Inspiration, Preservation, Translation: The 1611, and The 1769
2 Timothy 3: 16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: graphe a thing written the WORDS
17 That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works. theopneustos “God-Breathed”
Inspiration is about how God gave us HIS WORDS.
“All scripture is given by inspiration of God” This portion of the sentence is to tell us that GOD is the AUTHOR of Scripture, not man.
Just because the meaning of “inspiration” has changed in our present day, doesn’t change the meaning of the word in our Bible.
Today “inspiration” means to “motivate, affect, or influence”. By this definition, it would mean that the person doing the writing was inspired.
“Inspiration is defined as that work of the Holy Spirit of God upon the minds, souls, and bodies of the Scripture writers which makes their writings the record of a progressive divine revelation. When God determined to give to His creation the Self-revelation that we today call the Bible, He selected the Prophets of the Old Testament, and the Apostles of the New Testament, and through the agency of His indwelling Holy Spirit so over came the sin nature of these men that the words which He selected from the reservoir of the culture, education, experience, and personality of the man were His chosen words, and no others. This process of inspiration was two fold: Verbal, the very words that God selected were the very words that best revealed the mind and will of God to His creation. Thus, every word so inspired was in fact, the Word of God. Plenary, the collection of words that we call the Bible is, in its whole, the complete Word of God, without error or contradiction. The entire Bible, regardless of subject matter, is the infallible, unfailing, Revelation of God.” Dr. Thomas Cassidy
https://av1611.com/kjbp/articles/cassidy-factfiction2.html
The Bible was not given all at once. It was given one portion at a time over hundreds of years. One of the best studies is to get a timeline of the Bible, and see how the different characters of the Bible were active at different times; from Moses in 1500 BC, to Malachi in about 400 BC.
The Bible was not given as a monolithic text.
The Bible was given progressively over a period of about 1600 years. (1500 BC -100 AD)
The Bible was given in portions such as one book at a time, or even books were given over a period of time. (For example, in Ezekiel we read, “the word of the LORD came unto me, saying” 37 times. This means that 37 separate times the LORD came to Ezekiel with His Word.
Each of the Psalms is an individual portion of Scripture given to a psalmist. (And many more examples could be given.)
COPIES:
As long as the copies are true to the originals, they are the same words.
Preservation:
All of the WORDS of Scripture were preserved by the power of God, throughout the ages. (Each copy only lasted about 75 years, tops.)
Torah was given about 1500 B.C. (1500 / 75 = 20)
Samuel and David 1,000 B.C. (1,000 / 75 = 13)
Isaiah 735 B.C. (735 /75 = 9.8)
Malachi 430 B.C. (430 / 75 = 5.7)
Rules for copying the O.T.:
1) The parchment had to be made from the skin of a clean animal, prepared by a Jew only, and be fastened by strings from clean animals.
2) Each column must have no less than 48 or more than 60 lines.
3) The ink must be of no other color than black, and had to be prepared according to a special recipe.
4) no word nor letter could be written from memory; the scribe must have an authentic copy before him, and he had to read and pronounce aloud each word before writing it.
5) He had to reverently wipe his pen each time before writing the Word of God, and had to wash his whole body before writing the sacred name “Jehovah!”
6) One mistake on a sheet condemned the sheet; if three mistakes were found on any page, the entire manuscript was condemned.
7) Every word and every letter was counted, and if a letter were omitted, an extra letter inserted, or if one letter touched another, the manuscript was condemned and destroyed at once.
8) As no document containing God’s Word could be destroyed, they were stored, or buried, in a genizah – a Hebrew term meaning “hiding place.” These were usually kept in a synagogue or sometimes in a Jewish cemetery.
The old Rabbi gave the solemn warning to each young scribe: “Take heed how thou dost thy work, for thy work is the work of Heaven; lest thou drop or add a letter of a manuscript and so become a destroyer of the world!”
The scribe was also told that while he was writing if even a king would enter the room and speak with him, the scribe was to ignore him until he finished the page he was working on, lest he make a mistake!
In fact, some texts were actually annotated–that is, each letter was individually counted! Thus, in copying the Old Testament they would note the letter aleph (first letter in the Hebrew alphabet) occurred 42,377 times, the letter beth 38,218 times, and so on.
What about the N.T.?
Is it True That No Two NT MSS Are Exactly the Same? – WHAT IS TRUTH (kentbrandenburg.com)
For the NT, there are about 25,000 MSS.
6,000 Greek
10,000 Latin
9,300 Syriac, Slavic, Gothic, Ethiopic, Coptic, Nubian, Armenian.
There are two MAJOR families of manuscripts: Alexandrian, and Byzantine.
The vast majority of all the manuscripts agree with the Byzantine text type readings.
The portions of the Byzantine MSS that we have are very much in agreement. (All texts are eclectic texts.)
If each person in this room was to make a handwritten copy of our Bibles, we would all make mistakes somewhere in the process. BUT, the vast majority of what was written would be the same, and the mistakes that would be made would be at different places. Therefore, even without referring back to the original, we could tell what the correct readings should be by simply seeing how the majority of us had it the same, where someone else made a mistake.
So, if one person in John 1:1 wrote “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a God”; and everyone else wrote “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”; we would know that since there was agreement with the latter reading amongst all the writers but one, that those in agreement would be the correct reading.
The opposite is true for what Scholars call the “best” manuscripts.
The two Alexandrian text that were used to create the WH Greek text were Codex Sinaiticus, and Codex Vaticanus. These two Greek manuscripts are considered the oldest, and most reliable, even though they disagree (with each other), more than they agree.
“According to Hort, “Knowledge of Documents should precede Final Judgments upon Readings”. The two editors favoured two manuscripts: Vaticanus and Sinaiticus.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westcott_and_Hort
“The two scholars identified their favorite text type as “Neutral text”, exemplified by two 4th-century manuscripts, the Codex Vaticanus (known to scholars since the 15th century), and the Codex Sinaiticus (discovered in 1859), both of which they relied on heavily (albeit not exclusively) for this edition. This text has only a few changes of the original.[7] This edition is based on the critical works especially of Tischendorf and Tregelles.[7] The minuscules play a minimal role in this edition.[8]” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westcott_and_Hort
(The “minuscules” (here) were other smaller MSS that were possibly “considered” but not actually used.)
Interesting fact:
Modern scholarship asserts that the Byzantine MSS are inferior, and therefore they support the Alexandrian MSS over the Byzantine MSS. They assert that the Greek text that underlies the King James Bible is only supported by about 7 inferior (Byzantine) MSS.
But then assert that modern Bibles compare about 6,000 Greek MSS.
The problem is, over 95% of the Greek MSS are the very MSS they say are inferior. (The main authority of their Greek text, the N/A 28, are the Vaticanus, and Siniaticus.) They may “compare” 6,000 Greek MSS, but they only use a handful of them. Like Home Depot: thousands of colors available; but you only pick 2.
BTW/FYI:
The Greek text that was based upon about 7 Greek MSS was Erasmus’ FIRST Greek text, which was NOT used for the King James Bible. The list of MSS, and Greek texts used for the King James is far more than can be covered in a single lesson.
Translation is a work of “wisdom from above”
Jas 3:17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
Exodus 28:3; 31:3,6; 35:26, 31, 35; 36: 1, 2; Deuteronomy 34: 9
“Wisdom from above” is NOT “inspiration”.
The purpose of “translation” is to render the words of one language into another language, keeping the meaning of the source language.
Keep in mind that UNDERSTANDING the Bible is the work of the Holy Spirit.
The translators of the King James were not only 1) knowledgeable of the ancient biblical languages; they were also knowledgeable about the Bible. Even though they disagreed doctrinally, they held in high esteem the Words of God.
The AV 1611:
It is called the “AV” because King James “authorized” its production.
- Printing errors; 2) Black Letter (Gothic) fonts; 3) No standardized spelling
(Compare Black Letter, to Roman font of the 1611, to the Roman font of the 1769.)
Comparing fonts, and spellings
1611
Genesis 1: 1 ¶ In the beginning God created the heauen and the earth.
Eenesis 1: 2 And the earth was without forme, and voyd; and darkenesse was vpon the face of the deepe: and the Spirit of God mooued vpon the face of the waters.
1611 Reproduction (Romanized fonts … same spellings … same words)
Genesis 1: 1 ¶ In the beginning God created the heauen and the earth.
Genesis 1: 2 And the earth was without forme, and voyd; and darkenesse was vpon the face of the deepe: and the Spirit of God mooued vpon the face of the waters.
Todays 1769 (with Romanized fonts … standardized spellings … same words)
Genesis 1: 1 ¶ In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Genesis 1: 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
The only other change was the punctuation of verse 2. After the word “deep”, the sentence was ended; and a new sentence started. Not a single textual change. Modern scholarship would say that these two verses had 11 changes. There are 3 words that are actually spelled different. There are 5 words that APPEAR to be spelled differently because of the font used: and yet, not a single textual change that would affect the hearing of these verses being read has occurred.
BUT, textual critics refer to these as “changes” between the 1611, and the 1769 you hold in your hand.
Major Editions:
1629, 1638, 1762, 1769
Printing error examples:
1631 “Thou shalt not commit adultery” “Adulterers Bible”
1716 Jesus says in John 5:14 “sin on more” instead of “sin no more”!
1717 Luke 20 was “The Parable of the Vinegar” instead of the “Parable of the Vineyard.”
Printing errors are not “errors in the Scriptures”
1769 Benjamin Blayney Edition. (Oxford).
Because publishers sometimes take the liberty to make small changes to the text of the King James, organizations such as Local Church Publishers are publishing King James Bibles that we can know are correct.
The most notable changes are:
Pure Cambridge Edition (circa 1900), which conforms to the following:
- “or Sheba” not “and Sheba” in Joshua 19:2
- “sin” not “sins” in 2 Chronicles 33:19
- “Spirit of God” not “spirit of God” in Job 33:4
- “whom ye” not “whom he” in Jeremiah 34:16
- “Spirit of God” not “spirit of God” in Ezekiel 11:24
- “flieth” not “fleeth” in Nahum 3:16
- “Spirit” not “spirit” in Matthew 4:1
- “further” not “farther” in Matthew 26:39
- “bewrayeth” not “betrayeth” in Matthew 26:73
- “Spirit” not “spirit” in Mark 1:12
- “spirit” not “Spirit” in Acts 11:28
- “spirit” not “Spirit” in 1 John 5:8
