I need your help - poll on Bible versions

[Omegaman 3.0]

Replying to get a little bump, hoping to see more votes before I come to a decision on second version to include in studys, looking to see 50 votes hopefully (16 more), to get a better, statistical sampling.

So far the KJV is ahead on single version count, and the NKJV and KJV combined (translations based on Textus Receptus) add up to about 58% of the votes. I think I will let this poll run until Nov. 8th, then where ever the poll leads, I will follow.

[Omegaman 3.0]

On 11/6/2016 at 1:35 AM, Mary98 said:

I feel the KJV is optimal because it doesn't expand on the original inspired cannon  with the interpretations of man. So it allows the Holy Spirit the opportunity to influence the reader instead of man. 

That is a great concept and a good motivation, but how do you know that is even true? Since the Greek texts that underly most modern translation, are older and more numerous, than the manuscripts underlying the KJV, the case can be made that it is the KJV has the added texts. Not to mention that the KJV in 1611, has what we call the Apocrypha (still used by the Roman Catholic Church). Additionally Erasamus, the person who compiled the text used in the KJV New Testamant, did not even have access to all the Greek texts he needed, so he reverse translated from the Latin, to create the Greek. For what it is worth, Erasamas was a Catholic Humanist.

In the case of the Old Testament, the KJV uses the Massoretic Texts of Hebrew. These are Hebrew Texts from the middle ages, not as old as some of the Hebrew Texts we have available today, though the differences are minor, though not insignificant. Is that an issue? Well, this came to my attention, when reading the New Testament, and noticing that the N.T. often quotes the Old Testament, often whith lines that say words to the effect of "this was to fulfil what was said by the prophet . . . " or "it is written" I would be reading the the New Testament, and come across these quotations and notice that if I looked them up in the Old Testament, they did not always seem to match well.

Eventually I learned that this is because Jesus and the apostles, aften quoted the Septuagint, a translation from Hebrew into Greek, made several hundred years B.C. in Alexandria Egypt. When I looked up the verses in the Septuagint, suddenly they alogned with the New Testament.

Why might this be important? In my opinion, sometimes the differences in our New Testament, based on the Massoretic texts, weakened the evidence that Jesus is the Messiah of the Jews. Since the medieval Jews were not beleivers in Jesus, perhaps they were tempted to transmit or cherry pick texts that downplayed the idea that Jesus was Messiah. I do not know the reasons why these differences exist, but they are worth taking note of, if we want honest and reliable scripture.

I believe that God is able to transmit the word adequately to all generations. The implication of that belief, if true, is that the Bible already existed adequately intact, before King James and his translators, were ver born. If you read the foreward to the reader, that the King James translators wrote, you see that they expected better translations than theirs, would likely come along, and I get the impression from reading that forward, that they themselves, would not be stuck on the KJV.

That being said, I do not believe that the KJV represents the best translation available in English, but it IS plenty adequate, to give us all we need to know.

Thanks for your participation Mary 98

[Omegaman 3.0]

Well, I did not reach the hoped for number of votes, but it will have to do. From the polling responses that I did receive, I have decided that if/when I to alternative translations in the Bible studies, I will use the KJV.

Thank you so much for the valuable input that those of you who participated, contributed.