UNDERLYING TEXTS (Continued)
We have spent much time in previous sessions commenting on The Revised Version. This is the version of Dr. Westcott and Dr. Hort. The charge given to the Revision Committee, and hence the name of �The Revised Version,� was that they would revise the Authorized Version (The King James Bible) only insomuch as there was obviously given cause to bring the language up to date and comment on newer discoveries of ancient textual readings.
This charge was soon superceded as the Revision Committee actually composed a new base text for their efforts. It was almost as though an entirely new Bible had replaced the venerable King James Bible.
In the many changes found in The Revised Version the Bible had been changed. No longer was the woman taken in adultery viewed as an historical incident from the life of Christ. It may have happened, we are told, or it may not have happened. The very real story of the resurrection of Jesus from the last half of the sixteen chapter of Mark was discredited. On and on went the changes noted in the margins of even our good King James Bibles.
In a real sense, the faith that the inspired Scripture had been preserved by the Hand of God was derided as fable. Instead of the Word of God, we were offered a close approximation of what the original �autographs� may have been.
How sad! How faith destroying! And, even more importantly, what a slander on the very Power and Goodness of God, Almighty. Well, I guess we shouldn�t say �God, Almighty.� After all, He was no longer, by the very translation process of The Revised Version, seen as mighty enough to preserve His Own message to humanity.
Fuller (True or False) critiques the work of this Revised Version.
�We have on the one hand, the Greek Text of 1611 which served as the basis for the A. V. - a Text that represents and agrees with a thousand manuscripts going back as far as the fifth century, and with Versions and quotations going back to the second. As to this there is no dispute at all; for Drs. Westcott and Hort admit the evidence of this Text, and even assume that it was discussed and approved by convocation of the Eastern churches as early as the third century. On the other hand, we have the Codices Vaticannus, Sinaiticus and Beza, supposedly dating, as to the first two, from the fourth century, and as to the last from the sixth, which manuscripts present thousands of divergences (omissions, additions, substitutions, transpositions, and modifications) from the Received Text.�
In other words, we are offered a Text which does not agree with the vast majority of the evidence. In a manner of speaking, the Hort / Westcott Text is a Text of faith. The faith in this instance is that the preserved evidence is flawed and it would take the expertise of �learned men� to approximate that which the Lord had allowed to become lost.
The idea of faith in God, and in His power to preserve His Own message to humanity, is overridden with a faith that man can reconstruct, fairly accurately, that which God has allowed to be lost. This remains the same core belief of the modern translations which are based on an eclectic text rather than on the Text of history and blessing.
One of the outcomes of this is that the Bible can not be called the Word of God. It is merely the �Story� of God. All that He is allowed to have preserved, in the minds and faith of these critics, is the general idea of His story. The Bible, such as this, is considered to only �contain� the Word of God.� It can not be rightly called the Word of God in this construct.
This can lead to sloppy translation work such as exhibited by the New International Version. Starting with the same sort of eclectic text as did Westcott and Hort, the translation committee of the NIV apparently felt no compulsion to give an accurate translation. Instead the opted for a �readable� translation. The NIV is a paraphrase.
What kind of Bible study can we expect from a �Bible� which is not necessarily true to even its own base text? We are given, under this concept of �dynamic equivalency� merely the opinion of what someone believes the text means to him. Might it not be better to give the Words of God and let the Spirit do the interpretation!
Cloud (Dynamic Equivalency - A Frightful Influence on Fundamental Translation) has given us a look at the working hypothesis of the method of dynamic equivalency. �...dynamic equivalency aims to adjust the wording of the translation to the culture of the receptor people rather than literally translate the cultural terminology of the original text.�
This is counter to the reason which God gave the Word to us in the first place.
We are creatures of physicality and time. God is Spirit and of eternity. We have no frame of reference to understand the things which God is transmitting to us. Therefore, He has used precise Words, under inspiration, to convey His message in an understandable form to humanity. When mankind seeks to alter that message to �make it more understandable,� he is doing harm to the purpose of God. Man needed the Words of God to understand the non understandable things of God. Man, who has no possibility of understanding the things of God except from the message of God, when man attempts to distill the words into something which he, or his reader, might understand, he has changed that message in ways that he can not even begin to understand.
It is better that we trust the preserved Words of God in faith. It is imperative that we trust those preserved Words of God in order to understand His Own Message to us in this day. We can, and should, study the meanings behind those Words and the culture of those events. But we can not change those Words and expect to retain the faithful Message which God has given.
In our next session we will begin to look at the concept of the majority of the manuscript evidence.
10 August 2007
UNDERLYING TEXTS (Continued)
When one looks at his copy of the English Bible version in his hands he will often find some very troubling notes either in the margins of those Bible�s, or in the footnotes, or often in brackets in the very text itself. I say �troubling� because these notes tend to cast doubt that the text in the hands of that Christian belongs among the actual Words of God.
This is, quite obviously, not a situation which is designed to give any semblance of faith that God is speaking through the text.
Why is this so?
Quite simply, the modern critical method has denied any possibility that the Creator God has preserved His Words for man. They will normally argue that the �general message� has been preserved, or that �the general consensus is that the reading is an pious �gloss,�� or that �the story, is probably an established church tradition.� Generally, they will allow that �the original autographs were inspired by God.�
Well, �whoop-a-dee-do-dah!� What is really being said is that we can not trust our Bibles to actually be the unalterable, infallible, Words which God was pleased to give to humanity. It is nice, for instance, to agree that those �original autographs� were inspired. But, folks, there ain�t no one ever seen these things in one place at one time. Besides this, these �original autographs� are long gone. We are engaging in intellectual �flim flam� when appealing to them because they cannot be examined in any manner.
Sometimes the argument will be made that the writers of those original autographs were inspired. Since these persons are long dead this is also an argument of absurdity. If the human writers were inspired then it was they which were imbued with the authority of God in an eternal manner. Remember, the concept of inspiration is that God has �breathed out� His Words from eternity into the world of time so that His Message might be given to humanity. The allege that the inspiration lay upon the human instrument is to argue that the Words were subservient to the penman. Once again, this is an argument that our Holy Scripture is NOT necessarily holy in our time frame and we are without a definitive Word from God.
The base from which our English translations are derived is not simply a matter of intellectual curiosity, it is that upon which we must place our faith in all things we understand and believe about God. Therefore, it is of incalculable importance that we have a textual base which we can trust to be that inspired and preserved Word of God.
NO! �Word of God� is the wrong phrase. The �pious skeptic� of today will argue that his eclectic text is the �word� of God because it contains the general story which God wished to convey to mankind. What we need are the �Words of God.� It is not the �general story, or teaching� that we need because this is subject to the interpretation and manipulation of sinful humanity. What we need are the teachings of God in the manner in which He gave them to us via inspiration.
The simple �story,� or �message,� is not sufficient. These are no more reliable than the concept of �general revelation� as given by nature. I am going to be outside in a few hours so I can cut back some brush which is beginning to overgrow my yard. The concept of general inspiration is that I can look at that brush and realize that there is a �higher power� that has created the universe and that which resides within. To be certain, this is part of the message of God to humanity. The problem here is that mankind is sin blinded to the things of God. Mankind has even managed to look at the wonders of the creation of God and find the fallacy of naturalistic atheism.
We need more than the �general revelation� of the �God Story.� We need more than the �general revelation� of the �message of God.� We need the special revelation of the Words of God as He gave them to us. This was the purpose of His initial inspiration of those Words.
God inspired the Words, not the men. The men were subject to death and decay. The men were subject to error and sin. The Words were the Words of God and thus carried with them the same eternal values as does God. The Words were from eternity and not subject to decay. The parchment may crumble with time but the Words continue in faithful copies with the original inspiration still upon them because they are still the Words which God gave to humanity.
It is important, what we believe. But, belief, in and of itself, is meaningless. When I was seventeen I believed that I could do almost anything. By the time I was twenty-five, and a father, I had learned that I could do what I could do, and what I couldn�t do it was best to find someone to do for me.
I began a project of putting paneling on the walls of the room in the parsonage where our church had fellowships. My father stopped by the house and watched me working for a few minutes. He said, �Why don�t you just put down those tools. [Trust me, it wasn�t a question when he said it!] I�ll take some vacation time next week and do the job right.�
I am sitting in that room as I write. He did the job properly. I might have believed that I could do it. I would have been wrong. I�ve proved this by other building projects I�ve attempted.
My point? Naturalist belief is based in our naturalist observations and, quite often, pride. The concept of true spiritual belief is based in the eternal and spiritual values of God. More than the concept of �it matters what we believe,� is the concept of in what that belief is based.
That, my friends, is the crux of the matter of textual �preference.� We can �prefer� a text that is faulty. We may have faith in this text but it would be a faith that is faulty and subject to disaster. We need a faith in that which God has blessed with His Own stamp of approval. The stamp of His approval is always affixed to that which is Truth.
Fuller (Counterfeit or Genuine) has commented upon the concept of the True, verses the false, Text upon which we may trust.
�Since I hold that the true text can be found in the Majority Text, in order to determine what this is one must count the number of manuscripts of any given reading. This method has been bitterly criticized because it does not consider the age of the manuscripts. But as was discussed earlier, the readings supported by the preponderance of the manuscripts is more likely to be the original text. Since the original text is the oldest, it is reasonable that the largest number of manuscripts would best represent the original. If the percentage were close, then the number of manuscripts would not be so significant; but since the Majority Text represents from 80 to 90 percent, it is significant.�
When we see marginal notes about the, so called, �oldest and best manuscripts, we are primarily being given information about two manuscripts: the Sinaiticus and Vaticannus. We must readily concede that these two are the oldest available texts. We must also readily concede that these two are aberrations and far from the best.
It is also readily apparent that the vast majority of texts which agree with the Traditional Text are evidence of the age of this text. Had a text been copied from the original manuscripts, so that it could be sent to the several churches of the incipient Christian faith, it would follow that these readings would be severely preponderant in the copies of these copies. Readings which differed widely from these readings, no matter their age, would be evidence of either poor copyist fidelity to the task or deliberate fabrications. Therefore, the older, unless they agree strongly with later copies, would be deemed as false on the basis of their own internal evidence.
Besides this, we also have the witness of the writings of the Church Fathers and the ancient lectionaries which agree for the Traditional Text and against the text derived from these �oldest but by far not the best� which form the basis of the modern English language versions.
Hills (The King James Version Defended) makes note that �...the Traditional Text, found in the vast majority of the Greek New Testament manuscripts, is the True Text because it represents the God-guided usage of this universal priesthood of believers.�
Whereas the argument above about the majority of the textual evidence appeals to simple scholarship, the argument of Hills appeals to the common faith of the believers. If we believe that God has inspired His Word we must assume that He has preserved His Word. This preservation would not take place among the natural world as this is a world which has been compromised to things truly spiritual because of the advent of sin.
Our fullest faith must be in the guidance of the Holy Spirit as pertains to the perseverance of His Own Words to us. This is the logic of faith which trusts God rather than man. Following this logic, again, we would expect to find that the vast predominance of available evidence would reside in the true text which God had given to His churches and people.
Any text which did not agree with these texts would be aberrant and false. Further, these false texts would be tainted by the sinful nature of humanity as they depart from the sinless nature of God. This is simply taking into account the dichotomy of natures between the pure spiritual nature of God and His Works, and the nature of sin which departed from God, among humanity especially and the natural creation as well, at the point of sin in the Garden.
With this in mind we revisit Fuller�s (Counterfeit or Genuine) remarks.
�Today there are about 5,255 extant manuscripts: 81 Papyri; 267 Majuscules; 2,764 Minuscules; 2,143 Lexionaries. Of these manuscripts the overwhelming majority - somewhere between 80 and 90 percent - support the Traditional Text.�
There is the constant argument among those who would disparage trust in not only the King James Bible but also the textual base from which it was translated, that there have been four hundred years of discoveries which has shown this base to be flawed.
I have argued against this attack before in this paper. It is an argument of unbelief to assume that God had lost control of, or allowed man to �lose,� His Text for centuries. When Jesus promised that the church He founded would not fail from the earth, it was obvious that this would mean that His teachings would not be lost to those churches. The teachings of Jesus are found in the Words of the text of His inspired Scripture. To allege that those teachings, the true Text of the inspired Scripture, was lost is to allege that the churches of Jesus Christ were allowed to sink into error. This is to discredit the prophecy and promise of Jesus.
To allege that all of the Texts transmitted were true copies is a false premise. The true text of God was the predominate text so forwarded through time among the churches. Note, also, that not all of the churches remained to the Lord or His Word. There was always a remnant; but sometimes the remnant was small. This is because humanity is a sinful group. Not all would always follow the Lord or His Word. Some would, sometimes many would, �...depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils.� (I Timothy 4:1) But, God always kept His remnant true as Jesus had promised.
Some might argue that the same �falling away� might have occurred with regards to the Scripture. This is not possibly so. While men are born in sin and subject to the ravages of this fact, the Scripture is birthed by the very breath of God. Spiritually speaking, the Scripture is not subject to the effects of sin. The True Text of God�s True Words are eternal because they are of the very nature of God. Men may fail. Movements may fail. Even some churches may fail, though God does retain a remnant for Himself. But, the Words of God may not fail as they are pure and eternal in that they flow directly from the inspiration of God.
Put another way, there is no �Garden of Eden� failure of Scripture as there was with mankind. The Scriptures remain pure without any additive of sin within.
MacLean (The Providential Preservation of the Greek Text of the New Testament) has made comment upon these discoveries of the past four hundred years.
�The overwhelming majority of these manuscripts [those found in the 350 years since the time of the KJV publication] agree so closely that they may be said to present the same Greek Text.�
We could go even further than the observation of MacLean. I, personally, know of no (not one!) example of any discoveries of new �readings� in the four hundred years since the work of the translating committee of the King James Bible even until this time. The same could be said of any of the great Protestant translations of the Reformation. I will say it again, there have been no new discoveries of readings in the time period since the translation work of the King James Bible was begun. All that we have today, they had then.
Don�t let the lie stand that these men did not have access to all the readings which are available today. It is just not true! The Douay Rheims, which was in publication before the King James Bible was prepared, carries these �recently discovered� readings.
Folks, we have a Bible (NO!!! The Bible!!!) we can trust. Let us trust that Bible even as we trust the Lord Who so graciously gave and preserved it.
17 August 2007
UNDERLYING TEXTS (Continued)
Hills (The King James Version Defended) had talked about the �state� texts of Constantine�s federalized churches. Personally, I do not think that Constantine actually had a conversion experience. He may well have; I just see the hand of political power more than I see the hand of Holy Ghost power in the actions of Constantine and the churches he called into fellowship with the state.
Constantine had texts brought from the ancient libraries of Alexandria with which to establish a �central� text for the churches which were under his protection. These, Hills argued, were a sort of �prestige� text as they were the best that man could possibly produce. The problem with these texts is that the were, in fact, the best that man could produce. Coming from Alexandria, these texts were flawed by the critic Origin and his school of copyists. Although the text of the elite, the average Christian had problems with these texts.
The easy access to these texts, as official government sponsored texts, had seduced many. The Holy Spirit led many back to the truth. Hills writes about the process.
�The great 4th - century conflict with the Arian heresy brought orthodox Christians to a theological maturity which enabled them, under the leading of the Holy Spirit, to perceive the superior doctrinal soundness and richness of the True Text. ... Christians in the higher social brackets abandoned the corrupt prestige-texts which they had been using and turned to the well worn manuscripts of their poor brethren, manuscripts ... Found in reality to be far more precious, since they contained the True New Testament Text. ...copies [were] made of these ancient books, and this was done so often that these venerable documents were worn out through much handling by the scribes. But before these old manuscripts finally perished, they left behind them a host of fresh copies made from them and bearing witness to the True Text. This it was that the True (Traditional) Text became the standard text now found in the vast majority of the Greek New Testament manuscripts.�
Lest anyone misunderstand, there were groups which had not bowed the knee to the Roman edition of Christianity as prescribed by Constantine. Many groups were never seduced by the siren call, and often brute force, by which the emerging Roman Church was to solidify her hold on the religious scene of Europe in the centuries following Constantine. These churches, holding out for the ancient doctrine of the true churches, held to the Traditional Text.
As the Roman church abandoned any Greek Text by replacing it among church councils with the Latin Text of Jerome, many of the truly pious abandoned the corrupt Alexandrian texts and returned to the simple Gospel message of the Traditional Text. In doing so they followed the example of those churches which had always remained true to the pure text. In doing so they also incurred the wrath of the Roman Church. Thus many of the copies of these people were burned by the emergent Roman Church even as the old Roman Empire had done in centuries past.
In effect, it was the same Roman persecution albeit by a new Roman status quo patterned on the old.
But, the real point here is that many were influenced to depart from the true text because the church �experts� held out a �prestige� texts. Intellectualism was counted as more important than was the leading of the Spirit. Faith was honored, but it was a faith in the best efforts of man rather than a faith in the power of God.
This draws an interesting corollary to the situation in the �church world,� and the �Bible� book stores of today. First of all, in most of the Bible Book Stores I have visited I have had to search through craft and sound sections to even find the small area where Bible�s were sold. Among those Bibles which are sold are many, many new versions and translations. Very few, proportionately, among these are translated from the Traditional Text.
Among the stacks of these religious �Towers of Babel Bibles,� stands the lone testimony to the God preserved Text. That is the King James Bible which is founded upon the Traditional Text.
Those who hold to this Bible, backed by these preserved Words, are called by various titles. We are called unlearned. We are called reactionary. We are called �back water.� We are called all manner of names which cast aspersions upon our intellectual capabilities. Oh, and we are also called �dividers.�
I might remind all that we are not dividers who accept as God preserved the Words of the Traditional Text. We stand in the lineage of the reformers and others who stood for the Truth against the persecutions of the past. It is not us who have moved, or divided ourselves, from allegiance to the God preserved Words of the Traditional Text. It is those who have moved on to accept the new �prestige texts� of academia.
Don�t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with study. Paul, writing the Words which God had inspired, reminds us to study in II Timothy 2:15.
But, when our naturalistic study departs from faith in the Supernatural God, we are embarked on a faulty journey in error.
Besides, as even this poor study continues to illustrate, study from a perspective of faith in God will lead us to accept the validity of the Traditional Text which underlies the King James Bible. It is a study which proceeds from a lack of faith in the power and goodness of God which will lead one to follow the prestige texts which argue that God has allowed His Words to be lost and only the goodness and intellect of man allows us even an approximation of those original Words.
We can trust the God preserved Words of the Traditional Text. Hills continues on this subject.
The work of Lake and von Soden, �...seems to have established the essential uniformity of the Traditional (Byzantine) text on a firmer basis than ever. They have shown that the vast majority of the Greek New Testament manuscripts exhibit precisely that amount of uniformity of text which one might expect the God-guided usage of the Church to produce. They agree with one another closely enough to justify the contention that they all contain essentially the same text, but not so closely as to give an grounds for the belief that this uniformity of text was produced by the labors of editors, or by decrees of ecclesiastical leaders, or by mass production on the part of scribes at any one time and place. It was not by any of these means that the vast majority of the Greek New Testament manuscripts came to agree with each other so closely as they do, but through the God-guided usage of the Churches, through the leading of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of individual believers.�
It is strange that the Traditional Text, so uniform in the vast majority of texts from all around the Christianized world, is disparaged. Meanwhile the Hort and Westcott text, is founded primarily on only two texts, from one area of the world, that have over three thousand variances among them in the Gospel accounts alone! Yet, it is this latter text which has been slavishly followed by those who would deny to the modern Christian a trust that God has actually preserved His Words for us in this day. These critics argue against the many which agree and argue for the few which disagree among themselves.
This is the state of scholarship? No! This is a faith based decision which argues for the superiority of man and against the power of God in preserving the Words which He inspired for mankind.
These do make an argument which sounds reasonable - at first. They argue that the many texts which contain the Traditional readings are late while the texts which hold the aberrant readings are old. Hills also addresses this issue.
�...because it was difficult for these less prosperous Christians to obtain new manuscripts, they put the ones they had to maximum use. Thus all these early manuscripts of the True Text were eventually worn out. None of them seems to be extant today. The papyri which do survive seem for the most part to be the prestige-texts which were preserved in the libraries of ancient Christian schools.�
The schools mentioned above were those which were corrupted by the teachings of Gnosticism and other aberrations. To allege that these were schools of true Christianity would be to argue that their texts, the very few and �lost� for centuries, and doctrine had been shuttered for centuries in opposition to the prophecy of Christ concerning His churches (Matthew 16:18).
Also, in considering the comparative lateness of these true copies, one must consider the great persecution and �Bible burning� of the texts of the faithful by the Roman government, and the later Roman church, when they found the Words of God which contradicted with these works of men.
Nor can we forget the great evidence of the writers of the early lectionaries, the very early translations, and the writings of the church fathers. These, almost without exception, point to the Traditional Text as in existence centuries before those misnamed �oldest and best� of the Alexandrian text type.
Fuller (True or False) notes that, �...the comparative excellence of the Text of Stephenus [one of the editors of one of that group which we call the Textus Receptus] ... Is due in no small part to the fact that in its composition the Vatican and Sinaitic Mss. were not consulted.�
The Texts which underlie the translation are of utmost importance if we are to have a reliable representation of those originally inspired Words which God has preserved for His people and His churches.
24 August 2007
UNDERLYING TEXTS (Continued)
In this session we will take a very short look at means which God used to preserve His inspired Scripture for all the ages of humanity. Although I can not understand why it would be so, this method will surprise many in today�s Church World.
Hills (The King James Version Defended) explains the method God used in the preservation of His Written Words. By the way, that phrase �His Written Words� is more accurate than �His Written Word.� In the seminaries and academia of even conservative and Fundamentalist Christianity of our time that is an important distinction.
In the early years of the twentieth century the �modernist� would hold his Bible aloft and say, �This Book contains the Word of God.� The fundamentalist would hold his Bible aloft and say, �This Book IS the Word of God.� That is an important difference.
In our day �The Word of God,� even among the conservative and Fundamentalist, has given way to an inspiration of �The God Story.� No longer do most �church� people hold to the idea that God has preserved His Message for humanity in the Words of Inspiration. The view now is that God has only preserved the general message, or story. The Words, we are now told, are not considered important. The only important thing is that we have the general idea of the message that God was trying to convey.
Folks, God didn�t �try� to convey His Message to us. He did the job by inspiring the very Words with which He intended this Message to be given to humanity. Former U. S. President Bill Clinton famously asked just what the meaning of �is,� is. God gave to us a Guidebook that is precise in the giving of the Message.
When God said �Bread and Wine� in the Lord�s table, we do not have to wonder if he meant �Beer and Pizza.� He said what He meant. When we move away from that simple assurance we have moved away from any possible true faith in understanding His Message to mankind. Some will argue that the Holy Spirit will guide them into the Truth. I might ask just why they would believe this? After all, if God had only given a general message, rather than Inspired Words, He might have meant that there would be a �burning in our breast.�
That �burning in the breast� is the Mormon answer to the �proof� of their texts. If, as I believe, this is a sign from Satan rather than from God, what superiority is there in our tenants if they are not founded on the preserved Words of God?
No! We do need, not desire but need, the Words which God originally considered as so important to be precise that He inspired those very Words. If that is not true then we have no sure Word to which we can turn. Our best guess is as good as any if we are denied the very Words of God!
Hills argued that it was The Holy Spirit Who guided the true preservation of the True Text.
The Spirit preserved the True Text not by �...the Church as an organization but by the Church as an organism.� Rather than the Church councils, it was the church congregations which the Holy spirit guided into the True Text. The Holy Spirit worked upon Christians, �...the common people, the rank and file, and then rapidly built up such strength that the bishops and other official leaders were carried along with it.�
Today we have colleges and professionals who consider themselves to be the only expert word on the subject. In doing this they are usurping the place of God in their own minds as they become the only true, in their minds, guardians of what God is allowed to say. They have given us a weakened Bible, a weakened faith, and a confusing array of messages as to the veracity of God�s Word. If is only the miracle working power of the Holy Spirit that causes the simple man in the pew to long for the Words which God inspired as he peruses the footnotes and fallacies of these modern versions which seem more inclined to build up the reputation of the critic than to inspire faith in the Lord.
It is the Holy Spirit, working in the lives of the humble Christian who just doesn�t know any better than to trust God, which has preserved the Words of God for the people of God. Hills said it this way, and said it correctly, �...the New Testament text has been preserved by the universal priesthood of believers, by faithful Christians in every walk of life. (I Peter 2:9).�
It is really a very simple concept. It is the same form for preservation which God used of the Old Testament Scriptures. Romans 2:1-2 asks a question and then answers it. �What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there in circumcision? Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.�
�The oracles of God,� here, speaks of the Old Testament Scriptures. It was the priestly caste that was given the charge of those Scriptures. They were to be faithful in copying, and preserving those God given Words. In our New Testament times (I Peter 2:9) we are informed that we all, those of us who have salvation through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, are priests unto God. It is our duty, and privilege as overseen by the Spirit, to be faithful in transmitting those Words of Life to the next generation of believers. The next generation of believers is defined as those to whom we share the Gospel unto salvation. This is perpetually continued in the lives of all believers. This is the plan of God.
The purpose of a priest is to take the needs of the people to God and return with the Words of God to the people. That is our job in this day. We pray the convicting power of the Holy Spirit onto the lives of the lost. Then we convey the True Words of God, in witness and in Scripture, to those same people.
That is our charge. That is our duty. It is a duty we cannot perform if we have lost the Message of God in those Words of God. Praise His Name, those Words are not lost. His Spirit, working with His people, have those inspired and preserved Words. We do not have to give a paraphrase, which would change with each person doing the telling, of the Message of God because we have the True Words.
In the English these True Words are best represented in our time, and God, honored King James Bibles. Other translations rely on the works of man, and the texts of man, rather than any sort of fidelity to the Traditional Text which God has preserved.
In our next session we will look at those italics in the King James Bibles.
31 August 2007
UNDERLYING TEXTS (Continued)
The subject we are going to be looking at in today�s session is that of the italics in our King James Bibles. When we look at these italics, sometimes we are quizzical as to just why they are there in the text. After all, when I use, for instance, italics it is generally to emphasize something. I use them to make a word, or a phrase, stand out from the rest of the typeface so that they will carry a more potent meaning. It may be a comical meaning or it may be a heightened emphasis on that particular section.
If there seems, often, to be no rhyme or reason, to our sensibilities at least, for the purpose of these italicized words in our Scriptural portions it leaves us puzzled unless we understand the purpose which the translation committee had in mind when they set the type in that manner.
Russell J. Asvitt, writing in the magazine �The Bible Advocate,� (Getting the Most from Your KJV) made several observations on these italics. For one thing, he noted that many times in translating, English words must be added which were not in the original language text from which the translation was made. This is done so that the statement will make sense to our English language trained ears. He also noted that �...only the King James Version and the New American Standard Bible indicate the added words in italics.�
At this point I should mention something rather important. I have often heard that the NASV indicated above is a very good translation. It is so faithful to its base test that many have complained that it is sometimes hard to read. The transfer of words and ideas from those original languages to the English is often somewhat harsh to the ears of the English reader due to the fidelity kept with the base text from which the translation is made.
The sad point in this is that the base text of the NASV is from the same sources, mostly, as was the Hort and Westcott translation. It is a weak textual base which is heavily reliant on a very small and very old, but very corrupt, Greek manuscripts. I would go so far as to say that, while the NASV is faithful to its base text it is not faithful to the preserved Words of God.
In point of fact, the NASV is actually a different Bible in many points from the time, and God, honored King James Bible.
It might also be added that while the King James Bible is also very, very faithful to the base text from which it is drawn; it is faithful to the preserved Words of God as culled from the Traditional Text, which is represented in the vast majority, anywhere from 85% to 95%, depending upon who is consulted, of the available witnesses.
Even with this great fidelity to the underlying original tongues from which it springs, the KJB is highly readable. While being true to the base text, the KJB is a work of art in the presentation of the English language. Rather than being a �hard read,� as is often the charge made against it, the King James Bible is a beautiful read which will lift the spirit, and I would maintain even the intellect, of the reader.
It is beautiful because it is an accurate representation of the originally inspired Words of God to humanity.
Asvitt maintains that �...some versions and especially paraphrases of the Bible have many words added by man. You have no way of knowing which words are the translator�s own without a knowledge of the original language.�
This is especially true of those paraphrases such as the Living Bible and the New International Version. These, and others made no real attempt to convey a word-for-word translation from the original tongues. They only attempt to make a thought-for-thought transmission. The great weakness of this type of translation is that it must inevitably devolve into a simple commentary on the theological preconceptions of the translators. In essence, these really are the words of man rather than the Words of God.
That is actually the central problem with almost all of the modern day English language versions. They are, almost without exception, based on an eclectic textual base which is founded on man�s estimation of what he believes God probably meant to include in the originals. They are devoid of any faith that God might have actually preserved His Words for man.
This lack of faith will inevitably lead to a weakened theological stance. This weakened theological stance will also be even more strongly manifest in the paraphrase.
Without those italicized words the casual reader will have no possible indication of the added words which were put in the text by the translation committee�s theological bias unless the reader is well versed in the original languages. It the reader does have that background in the original tongues he has little need of the translation. Even then he must exercise extreme caution just which of the published texts he chooses to consult. There are published texts of the God preserved Words and published texts of the man centered �reconstructed� words.
Asvitt makes an appeal to Psalm 14:1 in regards to those italicized words. He notes that unless you know that the �There is� has been added by the translator you will not know that the fool may have said, �There is no God,� or he may have said, �No,� to God. �Either way the man is a fool, because he refuses to believe God exists, or to obey Him, but the use of the italics does give you, the reader, more insight into God�s Word.�
The only problem I have with the above quote is that the translation committee of the King James, or Authorised, Bible, did not add words, even italicized words, willy nilly. They put in those italicized words only to indicate what was strongly implied by the original Words in the original tongues.
As an easy to see illustration of the above principle, you might consider a request I made of my grandchildren today. We were shopping and they kept wanting to wander off to look at areas other than the ones where I was making purchases. At one point I said, �Eli, Shandi, come!� while I pointed at a spot on the floor next to me. Any translation of that phrase which did not include, �to this place,� would have been faulty.
This is the same principle as that used by the translating committee of the King James Bible. They were interested in complete accuracy. They were also interested in a complete fidelity to the originally inspired words. Thus they added the meaning as given but still added the italics because those precise words were not in the original text.
This is another reason to continue the use of the time, and God, honored Authorized Version, the King James Bible. It was translated by men who had a deep and abiding faith in the God of those Words. It was translated by men who had a complete commitment and faith in the Lord Who had originally inspired those Words. It also, despite some of the foolish words of some of the foolish critics of today, was translated by men who were unequaled in scholarship and ability to complete the task to which they were assigned. The fact is that these were not some simple seventeenth century �bumpkins;� these were men who towered above their contemporaries in intellect and ability.
All of the above would be more than true if these very same men were to be compared with the critics who are working on the texts in our time. They would stand head and shoulder above even our contemporaries. They were that fitted to the task. Remember, when they studied they had no television or theological rivals who were worthy of altering their faith and the practice of their craft. They were not only able, they were anxious to spend their time and talent for the Lord without much in the way of real hindrance.
In our next session we will take a look at the superiority of that Traditional Text to which they gave their attention.