Sometimes a hot topic, but this comes from a big heart.

[alex73]

With his permission.(Quote)

Mark Staten

I have been keeping up with the postings on this subject off and on all day. When I got home from church this evening I discussed this with Sandy, my blessing from God wife (testimony for another time). She reminded me that she has read and studied from the KJV most of her Christian life which began over 35 yrs. ago, but it wasn't until 12 yrs. ago that she understood what she was reading. When Sandy and I first met she was praying for a teacher, because from the time she was saved in 1973 until 1997 when she saw me in the back of a Christian book store praising God while I was dusting the shelves, no one she asked would teach her. This included her ex-husband who she thought was a man of God until he was caught with another woman and her pastor who would tell her that she didn't need to know the Bible because she was a woman. As we dated I introduced her to other translations to help her to understand what she was reading. I asked her not to stop reading the KJV, but to compare them and to always pray over what she read. After we got married the Holy Spirit had me teach her the awesome power of God and HIS WORD not mans.

I do not have a degree in theology, I am not a professor of the scriptures, and I hold no high office in the church. I do have a love for God that no one can challenge. I believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, I believe in All gifts of the Spirit, I believe God's Word is infallible and I believe that of all the animals that God created on this earth, mankind is the most ungrateful and the most selfish living creature on this planet. Every time God gives us a gift were not satisfied until we either analyze it, degrade it, experiment on it or we just kill it. I not making light of this subject! I just want to know why when I throw the KJV, NIV, NCV, NASB, ASB or any other version Bible across the room, God doesn't strike me down or make me very sick. How comes when I read about Paul and Silas being beaten and thrown in prison because they spoke the word of God to a fortune teller (Acts16:16-24) and then they started praying and singing praises to God, then all the doors came open and all the shackles came off (Acts16:25-26). After seeing that none of the prisoners had left the jailer asked to be saved, he was and so was his whole household (Acts16:28-32), after reading all of this in any translation, why do I get so FIRED up for the Lord that I go and tell the world about the awesome power of God! Paul and Silas had no KJV, NASB or NIV Bible and no one behind them to tell them what to say or do. They did have the WORD of GOD, it was in them, not in a binder with pages that were transposed by man. I believe that anyone can write a book and call it God's Word, we've all seen the proof of that, but can anyone live up to the Word of God that's in his heart? I know of only one man in history who can say yes and the same creation that was created to worship and praise Him, was to caught up in what the so called authorities were telling them, they ended up missing out on God.

In closing I would like to say that if you do not like a certain food, you don't eat it or recommend it to some else to eat it; if you don't like a certain kind of music, you don't listen to it and you don't tell others to listen to it, so why must any one be hard on people that like a different translation. Allow the Holy Spirit to guide you not man. I would never claim that I am more intelligent than the next person, but I do know that Christ is coming back real soon and there are going to many surprises in heaven, one being that the only book being used in Heaven will be " The BOOK Of LIFE"!

Where do you stand with this topic.?

[O'Dannyboy]

I agree with him in principle. There is not a single book or translation that we can universally call THE Bible. As many would agree some translations can be confusing and others can be misleading. As such the meaning or power behind the words can only be experienced through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

[EricH]

I think I understand what you are trying to say, but God has revealed HImself to us in his writtent Word. Even Paul had the OT.

[traveller]

Jesus quoted from the OT all the time. When He was tempted in the wilderness, He quoted from Deuteronomy. I very much believe we are to read, study, and apply the words written.

There is much debate on the various translations, but none of them do a person any good if we don't pick it up and study it.

[alex73]

I think I understand what you are trying to say, but God has revealed HImself to us in his writtent Word. Even Paul had the OT.

><> Yes But not only the written word.

[lekh l'kha]

I just know that I'm very human. This means that the illumination of the Holy Spirit has to pass through the filter of:

(a) My human imagination; and

(b) My own pre-conceived beliefs and ideas.

So I need the record of the revelation of God to man to show me where my thinking doesn't square up to what's written in His book - and even then I can misinterpret whatever He said, so I need

i The Holy Spirit

ii The Bible

iii Experienced Christians.

Ultimately, I have to ask God to help me to understand His Word, and understand it aright.

I like all the Bible versions. I like the NLT for the Old Testament, because it translates the meaning of certain phrases and idioms which were cultural and are archaic, without the necessity of consulting a commentary all the time. I like the more literal translation of the NKJV, because sometimes words in the original Greek are important, and in the N.I.V for example, you won't realize that only on three occasions do the Greek words "megas thlipsis" (great tribulation) appear in the N.T. The N.I.V translates one of them as "intense suffering", which may not mean exactly the same thing, and the NLT also translates it differently.

This is why I like all versions, and to compare one version with another.

But I love the Bible - because I know that it's God's letter to me, and my imagination and prec-conceived beliefs and ideas weren't around when the letters were penned to interfere with what was written.

lekh

[OneLight]

There is one important piece of the puzzle that is being left out. That is the traditions of those who walked with Christ. None of the Apostles had the NT to go by, just what they were taught by Christ Himself. Yes, they had the writings of the OT, but when they preached, they preached Christ and what Jesus taught them, both from the OT and what He reveled during His ministry. This was all anyone had to go on for many years, until all the letters to the churches and persons were gathered together to create the cannon as we know it. Their traditions were a measuring stick to what was placed in the NT.

As for the translations, I stick to what God has allowed me to be comfortable with. I do warn against using a paraphrased version because all this is, is one mans interpretation of scripture, written how they view it, trying to make it easy for someone to understand, but they took many liberties when writing it.

[lekh l'kha]

There is one important piece of the puzzle that is being left out. That is the traditions of those who walked with Christ. None of the Apostles had the NT to go by, just what they were taught by Christ Himself.

Yes, they had the writings of the OT, but when they preached, they preached Christ and what Jesus taught them, both from the OT and what He reveled during His ministry.

This was all anyone had to go on for many years, until all the letters to the churches and persons were gathered together to create the cannon as we know it. Their traditions were a measuring stick to what was placed in the NT.

All the apostolic letters and all the gospels were circulating among the churches in the 2nd century already. It was only in the 4th century that these books were canonized.

From the early 2nd century onward, New Testament apocryphal books also started to be written - such as "the gospel according to Judas", and by the time the canon was declared by a church council in the 4th century, a huge mass of apocryphal New Testament writings had added themselves to the 4 gospels + apostolic letters which were in circulation.

Some scholars and literary critics make the claim that the gospels were all written a generation or two after the apostles, and are the records of "oral traditions".

There's a huge problem with this:

The destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70 A.D was one of the most cataclysmic events to have ever befallen Israel. Yet whereas the gospels make mention that Jesus prophesied that it was going to happen, not one of the New Testament books as much as gives a passing mention to the actual destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70 A.D. There is absolutely NO mention of this historical fact in the New Testament.

It seems strange that the gospels "were written a generation or two after the apostles" (and thus after the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple), yet those who penned "the oral traditions" and wrote the gospels, although they saw fit to mention that Jesus had prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, yet they DID NOT see fit to mention that it had already taken place.

The fact of the matter is the very first post-apostolic generation of Christians had all 4 gospels + the apostolic letters that we have in our Bibles today. They just weren't in one book we call the Bible.

As for the translations, I stick to what God has allowed me to be comfortable with. I do warn against using a paraphrased version because all this is, is one mans interpretation of scripture, written how they view it, trying to make it easy for someone to understand, but they took many liberties when writing it.

I agree that everyone should stick to what God has allowed them to be comfortable with. But versions like the NLT are not "one man's" interpretation of scripture (unless you're referring to the Complete Jewish Bible translated by David H Stern, or perhaps? "The Message"?)

With all the other translations, there was always a team or teams of translators involved, and there was always reference made to the Hebrew, the Greek, and the other translations of the Bible, such as the Vulgate etc.

No translation was just "thrown together" (I know you never said that, but I'm just making the point). With every translation a great amount of care was taken by the translators.

The NLT most certainly has its merits - and a lot of them. It really does bring out the understanding of certain verses, phrases and words which a direct translation doesn't bring out unless one reads a commentary to understand. I wish I had made a record of such verses when I came across them, it would show people what I mean. I find the NLT extremely helpful for this reason. And this helpfulness was the motive of the NLT's tranlsators.

The NLT isn't a paraphrasing as much as it's a "dynamic equivalence", but it does fall short in many places. It translates Dan.9: 26-27 from a clearly pre-trib perspective, for example.

What I do is, I read a passage in the NLT, and then re-read it in the NKJV, or vice-versa.

I think that perhaps the KJV or NKJV or one of the outstanding American versions should be read by new Christians. Once the Bible has been read through twice or three times, it's quite alright to read a "dynamic equivalence" translation. It all depends on how familiar the individual is with the scriptures.

[nebula]

As for the translations, I stick to what God has allowed me to be comfortable with. I do warn against using a paraphrased version because all this is, is one mans interpretation of scripture, written how they view it, trying to make it easy for someone to understand, but they took many liberties when writing it.

Well, if you think about it - that's actually no different than a sermon, is it?

[Guest shiloh357]

As for the translations, I stick to what God has allowed me to be comfortable with. I do warn against using a paraphrased version because all this is, is one mans interpretation of scripture, written how they view it, trying to make it easy for someone to understand, but they took many liberties when writing it.

Well, if you think about it - that's actually no different than a sermon, is it?

Well, not exactly. Sermons (generally speaking) are in part the product of "exegesis." Exegesis means to "lead out." It is process where by the meaning of the text is brought by using various tools such as the historical/cultural context, as well as the meanings of words in the original languages, and other such tools in literary analysis the author like say Paul, to speak for himself and help us arrive at an understanding of the object Paul had in view in a given text. I realize that there are preachers who don't do that, but generally speaking, that is what a true sermon is.

A paraphrase is the opposite. A parphrase is usually one person putting the Bible into his own words. That many people use such a thing as a "Bible" is both tragic and alarming. A paraphrase like the "Living Bible" that was popularized back in the 70s, was written by one man and started off as a collection of Bible stories he had written for his children. The paraphrase is limited by the theological knowledge of the person doing the paraphrase and their particular theological leanings will flavor the text. So if the person is anti-Semitc, or they don't believe in the gifts of the Spirit, that will be reflected their paraphrase.

I would never recommend any paraphrase.