John81's Question on MVs

[dwayner79]

You can always find someone, that is why I said "most". IIRC, the gender leaves very little question as to the antecedent of the preservation... the people. I would have to verify that though.

[dwayner79]

Question: I find your statement about the "MV's" being better based on the textual basis here to be a good one. However, you included the NKJV in your list of MV's, and the NKJV is based on the TR. How do you reconcile this?

What I said was I use it because "each one brings something that the others don't". I specifically included the NKJV for that reason. Its also the reason I use it (plus its a MacArthur study Bible with very good notes )... but thanks for asking for clarification.

[Jerry]

Well, Dwayner, it is easy enough for you to throw general statements out there to poison the waters, and then backtrack and state, "but I put this word in there, so it is not really a false statement..."

Here is another article on Bible preservation, which touches down on Psalm 12:

FUNDAMENTALISTS FOLLOWING TEXTUAL CRITICS IN DENYING/QUESTIONING BIBLICAL PRESERVATION

If you can find the full article by Thomas Strouse, I believe he also gives quotes from past writers. For those who care, Strouse also digs into the Hebrew and word tenses, etc. on this passage.

[John81]

Why would God give us His pure, true Word, and then not preserve it for future generations? And by "us", I'm not just meaning English speaking folks, I'm meaning all people. The Bible is being translated into virtually every language; portions are being translated into them all as far as I know. Why would God not enable men to be able to translate His Word properly so that all people could have access to His Word and not just some mistranslated version of His Word?

[dwayner79]

Here is Gill's:

[dwayner79]

Well' date=' Dwayner, it is easy enough for you to throw general statements out there to poison the waters, and then backtrack and state, "but I put this word in there, so it is not really a false statement..."[/quote']I'm sorry, where did I do this? I specifically reference the NKJV and KJV in study because of the textual issues. No backtracking, no general statements. Please keep this civil (as the side discussion in this thread has requested).

[dwayner79]

Why would God give us His pure' date=' true Word, and then not preserve it for future generations? And by "us", I'm not just meaning English speaking folks, I'm meaning all people. The Bible is being translated into virtually every language; portions are being translated into them all as far as I know. Why would God not enable men to be able to translate His Word properly so that all people could have access to His Word and not just some mistranslated version of His Word?[/quote']

I think I lost you. I believe that God has kept his Word in tact (i.e. preserved it). Yes, it is being translated. That is wonderful! From my POV, that has nothing to do with us having God's Word.

[dwayner79]

On a re-read, you may be referencing my use of "Most" in the Psalm 12 discussion. If thats the case, then my reply is the same. I said most on purpose. I know there are scholars who disagree, but those who think its in reference to Words are heavily outnumbered. More importantly, the hebrew makes it clear becasue of the gender issue. I think my statement stands. That said, I am not trying to "poison the waters" I am only trying to discuss my POV (by request). Lets not make accusations toward one another.

[John81]

You had stated you didn't believe we have Gods perfect Word anymore. That would indicate that what we have today, in all of the translations, is less than perfect and therefore no longer God's pure, true Word, but rather some degree of mistranslation of that.

[dwayner79]

Then you misunderstood my position... and unfortunately, my lunch is waiting... I will get back to you, but I believe that the perfect word of God is in tact. I also believe that no translation is perfect. That is why I said those two were not mutually exclusive.

[John81]

Then you misunderstood my position... and unfortunately, my lunch is waiting... I will get back to you, but I believe that the perfect word of God is in tact. I also believe that no translation is perfect. That is why I said those two were not mutually exclusive.

Thank you Dwayne.

[dwayner79]

Here is the condensed version, and you can ask for clarification if needed. This is only dealing with Textual side first:

I have two streams of data that I (all of us) must assimilate. The first is the message of scripture that God's message to us will not pass away. The second is that there were problems in keeping copyist errors, inclusions, etc. out of the manuscripts during the dark ages (specifically) and throughout history. There are a handful of ways to deal with this.

The first is to say God is not faithful. We all reject that. Many don't, and that is why you have so many in the atheist/agnostic camp that do not see scripture as authoritative.

The Second is to say that God supernaturally led the process of re-creating the text to its perfect state in one of the texts. Those who hold the TR to be that are KJVo. Then there are those (call this 2 with a twist) who take that a step farther to say He also supernaturally led the translation process to a perfect English Bible. That is Ruckmanism et al.

The third is to accept that the transmission of the text has seen scribal errors, and marry that to the preservation of scripture by changing the definition of what it means to have the perfect word of God. See, position 2 uses the truth that the perfect word of God must be a word for word copy of what the originals said, a priori. It starts with the premise that there must be a perfect text. Position 3, however, rejects that premise and says the message of God is what matters, and that differences in the text do not negate the ability of God to perfectly preserve His message.

Now lets take this to the tranlsation process.

As alluded to, the Ruckmanite crowd assumes that God supernaturally directed the translation so that the English bible of 1611 is perfect, even fixing what scribal errors were once there. But we are not Ruckmanites, and as such, there are comments like (i think) KevinMiller who said if there was an updated translation of the TR he would be fine with that. That is the majority opinion on these boards (from what I can tell). The very same logic is used in the MV side when it comes to translations. Only for MVs there are multiple translations. If a new TR based translation came out, do you think that everyone would through out their KJVs? I sure don't. I'd guess many would have both and look at them side by side.

So the perfect word of God is either a perfect text or its admitting there are imperfections in the text, but that the content of the message of God is perfectly there. I hold to the latter. The KJVo crowd holds to the former, and English is not even a discussion until the textual argument is worked out.

[DaveW]

I may have missed it but the intent of the translation style is also important.

The KJV translated the actual words, only re-arraging things as the sentence structure required it.

The MV translators most often use the "Dynamic equivalance" theory where the "thoughts of the passage" were translated into the english.

The problem with this is that your own beliefs colour your understanding of the passage.

So what we have in the MV translations is the translators own ideas about what the passages say.

And we still can't get past the fact that there are many places where the MV's replace references to Jesus with references to a less definite nature, and then of course there are those missing verses of Mark 16 amongst others.

Do we need to re-reference all these issues?

I do not understand how someone who has studied the issues of the texts, the compilers of the texts, the translators qualifications, the translation styles, and the finished product can fall to the side of the others being superior.

[dwayner79]

Dave,

ESV, NASB are just as formal translations as the KJV (Some would say more so). The NIV uses dynamic equivalence more then the others. I only say that to clarify that your statement about the importance of translation style is absolutely correct, but making all MV's in a separate class is incorrect.

I do not understand how someone who has studied the issues of the texts, the compilers of the texts, the translators qualifications, the translation styles, and the finished product can fall to the side of the others being superior.

In all humility, I feel the same way.

[Will]

I may have missed it but the intent of the translation style is also important.

The KJV translated the actual words, only re-arraging things as the sentence structure required it.

The MV translators most often use the "Dynamic equivalance" theory where the "thoughts of the passage" were translated into the english.

The problem with this is that your own beliefs colour your understanding of the passage.

So what we have in the MV translations is the translators own ideas about what the passages say.

And we still can't get past the fact that there are many places where the MV's replace references to Jesus with references to a less definite nature, and then of course there are those missing verses of Mark 16 amongst others.

Do we need to re-reference all these issues?

I do not understand how someone who has studied the issues of the texts, the compilers of the texts, the translators qualifications, the translation styles, and the finished product can fall to the side of the others being superior.

Just to point out, the ESV, NKJV, and NASB, among others, are all formal translations like the KJV.