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GUEST
ARTICLE
NOTES OF INTEREST
Rick
Norris
"Is REVISION of a Bible Translation Always Wrong?"
In
their Preface to the original 1611 KJV, the KJV Translators
argued that it was good to revise and attempt to
improve earlier translations of God's Word. They acknowledged
that attempts to revise the Bible such as theirs were often
incorrectly viewed with suspicion and jealousy. They realized
that there would be accusations of "changing
and correcting God's Word", but they still contended
that revision was necessary. They wrote: "If
anything be halting, or superfluous, or not so agreeable
to the original, the same may be corrected, and the truth
set in place."
The
KJV translators noted that the Roman Catholics
criticized Protestants for "altering and amending
our translations so often." Thomas Fuller
observed that Roman Catholics asked: "Was their translation
good before? Why do they now mend it?" (CHURCH
HISTORY OF BRITAIN, V pg. 407). In a 1582 book, Gregory Martin,
a Roman Catholic, condemned the early translators with
this charge: "How is it, then, that in your later
English bibles, you changed your former translation from
better to worse?" (Fulke, A DEFENSE pg.
323). Martin claimed that "books which were so
translated by Tyndale and the like, as being not
indeed God's book, word, or scripture, but the devil's
word" (Ibid., pg. 228). Martin argued that
present translations must be evaluated or judged by the
ancient Latin Vulgate translation that had been
used by the church for over a thousand years.
The
KJV Translators did not consider that these Roman
Catholic arguments against new translations or revision
of former translations as valid. They recognized that this vague, emotionally-charged claim
that any revision is a "corruption" of God's
Word or that any revision makes the translation "the
devil's word" — is wrong. If the
KJV translators had accepted the claim that translations
do not need to be "revised", "corrected",
or "updated", there would be no King James
Version!
On
the title page of the 1611 KJV, the translators acknowledged
that they "diligently compared and revised" the
former English translations. According to the title page
and the preface of the 1611, their standard for revising
translations was God's Word in the original languages [Hebrew
and Greek]. If the fallible Church of England translators
of the KJV could revise, correct, or update the
earlier English Bibles by consulting God's Word in the original languages without
it being wrong, the KJV can be revised, corrected,
or updated by this same standard. David Cloud,
a "KJV-Only defender", admitted: "The
King James Bible is a revision of that line of Received
Text English Bibles stretching back to Tyndale" (FOR
LOVE OF THE BIBLE pg. 8).
In
an article about KJV translator John Overall,
the reference works THE DICTIONARY OF NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY referred
to "the 1611 revision of the translation of the Bible" (pg.
1270). In an article about Roger Fenton,
these same reference books called the KJV "the revised
version of the Bible" (pg. 1191). Thomas Harrison
was noted to be "among the revisers of the Bible assembled
by James I (pg. 40). If the claim
that "changing, revising, or updating a translation
is corrupting God's Word" were valid, it
would mean that the KJV translators corrupted God's Word! If
the claim of "no change or revision of a translation" were
valid, then believers must use the FIRST translation
into a language regardless or whether it is an accurate
translation or not!
The fact should
be obvious that a revision of a translation of the Bible
is not always wrong. Even Peter
Ruckman commended the "genuine work of updating
and revision" in Bishops', Matthew's, Coverdale's, Great's,
and Geneva (Bible Translations) (DIFFERENCES
IN THE KJV EDITIONS pg. 5). Of course, the fact
that changes or revisions can be good does not mean that
all changes are good. If a translation has some changes
that seem to be for the worse or less accurate, it does
not mean that all its changes or revisions are bad.
An
honest and objective comparison of the KJV to its underlying
Hebrew and Greek texts would show that the KJV improved the
renderings of the earlier good English Bibles in many places.
Such a comparison would also show that every change or
revision made by the KJV translators was not necessarily
a better or more accurate one. Please examine the evidence
for yourself instead of relying on misleading arguments
that tear down all revision of translations as "the
work of Satan". If applied consistently, such arguments
would also condemn the revised version of 1611 — the
KJV. If such arguments were not valid in 1611, why have
they become valid today?
If the history of the Textus
Receptus itself is a history of revision, why is
it beyond revision today? [ROBERT MARTIN, Accuracy
of Translation and the NIV pg. 76]
http://www.pilgrimpublications.com/trattack.htm#_REVISION
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