A little research on "King James Onlyism" reveals the distressing fact that a Seventh-day Adventist, Benjamin G. Wilkinson, is credited with starting this whole fallacious heresy!!!

IS THIS TRUE?? HAVE WE DONE THIS!?

I CAN'T BELIEVE IT. TELL ME IT AINT SO! (Insert CRYING smilie here. )

Back in 1930, B. G. Wilkinson published OUR AUTHORIZED BIBLE VINDICATED. Some of his college colleagues took exception to his book and criticized it publicly. Since Wilkinson, who was a professor in one of our colleges, was having his scholarship questioned, it was mandatory that he reply.

This book is his reply to their "review" and criticism. It literally "downs" them on every argument. Since feelings and rivalry were running high, the General Conference of those days requested Wilkinson to not publish his work. He agreed.

Since the individuals concerned are no longer on the scene, and since the issue of modern versions is now a very important topic, we feel that this work should be available to students.

At the time OUR AUTHORIZED BIBLE VINDICATED was published, the NIV had not come on the scene. Wilkinson's main concern was with the Revised Version and the American Revision, both springing from the works of Westcott and Hort (on the RV). All modern versions also have taken their basis from the Westcott-Hort Greek Text. It is time we re-examined their sources and reasoning.

A little research on "King James Onlyism" reveals the distressing fact that a Seventh-day Adventist, Benjamin G. Wilkinson, is credited with starting this whole fallacious heresy!!!

IS THIS TRUE?? HAVE WE DONE THIS!?

I CAN'T BELIEVE IT. TELL ME IT AINT SO! (Insert CRYING smilie here. )

On the other hand, the KJV includes texts that it shouldn't include, like the Comma Johanneum of 1 John 5:7.

About 100 years ago W.W. Prescott and Willie White (Ellen White's son) argued against the King James Bible being necessarly superior and Willie told about his mother's liking and useing other translations. And this was even before the rediscovery of the ancient world in the 20th century, which I believe to be a part of the Investigative Judgment.

There are 3 basic Bible catagories: Word translations (I forgot the technical term for this)which trys to translate word for word with a bit of dynamic and paraphrase to make it run smoothly, or to avoid controversy of points that we think should not be in the Bible and thus prevent people from buying it because people don't want a Bible that says those things (Nothing of major theological importance, just things like being sure that Phoebe in Romans is a deconess and not like they can translate the exact same word by a man's name as Pastor or Elder, or phrases where the words could lead to a more sexual translation that they put in softer language) Dynamic translations where they translate the ideas rather than a word for word translation. Both of these work together as a team because while you may have the words, we don't know enought about the languages and culture to tell what were common expressions and proberbs and thus they translate what the words mean. How was it understood by the original readers. The third way is Paraphrase, which is basically taking the two types of translations and putting it in other words that help people to understand. I think Graham Maxwell wrote a book "Can the Bible be trusted" I know he at least has a wonderful chapter in "Can God be Trusted" in how we can trust the Bible in which he covers these issues that you are asking about.

Now all three groups have a certan amount of word translation, dynamic translation, and paraphrase. In fact the Living Bible, a paraphrase, is (or at least in the 1980s was) the ONLY Bible to accurately translate a verse into English when Elijah is taunting the priest of Baal saying that maybe Baal is going to the bathroom. Both word translations and dynamic translations like to say that Baal was busy. Also, all Bible are victims of the translator's presuppositions: The King James Bible has prejudices and presupositons held in it's day, as well as it being a compromise Bible, as Catholics wanted to translate the Bible one way and Protestants the other way, and the KJV was a middle ground between the two (Initally making both groups unhappy and the Catholics made their Bible and the Protestants eventually came around to accepting the KJV despite it's compromises.) Finally we are always learning more about the languages: There were many words that translators did not know how to translate that they had to guess. Bibles before the 20th century had a LOT of guesswork. But with Archaeology they have found many ancient manuscripts where the same words as in the Bible are used over and over again and we start to see how these words are used, what their definations and syntexts are. (Try to translate in today's language the word "Mouse") Of course we are in a trade off of on the one hand having a better knowlege of the language, but the translators tend to be either fundamentalists or modernists and this slants their translations.

What is wise is to use different Bibles, and some for different purposes. Hiphop, cottenwood, and "God is Real Man!" for those of those backgrounds for general knowlege of the Bible. The Good News, Children's International and NIV for quick and easy reading and for some dynamics (and know their shortfalls: such as the NIV being too evangelical and fundamentalist); and Bibles like the RSV, NASB, and my favorite the Anchor Bible for more deeper study.

Now if you think this is confusing, our Old Testament today is based on one Biblical family of texts, the Messeritic text which comes from the Babylonian Family. In Jesus' day there were 3 families of texts: Babylonian, Palestanian and Egyptian families, each with their different translations and versions (which is why when we read Old Testament quotes in the New Testament, unless the translator decided to smooth it over, we find it a little different from if we were to turn back to our Old Testament and read the verse. And most of us don't realize that the Sermon on the Mt. is a quote from Isaiah, because that passage in Isaiah is quite different in the dead sea scrools, a version of the Palestinian text, than the Babylon text that the Massorites used). So we have only one family. In Jesus' and Paul's day they had even more to choose from. (Jesus appears to have had a different version or versions of the Palestinian texts as it is related to the Dead Sea Scrools but not quite. And Paul appears to have used different versions of of the Egyptian family)

The variations in translations include: different possible ways of translating the text, the condition of the text that they are being used (such as the missing verses in Mark were missing in older manuscrips, but since it was at the end it could have been dammaged) The so called "Missing verses" tend to be put in footnotes. There are reasons for the translations to translate the way they do and it would be wise to check out why they do.

I've never considered myself close-minded, Jack. My mind is always open to truth.
All Bible translations contribute to the comprehension of Scripture.

I also watched a video saying why the KJV was best. I was hoping to be informed by it. I sat through the whole thing, the ridicules and everything, and as near as I could understand, he was saying the KJV was better because it had more.

I'm not sure "more" is better. If it had more errors, that wouldn't mean it was better. I just don't think concluding something is better because it has more is correct. I've heard others say it is better because it has less errors. Just being less wrong doesn't make something more right to me. Wrong is still wrong. The SDA commentary has numerous instances after numerous instances where it says things such as, "better translated is ....".

Something I've heard, but don't know if it was correct, is that the Catholic church preserved the Bible, and the KJV came from it. I also understand some of the modern versions are translated by comparing many of the dead sea scrolls, scrolls which did not exist before 1798. How does that fit in?

If a verse was added, and it is later found out to be added and in error, how can we say the KJV better because it has "missing" verses? How do we determine whether KJV should or should not have those verses, how do we know the textus receptus is correct?

Now, I don't understand everything you said as it was rather lengthy, but could you pick an example of a verse we could discuss? Also, how should we determine the correct translation of that verse?

The so-called "Comma" is unproven one way or the other, but the evidence does seem to lean more against it. As it cannot be fully proven, I have chosen to stay out of the controversy on it. Mrs. White never quoted it in her writings, and I guess perhaps we don't need it. But it doesn't contradict any of the rest of Scripture either, nor does it give us any new doctrine which is not supported elsewhere.

That said, it is true that there are errors in every version of the Bible, including the King James Version. However, I feel confident I could point out 10 errors in the NIV for every error pointed out from the KJV, and the NIV errors are more egregious.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

I would like to see evidence of this.

Do your own research and you will see evidence of this, though I'm not sure I would go so far as to say "most SDA doctrines." I'm not sure we have an accurate count of our doctrines, first of all, and secondly, it is not the number of doctrines affected which is so important as their relevance to our salvation.

The newer perversions change the Plan of Redemption into another gospel--a false one. That is sobering.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

Kevin, you just re-posted the whole thing. How does that help? I read it closer this time, thinking I missed something the first time, and this long and rambling cut and paste has nothing at all to do with the discussion. (Insert "rolling eyeballs" smilie here)