One Bible Only?

In reading this book and writing this paper, I really do not know what to exactly say or get across. So I figured I would go over and hit some of the main issues that were talked about. Looking into each chapter and hitting what was talked about and went over just so I show you that I had read the book (I wanted some extra credit). I enjoyed the book and learned from it. I most accepted is the sense that the writers of this book are demanding common sense in this issue. I fully understand with them. This book’s brief layout takes the reader through the history of the KJV-only debate and delves into all the hot spots without resorting to putting down of making fun of like most Pro-KJV authors do. The truth of God’s inerrant Word shines through the book as we see the transnational process and preservation of our bibles today. So with out any more talking about what I had read or how I had read it, I will now list the chapters and the main points talked about in each of them.
1. Back ground and Origin of the Version Debate
In this chapter the writers begin to show how unalterable perfection had gathered around the Septuagint (LXX) by the year 100 B.C. Different authors like Philo of Alexandria (20 B.C. to 45 A.D.), Flavius Josephus (37-100 A.D.), and Justin Martyr (100-145 A.D. who was killed for his faith, all adding some work to the translations. Such as verbs, and self-same nouns so that things would work better for them. Other translations that were fixed to fit what the writer wanted are, the Latin Vulgate, Luther’s German bible, and believe it or not but the King James version. The impact of the King James only movement has influenced a view point that has become wide spread and very strong. Unfortunately the effects of this movement have often been very destructive. The King James movement has spilled over into mission fields, churches, ministries, and even schools. Accepting the tenets of the King James only movement has become a standard of orthodoxy for many people. This movement has been more destructive and distracted among Baptist than any controversy since the 19th century. The truth about the King James only movement has not created any new doctrines. All of the idea’s were exposed in the past for Bible versions such as: Greek, Aramaic, Latin, Syricaic and, German. Applying these old errors to any modern day English Version does not make them any less erroneous. One of the unsupported assumptions of some of the modern King James only movement is the claim that the LXX dates after the time of Christ and is the work of the origin of Alexander. Both Philo and Josephus are aware of and do not dispute an account of the origin of a Greek translation of the law as related in the letter of Aristeas.
2. O.T. Text
The great deal of debate about the Bible’s versions centers around the text of the New Testament. Not much is said about the Old Testament text. Chapter 2 focused on the development of the Old Testament text and the effect of the development of our English versions today. After 68 A.D. with the continued decline in the ability of the general populace to speak Hebrew and the factors such as the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. and the rise of Christianity, Jewish people became concerned about the Old Testament text. First the Masoeretic should not be perceived as a perfect copy of the original’s because it is late in recession. Because of the evidence of evolution in script spelling and vocabulary and the evidence of updating and smoothing of the text vocabulary it is impossible to suppose that the Jewish scholars in the first century restore all of the words in the original writings. Secondly one must remember the Masoertic family of texts, that family associated with the standardization of the Old Testament text. The King James version translators disclaimed perfect nation in any copied text including their own. In fact these translators ascribed perfection to the original text. The original being from Heaven and the author being God and not man. God by the process of inspiration produced through human agents a inerrant and complete text of truth.
3. N.T. Text
One of the reasons for confusion about the Bible translations is people fail to explain some of the terms used in the discussion about King James only. Some of the most important aspects of the New Testament were as addressed in this chapter. In comparison of books in the ancient world, we have an abundance of manuscripts in the New Testament text. Papyri refers to manuscripts of made of the papyrus plant they are in unical script. Because papyrus does not stand up as well as vellum, only about one hundred of these manuscripts have survived, most of them from Egypt. Unicals are manuscripts made up of animal skins and are written in capital letter script. Minuscules are written in a cursive script that has smaller connected letters. This script began to be used in the ninth century to save time and because the letters take less space than do unical letters.
Modern textual critics classify manuscripts in at least three text types: Majority, Alexandrian, and Western.
The Majority text type is the basis of the recently published Majority Text and the text type from which the Textus Receptus comes.
The Western text type is the least clearly defined of the three types. Evidence of this text type existed as early as A.D. 200, and it is the text type reflected in the earliest Christian writers in Palestine and Asia Minor.
The Alexandrian is the text type that is generally found in the earliest manuscripts, including most of the papyri. Some papyri with this text type date as early as the second century.
Since the invention of the printing press in the middle of the fifteenth century, hundreds of different text of the Greek New Testament have been published Three of them are at the center of the discussion of translations and texts today. The first one is the Electric Text. The Second is the Majority Text, and the Last one is the Textus Receptus.
The electric text is called electric because it is based on and uses all of the manuscripts and text types, and all important textual variants and displayed in the textual apparatus. It reflects a broader textual base than the Majority Text or the Textus Receptus and is based on the theory that the date and quality of manuscripts is more important than the number of manuscripts. The Majority Text, in 1982 the first Greek New Testament based on the Majority text type was published. The Textus Receptus is the title given to the 1633 version of the Greek text edited and first published by Erasmus in 1516. The translation from the Textus Recptus and the Hebrew to the King James version was not a simple and direct as some people might imagine.
In Conclusion the Greek texts, and the King James Version is intended to help answer some of the questions that honest readers have about the King James-Only position. One purpose of this chapter was to help the reader understand the difference between the Majority Text and the Textus Receptus. Another purpose of this chapter was to help those who are seeking the truth on this issue to see the false claims of anyone who says that King James version of the Textus Receptus is inspired or would argue that one of these texts is always better to all other and therefore must always be the closest to the originals.
4. Preservation of Scripture
Some of the Historical Problems are the proponents of the Textus Receptus/ Majority Text make the doctrine of preservation a necessary corollary of inspiration, and they seek to establish textual purity and public accessibility as necessary corollaries of preservation. In other words, preservation does not mean anything if the text is not accessible, and inspiration does not mean anything if the text is not purely preserved accessibly. The evidence from history, however, does not support their theory. If the Textus Receptus/Majority Text is God’s inspired Word, then according to their theory one would expect that is has been preserved in the majority of manuscripts throughout the history of the church. To argue that God has preserved His inspired Word through the ages only in the Majority/Byzantine text type is more realistic. However, this line of reasoning also has several problems. There are major gaps of history from which there is no evidence that the Majority text type even existed!. The historical evidence does not indicate that God has been supernaturally preserving the traditional text in every age. As we already mentioned, King James-Only advocates assume that preservation is a necessary corollary of inspiration and that for inspiration to be true, God must have perfectly preserved the New Testament text. Another unsupported assumption of the Textus Receptus/Majority Text advocates is the pursuit of “certainty” is identical to the pursuit of “truth.” Many Textus Receptus/Majority text advocates have given up hope of finding absolute textual certainty by means of the standard methods of textual criticism; therefore, they have opted for a simplistic methodology that will give them a settled and certain text, the Textus Receptus/Majority text. This argument has several problems, and several of the facts mentioned already in this chapter contradict it. First, if they are talking about the Textus Receptus then what edition is inspired? Second, how can it be the perfectly preserved Word of God if even a few of the readings in it never existed before 1516? Several logical problems arise in the arguments for the perfect preservation of God’s Word in the Textus Receptus text type. The first problem is the false assumption that perfect preservation is a necessary corollary of inspiration. A second false assumption is the belief that divine preservation must be found in the majority of manuscripts.
Historical evidence makes Biblical preservation abundantly clear. God has preserved His Word. The argument with King James-Only, Textus Receptus, and Majority Text proponents concerns two subsidiary issues. The first issue is that of God’s method of preserving His Word. We have addressed this topic already. The second issue is that of the Bible’s own teaching with regard to the preservation of God’s Word. Another group of passages sometimes used to support the doctrine of the perfect preservation of Scripture consists of verses that, in their context, speak of God’s infallible decrees and moral laws. The Scriptures do not teach that God has perfectly preserved every word of the original autographs in one manuscripts or text type. A proper understanding of the doctrine of preservation is a belief that God has providentially preserved His Word in and through all of the extant manuscripts, versions, and other copies of Scriptures. The how can we be sure that our Bibles are reliable? How can we maintain the authority of God’s Hold Word if we do not have a promise from God that He will preserve it perfectly? For several reasons we can have absolute confidence in the Bibles we have today. Let me summarize one of them. God has given us 5,656 manuscripts containing all or parts of the Greek New Testament. Obvious from the evidence of history is the fact that God has providentially preserved His Word for the present generation.
5. Translation Theory and Twentieth Century
The Textus Receptus as a Textual Bases, One position in reality, rejects any contemporary textual criticism. This view holds, in essence, that the first and last legitimate textual critic was Erasmus, who complied a Greek text from seven manuscripts in 1516. The final approach to textual criticism is the electric approach. The eclectic textual critic, using all of the available manuscripts, judges each instance of textual variation. The eclectic approach to textual criticism has become the most predominant text-critical method employed in recent history. In the opinion of many people, it is the most reasonable way to reconstruct, with confidence, the original text of the Bible. Formal Equivalence is a literal translation where one in which the translator seeks to reproduce, in the receptor language, the word order, sentence structure, and grammar of the source language. A literalistic, word-for-word translation has a distinct advantage over other translations on the spectrum. One must affirm, however, the no Bible translator holds to a strict application of the literal method of translation. Where do twentieth-century translations fit on the spectrum of translation theories, with formal equivalence on one end of the scale and paraphrases on the other? Beginning with the formal or literal end of the spectrum, the first prominent, modern translation, a revision of the King James Version, was the American Standard Version. Some of the concerns with the Revised Standard Version, both theological and linguistic, were addressed in the major revision of the RSV, the New Revised Standard Version. The NASB, like the RSV, was a revision of the ASV. The NASB is a literal translation produced by evangelical translators. Like the RSV, it is not nearly as literalistic as the ASV. The final literal translation to be considered is the New King James Version. The NIV is the first prominent modern version that is not a revision connected to the KJV. It was produced by an international team of English-speaking, evangelical scholars and its copyright is held by the International Bible Society. The American Bible Society has been and continues to be a proponent of dynamic equivalent translations. A significant indicant indication of this commitment was its publication of Today’s English Version, also marketed as the Good News Bible.
No sound argument exists for objecting to the individual who desires to use the KJV because of its beauty or for some equally important reason, However before one chooses a particular Bible to recommend to another person, especially a new believer, it might be wise to take this test. If a literal translation were the version of choice for serious study, the choice for evangelism and initial instruction in the Bible would probably be a dynamic equivalent translation. Paraphrases also have a place in the Christian’s library. These are excellent tools for introducing inquiring people to the Bible. They also provide a useful, running commentary on the text.