Which Bible Version can you recommend (KJV, NIV, NKJV, etc)

[WordSword]

On 5/7/2016 at 1:19 PM, Butero said:

And there was again a battle in Gob with the Philistines, here Elhanan, the son of Jaaer-or-egam, a Bethlehemite, slew the brother of Goliath the Gitite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam.  2 Samuel 21:19

And there was war again with the Philistines;  and Elhanan, the son of Jair slew Lahmi, the brother of Goliath the Gitite, whose spear staff was like a weaver's beam  1 Chronicles 20:5

You are correct.  The KJV got it right, but when I looked it up in the ESV, they got it wrong. 

Most of the modern translations left it with the wrong reading because they thought they were being "scholarly."  And their treatment using the Minority text (spurious manuscripts) showed they had little concern for truth!

[Guest Butero]

On ‎5‎/‎9‎/‎2016 at 1:56 AM, ghtan said:

Ah...so you finally admit the KJV has added words to the text. It does not matter if it is for clarity - modern translations can claim that too - but the fact remains the KJV has done EXACTLY what you complain about modern translations. So, together with 1 John 5:7, that makes the KJV the main culprit. No spin in that.

It is absolutely not the same.  Once again, and I will try to say this as slowly and carefully as I can.  I have never been asked about the issue of words in italics.  Everyone knows they are words that were added so you could understand what was being said.  My issue with the modern translations is that they are removing things that were in the established canon, not the original manuscripts.  Big difference.  So people can understand what we are talking about, here is one such example. 

Then there arose a question between some of John's disciples and the Jews about purifying.  John 3:25 KJV

One word was added because it was necessary to make sense.  This has nothing to do with adding to the canon, but it shows how a word is added out of necessity to go from Greek to English.

Then there arose a question between of John's disciples and the Jews about purifying.  John 3:25 leaving out the word some.

This is not that same as removing verses from the established canon.  Nice spin though.  And again, 1 John 5:7 was not added by the translators.  It was always part of the established text of the canon. 

[Guest Butero]

On ‎5‎/‎10‎/‎2016 at 9:38 PM, ccfromsc said:

Why does the KJV have mythological creatures?

Satyr = one of a class of lustful, drunken woodland gods. In Greek art they were represented as a man with a horse's ears and tail, but in Roman representations as a man with a goat's ears, tail, legs, and horns.

The term “unicorn” is found nine times in the King James Version of the Bible (Num. 23:22; 24:8; Dt. 33:17; Job 39:9-10; Psa. 22:21; 29:6; 92:10; Isa. 34:7).

Soon there will be Zues in the KJV and Hades instead of Satan!!

I have already answered this.  The word unicorn only means an ox with a single horn.  It doesn't mean a horse with a horn from mythology.  All one has to do is look up the definition in a Hebrew Dictionary.  The KJV Bible got it right.  This is nothing but a recycled argument you tried to use before.  It was nonsense then and still is. 

[Guest Butero]

On ‎5‎/‎10‎/‎2016 at 10:21 PM, other one said:

Because those things existed pre flood.....   those old gods were fallen angels and their offspring.....   not really figments of people's imaginations.....   embellished to be sure, but still reality......    and one of them is returning before long.....   one of those who are in the pit........

I was looking at his silly unicorn argument and overlooked the word satyr.  I agree with you 100 percent about that example. 

[Guest Butero]

On ‎5‎/‎10‎/‎2016 at 10:57 PM, Word-Sword said:

Most of the modern translations left it with the wrong reading because they thought they were being "scholarly."  And their treatment using the Minority text (spurious manuscripts) showed they had little concern for truth!

I agree, so what you have is the defenders of the modern translations applauding them for getting it wrong.  That is why I said a person that uses such spin would make a good politician or used car salesman.  They would tell someone about to buy a car with the transmission going out that this is a good thing, as once they get it fixed, the car will be good as new, or they will tell tax payers it is a good thing they plan to raise their taxes 100 percent because of all the government benefits they will receive.  It is spin. 

[ccfromsc]

OK this could help. It is from Logos, bible software company. I hope it helps.

Which Bible Translation Is Best? All the Good Ones.

I am on a mission to end Bible Translation Tribalism. If you don’t know what I mean by “Translation Tribalism,” see if any of these tribal stereotypes (some borrowed from another blogger) ring true for you:

• The NIV 2011 is the Bible of the broad swath of centrist evangelicals.
• The TNIV is the Bible of egalitarian leftist evangelicals.
• The ESV is the Bible of complementarian, conservative, neo-Reformed evangelicals.
• The NASB is the Bible of conservative evangelical serious Bible students.
• The KJV is the Bible of fundamental, independent Baptists.
• The HCSB is the Bible of Southern Baptists.
• The NLT is the Bible of seeker-sensitive evangelicals.
• The NET Bible is the Bible of computer nerds.
• The NRSV and CEB are the Bibles of Protestant mainliners

 

There is probably a little truth in every one of these somewhat tongue-in-cheek stereotypes (except in the ones you don’t like, of course). There really are different groups in Christianity, and they really have differences. It’s not completely accidental that each of these groups would gravitate toward particular translations. And I’ve argued before that the common translation continuum is, though potentially misleading (because all translations use a mixture of both “literal” and “dynamic” renderings), still genuinely useful as a rule of thumb:

Image taken from Mark Strauss’ Mobile Ed Course, BI181 Introducing Bible Translations

 

But get that thumb out of your mouth, because it’s still wrong for Christians to be suspicious of other Christians just because of the Bible translation they carry to church. The tribalism needs to stop. All Bible-loving-and-reading Christians need to learn to see the value in all good Bible translations.

People who use the NIV exclusively need to also see the value of the NASB. People who use the ESV exclusively need to discover the help the NLT can provide. People who are KJV-only need to stop seeing the translation work of godly, careful brothers and sisters in Christ—such as Doug Moo of the NIV and Wayne Grudem of the ESV—as threats but as gifts.

To say “I am of the NIV” is wrong. To say “I am of the NASB” is wrong. To say “I am of the ESV” is right and proper and everyone else should wise up, you compromisers!

No, wait, wait . . . Give me a moment to breathe deeply and count to 10. Hey, I’ve got my own preferences. But I’ve officially given them up for your sake. And my own—because I actually think that the existence of multiple English Bible translations is a benefit to us all, not a justification for banner-hoisting and wagon-circling.

Trusted voices on translations

Bible translation tribalism doesn’t begin with a wicked desire to divide God’s people. It starts with a simple fact: translations are complicated things, and very few people have the expertise necessary to thoroughly evaluate them, let alone produce them—so the Christian consumers whose buying dollars determine which translations are successful are forced to trust “experts” when deciding which translation is best.

And whom do we trust? Generally speaking, we look to and trust our pastors for this kind of expert guidance. Hopefully, our pastors have a good grasp of translation theory and a lot of experience working through Scripture texts in Greek and Hebrew (Logos Bible Software exists for just this kind of work). But pastors who have done this work are actually more likely to realize that translations are complex. So they, too, trust others’ judgment. They trust their peers, their professors, their denominational leadership, their favorite Christian writers and scholars. This trust is completely natural and fundamentally good. We all trust authorities all the time to help us make decisions on issues that are too complex or would take too much time to grasp. I know my job, you know yours. But we all outsource other jobs to the experts. We try to be well-rounded, and we develop “informed opinions” about many topics, but we’re never going to be as informed as the experts in any given field. We simply don’t have time go around constantly doubting the work of the economists, civil engineers, chemists, optometrists, and Bible translators whose work we rely on.

If there’s a better recipe for highway asphalt out there than the one our municipality is using, we’re just going to leave that in the hands of the highway commissioner and drive on our roads anyway. If the textual critical issue in Jonah 1:9 could have been handled a little more adroitly; if the relationship of tense and aspect in Mark 4:13 fails to reflect the latest scholarship coming out of Steve Runge’s office; if there’s a more suitable rendering for rāqîaʿ in Genesis 1:6—99.9% of Christians, 99.9% of the time, will leave those issues in the hands of the experts and read their Bibles anyway. We will still trust our favored Bible translations, because people we have every reason to trust told us we should trust those translations.

But that’s just what the people in the church down the street, those false “Christians” with their wicked “Bible” “translation” (and their funny hair!), are doing. They’re trusting their leaders. So why are we better than they? If there’s a difference between “us” and “them,” it’s not that “we” are sitting down in a lengthy series of congregational meetings with all our Greek and Hebrew Bibles on our laps and hashing out all the differences among translations, and “they” aren’t. We should be content, without believing our translation to be perfect, exactly, to trust that it is reliable without condemning those who have made a different choice. Our pastor (and/or our crowd) decided translation X was best. Fine. We shouldn’t let our preferred translation become a symbol, a rallying cry, a boundary marker separating us from other groups within the body of Christ.

A way out of Bible translation tribalism

It’s the idea that we must determine which translation is best that has divided us into translational tribes. The need to pick the be-all and end-all Bible translation, the one that is simultaneously literal and understandable and beautiful, the one that (as one press release for a major translation claims) “eliminates . . . the tradeoff between accuracy and readability,” is creating a barometric pressure that is unnecessarily heating up the whole topic.

English speakers are looking for the wrong thing when we look for best. As I said, we need to look for useful. Does that sound too pragmatic? Let me clarify. We need to ask, “Which English Bible translation is most useful for preaching?” “Which is most useful for evangelism?” “Which is useful for reading through in a year?” “Which is conducive to close study?” How about for reading to kids? For memorization?

The average Christian has umpteen Bibles at home; we can afford, financially, to buy different editions for different purposes. Many of us have Logos, with its even greater number of Bible translations.

Because of our embarrassment of financial and translational riches, we can get very specific in our search for useful. “Which English Bible translation is most useful for preaching to these particular people?” “Which English translation is most useful for evangelizing this person I just met?” “Which one is most useful for reading through this year, given that I just read a more literal/paraphrastic version last year?”

A Bible translation thought experiment

Imagine there was only one English Bible translation and that it had never occurred to you that there might be another. The truth is that even if we were stuck with your and my least favorite translation on the chart above, we’d still have an inestimable treasure. We would still have God’s words. The KJV translators, in a sadly neglected but eerily prescient preface to the KJV, said the following:

“We do not deny, nay, we affirm and avow, that the very meanest translation of the Bible in English set forth by men of our profession . . . containeth the word of God, nay, is the word of God: as the King’s speech which he uttered in Parliament, being translated into French, Dutch, Italian, and Latin, is still the King’s speech, though it be not interpreted by every translator with the like grace, nor peradventure so fitly for phrase, nor so expressly for sense, everywhere.”
Read in Logos.

The KJV translators had no qualms saying that even relatively poor translations don’t just contain God’s words but are God’s word. They were not Bible translation tribalists. Perhaps we should take a page out of their book.

Mark L. Ward, Jr. received his PhD from Bob Jones University in 2012; he now serves the church as a Logos Pro. He is the author of multiple high school Bible textbooks, including Biblical Worldview: Creation, Fall, Redemption.

[LadyKay]

Always just a request as to "What Bible Version Can You Recommend"  turns into "My Bible Version Is the Only Right One And Anyone Who Uses Anything Else Is Wrong!"

[HAZARD]

On ‎5‎/‎07‎/‎2016 at 6:32 AM, Giller said:

People should really look into the study of how we got our bible.

I agree wholeheartedly with the King James bible.

Here are a few comparisons.

King James Version (1 John 5:6-8) (6 This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. 7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. 8 And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.)

New International Version (1 John 5:6-8) (6 This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.)

New American Standard Version (1 John 5:6-8) (6 This is the One who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood It is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit and the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.)

Amplified bible (1 John 5:6-8) (6 This is He Who came by (with) water and blood [His baptism and His death], Jesus Christ (the Messiah)--not by (in) the water only, but by (in) the water and the blood. And it is the [Holy] Spirit Who bears witness, because the [Holy] Spirit is the Truth. 7 So there are three witnesses in heaven: the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit, and these three are One; 8 and there are three witnesses on the earth: the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree [are in unison; their testimony coincides].)

The Message (1 John 5:6-8) (6-8 Jesus—the Divine Christ! He experienced a life-giving birth and a death-killing death. Not only birth from the womb, but baptismal birth of his ministry and sacrificial death. And all the while the Spirit is confirming the truth, the reality of God's presence at Jesus' baptism and crucifixion, bringing those occasions alive for us. A triple testimony: the Spirit, the Baptism, the Crucifixion. And the three in perfect agreement.)

The main thing here, in 1 John 5:6-8, I want to focus on, is the verse that says:"For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. ".

Now this is one of the verses, that is used to show forth that God is 3, yet one God (3 persons, one God).

These 3 are one!!!

But if you compare this verse, which is in the King James Version, with the other bible translations, you can see that only the Amplified bible, mentions this phrase, but the other translations, completely have it removed, Why remove such an important verse?

This is one of the main scriptures used to prove the trinity (but not the only one).

Now unto another scripture.

King James Version (Luke 4:4) (4 And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.)

New International Version (Luke 4:4) (4 Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone.'" )

New American Standard Version (Luke 4:4) (4 And Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE.'")

Amplified bible (Luke 4:4) (4 And Jesus replied to him, It is written, Man shall not live and be sustained by (on) bread alone but by every word and expression of God.)

The Message (Luke 4:4) (4 Jesus answered by quoting Deuteronomy: "It takes more than bread to really live.")

Now, here in these comparisons, you can see that only the KJV, and the Amplified, mention the phrase, but by every word of God.
It is talking about not just to live by bread, but by every word of  God.

Why does the NIV, NASV, and the Message, want to completely remove this phrase?

This lessens God's message.

Now just 3 more comparisons.

 

King James Version (Matthew 5:44) (44But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;)

New International Version (Matthew 5:44) (44 But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,)

New American Standard Version (Matthew 5:44) (44 "But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,)

Amplified bible (Matthew 5:44) (44 But I tell you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,)

The Message (Matthew 5:44) (43-47 "You're familiar with the old written law, 'Love your friend,' and its unwritten companion, 'Hate your enemy.' I'm challenging that. I'm telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that.)

The KJV says:" bless them that curse you" , yet all the others, leave this completely out!!!

 

King James Version (Mark 11:26) (26 But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.)

New International Version (Mark 11:26) (26 ......)

New American Standard Version (Mark 11:26) (26 ["But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father who is in heaven forgive your transgressions."])

Amplified bible (Mark 11:26) (26 But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your failings and shortcomings.)

The Message (Mark 11:26) (26...... )

The KJV, NASV, and the Amplified, mention the phrase:"(But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.) ", but the NIV and the Message, do not even have this scripture.

It's missing!!!
 

King James Version (Mark 9:46) (46 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.)

New International Version (Mark 9:46) (46 ......)

New American Standard Version (Mark 9:46) (46 [where THEIR WORM DOES NOT DIE, AND THE FIRE IS NOT QUENCHED.])

Amplified bible (Mark 9:46) (46 ......)

The Message (Mark 9:46) (43-48 "If your hand or your foot gets in God's way, chop it off and throw it away. You're better off maimed or lame and alive than the proud owner of two hands and two feet, godless in a furnace of eternal fire. And if your eye distracts you from God, pull it out and throw it away. You're better off one-eyed and alive than exercising your twenty-twenty vision from inside the fire of hell.)

Now this is reffering to hell, and the KJV and NASV, mention how their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched, but the Amplified and NIV, do not even have this scripture.

Now the Message, does not seem to mention it either, and can be confusing in the way that it puts it's scriptures.

So these are just some of the many , if not thousands of contradictions between bible versions.

And a good book to read on this issue would be "One book , One Authority" by Douglas Stauffer , which you can get at this link: http://bibledoug.com/books

 Some versions even deny the divinity of Jesus Christ.

[woundeddog]

On 7/4/2016 at 10:23 PM, LadyKay said:

Always just a request as to "What Bible Version Can You Recommend"  turns into "My Bible Version Is the Only Right One And Anyone Who Uses Anything Else Is Wrong!"

I would highly recommend only the King James Version-- I would highly recommend not using the others ~~~~~~ is that worded better?? lol

[HAZARD]

On ‎5‎/‎07‎/‎2016 at 1:23 PM, LadyKay said:

Always just a request as to "What Bible Version Can You Recommend"  turns into "My Bible Version Is the Only Right One And Anyone Who Uses Anything Else Is Wrong!"

I have just about every version of the Bible in my library and I personally would not rely on any other Bible than the KJV as the most accurate and correct translation of God's Holy and inspired Word.