Ephesians 1:4-5

[InSlaveryToChrist]

King James Version
4. According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
5. Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

Revised King James Version
4. Just as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him. In love
5. He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to his good pleasure and will,

My concern here is the words "in love". As you can see, in the RKJV those words are moved from verse 4 to 5. Now I do find it making more sense that way though, but I cannot just go with such reasoning AND I HOPE that the RKJV hasn't been so ignorant in their translation work either.

Please, tell me, if you have any knowledge/information on the reasons behind the decisions the RKJV has made concerning this particular! You may also tell which one of these translations you embrace over the other and for what reason(s). THANK YOU, IN ADVANCE!

 

[Robert Truelove]

I understand that the Greek could be rendered either way.

I find it interesting how the Young's Literal Translations does this with it (notice the additional comma)...

"...according as He did choose us in him before the foundation of the world, for our being holy and unblemished before Him, in love,
having foreordained us..."

Without a grammatical argument to settle this issue, I prefer the "In love he predestination us" route because it comports with 2:4 in the same epistle.

 

[Jimmy the Greek]

There is no sentence punctuation in the original Greek and, as you know, the verse designations (verse breaks) came later and are not inspired. The NASB, NIV, and ESV associate "in love" with the aorist participle "having predestined" which immediately follows. They also make a hard sentence break and translate the participle as if it were in the indicative mood (He predestined) for readability -- the sense being the same. There is no difference between the TR and Critical Text at this point. It is a translation issue.

 

[Contra_Mundum]

The KJV also punctuates (at least it used to) the whole of vv3-11 as a single sentence, reflective of the Gk original. The original length, therefore, of Paul's long prayer (with its many sub-clauses) is broken up by verse-breaks, which are less than 500 years old.

However helpful it may be (to punctuate according to the presumed Gk structure), it is not the way modern people ordinarily read English. More recent translations break up that portion into more standard-length sentences. The phrase "In xxxx" thus begins many of these subordinate clauses, now sentences (In love... In him... In him... In him...).

 

[MW]

The AV allows the reader to take the text in a number of ways, as a reader of the original would have been able to do. If the translation enables a foreigner to read the text in the same way as an original reader, it is usually regarded as a successful translation. It is a basic problem of modern translation theory that it often narrows meaning before Englishing the text.