Quote:
Originally Posted by Paladin54
1."The new translations are easier to read, otherwise I would read the King James Bible"
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The second half of the question is telling. It's essentially and admission that the KJB is more authoritative even to them. And it tells you that they've decided that "easier is better" and trumps purity.
There is no way to convince someone that the KJV isn't "harder" to understand. The entire complaint is nothing more than an excuse not to read it. Technically, the KJV is well below college level writing, so anyone in your college ought not to have a hard time with it. A really good book on this subject is
Archaic Words and the Authorized Version.
I wonder if any of the literature professors in your college would approve of a modern "update" of Shakespeare's writings to make the "meaning" more understandable. If you look in the bookstores, there are plenty of commentaries on Shakespeare, but hardly anyone has dared to "update" his writings because they know so much is lost, and only a little reading is needed in order to understand them. And yet we have shelves upon shelves of Bible versions purporting to replace the KJV and be easier to understand. Odd that literature professors have more respect for Shakespeare than Bible professors have for the God's words.
I can tell you how this was turned around for me. I used the NIV and was happy to regurgitate the claim that it was easier to read than the KJV. Nobody got me to read the KJV by convincing me it wasn't hard to understand. I started reading the KJV because I discovered that the NIV deleted entire verses and changed God's word into lies and didn't want to base my faith on a book I couldn't trust. Then, and only then, was I able to push aside the notion that the KJV was hard to read. Once I accepted it as my final authority, the Holy Spirit opened up an entirely new world totally unknown to me before I started reading the KJV. Suddenly verses I though were difficult to understand had plain meanings.
So I found out the KJV is actually easier to understand.
It's non-colloquial language also has the benefit of being instantly venerated in the mind of a believer. The
different language is easily identified as
holy.
Quote:
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2. "Well, they tried to translate the meaning of the verse here, so it could apply to our understanding today."
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Our faith was
once delivered unto the saints. You can't change it for the benefit of a "new generation" -- you must
study and allow
it to change
you.
Again though this is an argument that can't be reasoned with unless the person to whom you are talking can accept that God's very
words are pure, not merely the "concepts" behind them.
I would ask someone who claims that his translators translated the "meanings" of the words, rather than the words themselves, if they really trust those translators to understand
exactly every single concept and "meaning" contained in Holy writ. If he trusts that his new version contains the "meanings" translated, then he trusts that the translators
knew everything there is to know about every single thing in the Bible. Otherwise, something is lost.
I'll stick with a Bible that has God's
words and let the Holy Spirit tell me what they mean.