Welcome to Call to Decision
This is a four-minute read. The only really important sentence is the one that follows. The front cover of the New King James Version is now - UN blue - and UN Orange. Isn't that just peachy? The rest of the letter might be interesting reading, but not important to you and your mission. I wouldn't be the least bit offended if you skipped it - Jim
Whenever the gov't goes after you, you immediately learn that you have no rights in their eyes. One of their biggest mistakes was coming after me, as their attack backfired, thanks to you and Derry, and their attack turned me back into a truth activist. (I had sworn off of activism in the late '80s.) Now, because of the IPMC, Derry Brownfield and you, many people have heard simple words of powerful truth, stolen from our greatest thinkers. I'm not a great thinker, just a darn good plagiarist! I can't recall all the times I've plagiarized the Bible in paraphrases, or applied Biblical words to present circumstances.
'Scott from WV' has called in a few times. He's one of my students - in electronics and truth about our gov't. The first time I heard him call in, I went into a mild state of shock. You turned that boy into a truth activist with your Bible-based teaching.
Another subject: I took five years of Latin in school, and a year of Greek from a Greek Orthodox Church in Charleston - long time ago - tough teacher for the Greek. I wish I'd stayed the course. I know - about translation and translations. You must know the meaning in both languages and what their meanings were/are at both times . (Luther said that if you didn't preach the Gospel in the language of your time & place, you've goofed - my paraphrase of what he said.) EG: you can't even find the word 'contemn' in anything but an unabridged English dictionary. I have yet to meet anyone who knew what that word meant.
If you do enough translation, you can plainly see a work that was intentionally mis-translated - just as you can see misleading technical writing when you know a machine inside and out - and I (was) the last industrial instrument technician in WV - until Iost my liability insurance to work on industrial instrumentation in 2002 - because WV is the nation's worst judicial hellhole. It was quite painful to go from $90,000 per year - for a few days of work a week - to a negative income. Right after the Sago mine disaster, a top official in MSHA wanted me to testify before a congressional committee about corruption in MSHA that I can trace back to its inception. I chose to send an anonymous letter, instead. I had no great desire to die at age 54. A year and a half ago, I lived in a gorgeous, quaint 1916 farmhouse on two acres that had been in my family since the '30s - the 1830s. I lived in the nicest part of Charleston - with two two-car garages and an electronics shop on the property. I now live in a tiny log cabin in the woods of Roane County I've owned since 1976 - with a lot of my 'stuff' still on pallets, covered by tarps - but I'm much better off now.
Please let me explain my position on translations, so you won't pigeon-hole my stance as idiotic or somehow evil. I've done a lot of translation and technical writing - a form of translation between machine and man. Translation is key to Christianity. Translation into modern languages caused the Reformation, that was only triggered by 95 theses Luther nailed to a church door in Wittenburg.
One must translate in context w/surrounding statements, and integrate the words chosen to other information in the volume you're translating. EG: There is no differentiation between a young girl and a virgin - in Greek - but there is in Hebrew and common sense would dictate that one use the word 'virgin' to describe Mary the mother of Jesus as opposed to 'young girl.' The translators of the NRSV New Testament chose 'young girl' rather than virgin - for their abomination they call a translation of the Word of God. I'm enraged that almost all of our English translations chose to transliterate (as opposed to translate) OT names. Why did they
transliterate satan rather than translate it as 'the false accuser'? That - absolutely enrages me.
You and I (respectfully) differ (but I won't argue with you) in that I know a whole lot about the problems w/the KJV - commissioned by the king that the Pilgrims and Puritans moved five time zones away from - to a wilderness - to escape with their lives. They were entirely different groups. The pilgrims wanted to escape economic/social discrimination, and gain freedom of worship. They read the Tyndale Bible. The Puritans wanted control of King James' church - and he literally owned it! I have little respect for James and not much more for the Puritans. One of their 'tests' to determine if a woman was a witch: They'd strip and shave her - then the church elders (all men) would examine her for any places where a demon might have entered. They were particularly interested in orifices and moles - - - - - They would also poke her eyes w/a needle - and if some place didn't hurt, they concluded that was where a demon entered her. Need I say more about the Puritans? I don't think those bastards were Christians! Nowhere do I read in any Bible translation that we are to strip and shave women - to examine them for evidence of demon possession. Talk about a whore church - - - - -
I got Saved in '73 - started learning Greek to reconcile the apparent contradictions in the KJV and found many surprises along the way. The word 'forgive' in 'Forgive them Father, they know not what they are doing' - is in the imperitive - not a request but an order.
Every translation has problems - and I'm convinced that some were willfully mistranslated. The biggest problem w/the KJV is not the translation, but that English has changed so much. EG: If I say that I 'know' a woman - now - that does not mean that I've had sexual relations with her. W/o Strong's Concordance, some things in the KJV just don't make much sense - because of our butchered language and the idioms of old, as well as our crazy idioms. (I think that there were only 900 root nouns at the time of the Pentateuch - thus the use of a lot of idioms and phrases for words they didn't have). You almost have to re-translate the KJV to make good sense out of some statements. 'Poor in spirit' - Greek idiom that means depressed 'at the end of your rope' - etc. Hebrew idiom: He slept with his fathers. It means that he died, not that he had sexual relations w/his father(s?). Sleeping - now - oftentimes means having sexual relations - in our sick language. Homosexual males have abused that sentence from the KJV to justify having sex w/many men and to infer that is what it meant - back then.
Many have twisted the KJV to suit their (oftentimes sick) purposes. When I see any translation twisted into something other than the original meaning, that enrages me.
I have read the RSV, the NIV, Watson's paraphrase, the NLT, and a paraphrase called 'The Message' - great evangelical tools, but the more I've learned, the more I want to learn at least more Greek. I have found very few problems w/the NLT. I love the American idioms that Peterson chose for The Message - his unabashed paraphrase.
Translation means - from Latin - to 'carry across' (trans) 'information' (lation) and there are Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew idioms that we don't
understand, just as a Chinese man would not understand the American idiom 'ran head over heals.' Translation means carrying across of meaning, not just word for word translation if the meaning of a source idiom is not clear in the target language.
I also went toe to toe with one of the translators of the NKJV when he was at the Bible Center Church in Charleston. When he said 'Your
argument is with the Greek-English Lexicon, not the translation' - I wanted to slap him silly. Nothing angers me much more than distortion of the meaning of God's words - lies told in the name of God. I told him that was a 'cop-out' - loud enough for many to hear.
Pastor, I've verbally dressed down anti-Biblical teaching pastors on my way out of churches, and argued with some of their lies in the middle of services - one of the main reasons I don't go to church despite being a deeply committed Christian. I anger so much that I almost cannot stop calling them down and fume about it for weeks thereafter. I have also been asked to preach, but not called to preach. I know - the difference. I'm at home - being a geek - and working one-on-one.
I have read a number of translations - have serious problems w/some. From an educated point of view, I absolutely despise - with good reason - 'Good News for Modern Man' - the NRSV, the New World translation, and the NKJV. I do not despise the KJV. The old language in some of it confuses me, and I'm well led by the Holy Spirit. Some of the psalms in the KJV bring tears to my eyes - good tears. Unlike some, I do not believe that the KJV was willfully mistranslated.
I won't 'trash' a translation until I've read it - a lot of it. I have a number of problems with The Message, but I don't think it was willfully mistranslated. The problems with The Message are the kinds of problems some pastors have, when they don't fully grasp a concept in the context of the whole Bible. I know that if I did a translation, there would be more problems than everything else!
Now we now know that the NKJV is an instrument of the devil - orange and light blue - your devoted info-gatherer - Jim
The only love I would have for the NKJV would be the love of burning at least one copy!