Rich Koster
Puritan Board Post-Graduate
It's hard to believe how many versions are out now. The ESV has already been updated once. I wonder what translation will be popular in about twenty years?
I hope we are TRANSLATED in the next 20 years.
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It's hard to believe how many versions are out now. The ESV has already been updated once. I wonder what translation will be popular in about twenty years?
Thanks...I have Zeolla's book, but wasn't there someone out of Southeastern Seminary who was apart of a MT translation? I wish I could remember his name...
Robinson
Robinson is currently Senior Professor of New Testament and Greek at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Wake Forest, North Carolina.
The New Testament in the Original Greek
by Maurice A. Robinson (Author), William G. Pierpont (Author)
Robinson and Pierpont have applied many of the same methods of textual criticism to their task, but without the anti-Byzantine bias. Their method of "reasoned transmissionalism" is based on the wider scope of manuscript transmission throughout history. The preface of this edition explains the basic method by which the present editors have arrived at their basic text. The appendix contains Robinson's essay, "The Case for Byzantine Priority," which presents a rationale for and defense of the theory and methodology that has been applied in the preparation of this edition.
Robinson is no KJV only guy. The AV only folks chide him for having just as provisional and indefinite of a text as they claim the CT to be.
There are only two translations: the TR (Received Text) or the Critical Text.
The former is from the Church and the latter is from outside the Church.
With all due respect...this is (and I wish I could find a friendlier word) naive.
The TR comes to us from Erasmus...AKA the Roman Catholic Church in the same century as its final apostasy (Council of Trent).
The KJV is 80% the Tyndal translation which was not a 'work of the church'. It was a work of that brilliant reformer William Tyndale working outside the auspices of the church (indeed he was hunted down as a criminal by the agents of the church for daring to translate the Bible into English).
It was the same institutional 'church' that was behind the KJV as was behind the RV.
The argument of the TR and its translations being works of the church versus modern versions and their non-church or secular origin rests on a tenuous foundation at best.
Regarding copyrights on translations, I despise them though they are a reality. The KJV was copywritten by the crown (and still is in Great Britian if my memory serves me). In the 17th Century, one of the tricks printers used to get around paying royalties to the crown was to publish the KJV as a 'commentary' by printing the Bible with study notes at the bottom of the page (commentaries were excepted from the copyright even if they contained the entirety of the Scripture). Those who purchased these would often have the bottom portion containing the notes cut off when they went to have their bibles bound (back then you bought the pages and took them to a binder to complete it).
I know this was not said seriously, but wasn't the Vulgate the Bible of the Western Church for a thousand years. Don't we, therefore, have an obligation to take seriously the textual tradition St. Jerome used in making his translation?All hail the Vulgate!
Gil, Robert's arguments are weighty. In addition, almost every single manuscript that makes up either the TR or the CT had its origin in the church. Monks copied most of these manuscripts. Besides, you don't think that the scores of churches that have ordered and have an official translation in their church have spoken on this issue? Tenth Presbyterian Church, for instance, officially switched to the ESV, and even issued statements about it, officially endorsed by their session. Now, unless all church endorsements have to be from the entire denomination, then Tenth's position is clear and authoritative, as a church is authoritative. Besides, most if not all denominations in NAPARC have not made the KJV their official translation, either. So they haven't officially endorsed the KJV. I know that yours hasn't. Neither has the PCA or OPC.
MacArthur's elders have a doctrinal statement
The following is a study our elders at Grace Community Church put together regarding the King James Version.
Pulpit Magazine Blog Archive A Short KJV Detour (Part 1)
Pulpit Magazine Blog Archive A Short KJV Detour (Part 2)
Pulpit Magazine Blog Archive A Short KJV Detour (Part 3)
Pulpit Magazine Blog Archive A Short KJV Detour (Part 4)
In it, they list five options for understanding:
1. ”King James only”
2. “Majority Text only”
3. “Thorough going eclectic”
4. “Westcott Hort”
5. “Balanced eclectic”
They reject the "thorough going eclectic" as the provenance of liberal scholars. Option 4 they associate with many modern conservatives. After examining the arguments for #1 and #2, they come down on the side of the "Balanced eclectic" and reject the claims of KJV-only advocates as untrue.
The fifth approach to the problem of textual variation is the position actually espoused by many conservative theologians. This “balanced eclectic” approach holds that each text type is to be evaluated independently without premeditated bias as to which manuscript family is most authoritative. It also posits that internal and external evidences are to be considered equally. This school basically suggests that each textual variant be investigated thoroughly and considered on its own merits.
In the four articles, the elders of Grace Community Church examine nine of the arguments used by KJV only and Majority Text only advocates and offering their own responses.
Advocates of the “King James only” and the “Majority Text only” positions on the issue of textual variation have argued forcibly for their stance and have also sought to refute the Westcott Hort theory. The following summaries accurately portray frequently used arguments championing the King James Authorized Version of the Bible. Responses to each argument are presented from the “balanced eclectic” approach, held by the elders of Grace Community Church.
I don't know, Gill, but I would think that Grace Community is a real church and has taken a genuine pro-CT position, even supplying supporting arguments.
As I have suggested in other threads, the arguments for the majority text have dislodged my assumptions regarding the intrinsic superiority of the Alexandrian mss. However, it is a long way from admitting that the Alexandrian mss. have problems to suggesting that only the TR is the Word of God.
In the English language the Lord has seen fit to use the KJV, ASV, NIV, LB, NLT, CEV, NAS, RSV, ESV, HCSB, NKJV, etc. to bring people to himself.
We got the following groups;
Adjunct Members
ESV Translation Review Scholars
Advisory Council
Who were the actual translators?
Better Yet, Who work in each book from the RSV to ESV?
Since, the ESV comes from the Revised Standard Version (RSV)?
The ESV publishing team includes more than 100 people. The twelve-member Translation Oversight Committee has benefited from the work of more than fifty biblical experts serving as Translation Review Scholars and from the comments of more than fifty members of the Advisory Council, all of which has been carried out under the auspices of the Good News / Crossway Board of Directors.
The Desirability of Keeping the Authorized Version
(Written in 1857 when the Revised Version was contemplated)
We take this opportunity to express our opinion upon a question much agitated of late--whether it would be desirable to have a new (or at least a revised) translation of the Scriptures. We fully admit that there are here and there passages of which the translation might be improved, as, for instance, "love" for "charity" all through 1 Corinthians 13; but we deprecate any alteration as a measure that, for the smallest sprinkling of good, would deluge us with a flood of evil. The following are our reasons:
1.) Who are to undertake it? Into whose hands would the revision fall? What an opportunity for the enemies of truth to give us a mutilated false Bible! Of course, they must be learned men, great critics, scholars, and divines, but these are notoriously either Puseyites or Neologians (We should say: Anglo-Catholics and Modernists.)--in other words, deeply tainted with either popery or infidelity. Where are there learned men sound in the truth, not to say alive unto God, who possess the necessary qualifications for so important a work? And can erroneous men, men dead in trespasses and sins, carnal, worldly, ungodly persons, spiritually translate a book written by the blessed Spirit? We have not the slightest ground for hope that they would be godly men, such as we have reason to believe translated the Scriptures into our present version.
2.) Again, it would unsettle the minds of thousands as to which was the Word of God, the old translation or the new. What a door it would open for the workings of infidelity, or the temptations of Satan! What a gloom, too, it would cast over the minds of many of God's saints to have those passages which had been applied to their souls translated in a different way, and how it would seem to shake all their experience of the power and preciousness of God's Word!
3.) But besides this, there would be two Bibles spread through the land, the old and the new, and what confusion would this create in almost every place! At present, all sects and denominations agree in acknowledging our present version as the standard of appeal. Nothing settles disputes so soon as when the contending parties have confidence in the same umpire and are willing to abide by his decision. But this judge of all disputes, this umpire of all controversy, would cease to be the looser of strife if the present acknowledged authority were put an end to by a rival.
4.) Again, if the revision and re-translation were once to begin, where would it end? It is good to let well alone, as it is easier to mar than mend. The Socinianising (Denying the Godhead of Christ) Neologian would blot out "God" in 1 Timothy 3:16, and strike out 1 John 5:7,8, as an interpolation. The Puseyite would mend it to suit Tractarian views (Led by Newman and Keble, the Tractarians were moving towards Romanism). He would read "priest" where we now read "elder," and put "penance" in the place of "repentance." Once set up a notice, "THE OLD BIBLE TO BE MENDED," and there would be plenty of workmen, who, trying to mend the cover, would pull the pages to pieces. The Arminian would soften down the words "election" and "predestination" into some term less displeasing to Pharisaic ears. "Righteousness" would be turned into "justice," and "reprobate" into "undiscerning." All our good Bible terms would be so mutilated that they would cease to convey the Spirit's meaning, and instead of the noble simplicity, faithfulness and truth of our present version, we should have a Bible that nobody would accept as the Word of God, to which none could safely appeal, and on which none could implicitly rely.
5.) Instead of our good old Saxon Bible, simple and solid, with few words really obsolete, and alike majestic and beautiful, we should have a modern English translation in the pert and flippant language of the day. Besides its authority as the Word of God, our present version is the great English classic generally accepted as the standard of the English language. The great classics of a language cannot be modernised. What an outcry there would be against modernising Shakespeare, or making Hooker, Bacon or Milton talk the English of the newspapers or of the House of Commons!
6.) The present English Bible has been blessed to thousands of the saints of God; and not only so, it has become part of our national inheritance which we have received unimpaired from our fathers, and are bound to hand down unimpaired to our children.
(Taken from pages 103-105, Sin & Salvation, Selections from J. C. Philpot)
It is impossible to cut between a man’s general attitude toward the word of God and his critical theories. We can not fail to see that a rationalist who rejects miracle, prophecy and inspiration, would bring a purely naturalistic theory to an examination of the Scriptures. The historic fact is that the conspicuous leaders among the critics have been rationalists, and a delicate sensitiveness to the truth cannot be divested of the feeling that their theories are the product, not so much of an honest seeking for the truth, as of a desire to destroy the evangelical faith by the constraint involved in the claim of scientific scholarship……It is nothing less than absurd to expect a man who denies the possibility of the miracles recorded in the Old Testament, and who denies the possibility of an inspiration by which men were led to predict future events, to enter upon a study of the Old Testament history and literature without being destructive of the very foundation of faith in the Bible as the word of God. But just such men are the leaders of this critical development. It need not be argued here that evangelical Christians cannot expect light from such sources, nor need it be argued that we must guard the more earnestly against the subtle encroachments which the enemies of what we believe to be the saving truth of God would fain make upon our faith .
Salomon Caesar Malan also spoke out in 1869,Nothing is gained on the one hand by vague and general charges of inaccuracy brought against our Version; they require to be supported by detailed proofs. Nothing, on the other hand, is gained by charges and insinuations against those who urge a revision, as though they desired to undermine the foundations of the religious life and faith of England; were Socinians in disguise, or Papists— Socinians who hoped that, in another translation, the witness to the divinity of the Son and of the Spirit might prove less clear than in the present— Papists who desired that the authority of the English Scripture, the only Scripture accessible to the great body of the people, might be so shaken and rendered so doubtful, that men would be driven to their Church, and to its authority, as the only authority that remained.
To hear some people talk, one really would think wisdom and knowledge had come with them into the world; until, whether from conceit on their part or from their “scientific” discoveries, we shall soon have nothing left either of the old world or of our old faith…. It is, no doubt, easy to talk of revising the Authorised Version. But, besides that in this case, as in most others, it is best to let well alone, the simple truth is that there are not now in England enough men able either to revise the English Bible without making mere patchwork of it, or to translate afresh and equally well from the originals. Revisers or translators, first, need be masters of Hebrew. But where are now-a- days in England the Hebrew scholars of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries? Their works then written in Latin enlightened Europe, took the lead in European scholarship, and still are the treasure-house of knowledge to which all must come.
For when we see men of the most latitudinarian principles uniformly pressing forward this dangerous proposal; when we see the most unbounded panegyrics bestowed on those, who have converted the Mosaic history into allegory, and the New Testament into Socinianism; when we see these attempts studiously fostered, and applauded, by the advocates for this projected [Bible] revision; we must conjecture, that something more is meant than a correction of mistakes, or an improvement of diction. Those doctrines, the demolition of which we know to be, in late instances, the grand object of such innovators when they propose alterations in articles of faith, or correction of liturgical forms, are surely in still greater danger when attempted, by the same men, under the distant approaches of a revision of our English Bible.
Had this gentleman (meaning Mr. Bellamy) consulted any historical authority, or in the slightest degree investigated the characters of our translators, he would have found that many of them were celebrated Hebrew scholars, and could not have failed to perceive that the sacred language was at that time cultivated to a far greater extent in England than it has ever been since….. The turn which religious controversy took at the birth of the Reformation compelled all learned men to take their authorities from the inspired text, and not from a Romish version.—In the year 1540, King Henry the Eighth appointed regular Hebrew Professors, and the consequences of this measure were instantaneous. In Queen Elizabeth's reign no person who pretended to eminence as a learned man was ignorant of this language, and so very common did it become, that the ladies of noble families frequently made it one of their accomplishments.
Under Queen Elizabeth and King James, who were not only the patrons of learning by their institutions, but examples of it in their own persons, Hebrew literature prospered to a very great extent, and under the last of these monarchs attained its greatest splendour. The Universities, and all public bodies for the promotion of learning, flourished in an extraordinary degree, and at this happy juncture our translation was made. Every circumstance had been conspiring during the whole of the preceding century to extend the study of Hebrew. The attempts of the Papists to check the circulation of the translations, the zeal of the Protestants to expose the Vulgate errors, the novelty of theological speculations to society at large, and even the disputes of the Reformed Churches, gave an animated vigour to the study of the original Scriptures which has never since been witnessed.
Let me make one further comment about this whole matter of different manuscript readings…. The textual problems we have examined affect the interpretation of many of the familiar and historically significant passages of the New Testament: the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke, the prologue of the Fourth Gospel, the baptismal accounts of the Synoptics, the passion narratives, and other familiar passages in Acts, Paul, Hebrews, and the Catholic epistles. In some instances, the interpretations of these passages were understood by scribes who “read” their interpretations not only out of the text but actually into it, as they modified the words in accordance with what they were taken to mean…. Naturally, the same data relate to the basic doctrinal concerns of early Christians—theologians and, presumably, laypersons alike: Was Jesus the Messiah, predicted in the Old Testament? Was Joseph his father? Was Jesus born as a human? Was he tempted? Was he able to sin? Was he adopted to be the Son of God at his baptism? At his resurrection? Or was he himself God? Was Jesus one person or two persons? Did he have a physical body after his resurrection? And many others. The ways scribes answered these questions affected the way they transcribed their texts. And the way they transcribed their texts has affected, to some degree, the way modern exegetes and theologians have answered these questions .
Since the publication of the revised New Testament, it has been frequently said that the changes of translation which the work contains are of little importance from a doctrinal point of view; — in other words, that the great doctrines of popular theology remain unaffected, untouched by the results of the revision. How far this assertion is correct, the careful reader of the foregoing pages will be able to judge for himself. To the writer any such statement appears to be in the most substantial sense contrary to the facts of the case, for the following reasons:
(1) The only passage in the New Testament which seemed like a statement of the doctrine of the Trinity, has been removed by the revisers as spurious.
(2) The sole Deity of the Father has been re-affirmed in a remarkable case in which the authorised version had singularly misrepresented the original words. 'The only God ' of John v. 44, affords evidence equally strong and clear with that of John xvii. 3, that the writer of this Gospel could not have intended to represent Jesus, the Christ, or Messiah, or even the Logos in him, as God in the same high sense of Infinite and Eternal Being in which He is so.
(3) The character of the baptismal formula is greatly altered by the simple substitution of the word 'into' for 'in' shewing us that there could never have been, as people have commonly supposed, any ecclesiastical magic in the phrase 'In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,' seeing that this phrase is not to be found in the New Testament at all, and that the words simply express a change of mind, on the part of the convert, from disbelief or denial to the profession of the allegiance which constituted discipleship.
(4) One remarkable instance in which the epithet ' God ' was given to Christ (1 Tim. iii. 16) has been excluded from the text, and others of similar kind are admitted by the Revision to be uncertain.
(5) The only instance in the New Testament in which the religious worship or adoration of Christ was apparently implied, has been altered by the Revision: `At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow,' [Philippians 2:10] is now to be read `in the name.' Moreover, no alteration of text or of translation will be found anywhere to make up for this loss; as indeed it is well understood that the New Testament contains neither precept nor example which really sanctions the religious worship of Jesus Christ
(6) The word “Atonement” disappears from the New Testament, and so do the connected phrases, ‘faith in his blood,’ and ‘for Christ's sake.’ These so commonly used expressions are shewn to be misrepresentations of the force of the original words, such alterations evidently throwing the most serious doubt upon the important popular doctrine of which they have hitherto been amain or indispensable support.
I do think that there are many textual variants that need to be wrestled with so that we can know how to live and how to act. Should we fast as well as pray when performing exorcisms? Should women be silent in the churches or not? Is eternal security something that Christians have or not? Are we still under the OT law? How should church discipline be conducted—viz., should I address someone who has not sinned against me or am I allowed to confront only those who have sinned directly against me? These are issues that are directly affected by the textual variants and they require some serious thinking and wrestling with the data. So, I would say that to the extent that these variants do not represent the original text, to the same extent they are not what God intended.