Supposed Superiority of the KJV

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I invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to Matthew chapter 5, verse 18.
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We're going to read just one verse to set the stage for our lesson tonight.
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Matthew chapter 5, verse 18.
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Very important passage of Scripture from the words of Jesus.
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In the midst of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus Christ is talking about the fact that He did not come to abolish the Law of the Prophets, but He came to fulfill the Law.
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And He says in verse 18, Not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
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This particular passage is one of the ones that is used to argue for what we call the inspiration of the Bible, or what we might more specifically talk about the inerrancy of the Bible.
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We talk about the fact that the Bible is in fact the inerrant Word of God, meaning that it does not have errors.
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I remember when I first started using that word, I had a person come up and ask me, they said, are you saying the Bible has errors? And I said, no, I'm saying it's inerrant.
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And she said, well, it sounds like you're saying it's in error.
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And I said, no, no, no, it's not in error.
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It's inerrant.
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It doesn't have errors.
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And it is true in everything that it says.
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And every word is true.
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And yet, at the same time, we no longer possess the original Scripture writings.
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We don't have the original book of Romans.
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We don't have the original letter of Paul to the Ephesians.
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We don't have the original book of Matthew.
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What we have is a copy, and we have thousands of copies of these manuscripts.
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And so we have to deal with the fact that these copies do not all agree.
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Now, if you weren't here last week, I want to just remind you that we started last week looking at the subject of textual criticism.
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Textual criticism doesn't mean we're criticizing the Bible in the sense of saying something critical about the Bible.
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But what it means is that we are taking a critical look at the thousands of manuscripts that exist, all of which are copies of, not the original, but copies of copies of copies.
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We have thousands of copies, and within those thousands of copies, there are many places where they disagree.
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And when they disagree, what's that called? Does anybody remember the term? When there is a place where the manuscripts do not agree? The term is variant, right? So we have the study of variants.
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Variants in the Bible.
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Not variants in the Bible, but variants in the manuscripts.
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And what did we say about those variants last week? We said there were 400,000.
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A rough estimate of the variants is somewhere around 400,000.
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And we said there's only about 138,000 words.
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So that would give us three variants for every one word in the Bible.
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So that makes it to think that, boy, we can't trust anything the Bible says.
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However, we learned also that of those 400,000 variants, how much have no meaningful change at all? 99% of those 400,000 variants make no meaningful change at all.
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It's simply a spelling error, a word order change, the movable new.
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We talked about that.
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Whether it's a apple or an apple, that's in the Greek as well.
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And there are times when the new or the letter N in the Greek is there or not there.
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So there's all of these different things that can create variation.
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Spelling error is huge, obviously.
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And so out of 400,000, there's only about 1% of that, which roughly equates to about 4,000 variants that are actually variants that we have to consider, which only makes about 2.9% of the 138,000 words.
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Only about right at 3% of the New Testament is up for question.
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And even then you say, well, that seems like a lot, 3%.
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Then you have to ask the question of, well, is the variant viable or not viable? And we said most of the variants in that 2.9% are not viable.
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They show up at a much later date.
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They show up with a family history that we can tell didn't come from the original.
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There's a lot of things we say, well, it's just not a viable variant.
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Or it's an intentional variant.
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We see places where scribes intentionally made certain changes.
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There were what we call scribal amendations where they amended the text.
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And I mentioned that last week about the fact that if you read the Lord's Prayer, what we call the model prayer in Matthew and the model prayer in Luke, if you read the older manuscripts, the two model prayers are slightly different.
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And I told you, I said, the case in point is the fact that Jesus probably gave the prayer several different times and maybe gave it in different ways because it wasn't meant to be recited.
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Jesus doesn't want us to chant our prayers.
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In fact, he says, don't pray in vain repetition like the heathens do.
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The only reason we do our prayer on Sunday the way that we do it is so that we teach it to children.
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That's the whole reason.
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It's not to teach people to chant prayers like we're in a monastery somewhere.
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So the fact that the prayer in Matthew and the prayer in Luke are read somewhat differently causes some issue for some people.
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So there is a point at which we see in textual history, there was a time in which someone amended that to where they matched, but they didn't need to do that.
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But it happened.
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And we see that in the textual transmission in the textual history.
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So as I was saying, this is the subject.
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And that was a quick overview of last week to bring us into this week, because one of the ways in which some folks have attempted to deal with the subject of textual variation is to simply say, we don't need to deal with this.
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We simply need to recognize the superiority of one version.
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And if you're listening to this on the recording, I just wrote KJV, because that's the answer that a lot of folks give.
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They say, we don't need to talk about textual criticism.
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We don't need to discuss variance.
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We need to recognize that God has one right one.
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And the one right one is that one, the King James Version.
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So tonight, our lesson is entitled, The Supposed Superiority of the King James Version.
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Now you can tell by my title, probably where I would stand on this issue.
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But I want to state from the outset a couple of very important things.
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I think the King James Bible is one of the most beautifully written pieces of English writing in the history of the world.
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And I think that it is really beyond compare in some of the way that it expresses the truth of God's word.
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And I still find it to be one of the most quotable, as far as trying to memorize scripture and quote scripture.
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In fact, oftentimes I'll be quoting scripture from the pulpit, and I'll quote the King James, because that's the way that I remember it.
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You know, take thy shoes off of thy feet, for the ground upon which thy stand is holy ground.
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You throw those words in because you're used to hearing it that way.
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You know, when Moses was at the burning bush.
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These things tend to stick, because it's not the regular type of language that we use.
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The King James is written in an English that's not used at all anymore in the modern tongue.
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And so, yes, I think it's beautiful.
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I think it's powerful.
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And I have no issue if someone thinks that that's the Bible that they want to use because it's regal, it's majestic, and it sounds like...
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And I've heard people say this, and I don't say this at all, to be funny.
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They say, I think this is the way I hear God speaking, you know, in a majestic way.
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Okay, you know, that's fine.
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But, there are entire groups, and even some colleges, that have adopted what is known as King James-only-ism.
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King James-only-ism is not the same as saying, I like the King James Bible, or I think it's regal, and majestic, and powerful, and easy to memorize.
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That's different.
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King James-only-ism is saying that the King James Bible is, in fact, the only Bible that anyone who speaks English should use.
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And some even argue that it's the only Bible anyone should use, no matter whether or not they speak English or not.
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I have heard the argument that it is the Bible, and if you don't speak English, you need to learn English so you can read the King James.
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I've heard the argument that because English is the universal language of air travel, you know, all air traffic controllers have to learn English because apparently that's, you know, around the world, everybody has to be able to talk.
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And because it's the universal language of air travel, then everyone should have to learn English to read the Bible.
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And you should have to use the King James.
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I mean, this is how extreme the position can become.
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And there are people, how many of you have ever heard of a woman named Gail Riplinger? Really? I would have thought, at least a couple hands.
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Okay, well, Gail Riplinger wrote a book called New Age Bible Versions.
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How many of you have ever heard that? Okay, well, New Age Bible Versions by Gail Riplinger advocates that the King James Version is the only Bible that we should use by making the claim that all other translations are being used by Satan to usher in the age of the Antichrist.
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In fact, the full title of her book is, quote, New Age Bible Versions, colon, an exhaustive documentation of the message, men, and manuscripts moving mankind toward the Antichrist's one world religion, end quote.
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It's a very long title.
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Gail Riplinger has tremendous, tremendous faulty logic throughout her book.
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Just bad logic.
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It's not even right to call it logic.
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But she is an example of one of the more extreme cases of what we would call King James-only-ism.
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And so, again, like I said, this is the issue that I want to deal with tonight.
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Because when it comes to textual criticism, I was really nervous.
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I want to tell you, I was nervous that we were going to have a lot of visitors last week and this week.
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Because we've had people come to this church as visitors, and they hear me not using the King James Version, and they leave.
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Or I've had one guy had to walk out and catch him.
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Why are you leaving? Because he came in and looked at the books in the pew, and it wasn't King James, so he left.
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And I know that by talking about this subject, there is an entire subset of the faith community that would write me off as a heretic.
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So I know how serious this issue is.
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I'm not glad we have a small group tonight, but it kind of does make me feel better.
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Because this is a dangerous place to tread.
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So what I'd like to do tonight, it's in your notes.
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I want to start with the five main types of what I would call variations on King James Onlyism.
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And I want to talk about the differences in them, and why I think it matters that you understand this.
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Because I've already mentioned one, and you look at your notes.
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There are basically five different types.
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This comes from the book, King James Only Controversy by James White.
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He outlines five different groups that would all identify themselves in some way as King James.
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Number one, I like King James the best.
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These are those who would say that King James is most familiar and most comfortable to me.
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And I think that's how most people end up as King James Only, is because it's the most comfortable.
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It's the one they grew up with.
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For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him will not perish but have everlasting life.
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They're used to hearing it that way, and so when they hear a different translation, in this way God loved the world, they hear it differently, and they say that's not God's word.
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God's word is this.
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And so they're used to hearing it that way.
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And they don't disqualify people from being Christians if they don't use the King James.
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They just prefer that the King James be used.
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I've been invited to churches like that.
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I've been invited to preach at churches that are what I call King James preferred.
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And when I go there to preach, I preach from the King James.
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Because it doesn't matter to me.
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I'm going to be looking at the Greek anyway, or the Hebrew, whichever.
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Whether I'm in the Old Testament or the New Testament, that's where I'm going to be studying from.
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So what English translation I use doesn't make a difference.
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So the King James Bible is fine to preach from.
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So in that case, I don't have an issue.
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But there are those who make the argument, the second one on your list, the textual argument.
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And this is the textual argument.
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And that is that the underlying text of the King James Version is the most accurate.
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How many of you remember, it's been two weeks ago now, that I said there were two different families of manuscripts, the Byzantine and Alexandrian.
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You guys remember me talking about that? You have the Byzantine, and you have the Alexandrian.
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Remember I told you that the Byzantine Empire, which is modern day Turkey, and then you have the Alexandrian, which is modern Egypt, right? I always say Egypt then, too.
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Alexandria, Egypt.
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And so you have the majority of these manuscripts coming from this area.
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You have the majority of these manuscripts coming from this area, right? The older manuscripts come out of what we call the Alexandrian line, right? So the older manuscripts are here.
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The later manuscripts are here.
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The King James Version is based on what we would call the Byzantine family of manuscripts, okay? Modern versions, all I can say is modern because I don't care whether it's NIV, NASB, ESV, any translation that's been translated in the last, you know, 50 years since the NIV, which is obviously the most popular of the modern versions, they all come from what we would call the Alexandrian line.
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So in this regard, King James advocates would say that the Byzantine line is the more pure line.
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So they say we have the better manuscripts.
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This is the argument they're making.
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So here's the issue, though.
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And this is how you know if you're dealing with a real King James onlyist or not.
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Because you say, well, what about the New King James? Because guess what? The New King James is also based on the Byzantine, not the Alexandrian.
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And if they won't take the New King James, then they're making a different argument.
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Right? Because if they're just saying the texts are better, then there you go.
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All right? That's the second line.
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People say, well, we have the better manuscripts.
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And I've heard people make that argument.
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The next one is the received text only.
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I don't mean to confuse you, but how many of you ever heard of the Textus Receptus? Okay, a few of you.
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But the Textus Receptus, I know you know what it is.
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The Textus Receptus was a Greek manuscript, printed edition of the Greek manuscript, which underlies the King James Version, which is based on the Byzantine manuscripts.
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It's really not based on the Byzantine manuscripts.
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It's based on seven manuscripts that the, well, the King James is based on seven manuscripts, the Textus Receptus being one of them.
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It's a specific text.
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You will hear people talk about the TR.
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The TR is the Textus Receptus.
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It's known as the received text, and it was produced.
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How many of you ever heard of Desiderius Erasmus? Okay, no.
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I don't mean to be throwing out all these names.
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Desiderius Erasmus was a humanist scholar.
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He was one of the ones who debated Martin Luther during the time of the Reformation.
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A very important leader.
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He was a Roman Catholic, and he was responsible for producing a Greek New Testament based on the manuscripts that he had.
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That became known as the Textus Receptus or the received text.
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So a lot of times today, when you have a person who's King James only, if you ask them about the Greek, they hold up the TR, the Textus Receptus, and they say this is the Greek, this is the English, because they agree.
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You understand? So they have a specific Greek text, and it's called the Textus Receptus.
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So for them, there is that, and that's their argument.
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That that's the only Greek that we should use, and it doesn't agree with what we would call the eclectic text, which is based on a much larger manuscript tradition.
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Okay, number four.
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This is, I hope I'm not boring you, I hope I'm not losing you, this is important, because number four is where you start getting into really the fringe groups.
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Because a lot of people would argue for Byzantine superiority, a lot of people would argue for superiority of the Textus Receptus, but there are those who believe the inspired King James version, which means this, that the King James itself is as accurate as the Greek and the Hebrew.
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Meaning that the men who were translating the King James Bible were inspired by God to make a perfect translation, so that the translation itself is perfect.
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Just as much as Paul was inspired to write what he wrote, the translators were inspired to translate what they translated.
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So thus the English of the King James is just as accurate as the Greek and the Hebrew, to what God wants us to know.
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Last, number five, is the King James version as new revelation.
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This one is an even further fringe group, because this group would say if the King James disagrees with the Greek and the Hebrew, then the King James should correct the Greek and the Hebrew.
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Because the King James itself is a new revelation from God.
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You understand? That's an even further...
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You've gone from those who would say, I prefer the King James, to those who say the King James is actually new revelation from God.
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It's quite the spectrum.
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I want to read just a quick note on this last one.
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This group claims that the King James version is new revelation or advanced revelation from God, and it should be the standard from which all other translations originate.
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Adherents to this belief may also believe that the original Hebrew and Greek can be corrected by the King James version.
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This view is also called Ruckmanism, after Peter Ruckman, a staunch advocate of this view.
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How many of you have heard of him? Peter Ruckman? Pensacola Christian College.
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Pensacola Christian College.
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It's just west of here.
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Here is a school that's been very highly influenced by Peter Ruckman.
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I went there one time to a seminar.
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I got into Pensacola, the very first car I was behind in a red light, had a huge bumper sticker that said, AV 1611 is God's word and that's all.
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AV 1611 means authorized version, that's what AV stands for.
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AV 1611 is when the King James version was originally translated.
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The first car I'm behind in a line, that was it.
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I know we're going to talk about the 17th.
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I know where you're going.
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Let me get there.
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I'm waiting for that hand because I know what you're going to say.
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But this school has been heavily influenced by Peter Ruckman and what we would call the Ruckmanites movement.
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Their argument is the King James Bible is God's word.
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If anything else disagrees, no matter whether it's Greek, Hebrew, no matter what, this is it.
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Again, I think the five can be distilled down to two.
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In my opinion, I think all five of these can be distilled down to two.
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One is either you prefer the King James, and I don't really consider that King James only.
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If you prefer the King James, that's fine.
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That's not King James only.
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But the other side is what I would say is King James only.
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People who say any other Bible is just wrong because it's not the King James.
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There's a man out in Tempe, Arizona named Steven Anderson.
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He made national headlines a few years ago because he was traveling across state lines and there was a police traffic stop thing, and they wanted him to get out of his car.
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He wouldn't get out of his car, so they tased him.
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He's a preacher at an independent fundamentalist Baptist church, and he was tased on YouTube.
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So he made national headlines for that.
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He also made national headlines because he said he wanted Obama to die, and he prayed for his death.
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This guy's really a little wacky, but he's one who will tell you.
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The King James Bible is absolutely, without question, the Word of God.
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Why? Because it is.
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If you listen to his conversation with Dr.
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James White, they had a two-hour conversation.
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I've listened to it several times, actually, because it's so interesting to hear his argument.
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He says, well, when I hear it, the Word of God, I know it's the Word of God.
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Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice, and they shall know me.
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And I hear it, and I know that's his voice, and so that's how I know.
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It's very subjective, but he makes the point.
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He says, if you use another Bible, you're not preaching from God's Word, and you're not getting people saved.
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Because the Bible says faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ.
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If you're not using the King James Bible, you're not using the Word of Christ, and people can't hear and be saved if you're not using the Word of Christ, because faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ.
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That's his argument.
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You can't get people saved unless you're using the King James Bible.
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And Dr.
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White says, so you're telling me that even if you're giving them the Gospel, unless you're saying it, using the King James Bible, they can't be saved.
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He said, it's not the Word of God, and faith comes by hearing, hearing from the Word of Christ.
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He kept going back to that, almost like a broken record.
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It's an interesting take on it.
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I do recommend you watch the conversation.
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It's two hours of your life, but it'll be two hours well spent.
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Because, interestingly enough, just to see Dr.
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White patiently trying to teach this young man, and explain to this young man some of the errors and circular reasoning that he's using, and making himself the standard.
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Because he said, I know it's God's Word, because God speaks to me, and I have the Holy Spirit.
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And he made himself the standard.
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Steven Anderson, he's also, if you do happen to look that up on YouTube, there's a lot of video.
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He has a lot of stuff on YouTube.
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But that conversation is worth listening to.
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Even though, like I said, it takes a little bit of time.
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So, having said all that, what I wanted to do tonight, I didn't mean to spend so much time on the introduction, but what I want to do tonight is I want to give you a history of the King James Version.
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Because tonight and next week are both going to be on this subject, and then we have a week off.
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Because we're off for the week of Holy Week.
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So we don't have Wednesday night on Holy Week.
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We'll have Friday night that week.
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So, tonight we're going to talk about the history of the King James.
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And then next week we're going to talk about some of the differences between the King James Bible and modern translations.
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More modern.
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When I say modern, what's modern? From the NIV forward, essentially.
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So that's the two weeks on this subject that we're going to do.
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Alright, so the history of the King James Bible.
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I put a lot of my notes in your notes tonight.
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So this is for you to take.
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I felt like rather than sitting there, you writing dates and things, it's just easier to print it.
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So let's look first at the history of the King James Version.
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In 1604, James I summoned a meeting of representatives from diverse religious groups to discuss the issue of religious toleration.
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At this meeting, known as the Hampton Court Conference, Dr.
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John Reynolds of Oxford discussed the desirability of having an authorized version of the English Bible that would be acceptable to all parties within the church.
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At this time, English Bibles already existed.
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That's important to realize.
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When was the first English Bible translated? Anybody remember? Who? By whom? Some better say it that way.
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Who translated the first English Bible? Everybody's looking at Richard.
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Do you remember? Who was it? Okay, you're not going to tell.
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The first English Bible was translated by John Wycliffe.
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But, it was not translated from the Greek and Hebrew.
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It was translated from the Latin.
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So it really doesn't count.
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Even though it was the first English translation, it was not translated from the original language.
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It was a translation of a translation.
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Still good.
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Still a good translation.
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But it was translated from a translation, thus it doesn't really count as a one generation translation.
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And it is, that would be in mid-1300s, right? Alright, so you got the first English Bible being translated by John Wycliffe.
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Who was the next one? Who was God's outlaw? Anybody remember God's outlaw? That's right.
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William Tyndale.
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William Tyndale was the one who was burned at the stake for translating the Bible into English.
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And his dying words were, God open the King of England's eyes.
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And it was less than a hundred years later that the King of England, James I, authorized the 1611 King James Bible.
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So within a hundred years, his prayer was answered.
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But William Tyndale translated the Bible.
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And a lot of what William Tyndale, a lot of the same language he used, made its way into the King James Bible.
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It had influence among the King James translators.
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I, you know, I don't know the answer off the top of my head, but I...
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I have a copy of the New Testament.
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But did he do the Old Testament also, or is it just the New Testament? He did the Old Testament.
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Okay, alright, yeah.
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And I don't know off the top of my head, but it sounds like it's just the New Testament.
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But we have the Tyndale Bible, which is an English translation, right? So you've got the Wycliffe Bible is English.
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You've got the Tyndale Bible is English.
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There's another Bible out there that was really popular, super popular among the reformers.
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That was also written in English.
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Anybody remember what that was? The Geneva Bible.
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In fact, the Geneva Bible was the Bible of the pilgrims.
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Pilgrims didn't use the King James.
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The pilgrims used the Geneva Bible.
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Yes? Another obvious thing to mention is the King James.
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Was it zero? Zero.
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Yeah, yeah.
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The Puritans did not use the King James.
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They used the Geneva Bible.
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The Geneva Bible had notes attached, similar to a modern study Bible.
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So the point of all this is simply to say the King James Version is not the first English translation of the Bible.
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The King James Bible, however, is the first that receives this approval and the purpose of use from the king.
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James, again, agreed with Reynolds and called for a version that could be used for both public and private use.
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This would be an authorized version.
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According to James, the scholars involved with the new version were to use the Bishop's Bible, which is another English translation, as the basic version as long as it adhered to the original Hebrew and Greek.
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They were also to consult with other translations, Tyndale, Matthew's Bible, Coverdale's Bible, Great Bible, and the Geneva Bible.
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But unlike previous versions, there were to be no notes of comment except which was essential in translating the text.
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So that was what was different.
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The King James Bible wouldn't have any commentary.
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It was just a translation.
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Whereas I said the Geneva Bible had in it commentary notes.
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A lot of it from Calvin.
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Again, the term Geneva Bible, Geneva, Switzerland.
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In 1607, three years later, the translation formally began.
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Fifty-four men, skilled in Greek and Hebrew, were selected and divided into six working companies, two at Westminster, two at Oxford, two at Cambridge.
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Each group was given detailed instructions and was assigned selected books to be translated.
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The work of each group was to be examined by the other companies.
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Thus, this translation was to be the work of the revisers as a whole, not the work of one person or group.
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That's another huge deal.
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When you have Wycliffe's translation or you have Tyndale's translation, that's the work of one man.
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Even though it's a brilliant work, you don't have anyone to question the translation of one person.
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This is why I don't like any translation that comes from one person.
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It's to this day.
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Things like Young's Literal Translation, I think it's okay, but I don't use it to study because it's the work of one person.
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The Message Bible, first of all.
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But as far as using it for study, it's the work of one person.
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It's Eugene Peterson, right? So you've got one person who has the responsibility of deciding.
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If there's a question of translation, only one guy is getting a say, right? But the King James is being done, as it were, in committee.
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It's being done by groups of translators.
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So this is big.
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That's what I'm saying.
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I'm not singing the praises or the detriments.
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I'm saying these are good things, right? This is positive.
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The work continued for two years and nine months.
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And in 1611, the first copies of the new version were printed.
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It was dedicated to the king.
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And on its title page were the words, Appointed to be read in the churches.
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All right.
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So we have the very first, 1611, authorized by the king, appointed to be read in the churches.
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So this Bible has the authority of the king.
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Two years later, a new edition was issued with more than 400 variations from the original printing.
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Right there, we have to step back and say, what about the King James Version only thing? Because now we have two King James Versions, in a sense, because we just made the point.
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It's been two years and there's 400 variations from one to the next.
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Now, are these variations meaningful? No.
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But they're there.
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Right? The whole idea is we're trying to get away from this, right? The whole idea of going with King James only is to get away from variations.
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We've gone from 1611 to 1613.
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We have 400 variations in the same version.
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So we're not escaping the issue, right? So you have the 1613 edition.
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Numerous other changes have taken place in the centuries that followed.
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The King James immediately replaced the Bishop's Bible in the churches, but still received stiff competition from the popular Geneva Bible.
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Within a few decades, the King James Version establishes itself as the standard for English-speaking people around the world.
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The reasons for its success are fourfold.
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One, Greek and Hebrew scholarship had made great strides from the time of Tyndale to that time.
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Two, the King James was made at a time when literary scholarship was flourishing.
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Three, the King James translators were able to learn from other translators that came before and learn from their mistakes and translate better.
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That's number three.
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And four, the King James was not the work of one man or one party.
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It was the work of a committee.
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So I want to read to you a quote.
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The King James Version remains the most popular English Bible ever.
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Its classical language, though difficult for some to understand today, has been communicating the will of God for over three and a half centuries.
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Its majestic style has been quoted, paraphrased, and imitated like no other.
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Its influence in Christian hymns is unmistakable.
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And although recent textual developments have shown some weaknesses, the King James Version will likely remain the most popular English translation for many years to come.
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That was written in the 1800s, which is why I said three centuries and not five centuries, which is where we are now, or four centuries, where we are now.
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So again, the King James Version has a pretty powerful pedigree.
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Where it came from, out of which it came from, the situation it was in, but yet still it was not accepted easily.
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This is something else to keep in mind.
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When the King James Version was translated and issued in 1611, it was widely criticized by the clergy, and some rejected it out of hand.
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Archbishop Richard Bancroft said this, Tell His Majesty that I had rather be ripped to pieces with wild horses than any such translation by my consent should be urged upon poor churches.
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He said, I'd rather be torn apart by horses than use this Bible.
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Well, that's kind of a powerful statement.
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Why would somebody make such a statement? Is it because the King James was a bad translation? No.
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It's because it was a state Bible.
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That was why it was rebuffed in the early stages so vehemently.
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Imagine today, I want to just ask you a question.
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If right now the United States government came out with, oh, I don't know, the Donald Trump Standard Bible.
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Or maybe four or five years ago, the Barack Obama Version.
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Do you think people would take issue? Mr.
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Dale, always good for a singer.
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But you understand what I mean by state Bible.
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You've got a Bible that's been approved and authorized by the King.
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And some people took issue with that from just the perspective of it having the potential of having political influence.
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And I'm going to argue with you for a second and say I believe they were accurate to a point.
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Because there are some things that the King James Bible did do that I think were politically motivated.
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For instance, the word ecclesia should be translated assembly.
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But it is everywhere in the King James Bible translated church.
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Because that was one of the things, you don't translate this word as assembly.
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You translate it as church.
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Why? Because the church was a government recognized place.
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It was a government recognized important part of society.
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So you translate it a certain way.
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The word baptism can be translated as immerse.
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But not, it wasn't.
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Why? Because at this time in history, the only people who were immersing anyone were the crazy Anabaptists.
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Right? And even them weren't usually immersing.
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They were still pouring.
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Water.
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So there is still influence, political influence in the translation.
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You say, but wait a minute, those words are still in our Bible today.
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I'm not saying they're always wrong to use those words.
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But baptizo is a transliteration.
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That's not an English word.
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Baptizo is the Greek for immerse.
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And we translate it as what? Baptism.
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We don't translate it as immerse.
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Because it's a traditional way of how we understand.
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That word has been adopted into the English language.
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But it wasn't an English word.
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So, I think there was good reason why.
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There was some pushback against it in the early time.
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However, as we all know, the King James Bible did rise to popularity.
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Unrivaled by any other Bible in the last 500 years, certainly.
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But here's the thing.
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Remember what I said earlier? It went from 1611 to 1613.
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There were 400 variations in those two.
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Well, here's the thing.
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It didn't stop there.
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The 1611 King James Version of the Bible was revised again in 1615.
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And then in 1629.
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And then in 1638.
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And then in 1762.
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And then again in 1769.
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The 1769 Blaney Revision is what most people now refer to as the King James Bible.
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That's what Richard was going to tell us earlier.
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And I just wanted to keep this until the end.
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Because this is the point.
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When most people say, I'm using my 1611 King James, they're really not.
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Because that 1611 King James has gone through multiple editions.
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And the one that is being used today is the 1769.
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That's the one that's most popular.
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That's the one when you pull out the King James Bible from your shelf.
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And look at it.
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That's the one that you are looking at.
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I wanted to show you tonight.
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So I printed a copy.
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If you turn your book over.
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Your notes, rather.
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This is an actual photocopy of what the page of the 1611 would have looked like.
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Now, it's a little bit blurry.
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So I'm not going to say that the little blurriness is what makes it hard to read.
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But I do want you to go down.
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If you look at just the top, it says, The Force of Faith, St.
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John, John's Testimony.
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You'll notice the words are spelled differently than they are today.
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You'll notice the word John begins with the letter what? What we would say the letter I.
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Go down to verse 16.
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In the first column on the left-hand side.
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For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
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Now again, that reads the same as it does in the 1769.
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But you'll notice the words are spelled differently.
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My point is simply to say this.
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When somebody says I'm carrying a 1611, generally they're not.
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Because this is what they would be carrying if they were carrying around a 1611.
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There have been additions that have come.
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And some of the additions have made changes.
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And here's the question that I would ask if I were talking to a King James onliest.
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And he said, I have the King James Bible.
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I would say, okay, so do you have the 1769 Blaney revision? Or do you have the 1611? Well, the 1769 is the same as the King James 1611.
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I would say, well, no, it's not exactly the same.
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And if your argument is that promise of Jesus at every iota and every dot has got to be the same, that's your argument, then why are there differences? Why the need to update the spelling? Why the need to update grammar? But here's the big question.
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The 1769 Blaney revision has an Oxford edition and a Cambridge edition, and they're different.
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And most people don't even know which one of those they're carrying.
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It's a very small difference, but ask them.
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Is the Bible you're holding the Oxford or the Cambridge? They won't know, and there are differences.
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So I think that the King James Bible is a masterful work of important historical significance.
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But I think for anyone to claim that it alone holds the position of superiority over all other English translations are simply speaking further than history really allows.
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Is it a great translation? Yes.
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Is it a beautiful translation? Yes.
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But it is a translation.
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It is not the original Bible.
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It's a translation of the Bible.
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And here's the point.
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I've heard people say this, and maybe you've heard this before too, and I thought the guy was joking.
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The guy said to me one time, well if it was good enough for Paul and Silas, it's good enough for me.
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And I said, now wait, are you serious? English as a language didn't even exist when Paul and Silas were missionaries.
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We have an English translation.
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One of the things people will argue, and I know I've got to draw to a close.
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I'll draw to a close with this.
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One of the things people will argue is this.
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They'll say, well the King James Bible was used for 400 years plus, well what is it, 2011? 500 years plus, wait no, is that 400 or 500? It's 400, right? That's my math.
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I'm bad.
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It's 400? Okay, 400 years plus? How can we question and how can we say that we should have anything else if the King James Bible has had 400 years of history, of life-changing influence and power and majesty and all of this historical integrity? Here's why.
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Prior to the King James, prior to the King James, the Latin Vulgate was the Bible of the church from the mid-400s to the time of the King James Version.
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In fact, to the point that when Martin Luther began the issues of the Reformation, one of the issues that he took up was the fact that a lot of priests were saying Latin masses and didn't even know what it meant.
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But they had to say the Latin mass because that's the way it was written in the Bible that they were using, which was the Latin Vulgate.
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So someone comes along and says, The King James Bible has had 400 years of history.
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How can you question 400 years of history? Say, well, why is it then that the King James translators felt it was necessary to translate into English a Bible that had over a thousand years of history of use in the church? If the Latin Vulgate had over a thousand years, well, who are these upstarts, these King James translators who came along to translate the Bible into English? Next week, we're going to look at some of the differences.
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We're going to look at the NIV, the New American Standard, the ESV.
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We're going to make some comparisons to the King James.
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We're going to talk about Erasmus a little more, the TR a little more.
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We're going to talk about some of its history.
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But I hope tonight was helpful to you.
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Yes, there's discrepancy in the numbers.
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The NIV is sold, I think, as far as sales go, it's sold because of its use in liberal denominations and churches buying them for churches and things like that.
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I think it did top sales at one point.
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But among individuals, it's still the King James Bible.
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It's still the number one.
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Those numbers, I think, are a little skewed because of how, you know, sometimes churches buy stocks of Bibles to use, and that can affect the numbers somehow.
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Anything else? Anybody have questions? Let's pray.
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Father, thank you for this night.
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I pray that it's been useful and accurate, and that it would be just one more step in our helping to be better confident in your word, not driving our questions, but driving our confidence that you have preserved your word, not in a 16th century Anglican translation, but that you continue to sustain your word in a manuscript history that is tenacious and is always worth our going back and examining.
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In Jesus' name, amen.