# Horrified at the "rules" imposed on KJV



## Eoghan (Apr 3, 2009)

I was horrified to find out that "rules" were imposed on the translators of the KJV No. 3 being they were to translate ekklesia as church, something the puritans were criticised for doing in their "scrupulosity" (didn't even know it was a word  )

What other rules were imposed?

Apparently the correct translation is "assembly" using the LXX (septuagint?) to match ekklesia to the Hebrew OT equivalent. In this the Puritans were consistent. Acts 19 sees the rioting mob of pagans called an ekklesi - that sound like any church you have attended - no don't answer that   Better by far to use the term "Assembly" there is no church in the new testament the puritans did not use the word, nor did William Tyndale. Our Monarch made sure that it was there though! - in opposition to good principles of translation as attested by the puritans and Tyndale!


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## ADKing (Apr 3, 2009)

Eoghan said:


> I was horrified to find out that "rules" were imposed on the translators of the KJV No. 3 being they were to translate ekklesia as church, something the puritans were criticised for doing in their "scrupulosity" (didn't even know it was a word  )
> 
> What other rules were imposed?
> 
> Apparently the correct translation is "assembly" using the LXX (septuagint?) to match ekklesia to the Hebrew OT equivalent. In this the Puritans were consistent. Acts 19 sees the rioting mob of pagans called an ekklesi - that sound like any church you have attended - no don't answer that   Better by far to use the term "Assembly" there is no church in the new testament the puritans did not use the word, nor did William Tyndale. Our Monarch made sure that it was there though! - in opposition to good principles of translation as attested by the puritans and Tyndale!



The term "ekklesia" historically had "assembly" (literally--called out) as its etymology. However, that does not keep NT writers from appropriating it and giving it a distinctly Christian meaning. BAGD, though listing terms like "assembly" also says this: "the local as well as the universal church. This is essentially Pauline usage and it serves to give the current Gk. term its Christian coloring and thereby its special meaning". 

As to the claim that Puritans did not translate "ekklesia" as church, I am mystified as to why you would think this. Check out the Geneva Bible, for instance at 1 Corinthians 1.2 or 1 Timothy 3.15. 

The term "ekklesia" in Acts 19 is translated as "assembly" (at least in all my AV editions) in conformity with the plain intent of the context. 

Am I missing something?


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## Michael (Apr 3, 2009)

Eoghan said:


> I was horrified to find out...



Where are we getting this information? Can't seem to find much on the web about it.


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## ADKing (Apr 3, 2009)

Ezekiel16 said:


> Eoghan said:
> 
> 
> > I was horrified to find out...
> ...



Here are the directions they were given. Our brother is refering to the third.

1. The ordinary Bible read in the Church, commonly called the Bishops Bible, to be followed, and as little altered as the Truth of the original will permit.

2. The names of the Prophets, and the Holy Writers, with the other Names of the Text, to be retained, as nigh as may be, accordingly as they were vulgarly used. 

*3. The Old Ecclesiastical Words to be kept, viz. the Word Church not to be translated Congregation &c. *

4. When a Word hath divers Significations, that to be kept which hath been most commonly used by the most of the Ancient Fathers, being agreeable to the Propriety of the Place, and the Analogy of the Faith. 

5. The Division of the Chapters to be altered, either not at all, or as little as may be, if Necessity so require. 

6. No Marginal Notes at all to be affixed, but only for the explanation of the Hebrew or Greek Words, which cannot without some circumlocution, so briefly and fitly be expressed in the Text. 

7. Such Quotations of Places to be marginally set down as shall serve for the fit Reference of one Scripture to another. 

8. Every particular Man of each Company, to take the same Chapter or Chapters, and having translated or amended them severally by himself, where he thinketh good, all to meet together, confer what they have done, and agree for their Parts what shall stand. 

9. As any one Company hath dispatched any one Book in this Manner they shall send it to the rest, to be considered of seriously and judiciously, for His Majesty is very careful in this Point. 

10. If any Company, upon the Review of the Book so sent, doubt or differ upon any Place, to send them Word thereof; note the Place, and withal send the Reasons, to which if they consent not, the Difference to be compounded at the general Meeting, which is to be of the chief Persons of each Company, at the end of the Work. 

11. When any Place of special Obscurity is doubted of, Letters to be directed by Authority, to send to any Learned Man in the Land, for his judgment of such a Place. 

12. Letters to be sent from every Bishop to the rest of his Clergy, admonishing them of this Translation in hand; and to move and charge as many skilful in the Tongues; and having taken pains in that kind, to send his particular Observations to the Company, either at Westminster, Cambridge, or Oxford. 

13. The Directors in each Company, to be the Deans of Westminster, and Chester for that Place; and the King's Professors in the Hebrew or Greek in either University. 

14. These translations to be used when they agree better with the Text than the Bishops Bible: Tyndale's, Matthew's, Coverdale's, Whitchurch's, Geneva. 

15. Besides the said Directors before mentioned, three or four of the most Ancient and Grave Divines, in either of the Universities, not employed in Translating, to be assigned by the vice-Chancellor, upon Conference with the rest of the Heads, to be Overseers of the Translations as well Hebrew as Greek, for the better observation of the 4th Rule above specified.


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## Reformed Baptist (Apr 3, 2009)

I am also curious about a source.


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## ADKing (Apr 3, 2009)

Reformed Baptist said:


> I am also curious about a source.



I do not have the primary document reference handy at the moment. But I believe the list was reproduced in Adam Nicolson's book God's Secretaries among other places.


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## DonP (Apr 3, 2009)

What is unusual? A word can have a secular use meaning and a religious use meaning. For example Cup. And we can use the word church to distinguish when we are speaking of just a general assembly and when we are speaking of a congregation or the invisible church. 

This distinction is common and acceptable and helpful. Many translators have intentionally chosen to use a variety of words to translate a Greek or Heb word so that favor is not given to one and so the careful student will realize it could have any of those meanings. 

Charity as opposed to Love. 

And so many more. Scroll through a Strongs and you will see most any Gk word has numerous possible English words that could legitimately be used.


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## Eoghan (Apr 3, 2009)

ADKing said:


> As to the claim that Puritans did not translate "ekklesia" as church, I am mystified as to why you would think this. Check out the Geneva Bible, for instance at 1 Corinthians 1.2 or 1 Timothy 3.15.
> 
> Am I missing something?



Yes you are - the extended introduction to the KJV criticises the puritans for _not_ using Church. There was a reason for IMPOSING the third rule!

-----Added 4/3/2009 at 12:26:28 EST-----

I think the imposition by King James serves to reinforce replacement theology.


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## ExGentibus (Apr 3, 2009)

Eoghan said:


> I think the imposition by King James serves to reinforce replacement theology.


By "replacement" you do not mean _Covenant_ theology, do you?


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## ADKing (Apr 3, 2009)

Eoghan said:


> ADKing said:
> 
> 
> > As to the claim that Puritans did not translate "ekklesia" as church, I am mystified as to why you would think this. Check out the Geneva Bible, for instance at 1 Corinthians 1.2 or 1 Timothy 3.15.
> ...



Here is the extended quote from the preface: 

_Now if this happen in better times, and upon so small occasions, we might justly fear hard censure, if generally we should make verbal and unnecessary changings. We might also be charged (by scoffers) with some unequal dealing towards a great number of good English words. For as it is written of a certain great philosopher, that he should say, that those logs were happy that were made images to be worshipped; for their fellows, as good as they, lay for blocks behind the fire: so if we should say, as it were, unto certain words, Stand up higher, have a place in the Bible always, and to others of like quality, Get ye hence, be banished for ever, we might be taxed peradventure with S. James's words, namely, To be partial in ourselves, and judges of evil thoughts. Add hereunto, that niceness124 in words was always counted the next step to trifling,125 and so was to be curious about names126 too: also that we cannot follow a better pattern for elocution than God himself; therefore He using divers words in His holy writ, and indifferently for one thing in nature, we, if we will not be superstitious, may use the same liberty in our English versions out of Hebrew and Greek, for that copy or store that he hath given us. *Lastly, we have on the one side avoided the scrupulosity of the Puritans, who leave the old Ecclesiastical words, and betake them to other, as when they put washing for Baptism, and Congregation instead of Church: *as also on the other side we have shunned the obscurity of the Papists, in their Azimes, Tunike, Rational, Holocausts, Propuce, Pasche, and a number of such like, whereof their late translation is full, and that of purpose to darken the sense, that since they must needs translate the Bible, yet by the language thereof it may be kept from being understood. But we desire that the Scripture may speak like itself, as in the language of Canaan, that it may be understood even of the very vulgar. 
_

I see what has you troubled. However, I would agrue that this is a mischaracterization of Puritanism as can be demonstrated from any number of Puritan works (especially of the Presbyterian Puritans) and a Puritan translation (the Geneva Bible). My guess is this is directed more at separatists, or some of the more extreme sects labelled "puritans" by their opponents who did not (care to) carefully distinguish. This certainly was not the uniform practice of many of the Puritans. 

You are correct that the 3rd rule was there for a reason--against the more extreme "Puritans". 

How this serves to reinforce "replacement theology" or not seems to be a different question altogether since it is a demonstrable fact that this sort of translation was not limited to King James but was common parlance among many of the Puritan authors (even if not all without exception).


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## Davidius (Apr 3, 2009)

_ekklesia_ means the group of called out/together people (from ek + kaleo). In the classical period it was the name for the state assembly in Athens. Although it has a semantic range that extends beyond its Christian appropriation, there is no historical or lexical reason to assume that it means something informal or disorganized.


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