I received an e-mail from a reader that noticed I quoted from the King James Version and New King James Version and wanted to know if I believed this Bible was a good translation or the actual Word of God. I tried to respond but my e-mail came back as undeliverable because of a unknown address error. I decided to make this letter an open response. I figured if one person had this question, probably others did too. Also I did not want the reader to think I ignored them. This response is not meant to be an exhaustive study on which bible is best or worse. Just an explanatory note on why I quote from these versions.
In regards to your question let me start off by saying I believe the original manuscripts to be the infallible Word of God. These manuscripts were written in Hebrew and Greek. Since our bibles are in English, obviously they are a translation from the manuscripts which God originally inspired. Like any translation something is always lost in the translation from one language to another. There is not always an exact word in one language that conveys the same meaning in another language. There are good translations and bad translations. I like the *KJV and NKJV because these translations were translated from the **Majority Text sometimes called the Received Text. I believe these translations are among the better English translations. By better I mean faithful to the original manuscript. By faithful I mean it does not misguide or misrepresent the doctrine of the scriptures. It keeps in tact the truths of the bible and way of salvation. Since it is a translation, it is sometimes necessary to explore deeper into the original languages to further discover, ***shed more light, or gain a better understanding what a particular scripture is trying to communicate. If we could read the scriptures in the original languages in which they were written we would get much more out of the Word of God. But most of us can not do this. Fortunately there are reference books that expose us to the richness of the original languages. A good bible dictionary is one of these tools.
I hope this answers your question.
Grace to You,
Gordon
* I know some people believe the KJV is an inerrant word for word translation. The difficulty I have with this is since the original KJV was published in 1611, the KJV has had several revised editions (If it is the inerrant word of God, why revise it?). Also before 1611 did the English speaking people of the world have no Bible or if they did was it a false bible?
** Many books have been written on why The Majority Text is an uncorrupted version of the original manuscripts. Sadly many of our modern day bibles have been translated from other so called original manuscripts which are riddled with corruption.
*** An example of where going back to the original language sheds more light on the subject. The Greek noun elpis in the New Testament has been translated as hope. (Rom 8:24-25). In modern day English many people associate the word hope with wishful thinking. I hope I win the lottery. They would like to win the lottery but are not really expecting to. This is not at all what the Greek word elpis means. As defined in Vine's it means confident expectation. It has to do with the unseen and the future. In these verses (Rom 8:24-25) the believer eagerly awaits with confident expectation for Christ to take us out of this world to be with Him and the redemption of the body. There is no doubt in the believer if this is going to happen, its just a matter of when. |
