Al Dager's Media Spotlight Series: The Bible Versions Debate

[jimbaum]

Al Dager is publishing what I consider to be a very important series of articles by Dusty Peterson called: The Bible Versions Debate. Dusty Peterson's web site is http://www.bayith.org.

In part 2B in Media Spotlight's Winter 2006 issue are some very good summaries about Family A Greek Manuscripts versus Family B. Those are the author's way of summarizing the two groups of manuscripts that must be considered to understand what is at stake in these discussions.

Al Dager's site is http://www.mediaspotlight.org.

Jim B.

[jimbaum]

"The "New Testament" portion of Bibles today is based on one or the other of two "families" of Greek manuscripts. For simplicity Dusty called these families "A" and "B". Members of family B can differ from family A by as much as 10,000 words, but they can differ in all sorts of other respects also. Consider these four features of the text of family B that are not true of A:

It was not copied in great quantity;
It was not copied widely around the world;
It was quoted in almost no lectionaries;
It went out of use for many centuries.

All four facts indicate it was not blessed by God. Now consider two other features of family B that are not true of A:

Its members frequently vary substantially in content between each other, suggesting a lack of reverence for God's Word by their creators.

Significant numbers of people have been martyred for refusing to replace their Bibles based on family A with those using family B.

Both points suggest B is the product of false brothers."

From Al Dager's introduction of Dusty Peterson's Part 2B: Magnitude of the Problem from the Series The Bible Versions Debate

[wackzingo]

I read the article again and more of it makes sense now even though I don't quite follow all his logic. It seems to me that the real question that should be answered is are translators of the bible given the same infallibility as those who were inspired of God to write the original texts themselves.

Also, in Greek and Hebrew word can have more than one meaning and depending on the translators opinion it can be a huge difference in what it means. The verse I pointed out in Isaiah where in the KJV it says God creates evil, the word can be translated Evil or Calamity. The word can still today be translated as Evil and Calamity. Back in 1611 it didn't make much difference because even Evil can be understood to mean calamity and disaster, but today in our world, there is no way anyone would understand evil to mean the same thing as calamity. So even doing a word for word translation still leaves room for mans opinion which takes us back to the question are translators infallible?

[jimbaum]

Zack,

I agree that the question of the infallibility of the KJ translators is an important one.

I've created a new topic to focus on this issue: Infallibility of King James Translators


Jim

[jimbaum]

In Dusty Peterson's article he speaks of two groups of manuscripts:

Group A: Is made up of what came to be called the Textus Receptus

Group B: Those manuscripts promoted by Wescott and Hort.

Here's more of what Dusty Peterson says about these two groups of manuscripts:

In the previous piece we learned that some English translations of the Bible are largely based on family "B" while others are rooted in family "A". We also learned certain very troubling facts about family B. Nevertheless, people often argue that the differneces between these families can safely be ignored, particularly when it comes to the published Greek texts behind actual Bible versions available today. Here are seven common justifications folks offer for this position, along with some observations about them.

The following is the list that he refers to:

• "The Differences Are Trivial"
  "Doctrine Is Unaffected"
  "No Cardinal Doctrines Are Affected"
  "Every Doctrine Is Still Supportable"
  "There Is Only 1% Variation"
  "The Differences Don't Stop People Being Saved"
  "The Alternative Is Unthinkable"

Jim

[wackzingo]

Thanks, that summary helps some, I guess I can't find that article though, I only saw part 1.

The following is the list that he refers to:

"The Differences Are Trivial"
"Doctrine Is Unaffected"
"No Cardinal Doctrines Are Affected"
"Every Doctrine Is Still Supportable"
"There Is Only 1% Variation"
"The Differences Don't Stop People Being Saved"
"The Alternative Is Unthinkable"

I don't see most of these justifications are that wrong if the KJV or other versions are made by fallible men. But again, I think the first question we have to ask is were the KJV translators (any translators really) fallible or infallible. Because if they weren't infallible then there are certainly going to be some error. The question then moves on to how serious do the errors have to be and how many errors are too many before it's just too perverted to use.

[jimbaum]

Zack, we need to encourage Dusty to post his other articles on his site. Also, you can go to the Media Spotlight site and use their contact form to request the articles be sent via the postal service.

In these debates it sometimes appears that the choice is between KJV Only versus defending the modern translations.

I believe there is at least a third choice. It has to to do with trusting that God has preserved His word and knowing that Satan has been trying to pervert the word of God.

Dusty's point appears to be that translations based on Textus Receptus are trustworthy while those translations based on Hort & Westcott manuscripts are not.

Jim

[wackzingo]

I'm not sure exactly what you believe the Third category is but I believe I am in the third category.

I believe that Satan has in some cases perverted God's Word in cases like the TNIV where every masculine pronoun has been change to the neuter (or is it neutral?). Those are obvious and will not stand the test of time. As I pointed out before, when there are obvious and serious perversions people of God have taken a stand to say this is not God's true Word like we have seen at http://www.no-tniv.com

My position is that there are errors, mistakes in all translations, even in those like the NIV and KJV both. Sometimes it's nothing more than the translators not using the best choice and other times it's as big as one version leaving out a verse entirely. But, most bible like the NIV do give us the courtesy of letting us know in the footnotes and why they did so.

Often times the reason why the NIV translators have left out certain verses or parts of verses is because the oldest manuscripts were identical to the newer one except the older one may not have contained certain parts. I tend to believe that if you have two texts, the older one should have more weight. Why? Because you can't go back in time to remove something but you certainly can add stuff to the texts at time goes by. So unless there is a major reason to not trust the older one than it should have more weight.

I don't believe the NIV is a perversion, and I don't believe the KJV is bad. If the NIV translators were trying to pervert the Word of God then they would not have let us know they were leaving out passages in the footnotes. In the End I think it's more a matter of preference in most cases. You don't see people going around saying the NIV is the only perfect Word of God without error and calling the KJV a perversion because it doesn't agree 100% with it. I just get tired of hearing people call legitimate translations perversions. I don't understand how people can't tell the difference between a translation like the NIV and an obvious perversion like the TNIV.

Sorry this is long, I believe there are those who believe in the KJV only, Newer Versions Only, and finally Many Versions. I'm in this third category.

[jimbaum]

Zach,

The position I have been coming to is what I understand Dusty's point to be: that translations based on Textus Receptus are trustworthy while those translations based on Hort & Westcott manuscripts are not.

Jim B.

[wackzingo]

Jim,

I agree but not completely. From my understanding Hort & Westcott did work from older manuscripts. When versions like the NIV came out they looked at their work as a reference but did not rely on their work. Westcott & Hort were very knowledgeable on the Greek and Hebrew language but the were not Godly men. I don't think they had the intentions to purposefully pervert Gods Word. But because they look at everything from an intellectual point of view rather than spiritual view they see thing differently. Translators of versions since there work have had access to the same manuscripts as Westcott & Hort did when they did their work. If translators were influenced by their work and failed to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit then there is a problem with that and probably their translations.

I see nothing wrong with Godly men considering and looking to work by people like Westcott & Hort as long as they are sensitive to the Leading of the Holy Spirit. I believe that God will show Godly men what is right and what is wrong. In this case I think it has more to do with the Translators than Westcott & Hort.

Westcott & Hort's work is fairly modern work...What about translators who use the original Greek and Hebrew manuscripts that Westcott and & Hort used for their translation but not Westcott & Hort's work?

[jimbaum]

Dusty Peterson's part 2a is up now in pdf form at http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~emcd/ ... n%20Debate

Scroll down on that page untile you see:

Bible Version Debate
The Bible Versions Debate (Part 1) by Dusty Peterson
The Bible Versions Debate (Part 2a) by Dusty Peterson

Check it out. It deals a lot with the manuscript families A & B and why one family is reliable and the other is corrupt.

Jim

[jimbaum]

You can now read Dusty's part 2B at the following location. I'm sorry it's a 15 megabyte pdf file. I will try to make it a smaller file sometime.

http://procinwarn.com/bible_versions_debate.htm

Jim B.