The Translators.
The King James Bible was not translated by any one man, or even by
one group of men, but by six groups, or committees, meeting in the
cities of Cambridge, Westminster, and Oxford, England. These men
began their work in 1604 and completed it in 1611. In the cities of
Westminster and Oxford there was one committee on the New Testament
in each city. In Cambridge there was a committee on the Old
Testament and one for the Aprocrypha. Yes, the original committee
for the translation of the King James Bible included the Apocrypha,
however, the translators did not believe the Apocrypha was
inspired, but translated these non-canonical books because of their
historical significance. These six committees were made up of
fifty-seven men altogether, each committee having about ten men on
it. I believe these fifty-seven men were superior to any man or
committee of men that has translated any Bible since the
translation of the King James Bible. By way of illustration let's
look at the qualifications of just a few of these great men.
Dr. John Hardinge headed up the Oxford Group. Dr. Hardinge was
Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford.
Dr. John Reynolds, the originator of the translation project, who
presented the idea to the commission appointed by King James to
study divisions in the Church of England, died before the
Authorized Version was published.
Dr. Richard Brett was one of the world's foremost experts in Latin,
Greek, Chaldee, Arabic and Ethioptic languages.
Dr. John Harmer, Professor of Greek at Oxford was a noted linguist
having mastered not only Greek, but Latin and Hebrew as well.
Dr. Edward Lively, Regius Professor of Hebrew at Cambridge, died in
1605 before the work was truly begun.
Dr. Lawrence Chaderton was skilled in Greek and Hebrew, and a
student of the ancient Jewish writings called "The Rabbis."
Dr. Thomas Harrison was noted for his skill in Hebrew and Greek
idioms.
Dr. Robert Spalding, successor to Dr. Lively as Professor of Hebrew
at Cambridge.
Dr. Lancelot Andrews was selected to work on the Old Testament at
Westminster, and worked on twelve books, Genesis to 2 Kings. Dr.
Andrews spoke almost all of the languages spoken in Europe in the
seventeenth century. He majored in language at Cambridge
University, especially studying the Oriental tongues. Dr. Andrews
is said to have been completely fluent in fifteen languages, and
had his private devotions in the Greek New Testament, and kept a
journal of his devotions written entirely in Greek.
Dr. William Bedwell was also selected to work on the Old Testament
at Westminster, working on the same books as Dr. Andrews. Dr.
Bedwell was not only fluent in Hebrew and other Oriental languages,
but produced a translation of the Epistles of John in Arabic and
Latin. He also wrote an entire Arabic dictionary by himself! At
the time of his death Dr. Bedwell was working on a Persian
dictionary which is still in the Bodlian Library at Oxford. Dr.
Bedwell's knowledge of the Shemitic and Cognate languages of Hebrew,
Persian, Arabic, Syriac, Aramaic, and Coptic made him an
uncontestable expert on the translation of the Hebrew Old Testament
into English.
Dr. Miles Smith was in the Old Testament group meeting at Oxford,
and was selected to translate the books from Isaiah through
Malachi. Dr. Smith was so familiar with the Hebrew, Syriac, and
Arabic languages that they were as familiar to him as his native
English.
Dr. Henry Savile was selected to work with the group that was to
translate the New Testament at Oxford. He was chosen to translate
the Gospels, the Book of Acts, and the Revelation. Dr. Savile was
said to be as great a mathematician as he was a Greek scholar. He
was chosen to tutor Queen Elizabeth in both mathematics and Greek.
Dr. Savile was not only famous for his translation of the great
history of Tacitus from Latin into English, but also translated the
mathematical work of Euclid on geometry from Greek into English.
However, Dr. Savile was most famous for his editing and translating
of the complete works of John Chrysostom, one of the most famous of
the early Greek church fathers, from the Greek into English. This
was a work similar in size to eight very large dictionaries!
Dr. John Bois was a New Testament translator at Cambridge. At the
age of five he had read the entire Bible in Hebrew. At the age of
six he could write the Hebrew language in "a fair and elegant"
hand. He was equally skilled in Greek. He was one of the twelve,
two from each committee, who were sent to make the final revision
at Stationer's Hall in London. On top of all of his other duties,
he was the secretary for the final revision committee, taking notes
on all of the meetings. It is largely through his notes that we
have knowledge of the inner workings of the committee in this day
and age.
The above cited men were of such stature that they cannot be
equaled today. Our system of education is not nearly as thorough
as was the educational system that produced these great men. There
is not a single translator of any modern version that can even come
close to the stature of these great men. Our King James Bible is
superior to all others not only because it is translated from
superior texts, but because it was translated by superior
translators.
Their Superior Technique. It is important to understand that the
King James Bible was translated quite differently from the other
English versions that are on sale today. Here is a brief overview
of the technique used to translate our English Bible.
Team Effort. Each translator had to translate all of the books
assigned to his group by himself, then all of the translators from
the group would meet together to discuss which of the translations
was best. After all of the committee, working together, had decided
which translation was the best, a copy of the translation of the
book would be sent to one of the other cities where another
committee was working, and they would meet and review the other
committees' translation, while the first committee was reviewing the
second committee's translation. This process would continue until
all six committees had reviewed every book that had been
translated. Then the book would be reviewed again by the committee
of twelve, two from each of the six committees. If they found any
problems, they would send word to the committee responsible for the
translation, and their reasons for translating the problem passage
in that way would be reviewed. In the end, all of the people on
all of the committees would have to be in total agreement before
the translation was considered to be complete, and they would go on
to the next book! Such a painstaking team effort is unheard of
today, which probably explains why there is so much disagreement as
to the proper translation of the Bible today. There is almost a
"Bible of the Month" club, bringing out some "new," "better," and
"easier" version before the last one has had a chance to be read.
Verbal Equivalence. The King James Bible Translators used a
translation technique that is known as "verbal and formal
equivalence." This simply means that when a word was to be
translated, the translator would find the "verbal equivalent" in
English. This does not imply that the King James Bible is always a
"word-for-word" translation, for there are many Greek words that
cannot be accurately translated into one English word. Sometimes
it takes two, three, four, and even five English words to give us
the proper meaning of the single Greek or Hebrew word being
translated. A perfect example of this is found in 2 Timothy 3:16,
where one Greek word qeopneustos (theopneustos) is translated using
five English words, "given by inspiration of God." Many of the
so-called "scholars" love to point out that the "correct"
translation of this word is "God-breathed." WRONG! The correct
translation is "given by inspiration of God!" The term
"God-breathed" is not action specific. In other words, when you
read "God-breathed" it doesn't tell you anything about the action.
"God breathed His Word" gives us very little information. Did God
breath out, or in? And how did God breathing affect His Word? But
when you read "given by inspiration of God," you realize that God
has breathed into His Word the breath of life, making the Word of
God a living thing! Everything that God breathes the breath of
life into becomes an eternally living entity. When God breathed
into Adam (mankind in federal headship) he became an eternally
living entity (every person that was ever born is alive today,
somewhere!). So also with His Word. You can see then that the
term "God-breathed" focuses our attention on God, when He, in this
context, wants us to focus our attention on His Word, thus the
correct translation "given by inspiration of God!"
Formal Equivalence means that when a word is translated from the
Greek into English, the form of the word must be carried into the
new language. In other words, if the Greek word is a noun, the
English word must take the same form, that is, a noun. If the Greek
word is a verb, the English word must be a verb. If the Greek word
is a pronoun, the English word must be a pronoun, and so on. Also,
implicit in formal equivalence is the number of the word, such as
singular or plural. If the Greek is singular, then the English must
also be singular, if plural, the translation must also be plural.
Past tense must always be translated as past tense, future tense as
future, perfect tense as perfect, and so on. There is a fellow in
Los Angeles who has circulated a tape in which he claims that the
word "is" in 2 Timothy 3:16 is in italics, and therefore has no
support in the Greek, and it is perfectly alright to change it to
"was." According to this fellow's less then brilliant deduction,
the passage should read "All scripture "was" given by inspiration of
God." He doesn't believe the Bible which we have today is inspired.
He must think it has expired. The problem with this fellow is that
he doesn't have a clue about the Greek language. The reason the
King James Translators added the word "is" keeping the passage in
question in the present tense (as is the Greek), is that they
understood that everything that God breathes into is eternal. You
will notice that the second "is" before the word "profitable" is
also in italics. Does anyone in their right mind suggest we change
this word to "was", indicating the Scriptures are no longer
profitable? All Scripture is inspired, and all Scripture is
profitable.
None of the modern English versions follow this verbal and formal
rule of translation, but rather use a system of translation they
refer to as Dynamic Equivalence. Dynamic is a word that means
moving, or changing. The idea behind Dynamic Equivalence is that
the modern translators feel free to change the words that God
inspired anytime they feel like it to produce a "better"
translation. If the translators feel like changing a noun to a
pronoun, they just do it. If they feel like changing a word from
singular to plural, they just do it. If they feel like changing an
article from definite to indefinite, they just do it. They add to,
subtract from, and change the words to "better preserve the idea,
or meaning, or sense, or concept of the original", while ignoring
the words that the Holy God of Heaven has inspired. Did God say
that His ideas, or meaning, or sense, or concepts were inspired, or
did he say that His words were inspired? I believe His words are
inspired, and no man can presume to change the words of God with
impunity.
Our present day English Bible, the Authorized Version, is the
culmination of over seven hundred years of refinement and
purification (Psalm 12:6; 19:8). The first known Word of God in
English was the Lindisfarne Gospels dating to about 700 A.D. These
were in Latin with an Anglo-Saxon interlinear translation added
about 950 A.D. In about 1000 A.D., Aelfric translated a condensed
version of the first seven books of the Old Testament. However,
due to the Norman invasion in 1066, French became the dominant
language of England, and the Anglo-Saxon tongue became obsolete.
In the fourteenth century, English was again dominant, and by the
fifteenth century French had almost disappeared.
In about 1300 the Ormulum appeared, translated by Orm, an
Augustinian monk. This work was originally the Gospels, but later
Genesis and Exodus were translated into English.
About the same time, Richard Rolle translated the Psalms into Early
Middle English, of which 170 manuscripts still survive.
John Wycliffe (1330-1384) was the first known translator of the
entire Bible into English. His first translation was published in
about 1400, and a later edition, revised by John Purvey, appeared
at a somewhat later time.
Tyndale, born in 1494, translated the Bible out of the Greek and
Hebrew and published a New Testament in 1525, based on the first
printed Greek New Testament, published by Erasmus in 1516. Tyndale
was betrayed by a friend, and was martyred on October 6, 1536, for
the crime of giving the people the Word of God in their own
language. It has been claimed that as much as eighty percent of
the King James Bible is taken from the Tyndale Bible, and thus he
has been called the Father of the English Bible. The ecclesiastical
authorities hated this Bible so much that only a small fragment of
the 1525 edition still exists, in the British Museum, and only two
copies of the second edition, published in 1533 are known to exist
today. All the rest were burned by the ecclesiastical authorities
of that dark day.
Myles Coverdale published a work called "The First Complete Bible
to be Printed in the English Tongue" in about 1535. This was
mostly based on Tyndale's work, with Martin Luther's German
translation used for comparison. This work also contains some
corruptions from the Latin Vulgate.
In 1537 a Bible was published with a title page suggesting that the
translator was Thomas Matthew. The publisher is now known to have
been John Rogers, who was an associate of Tyndale, and much of the
work had probably been done by Tyndale prior to his death, and the
balance was done by John Rogers working from Tyndale's notes.
Later editions in 1540 and 1541 contained a preface by Archbishop
Cranmer and became know as the Cranmer Bible.
Coverdale revised the Matthew Bible into what became known as the
Great Bible, due to its large size (9 by 15 inches). This Bible
was used in most Anglican churches from about 1538 until it went
out of print in 1569. Ironically, this Great Bible was widely
received, while at the same time John Rogers (Thomas Matthews) was
imprisoned and later martyred (in 1555). It was through this
Matthew's - Cranmer - Great Bible (all of which was just a
republication of Tyndale's 1535 edition) that the most influence was
exerted on future English versions.
During the reign of Catholic Queen Mary (1553-1558) no Bible was
printed in England, but a group of men in Geneva, Switzerland,
produced an English version called The Geneva Bible in 1560, with a
second edition published in 1562. The New Testament was edited by
William Whittingham, who was married to John Calvin's sister.
Calvin wrote an introduction to this work. The Geneva Bible was
the Bible used by Shakespeare, John Bunyan, Oliver Cromwell, and
which was carried to America by the Puritans. Called "The People's
Bible", it was pre-eminent among English Bibles for seventy-five
years. From 1560 until 1644, 140 editions were published. The
first Bible printed in Scotland, and used to start the Scottish
Revivals under John Knox, was the Geneva Bible. The verse divisions
of Roberre Estienne (also called Robert Stevens and Stefanus),
originally employed in his Greek New Testament of 1551, were used
in the Geneva Bible.
The popularity of the Geneva Bible motivated the ecclesiastical
authorities of the Church of England, after the crowning of Queen
Elizabeth, to publish a Bible which could enjoy the authority of
the Church of England. Archbishop Parker appointed a committee to
work on the new version. This committee was to use the Great Bible
as their starting point, and were to compare it to the Greek and
Hebrew. Unfortunately, these men were not of the caliber of those
who had produced the Geneva Bible. Their finished product was
called The Bishop's Bible, and contained very few changes from the
earlier work, relying heavily on the Great Bible, and the Geneva
Bible, which were, of course, the Tyndale Bible published under
other names. Nineteen editions were printed from 1568 until 1606.
The next, and last, Bible of real importance was now ready to
arrive on the scene, The Authorized Version of 1611, which we have
already dealt with. As you can see, the English Bible has been the
product of over seven hundred years of preparation, purification,
and publication.
Conclusion.
The Bible itself teaches that it is the Words of God that are
inspired, and not just the thoughts, ideas, and concepts, as the
proponents of the Critical text argue. Those inspired words have
been preserved by God in the Traditional Hebrew and Greeks texts,
and those superior texts have been translated by superior men using
superior techniques to give us an inspired, inerrant, infallible
Bible. The unfortunate conclusion we are forced to come to is that
the proponents of the Critical text do so due to the influence of
Modernists, and Modernistic thinkers and educators in the Colleges,
Seminaries, and Bible schools where these men received their
educations. The Bible debate is not new. It is the latest battle
in the continuing war between the Modernists and the
Fundamentalists, and the sooner we identify the enemy, who will
snatch away our Bibles, the sooner our erring brothers will become
aware of the fact that they have come under the influence of the
malignant spirit of Modernism and take the necessary steps to
cleanse their minds, hearts, and pulpits of the poison that is
destroying otherwise good men everywhere we look. We as Baptists
believe the Bible is the very foundation of our faith. It is the
Bible that tells us of Jesus, our Saviour. It is the Bible that
tells us of heaven, our eternal home. It is the Bible that tells
us of the unquenchable fire of hell, reserved for all those who die
without Christ. It is the Bible that tells us of the coming time
of great tribulation, and of the coming glorious Millennial
Kingdom. If we lose our Bibles, we lose all of these great
doctrines of our faith. If we begin to doubt the absolute
trustworthiness of our Bibles, we will begin to doubt all of the
doctrines taught therein. We must guard our Bibles. We must be
defenders of the faith. If not, we will surely forfeit everything
we hold most dear. As David asked, "Is there not a cause?" Think
about it.
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