Why I Preach from the Received Text is an anthology of personal testimonies more than it is a collection of careful arguments. It is not intended to be academic, and I see nothing necessarily wrong with that. But it does make countless properly academic claims, and...
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert A. Caro My rating: 5 of 5 stars Robert Caro is fascinated by power. He has given his life to exploring how it is gained and kept. And in Robert Moses, the subject of this epic book, power looks like the...
Finding the Right Hills to Die On: The Case for Theological Triage by Gavin Ortlund My rating: 4 of 5 stars Gracious, clear, accessible. Extremely well done. I nearly docked him a star for being ever-so-slightly in a different place than I am on creationism (though I...
The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth, by Jonathan Rauch (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2021).I have such mixed feelings about this book. I so much want so much of it to be true and right. I hold a minority worldview in my society;...
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I enjoyed the episode, and I can’t wait to read your book. I pre-ordered a copy, but I suspect that I’ll be ordering more for family and friends.
Music to my publisher’s ears. =)
Humor aside, I am praying for that family and those friends.
Thank you! I am having more success with some than others in helping them to understand the benefits of multiple translations.
Of course I would love for everyone who insists that the KJV is the best or the only valid translation to use multiple English translations in their Bible study, but I’ll settle for them not insisting that others use the KJV.
I don’t understand how anyone can say that the KJV is the best version when it has just silly, sloppy basic grammar errors. For example, in John 19:29, why in the world did the editors let “spunge” slip through the proofreading process? Spunge, really?? That’s not even a word.
You need to read my book. =) Spunge was just an older way of spelling sponge. I’d be very reticent to proclaim something in the KJV a “mistake.” They did excellent work. Spellings simply change over time, along with a lot of other features in language.
Mark, I’m not saying that I necessarily disagree with you about this instance, but I will say that saying that language has changed seems like a weak argument in this case. I’ve never seen “spunge” in any literary context. But, I could be wrong, so I won’t make any big arguments on that one.
But how do you explain other things in the KJV that are not only “odd,” they almost seem borderline heretical? Take Genesis 3:15 in the KJV. How in the world did it call Christ “it”?
Stephie (who is also Evan, who is also someone else who’s given me several similar comments in previous months? I’m not sure who I’m talking to! =), you need to listen to the History of English podcast and read this book by John McWhorter (or pretty much anything by him—such as Words on the Move). Language changes: spelling changes, pronunciation changes, syntax changes.
Mark, you make a valid point and I don’t think anyone would disagree with you. Yes, language does change and is constantly evolving. For example, no one uses thee and thou anymore. In today’s vernacular we usually just say “you” instead of “thou.” That’s pretty straightforward.
Here is where I disagree with you. Some of these changes are so dramatic that it goes beyond the realm of just language changing. Take the case in point of Genesis 3:15 that Stephie Evans (or whoever he or she is 🙂 ) pointed out. How did a member of the godhead go from being a personal god to an it? There is a huge difference between a personal pronoun and calling someone an “it”! They had pronouns in 1611, so it’s not as if this should have been a problem. This is an example of where the KJV is way off in left field and every other version is correct because they do use personal pronouns The people who are members of the KJV-only crowd surely did pick a unique version to say is the only version! I don’t think that any of the language links you referred to can account for such dramatic changes as a personal pronoun to an impersonal pronoun. To me that is too big of a difference to lay at the feet of a dynamic, fluid language.
How do you account for changes that are just plain nonsensical and make no logical sense, even from a dynamic language point of view? Luke 5:37 is a perfect case in point. Wineskins are pliable, leather-like objects that are prone to bursting from chemical changes in the properties of wine. Bottles are hard objects that can break if they fall, but they do not burst due to changes in the chemical structure of wine. Why did Luke 5:37 change from a perfectly cogent wording of “wineskin” to the illogical “bottle”? The new version doesn’t seem to even make scientific sense anymore.
And lastly, and perhaps most importantly, why did Luke 5:37 change in the last few (couple?) of years??? That is the weirdest thing to me. If you grew up in a Baptist home you heard sermons on the dangers of wine. Invariably, you would have heard sermons using the passage about wineskins in an attempt to give an argument about the properties of new wine (supposedly non-alcoholic) vs. old wine (supposedly alcoholic in content). The shelf life of bottles is what, hundreds or thousands of years? They just don’t break down like wineskins do. This verse no longer makes sense. So why did it change and change very recently???? That is so odd.
Mark, I have another weird one for you. I like to listen to Bible studies. In the last five minutes I heard a Bible teacher make reference to Genesis 3:15 and he talked about where Christ will crush Satan’s head. So why does the KJV now say that “it” (referring to Christ) will bruise Satan’s head and not crush it, like it used to say?
Because the immediate reference in Gen 3:15 is to the “seed.” And we don’t call seeds “he” or “him.” (I didn’t actually say that Gen 3:15’s “it” in the KJV is the result of language change. I should have been clearer.)
As for Luke 5:37, the KJV has not been changed in the last few years. It hasn’t been changed materially since 1769. The KJV, in all the parallel passages, says “bottles.” (It’s in the 1611.) There’s a note at Mark 2:22, however, that was added some time after 1611: “Bottles, or sacks of skin.” And the OED says this:
Language changes.