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KJV Only?

Emails & Questions

KING JAMES ONLY

Sent Comments and Questions to: dan@servantsofyahshua.com

Q: Isn’t the King James Bible G-d breathed?  After all it says in 2 Timothy 3:16. “All scripture is inspired…”


A:  There is a teaching being pushed by some preachers that the KJV is the very words of God, and of YaHshua.  Okay, I’ll give you that the words are a “record” of what was once spoken but from original transmission to printed page can vary some according to translation methods.  When Paul made this statement do you think He was speaking of his own words?  No, he was talking about the Old Testament, this was the only “scripture” of his day.  We can apply his remark to the words of the New Testament as we see the same process of communication used as seen in the Old Testament.  Also, a large portion of the NT is quotes from the OT.  It is obvious they taught from the Hebrew Scriptures and there is no doubt, to the believer, these are recorded words of what our Creator said to different individuals over a period of 4000 years.  You can count on two hands the number of people our Creator spoke to personally or by an angelic messenger over this period of time.  In the NT we have the same thing occurring.  The Creator YaHshua, in the flesh, speaks to men, debates with them, argues with them, then is crucified and returns to the place of His origin, a place we know as Heaven, a place no man has gone only that man whose origin is from there (John 3:13).  What we are left with is words He spoke to His disciple and the “inspired” words of what His disciples spoke.  The original language our Savior spoke was not Greek, He spoke Aramaic a Semitic language akin to Hebrew, and He spoke Hebrew, not the Hebrew of modern Israel either, but the tongue of the Middle East and the tongue Scribes of His day.  We know He was conversant in these two languages as the priestly group of the Pharisees called YaHshua a Rabbi and this title was not given to everyone.

Now this is my point, the KJV was taken from the Greek and the Latin.  The translators considered this the original text.  Why?  Because this is what they had accepted in the Roman dominated European states as the words from the Apostles.  This is, however, a transmission from another language, a language of origin, actually spoken by our Savior and His original followers, Aramaic, a Semitic language of the region.  The Messiah did not converse with the Gentiles, except for a very few as demonstrated by the conversation He had with the woman at the well (John 4:10), Jew and Gentiles did not mix.  This is can be see in the instructions He gave to His disciples (Matthew 10:5-6), here we see the idea, as some teach, they would be speaking Greek would really be silly, they were sent to the people of Israel.  

The language of the Empire, for trade, may have been Greek mixed with a Latin (Roman) dialect, but the language of the East was unquestionably Aramaic, and the Jews were loath to speak in any other tongue – especially coming from anyone they would call Rabbi.  Yes, the Scriptures were inspired but are not being inspired.  If the scriptures could not be changed, or as some claim, “even the errors found are inspired”, a ludicrous assumption to be sure, we would not have been warned about “not” making changes.  This should also be a waiting to those thinking scripture is still being written, that our Creator has more to say to us than just His Words already written.  Yes, I’m talking about those claiming to be writing messages from Heaven, like the Book of Miracles, and the book of Mormon and the Koran and other writings and proclamations made by false prophets.  Yes, we have all been warned, and should take care in how we handle the Words.

We see this warning in Revelation 22:18 not to add, or change the words of this Book – no one denies the ‘inspiration” of the Book of Revelation. Such a warning would not be needed if it is not possible to make changes, nor would this warning be reasonable if the changes “not” inspired were then somehow deemed as inspired.   Inspired errors?  If god did not want the errors or the changes in the written word they would not be there, right?  Or so goes the ridiculous reasoning by the few.  There would be no need for the warning if this were the case.  Also, there would be no need for admonitions such as to “study” (2 Timothy 2:5), “…rightly dividing the Word of Truth”.   

If you get trapped into the idea of only one Bible, one translation you set yourself up for doctrinal errors binding you to a false truth and limiting your study to a single book, a book taken from thousands of different sources compacted into one volume and declared “God breathed”.  The fact is, the KJV came down by order of the King of England in a effort to break away form the Roman Catholic Church.  The Roman church saw the Latin Bible as the only  inspired word.  Today there are those working to make the KJV better by going back to much of the original languages, mostly from the Greek, of course, and to clear up some of the errors found in the KJV bible.  Two of these efforts are the work of J. P. Green, the MKJV and the LITV, that would be the Modern King James Version and the Literal Version.  Aside from these there is also another movement underway in producing English Bibles from the Aramaic.

We have the Work of Dr Lamsa, The Holy Bible From the Ancient Eastern Manuscripts, translated from the Peshitta, the authorized Bible of the Church of the East.  This English translation, the work of Dr Lamsa, has been around for years and even though it is related to the actual language spoken by our Savior and His original disciples only a few of the modern translations have used it as a resource.  There is an effort being completed in bringing the Aramaic text up to modern standards and scrutiny, attempting to create a more accurate Aramaic translation into the English.   One notable work is the, Aramaic English New Testament, by Andrew Gabriel Roth and Baruch Ben Daniel -- www.aent.org -- and Aramaic New testament, by Dave Bausher --www.aramaicnt.com .  

My studies have led me away from the KJV ONLY approach and seeing the benefit of several translations in order to check one against the other and realize this has been, and is, a great benefit to the Believer Student in searching the word. Telling the truth is easy it is the lying that is hard.  The lies always appear in the light of the testimony fo many, not just the one. When the truth shines through the errors or at the least those things needing to be questioned, are made visible.  It is convenient to say there is only one Bible, this makes it easy for Satan’s agents to trap you into doctrines that should be questioned – this is the reason our Savior and our Heavenly Father has allowed other Translations to come into being.  

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Email: dan@servantsofyahshua.com

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