Whats Wrong With The New King James Bible

[leah777]

The only Bible version which are bad are ones like the Jehovah witness ones which change words, punctuation and meaning completely against the original.

The Holy Spirit guides us in our understanding of scripture, if we let Him.

[Justin Adams]

15 hours ago, teddyv said:

If it was good enough for Paul, then it's good enough for us.

Not quite correct. Yeshua and the apostles had the LXX (banned by the rabbis) and the pre-Masoretic Hebrew  texts. They also had the Targums and many writings that we have later disallowed, like the Qumran texts show us, these were spoken against.

Luther and Calvin etc loved the brief Masoretic rewrite since it allowed them to edit out many of the original LXX books. They had their own agendas. So they 'kept' the Jewish canon. It was less controversial and allowed them to spin their own doctrines to subjugate the masses that never even saw the scriptures for themselves. 

You have to study hard and long to get a feel for the original scripts. Our 15th and 16th century scriptures did not have what we have available today for everyone to read. Jerome and Augustine had their own agendas as well as the British monarchy.

Study well and generally ignore commentaries that do not incorporate the masses of information we later gathered from the Cylinder Seals.

Edited October 30, 2020 by Justin Adams

[Don19]

16 hours ago, David1701 said:

Of course it changed thousands of words!  It had to, to modernise the language.

What valuable verses did the NKJV supposedly ruin?

It ruined verses such as Genesis 15:5 by changing "seed" to "descendants," thus overthrowing Paul's argument in Gal 3:16. The KJV is true while the NKJV is false. "Seed" is singular and refers to Jesus Christ.

 

[Justin Adams]

1 hour ago, Don19 said:

It ruined verses such as Genesis 15:5 by changing "seed" to "descendants," thus overthrowing Paul's argument in Gal 3:16. The KJV is true while the NKJV is false. "Seed" is singular and refers to Jesus Christ.

 

You really have to go back to the Hebrew and see if that lemma can be understood as descendants. Seed can be used as implying plural. I.e. the seed of the oak are acorns. This refers to more than one.

[Don19]

2 minutes ago, Justin Adams said:

You really have to go back to the Hebrew and see if that lemma can be understood as descendants. Seed can be used as implying plural. I.e. the seed of the oak are acorns. This refers to more than one.

Paul says it's singular, and refers to Jesus Christ, so that settles it!

[Speks]

4 hours ago, Don19 said:

It ruined verses such as Genesis 15:5 by changing "seed" to "descendants," thus overthrowing Paul's argument in Gal 3:16. The KJV is true while the NKJV is false. "Seed" is singular and refers to Jesus Christ.

I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I’m not sure I can follow your reasoning here, Don. It’s obvious that Paul would have known that “seed” as used in Genesis was directly referring to a great number of descendants because of the immediate context (using NASB):

...count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants (lit. seed) be” (v. 5).

We see this again, for example, in 22:17 and 26:4:

“I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore.”

“I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, and will give your descendants all these lands; and by your descendants all the nations of the earth shall be blessed;

Since the context in Genesis links the word “seed” to a great number of people, it’s not unreasonable to translate the Hebrew “seed” as “descendants”. According to God’s promise in these passages, isn’t this what it means?

The way I see it, Paul, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, reveals to the Galatians that God’s promise to Abram referred spiritually to Christ. In other words this “seed” (Greek: sperma) is Christ in Whom the Lord’s promise is spiritually fulfilled. This is why verse 29 says: “And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.” Or, to put it another way, the multitude God promises in the Genesis seed and the singular seed Paul refers to in Galatians are both Truth. 

I personally can’t see how the NKJV has “ruined” verses like Genesis 15:5. Nor is it overthrowing Paul’s inspired teaching in Galatians 5. And why would teams of scholarly translators deny what is clearly true in favour of what is false when to do so would bring ridicule down on their heads?

Either way, what is a truly remarkable backdrop to these types of attacks on modern Bible versions are the problems associated with the text of the 1611 (1769) KJV, the translation that's held up by a minority today as the true standard. Personally I’m so thankful that I can look into God’s Word with confidence, and learn from it and continue to grow in Christ.

 

Edited October 30, 2020 by Speks

[Don19]

27 minutes ago, Speks said:

I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I’m not sure I can follow your reasoning here, Don. It’s obvious that Paul would have known that “seed” as used in Genesis was directly referring to a great number of descendants because of the immediate context (using NASB):

...count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants (lit. seed) be” (v. 5).

We see this again, for example, in 22:17 and 26:4:

“I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore.”

“I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, and will give your descendants all these lands; and by your descendants all the nations of the earth shall be blessed;

Since the context in Genesis links the word “seed” to a great number of people, it’s not unreasonable to translate the Hebrew “seed” as “descendants”. According to God’s promise in these passages, isn’t this what it means?

The way I see it, Paul, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, reveals to the Galatians that God’s promise to Abram referred spiritually to Christ. In other words this “seed” (Greek: sperma) is Christ in Whom the Lord’s promise is spiritually fulfilled. This is why verse 29 says: “And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.” I personally can’t see how the NKJV has “ruined” verses like Genesis 15:5. Nor is it overthrowing Paul’s inspired teaching in Galatians 5. And why would teams of scholarly translators deny what is clearly true in favour of what is false when to do so would bring ridicule down on their heads?

Either way, what is a truly remarkable backdrop to these types of attacks on modern Bible versions are the problems associated with the text of the 1611 (1769) KJV, the translation that's held up by a minority today as the true standard. Personally I’m so thankful that I can look into God’s Word with confidence, and learn from it and continue to grow in Christ.

 

Paul says it doesn't say "seeds," which would preclude "descendants."

Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ. Gal 3:16

Edited October 30, 2020 by Don19

[JTC]

3 hours ago, Justin Adams said:

Study well and generally ignore commentaries that do not incorporate the masses of information we later gathered from the Cylinder Seals.

Justin,

    what are the Cylinder Seals? I never heard of these, unless maybe they are known by other names?

[missmuffet]

23 hours ago, existential mabel said:

https://www.chick.com/battle-cry/article?id=Whats-Wrong-With-the-New-King-James

Question: What is wrong with the New King James Version (NKJV)? All it does is modernize the words of the King James Bible, right? Why should I read the King James and not the helpful New King James?

Answer: The New King James is not a King James Bible. It changed thousands of words, ruined valuable verses, and when not agreeing with the King James Bible, it has instead copied the perverted NIV, NASV or RSV. And this you must know: those who translated the NKJV did not believe God perfectly preserved His words!

It is a matter of choice. I like the Bibles that have the pronouns pertaining to Christ capitalized and Jesus's words in red. I like a Bible that is easy to read and the KJV is not easy to read for me. 

 

[JTC]

22 hours ago, existential mabel said:

https://www.chick.com/battle-cry/article?id=Whats-Wrong-With-the-New-King-James

Question: What is wrong with the New King James Version (NKJV)? All it does is modernize the words of the King James Bible, right? Why should I read the King James and not the helpful New King James?

Hi Mabel,

   I don't agree with what was said in the chick.com article you left a link to. I read enough of it to know I disagree. The Bible I read from cover to cover was the NIV, and it was the NIV that was printed before Zondervan took over. So granted that a modernized translation has different words from the KJV. But if you can't understand the old English that the KJV is written in then what good is it to read that? Besides that, what makes you think the KJV is correct and every other version is wrong? I agree with the person who said you have to rely on the Holy Spirit to tell you the truth of any given verse. And if you don't feel confident that you always know how to hear the Holy Spirit then compare as many translations as you can. (Not the ones that are very different from all the others. So not the amplified versions or dramatized versions.) At least nowadays you can easily compare all these versions online. When I became a Christian you had to either buy a Bible you wanted to read or find a library that had it, and sit there and read it. That was very hard.

   Now I must tell you this. Since it's a fact that almost any modern translation changes certain words every 5 to 10 yrs, when you find a translation you believe is correct, Buy It. Because in 20 yrs the ones online will most likely be different. Hopefully nothing vital will be changed, but somethings will get changed.

   As I said, I read the NIV from before Zondervan owned the rights to the NIV and I'm glad I own that, because from time to time I notice where a few words are different. But so far it's nothing too different. Now what do I mean by too different? For example, if you find a Bible that doesn't say homosexuality is wrong, or that marriage is between 1 man & 1 woman, that's too different. I remember reading, several years ago, that someone published a Bible that says homosexuality in not sin. So there already is a version like that.

   Or certain things may be changed, like they do in Catholic Bibles. I was shocked when I heard this. I checked it and it's true. Do you know Catholic churches are full of statues? You might say, how can they do that when 1 of the 10 Commandments says You shall not make any images. Simple answer. The Catholics did away with that commandment. They split another commandment into 2 commandments so they still have 10. The average Catholic doesn't know this because most of them never read the Bible. Considering their Pope has recently made gay marriages acceptable, I imagine in 10 to 50 years the Catholic Bible will not have the verses that make homosexuality a sin.

    And since Obama legalized gay marriage, probably even some of our Bibles will be changed also. So find a version you can understand and that long term Christians say is correct and trustworthy, and buy it, on paper. And do yourself a favor buy a large print edition. You may live to 80 and you won't be able read the size print you can read now.

  I consider NIV, NKJV, ESV, and KJV all safe. There are other safe ones too, but I'm not certain which ones they are.