to prove a KJV translation wrong (or KJV only people will try to prove other translations wrong) when, in some cases, both translations say essentially the same thing; the difference is often just a misunderstanding of 17th century English rather than a different choice made by the translators. For example these verses are identical in meaning but changes to the English langauge make them appear to be slightly different.
KJV Psalm 37:14 The wicked have drawn out the sword, and have bent their bow, to cast down the poor and needy, and to slay such as be of upright conversation.
NIV Psalm 37:14 The wicked draw the sword and bend the bow to bring down the poor and needy, to slay those whose ways are upright.
KJV Romans 1:13 Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, (but was let hitherto,) that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles.
NIVO Romans 1:13 I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now) in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles. (Rom 1:13 NIV)
Ironically, many discussions about which translation is better presume a difference in meaning that did not exist in the 17th century.
I too am fond of my 1599 Geneva Bible.1611 KJV, Circa 1900 PCE KJV, 1560 Geneva Bible, 1599 Geneva Bible, ESV, NRSV, NASB, HCSB; use them all, among others. They all provide a wealth of knowledge and information and they all point to Christ. The PCE KJV is my most trusted and favorite, but all of these Bibles have a use.
On what basis do you grant inspiration to the KJV? There is only one group of books that is theopneustos (God-breathed) according to 2 Tim 3:16, and they are the Scriptures (here referring to the OT) in the original languages.The KJV is so inspired that I'm convinced blessings should pass from it just by holding it's binding in our repentant hands.
[FONT="]So, which is your "inspired" version of the KJV? Do you read the 1611 edition?[FONT="]Since Erasmus could not find a manuscript which contained the entire Greek Testament, he utilized several for various parts of the New Testament. For most of the text he relied on two rather inferior manuscripts from a monastic library at Basle, one of the Gospels … and one of the Acts and Epistles, both dating from about the twelfth century. Erasmus compared them with two or three others of the same books and entered occasional corrections for the printer in the margins or between the lines of the Greek script. For the Book of Revelation he had but one manuscript, dating from the twelfth century, which he had borrowed from his friend Reuchlin. Unfortunately, this manuscript lacked the final leaf, which had contained the last six verses of the book. For these verses, as well as a few other passages throughout the book where the Greek text of the Apocalypse and the adjoining Greek commentary with which the manuscript was supplied are so mixed up as to be almost indistinguishable, Erasmus depended upon the Latin Vulgate, translating this text into Greek. As would be expected from such a procedure, here and there in Erasmus’ self-made Greek text are readings which have never been found in any known Greek manuscript-but which are still perpetuated today in printings of the so-called Textus Receptus of the Greek New Testament.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Even in other parts of the New Testament Erasmus occasionally introduced into his Greek text material taken from the Latin Vulgate. Thus in Acts ix. 6, the question which Paul asks at the time of his conversion on the Damascus road, ‘And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?’, was frankly interpolated by Erasmus from the Latin Vulgate. This addition, which is found in no Greek manuscript at this passage (though it appears in the parallel account of Acts xxii. 10), became part of the Textus Receptus, from which the King James version was made in 1611.[/FONT]
[FONT="]The reception accorded Erasmus’ edition, the first published Greek New Testament, was mixed. On the one hand, it found many purchasers throughout Europe. Within three years a second edition was called for, and the total number of copies of the 1516 and 1519 editions amounted to 3,300. The second edition became the basis of Luther’s German translation….[/FONT]
[FONT="]Among the criticisms leveled at Erasmus one of the most serious appeared to be the charge of Stunica, one of the editors of Ximenes’ Complutensian Polyglot, that his text lacked part of the final chapter of I John, namely the Trinitarian statement concerning ‘the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth’ (I John v. 7-8, King James version). Erasmus replied that he had not found any Greek manuscript containing these words, though he had in the meanwhile examined several others besides those on which he relied when first preparing his text. In a guarded moment Erasmus promised that he would insert Comma Johanneum, as it is called, in future editions if a single Greek manuscript could be found – or was made to order! As it now appears, the Greek manuscript had probably been written in Oxford about 1520 by a Franciscan friar named Froy (or Roy), who took the disputed words from the Latin Vulgate. Erasmus stood by his promise and inserted the passage in his third edition (1522), but he indicates in a lengthy footnote his suspicions that the manuscript had been prepared expressly in order to refute him.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Among the thousands of Greek manuscripts of the New Testament examined since the time of Erasmus, only three others are known to contain this spurious passage. They are Greg. 88, a twelfth-century manuscript which has the Comma written in the margin in a seventeenth-century hand; Tisch. w 110, which is, a sixteenth-century manuscript copy of the Complutensian Polyglot Greek text; and Greg. 629, dating from the fourteenth or, as Riggenbach has argued, from the latter half of the sixteenth century. The oldest known citation of the Comma is in a fourth-century Latin treatise entitled Liber apologeticus (ch. 4), attributed either to Priscillian or to his follower, Bishop Instantius of Spain. The Comma probably originated as a piece of allegorical exegesis of the three witnesses and may have been written as a marginal gloss in a Latin manuscript of I John, when it was taken into the text of the Old Latin Bible during the fifth century. The passage does not appear in manuscripts of the Latin Vulgate before about A.D. 800….[/FONT]
[FONT="]Thus the text of Erasmus’ Greek New Testament rests upon a half-dozen miniscule [lower case script] manuscripts. The oldest and best of these manuscripts (codex I, a miniscule of the tenth century, which agrees often with the earlier uncial [upper case script] text) he used least, because he was afraid of its supposedly erratic text! Erasmus’ text is inferior in critical value to the Complutensian, yet because it was the first on the market and was available in a cheaper and more convenient form, it attained a far greater influence than its rival, which had been in preparation from 1502 to 1514….[/FONT]
[FONT="]Subsequent editors, though making a number of alterations in Erasmus’ text, essentially reproduced this debased form of the Greek Testament. Having secured an undeserved pre-eminence, what came to be called the Textus Receptus of the New Testament resisted for 400 years all scholarly efforts to displace it in favour of an earlier and more accurate text.[/FONT]
So what is that a description of? Confusion or something worse?You could very well be right on some of the things you've said, but the funny thing is, here in this thread, I'm defending the KJV while at the same time I'm in another thread defending its alternatives.
So do you read the original languages of Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek to know this?Both the NIVO and NIV here have more severely bent their translation for the sake of a more pleasing vernacular flow. I can't say I can agree with that. The newer translations do more and more of this.
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