Understanding

the Bible
Why your choice of Bible version is important
In order to get the deep things of God you need the true word of God. In the King James Bible we have the key words and key phrases, as well as cross-references, that allow us to deeply study the Bible. Many evangelical scholars accept the assumptions behind the modern Greek and Hebrew texts and their contemporary English translations, in just the same way some evangelical scholars accept the assumptions behind the theory of evolution as scientific fact. This does not mean they are not saved or do not have some insight. However, the superiority of the King James over modern alternatives is shown below. THE EVIDENCE: Gods Hand in History The first complete Bible in English was by John Wycliffe (1382). It was made in a manuscript format before the printing press was invented. There were six major printed revisions of Wycliffes manuscript version, the seventh being the King James Bible in 1611 (see Psalm 12:6-7). They were: Tyndale, 1526; Coverdale, 1535; Matthews, 1537; Cranmers or the Great Bible, 1539; Geneva, 1560; Bishops, 1568. The last Bible in this line was the King James Bible published in 1611. After this the process stopped. For 270 years (1611-1881) the King James Bible was the only commonly available Bible we had in English. If it is not Gods words in English we have never had themand never will, because there is much less certainty about the text and the philosophy of translating today than in 1611.

THE ALTERNATIVES: Todays Modern Versions The tradeoff is between readability and accuracy. If all you are going to do is read the Bible, read any version. But at the point you wish to study the Bible you must have accuracy. Many modern Bible publishers attempt to produce a version that is immediately understandable to the natural man (1 Cor 2:14), without the intervention of the Holy Spirit or the exposition of scripture by preaching. There are two competing theories of translating: literal and dynamic. A dynamic equivalence translation attempts to bring the thoughts over into the new language, but not necessarily the actual words. There are two competing texts: received and man-made. The traditional (Greek received and Hebrew Masoretic) text the King James was translated from had been preserved by God through the priesthood of believers until it was put in printed format during the Reformation.

The modern Greek text behind contemporary translations of the New Testament represents a minority of manuscripts (less than 5 percent) that are older (because they were not used, or were preserved in an arid climate). The initial manuscripts behind this text were only recently discovered in the mid-1800s. This led to a new Greek NT text that resulted in a new English translation (the Revised Version of 1881). In order to accept this text as authoritative you must believe the Holy Spirit fell down on the job for eighteen centuries, and then the correct text was only recently discovered and published by unbelieving scholars. Because God providentially operated through the priesthood of believers, we state with confidence that the KJV faithfully preserves the very words of God in our language. Just like we trust this process of preservation with regard to the canon of the Bible (which books are actually recognized as scripture and which books are not), we likewise trust it with regard to the text of those books. THE PROCESS OF INSPIRATION Jer 1:9; 2 Sam 23:2; 2 Pet 1:20-21) This is how God gave inspired scripture through human instruments so that it was received without error. Jer 36:2-4; Rom 16:22; 1 Pet 5:12; 2 Tim 3:16-17 Once inspired revelation was spoken, it was then committed to writing. This process of making Gods verbal words visual (graphic) resulted in what the Bible terms scripture (Gr. graphe). The original manuscripts no longer exist, but what was spoken (inspiration) was written (inscripturation). It was then copied (transmission) and distributed. Those copies by priests (in the case of the OT) and believers (in the case of the NT) were accurate in spite of human involvement (preservation, see Jer 36:16-28), resulting in the opportunity for us to have in our language (translation) Gods very words (revelation). Matt 5:18; John 10:35b; Prov 22:20-21; 30:5-6 Grab a concordance and do a word study of the term scripture. Use this study to help answer the question of whether scripture is limited to the original manuscripts, or something God made available even thousands of years after the original writings, and hundreds of copies down the line. THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS Discovered since 1947, these ancient manuscripts (over 220) represent every OT book except Esther. The most significant find was a nearly complete copy of Isaiah. The previous earliest manuscript of Isaiah in existence dated to about AD 1000. This scroll has been dated to at least 150100 BC. A great gap has been bridged with this discovery. While unbelieving scholars used to believe the scribes must have taken great liberties with the text, and that the production of the Bible was an evolutionary process, these seventeen sheets of parchment (about twenty-four feet long) proved that, except for spelling variations that did not alter pronunciation and a few added words that do not alter meaning, the text had not changed in over 1,100 years of copying, recopying and transmission. Gods words were supernaturally transferred from his heart into the mouths of the prophets, onto the pages of scripture, over the centuries of time, and into the hands of believers, who are then responsible to receive them and believe them as being the authoritative, absolute standard of truth (Ps 119:15-16 vs. Ezek 3:1-4; 1 Thes 2:13). Rev. Alan Shelby