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Originally Posted by tellville  Thomas
I appreciated your post. I don't have much to say beyond what I said to Steve.
I want my kids to read the Bible. If I were to insist on using the KJV all Bible reading would disappear. That's just the reality of it. Like Steve said, modern Greek is so much removed from NT Greek that an update is needed, well I offer to you this: The English in the KJV has finally reached the point where it is nonsensical to those under the age of 20 who have not been brought up in it or have not had extensive training in the English of the time. That's just the reality.
If the underlying text of the KJV is really that important then I think it is about time all the churches who think this pony up the cash and get a bunch of scholars together and do a whole new translation. But alas, like I said before, I highly doubt that it would ever be accepted. I think there are other issues at play on this issue beyond textual data.
Again, I apologize for the rant. It just pains me as a pastor to hear kids say that their Bible is just too complicated and the English to confusing to understand. As someone coming from the Protestant tradition, hearing that the Bible is too hard to understand and comprehend breaks my heart, especially when that need not be the case. |
Hello Mark,
Thank you for the response, a few concepts and points for your consideration. These may, on the surface, not seem to be critical points to you from the frame of reference and real problems you are explaining and facing. I do, though, think they are significant and need to at least be given some consideration.
The problem you are identifying is not merely a "natural" condition, it is a created condition, it is the results of our society as a whole revolting against the Reformation and the expansive meaning of it, especially the Authority of Scripture. It is no longer received in the fully orbed Reformational sense and in many ways we are squelching the Holy Spirit and this affects its perspicuity.
Because the problem, I believe is in fact, a spiritual problem existing as both psychological and sociological in this context, it doesn't disappear, nor is it cured, with the introduction of new translation alone - upon proper textual grounds or not. In many ways the Church has become what I might define as "mystical" in its conception of translation, as if it comes to us independent of a cultural context. That all we have to do is introduce Holy Scripture in language that people can "understand" and miraculously each person is going to be put, ipso facto, on the high ground of spiritual growth.
Now, please understand, that is not to be interpreted as diminishing the work of your ministry, it is to point out that a lot of continuity and profound theological and sociological links to Confessional Reformed theology comes "prepackaged", that the Holy Spirit has born consistent witness to in history, with the Authorized Version. Battles against spiritual wickedness were fought, ground was won, that we don't have to refight - we can receive the blessings of that, or we can reject it. There are issues here that are much deeper than I think you presently comprehend, and it really doesn't matter what one's opinions are about the text, Providence has born witness to the work of the Holy Spirit in history and "by their fruits ye shall know them."
Text critical proponents seem to believe that if they can restore what they believe to be the inerrancy of Scripture that we are going to experience an evangelistic explosion since we will then finally have it in its pristine perfection, as if the Holy Spirit must utilize Scripture is some non-material "spiritualized" way that the perceived lack of perfection is what is squelching His work in history. In contrast, I believe the Kingdom of God is not in word, but in power, (1 Cor 4:20) and Providence through the work of the Holy Spirit bears witness of the Truth and Substance of His Word by both advancing the Faith, on one hand, and binding spiritual wickedness on the other.
In my view the modern Church has this inversed and believes the Kingdom is in word, not in power, or if in power in some non-material "spiritualized" definition and in turn it has abandoned all of the work of Providence in Reformational history and while it speaks of the truth of Scripture, it is no longer willing to receive the expansive substance of it, in reality. This is important, because this textual and translation issue has in fact, I believe, exercised the keys to the Kingdom, unbinding what four centuries of Christians worked to bind, and have swung the gates of hell wide open.
The problem that you are laying out is not merely a language problem, it is also a dialetical problem that imputes a truncated spiritual condition upon modern people whereby they are unable to connect to Scripture as Authority because of the spiritual and cultural context in which they live. Linguistical solutions are just a bandaid upon a much deeper infection and not as broad and absolute as you are portraying their potentiality. We have a hundred years now of easier to read translations that simply don't have the fruit.
The Church is not innocent in this because it has withdrawn its recognition of Scripture in its establishment which included the Protestant doctrine of Scripture whereby the Scripture served as a prolegomenon to theology and society at large. There is an imputed spiritual deficiency, not merely a linguistic deficiency, embodied in this whole issue as well whereby the external testimony of Scripture and the internal witness of the Holy Spirit are spiritually skewed and never fully connecting.
Of course, this is much bigger issue and much more complicated issue that I have time to even get into here, at depth, but the concept that: "The English in the KJV has finally reached the point where it is nonsensical to those under the age of 20 who have not been brought up in it or have not had extensive training in the English of the time. That's just the reality," is not the end of the story, it's just not that simple. It's more analogous to a spiritualized Babel, where the people themselves have finally reached a point of squelching the Holy Spirit that he is giving us up to our sins, and the sins of the fathers are being imputed unto the children.
Consider, for a moment, that every new translation that comes out is still, after a century, trying to supplant the Authorized Version - and that is how they are advertised. Finally, this greatness has been reproduced in language you can now understand, but that superiority is never supplanted, because the next one tries again. And when you look at the evolution of the critical texts, they keep adding back in received readings that they knew were defections in the prior version.
There is a spiritual battle going on here that is affecting your children, it is not merely linguistics, while certainly there is some validity to your points, they are just not absolute as you portrayed them, nor is the solution a new translation of the right texts.
In Christ's Bonds,
Thomas