Now were're getting somewhere. This is the type of discussions I like.
But, after dealing with this issue for over 23 years or o sometimes I just don’t see the point of carrying. Most saints don’t want to get out of their comfort zone and go against the world (not saying you are like this I’m just rambling a bit). Rom. 12:1-2
I've been studying this for a while too, not near as long as you, I'm not even 23 years old yet, but for around 3 to 4 years I have gone deep into apologetics, learned basics of Biblical scholarship, actively assisted an Ancient Hebrew Research project on
http://www.ancient-hebrew.org , and went and saw the Dead Sea Scroll exhibit when it came through Huntsville, AL. Actually it was that last one, the exhibit, that really kick-started me in opening my eyes to how amazing God's word is and to how great of lengths martyrs went to to give us the Bible in English or in any other common tongue. The Exhibit was not just on the Dead Sea Scrolls but also on the history of the Bible and even included the history of
writing (showing the earliest known writing forms) and how God used writing to bring about his Word to be compiled into books. The curator had highly rare and prized artifacts there, including THE Cyrus Cylinder, don't ask me how he got it, I thought it was in the British Royal Museum, and I got to see with my very own eyes Luther's German translation and some of the earliest English Bibles such as John Wycliffe's translation, The Great Bible, the original KJV, the Geneva Bible, and William Tyndale's Translation - almost all the copies within close range of their original publication. The man who curates for the museum is Dr. Craig Lampe and he own the largest personal collection of Antique Bibles in the world. You can see some of his amazing original Bibles (which you can buy - some for thousands of dolars) at his site
http://www.greatsite.com .
At any rate what I am getting at is to tell you that that exhibit was the most impacting event on my life when I saw the history of the Bible and how hard men tried to preserve God's word at all costs and how at great risk the Bible was first translated to English, breaking a major barrier & punishable by death, by John Wycliffe, and then into German by Luther breaking a new barrier. They were amazing works of scholarship and I cannot discredit them nor do I seek to.
This launched me into one of the greatest endeavors of my life to learn about how the transmission of Biblical documents has proceeded over the centuries. I delved into Hebrew and Greek, looked at the Septuagint, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Vulgate, etc. and did lots of research. I am now very impassioned about understanding the Bible in its original languages.
I literally have an arsenal of Bible Study books at my disposal on my bookshelf. I have a facimile version of the original KJV, a NIV, NASB, NKJV, a Strong's KJV concordance, a Zondervan NASB concordance, an Ancient-Hebrew Lexicon, Unger's Handbook, Survey of the New Testament, Survey of the Old Testament, Biblical Archaeology, Zondervan's New Testament Theology, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, and many other scholarly works. I saturate myself with studies in the culture and language of the day of the Bible.
And through all my studies I have had great joy and confidence that we have reliable translations at our disposal, in English no less - a heresy to the Catholic Church which made martyrs of many men to bring it to us. Some were great works of Scholarship and literalness: KJV, ESV, ASV, and RSV. And their updates in the NKJV and NASV. Others not so literal: NIV, Message Bible, Amplified Bible... yet nonetheless a translation to bring the life-giving Gospel to people in English! Young's Literal is also a valuable translation.
When I was greatly concerned at one point of which Bible translations I read I talked to my Dad about it, who is a very wise and Godly man and he would read the NASB mostly, and also the KJV, but called the NIV worthless -and is just about true in most cases. He even did a study with me one time to see differences in translation between the NASB and KJV and we found that all the NASB did on one case was to employ a different syntax in its wording which clarified the issue. But when I spoke with him he told me that in all his years of reading and studying the NASB he had never seen anything that degraded the person of Jesus Christ. And my Dad is also intelligent, he's the one who first introduced me to what Strong's Concordance was, and he is open minded about things such as the possibility that the story of the adulteress might not have been in the original manuscripts, though both him and I agree that the story is true nonetheless. My Dad has preached and lead prayer groups and taught Sunday School groups before, and never has he encountered some false view of the Bible from reading the NASB and never has been in a position in which he could not lead an accurate Bible study with the NASB. My Dad also constantly checks himself to see if he understands a translation correctly so that's why he uses supplements like concordances, and he would print out Strong's entries for words in verses he was going over in class to pass out. I am like him, I keep an open mind about me and read several versions like he does and try understand what God is saying in a passage by consulting scholarly resources.
I don't know how else to tell you, but after years of studying I am satisfied with reading several versions, which are good translations, and doing proper study myself accompanied by prayer and meditation on God's word. I have never developed a wrong doctrine because of a mistranslation, if I ever developed a wrong doctrine it was because I failed to read God's word in entirety and context and was not consistant with my theology. You can isolate a passage all you want but if you elevate it too much you can take it out of context. Pain and accompanying wisdom has taught me to be careful in my studies.
1. I sought to show you the source of the modern versions and pointed you to the works of Burgon, Hills, Clark, and Ruckman and you appeared to not be interested in checking these men out. These men’s woks have yet to be refuted. These men are disdained by AV correctors.
I have heard of Burgon before but the others I haven't. And its not that I'm not interested its that I have already looked in to this issue in great depth and don't necessarily have to appeal to those particular people to prove or debate a point. So here I am reasoning with you.
2. I hinted at sites that go into detain the changes, omissions, and additions and again you appeared to not be interested in checking them out seriously.
Oh trust me, if you put all the hours together that I have spend on studying differences in translation you could take a several week vacation with it. I am very much interested and at times quite exhausted about some of the needless bickering that goes on. Some things can really be taken too far. However I do like to try to answer serious questions regarding this matter.
And then the Lord graciously throws me bone my way. The other day I went to one of my end users on the 19th floor (I do application and system support of 1500 users). She is a doctor of statistics – no dummy – loves the Lord but a little off on some of her doctrine (a bit charismatic but I can handle it because I know she loves the Lord and we get along great – she has a great attitude). Any way I saw she had a big NIV on her desk and I said, “What’s up doc? (bugs bunny) You see this NIV? Change the letters to KJV.†Just like that I said it – I earned the right to pick on her and she picks on me – we are friends. She said, “What do you mean?†And in less than five minutes I gave her a brief history of where the NIV came from and showed her three verses – Mic. 5:2, Mark 1:1-3, and James 2:1 with simple explanations and told her there were more. She gasped and said she didn’t know and cast the NIV aside for a King James Bible and hasn’t read her NIV since. And she wants to hear more! Just like that. And then I get on these forums and it goes on and on and on and on. It’s just ridiculous.
I don't ever use the NIV for study, however I will reference it to see if it can clarify the meaning of an awkwardly worded passage in other versions and then compare it back to the more literal translation and ascertain its meaning. Actually I probably wouldn't have even have bought the NIV if the Archeological Bible Commentary version had come with any other translation. NASB would have been soooo much better, but oh well. I use the KJV, NASB, and NKJV in most of my studies. And believe it or not I don't use newer versions like the NASB and the NKJV for their differences in textual readings (meaning in the manuscripts they are translated from), but rather for their rewording and updated translation based on modern scholarship of the verses that agree with one another in the textual content in all translations. So I'm not focused on differences but proper translation. And regardless of anybody's griping I do believe that some of the KJV's readings are not adequate while the NASB or NKJV's may be. I hold the same for all the versions, I treat them as suppliments to one another.
God Bless,
~Josh
I have no problem with waiting. And you can always PM me if our discussion gets more off track than what this thread was intended for. Also whenever you get the chance to post again (without pain), if you could answer the Post script (P.S) that I wrote a couple posts back you would greatly aid me in understanding what exactly you were asking for in this thread. Perhaps I misunderstood. But take your time.