King James Bible

[Guest]

4 hours ago, R. Hartono said:

Its a pity you cut relation with unbelieving friends. Big mistake. Faith doesnt come easy.

She was undermining me and insulting my faith. Sometimes it is best to get rid of people who are not good for you. 

[missmuffet]

7 hours ago, Melinda12 said:

The thing that provokes me a lot is when ignorant non-believers dismiss the Bible as 'fairy stories'. I actually had a close friend years ago who said that. She was a very intelligent woman, a devoted friend but an atheist. The friendship did not last. One reason being the disrespect towards my faith that she felt so free to express. 

I am listening at present to an excellent programme on BBC Sounds, all about to the way the King James Bible was written. The very best scholars of the time worked for 7 years on the translation. It is a treasure of outstanding literary value and a delight to countless Christians.

Commissioned by a King who was also an excellent learned theologian. He cared about the Word of God being presented to all. Part of his campaign to unite Christians. 

Is it your favourite Bible? It is mine. For sheer beauty of language as well as quality of translation. 

Only a fool would dismiss our book of the Word of God. We should stand up for it strong and proud. 

 

It would be difficult to have an atheist for a good friend. You could not share with them what is most important in your life.....Jesus Christ. I do not read the King James version of the Bible. I do not care for the old english. 

[Starise]

8 hours ago, Melinda12 said:

The thing that provokes me a lot is when ignorant non-believers dismiss the Bible as 'fairy stories'.

Unfortunately this is too common, almost something I have come to expect. There are those who follow what they think sounds intelligent but it was never an original thought of theirs.There are others far more intelligent who have put together hundreds of supposed contradictions in the bible. If you take all of that at face value it seems they have some valid points and even seems to stand on a solid footing. MANY atheists among others lean on those things as fact and go no further. They reason, "why should I look any more into this, look at all of those silly contradictions."

The world we were raised in has a lot to do with how we see things. I was raised in a fundamental Baptist church and when I grew up I attended fundamental Baptist churches by choice. They all had one thing in common which has only begun to change recently. They all thought any Bible other than the KJV was suspect. They preached the strict need for ONLY the KJV as a reliable source. It was almost like a separate religion to them. After that brainwashing I received there in those churches I finally seen the light and realized there were other versions I could read and maybe even get more from those other versions with one caveat, you had to be ever so CAREFUL to read the right ones because the wrong ones will mislead you. At least to be aware of the theological potholes you could fall into.  As in most other translations it's a few passages here and there that end up coming off different in another version. The differences might not make a huge difference. I think it is important to use references and other versions for anything you don't quite understand.

No one says "thee" and "thou" any more that I know of in common conversation and that's probably why I prefer a more modern version that sounds to me like an actual conversation someone would be having. I still occasionally pick up a KJV for the fun of it since it has it's own quirks and makes me feel like I went back in time to 1611.

King James himself was quite a character and as I understand it was into some very non Christian activities which doesn't seem to have in any way affected the results of his commission to have a bible made in what we now call old English.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, missmuffet said:

It would be difficult to have an atheist for a good friend. You could not share with them what is most important in your life.....Jesus Christ. I do not read the King James version of the Bible. I do not care for the old english. 

I do have some atheist friends, those who are respectful of my religion, as I am of theirs. But if someone pours scorn over Jesus, I see them off after giving them fair chance. 

Just because I am Christian, I refuse to be insulted or bear insults to Christ. 

[Guest]

Hi Starise,.  I like history and King James was an unusual eccentric character, highly intelligent with many interests, some very unsavoury. Yet he had great confidence that he had the divine right of kings. His confidence and drive brought about the new version of the Bible. He was a theologian, he used the finest team of scholars. He was keen to build on knowledge, not to make drastic changes. The resulting KJVBible proved excellent. 

 

 

 

[AandW_Rootbeer]

12 hours ago, Melinda12 said:

The thing that provokes me a lot is when ignorant non-believers dismiss the Bible as 'fairy stories'. I actually had a close friend years ago who said that. She was a very intelligent woman, a devoted friend but an atheist. The friendship did not last. One reason being the disrespect towards my faith that she felt so free to express. 

I am listening at present to an excellent programme on BBC Sounds, all about to the way the King James Bible was written. The very best scholars of the time worked for 7 years on the translation. It is a treasure of outstanding literary value and a delight to countless Christians.

Commissioned by a King who was also an excellent learned theologian. He cared about the Word of God being presented to all. Part of his campaign to unite Christians. 

Is it your favourite Bible? It is mine. For sheer beauty of language as well as quality of translation. 

Only a fool would dismiss our book of the Word of God. We should stand up for it strong and proud. 

 

And as equally as much as I value the King James Bible, I also Value the actual Hebrew Torah/Tanakh for the KJV Old Testament comparisons and the Codex Sinaiticus (1 of 2 first Greek Written New Testaments) for the KJV New Testament comparisons.

 

Together, it's more of the <Whole WORD> of God itself literally.

[David1701]

1 hour ago, Melinda12 said:

I do have some atheist friends, those who are respectful of my religion, as I am of theirs. But if someone pours scorn over Jesus, I see them off after giving them fair chance. 

Just because I am Christian, I refuse to be insulted or bear insults to Christ. 

Wait a minute!  You are "respectful" of their atheism?!  How about this:

Ps. 14:1 (WEB)

The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt.
They have done abominable works.
There is no one who does good.

[David1701]

6 hours ago, johnthebaptist said:

I still use the Revised Standard Version, the version they gave me in church as a boy, most of the time.

 

I would recommend that you use a believing translation.  The RSV undermines the Messianic prophecies and makes many "conjectural emendations", (i.e. guesses) when they don't like the Hebrew or Septuagint readings.  It also undermines the deity of Christ and other important matters, in the NT.  It's a Liberal (i.e. unbelieving) translation.

The KJV is certainly not the only sound translation, nor the easiest to read, for a modern reader, but it is orders of magnitude better than the RSV.

[Kelly2363]

Removed dormant text"

7 hours ago, Faith-Not-Fear said:

Rev 22:18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: 

 19  And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book. 

 

I thought this was an interesting comment you made here Sister. Prophecy has an important role to play in directly understanding how language is used. Many folks think I am mad when I emphasise this point and some of course think I am speaking charismatically.. But generally speaking it is quite difficult to express prophetic meaning well  unless it is spoken. And that in my view is where the KJV wins hands down. Taking your use of Revelations 22:18-19 then we could assert that these words are a very strong warning that has implications for having ones name removed from the book of life.

The difficulty with the KJV is that it is archaic and much of its language is redundant in modern society - especially in the written form. So it seems to me at least that we need to sense that it is only when we are speaking the word of God that its living meaning is presented in present tense - and that removes the risk of pressing any grammatical change that the written Word in so many translations have made. The KJV in my view removes that when it is spoken or read in the churches and only then can a grammatical exegesis be had from the Hebrew or the Greek to show that the KJV is in fact one of the most accurate translations available to us.

 

This (below) is something I wrote about nine years ago to try and make this point.

If we are to avoid the pitfall of archaic English translational usage and historical use of English, then we have to look at the greek more fully, in grammatical as well as semantic context and not necessarily in lexical form.

The verse in question which is being looked over is Revelation 19:7. Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.

In 17th century English, the archaic verb is, has the same meaning as the word has in modern usage. The perceived difference may be simply one of realising that the KJV uses phrasal verbs in order to facilitate the reading of the Scriptures. It was translated to be read in the churches and so phrasal (spoken) conjugations are not uncommon. When I read this verse it carries the exact same meaning regardless of the type of conjugation used. Modern translations have changed the verb form is to has but the grammatical exponent and meaning in both English words is (third person singular present indicative). There is no grammatical form for the verb conjugation is come in modern english speech, it is essentially an archaic form.

In Revelation 19:7 the english verb-form is come or has come is conjugated to make sense in the context of the public reading of the English text, and although the word ἔρχομαι is the Enhanced Strong's, lexical form used to carry the lemma, the actual finite verb used in the Greek text is ἦλθεν (ēlthen). The relevance of showing this is simply to demonstrate that the English verb is and has are absent in the greek text but essential for the English idiomatic expression of an event in present continuous tense or future prophetic speech.

χαίρωμεν καὶ ἀγαλλιῶμεν, καὶ δῶμεν τὴν δόξαν αὐτῷ, ὅτι (ἦλθεν) ὁ γάμος τοῦ ἀρνίου καὶ ἡ γυνὴ αὐτοῦ ἡτοίμασεν ἑαυτήν, Revelation 19:7

What this means is that the philological determination ordinarily implicit in language is in fact absent and the whole meaning of the passage from Revelations 19:7-10 is confined to prophetic speech denoting that no fixed time can be determined as to the principle event (the marriage feast) taking place. Hence we read v7 in its full context:

Let us rejoice and be exceeding glad, and let us give the glory unto him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And it was given unto her that she should array herself in fine linen, bright and pure: for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they that are bidden to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are true words of God. And I fell down before his feet to worship him. And he saith unto me, See thou do it not: I am a fellow-servant with thee and with thy brethren that hold the testimony of Jesus: worship God; for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Revelation 19:7-10

What is clear is that whilst the prophecy concerning the marriage feast of the Lamb is true, its meaning is hidden in at least three ways.

Firstly there is no grammatical mood, tense or particle which can determine it.

Secondly it is morphologically and phonologically at variance with itself and so there are several time thresholds implicit in the whole passage and not a single time frame.

Thirdly the words must be spoken (heard) to have their full effect because the words are the true words of God. This very thing attends to the prophetic substance of the Scriptures and means nothing less than Christ Himself.

It is impossible to assert a grammatical certainty and it is equally impossible to claim a narrow chronology of events as well. The tense is aorist indicative active third person singular. There is no room in that for a past tense interpretation. Neither does the aorist conditional tense in this instance define precisely that a future fixed period of time is inferred. Ordinarily the aorist third person singular would denote a continuous presence. Yet it must be clear from Scripture more generally that there is a moment in time when the marriage of the Lamb takes place. The only way to address this seeming difficulty is to project the meaning ahead and to recognise that once the door is closed to the feast (not the marriage) the conjugated verb is come or has come does agree with the indicative mood.

Then he said to me, Write, Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.  And he said to me, These are true words of God. Revelation 19:19

Edited August 18, 2021 by Kelly2363

[johnthebaptist]

2 hours ago, David1701 said:

I would recommend that you use a believing translation.  The RSV undermines the Messianic prophecies and makes many "conjectural emendations", (i.e. guesses) when they don't like the Hebrew or Septuagint readings.  It also undermines the deity of Christ and other important matters, in the NT.  It's a Liberal (i.e. unbelieving) translation.

The KJV is certainly not the only sound translation, nor the easiest to read, for a modern reader, but it is orders of magnitude better than the RSV.

Who have you been listening to?