The CENTRAL Issue in the KJV-Only Debate
A friend posted a video on Facebook yesterday showing John Piper’s recommendations regarding using a contemporary English translation of the Bible. As the video played, captions appeared (with many misspellings), attempting to rebut Piper’s comments in real-time. I am not providing a link to the video simply because it isn’t worth glorifying by linking to it.
Below is my response to my friend and to her Facebook friends. It is a long post. On this website, I will welcome comments for a few days, but I will only post comments if they are respectful of everyone involved in the debate.
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Regarding the person/persons who added the captions… their knowledge of the CENTRAL issue at hand is no more accurate than the spelling in their captions! (There are other peripheral issues regarding the KJV, but I am withholding my remarks because they aren’t the CENTRAL issue at hand and I don’t want anyone to get distracted from the CENTRAL issue).
Yes, the Biblical writers DID IN FACT use the common language of the day (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek) to record what God said — in the common language at the time.
(Note: An additional note to my original Facebook response:
Example: Moses didn’t record the Exodus in Egyptian Hieroglyphics (even though, growing up in Pharoah’s house, he would have been very capable of doing so]. Instead, he recorded the Exodus of God’s people in the language that they would understand.)
The reason William Tyndale was burned at the stake (in 1536), and one of the many reasons Martin Luther was in so much hot water: attempting to get the Word of God *back* into the hands of normal, everyday people so they could understand it in the common language of the day.
The very fact that the KJV was even translated in the first place (1611) was to GET THE WORD OF GOD INTO THE COMMON LANGUAGE OF THE DAY!
The KJV was not the first English translation. As far as I can tell, many of the previous (partial eg, Psalms, the Gospels) English translations were translated from the Latin Vulgate (which itself was translated from the original languages in order to GET THE WORD OF GOD INTO THE COMMON LANGUAGE OF THE DAY.
The KJV was a revision to Tyndale’s works (published from 1494–1536) and Bishops Bible (1568 which was revised in 1572; the 1602 edition of the Bishop’s Bible was prescribed as the base text for the King James Version.
The translators of the KJV recognized the limitations of their work and acknowledged that as language changes, English translations would need to be updated accordingly.
The bottom line: The KJV-Only proponents are not consistent in their argument for the legitimacy of KJV-Only.
As I have told people in churches where I have served, if you normally speak (fluently) only in 17th Century Elizabethan English, by all means, use the KJV! Otherwise, use a good modern-day translation in your first language, which for most of us is mid-to-late 20th to early 21st Century English.
The CENTRAL issue at hand is “How does God speak? How did He originally intend to speak?” When God breathed out His Word (2Tim 3:16), He did so in the language of the hearers in their contemporary dialect. And if they had God’s Word in their contemporary language, so should we.
We need to have the most understandable translation of the Bible in our native language so we can
1) understand it,
2) study it,
3) meditate on it, and
4) apply it to your daily life. (2Tim 3:17)
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So, what’s your take on this issue? Do you believe the King James translation (translated in 1611) is the only legitimate for Christians today? If so, please state your case.