[Manny Rodriguez]

Bibleprotector,

You are arguing past me or with someone else (beating in the air). Because nobody on this thread said anything about DEPENDING upon the Greek and Hebrew as a necessity to understand the KJB.

What has been said is that seeking out a definition of a word in the Hebrew and the Greek is not wrong. It is a viable option.

But you seem to not be able to differentiate between those who consult the Greek and Hebrew from those who use them to undermine the KJB. There IS a difference.

Originally Posted by bibleprotector

If the Hebrew and Greek have been providentially preserved by God today, then this would require a usefulness for them, that is, that the perfect King James Bible is somehow incomplete (that is, we cannot fully interpret it), unless we have the Hebrew and Greek. That would be making the King James Bible today in some way dependant upon knowledge of the Hebrew and Greek, or on works which bring that out to us. This is the very scholar-onlyism which the whole KJBO position rejects. We do not still need the Hebrew and Greek to be able to comprehend fully God’s Word, because God has fully given it in English, and is well able to bring us into knowledge as we study it.

This leads us to see that God has not especially providentially preserved the originals today, but the KJB, which has all the signs of the divine favour upon it and throughout it!

This is where you are absolutely wrong. God DID providentially preserve His Words. The initial giving of His Words were not done in English. They were given in Hebrew and Greek. God said that He would preserve those pure words from generation to generation. And again, those divine Words have not expired as God's Words. God preserved those initial Greek and Hebrew words through:

1. The tireless copying of those Greek and Hebrew words from generation to generation in multitudes of manuscripts.

2. The accurate translating of those Greek and Hebrew words into other languages. These translations (most especially the KJV) provides for us a resource by which we can IDENTIFY the pure words of God and distinguish them from the corrupt.

When God gave us the KJB, he gave us an inerrant translation of those pure words (that were initially given in Hebrew and Greek) into English. So how do we distinguish what Greek words are the words that God gave? You identify them with the KJB since it IS an "independent variety of the Received Texts". This is exactly what Scrivener did when he produced his edition of the Textus Receptus in 1894. According to the Trinitarian Bible Society:

“F. H. A. Scrivener (1813-1891) attempted to reproduce as exactly as possible the Greek text which underlies the Authorized Version of 1611. However, the AV was not translated from any one printed edition of the Greek text. The AV translators relied heavily upon the work of William Tyndale and other editions of the English Bible. Thus there were places in which it is unclear what the Greek basis of the New Testament was. Scrivener in his reconstructed and edited text used as his starting point the Beza edition of 1598, identifying the places where the English text had different readings from the Greek. He examined eighteen editions of the Textus Receptus to find the correct Greek rendering, and made the changes to his Greek text. When he finished he had produced an edition of the Greek New Testament which more closely underlies the text of the AV than any one edition of the Textus Receptus.” The Received Text: A Brief Look at the Textus Receptus by G.W. & D.E. Anderson

As far as the Hebrew is concerned scribes have painstakingly copied every word from generation to generation. Ask any orthodox Rabbi in a synogogue today about the Hebrew scriptures that they have today and they will tell you that what they have is an exact copy of the words of Moses and the Prophets. After all, this is what God commanded them to do. And after reading how extreme the Masoretes' copying techniques were (destroying an entire manuscript over just one error and taking a shower every time the name of God came up) I believe them because it matches God's promise that His words (which concerning the OT were given in Hebrew) would be preserved in every generation. These Hebrew words can be found in the Bomberg edition of the Masoretic text.

God's inspired words in Hebrew and Greek are here today because God promised they would be. To say that we don't have the original Greek and Hebrew words of God today is to deny what God said about preserving those words. And English-speakers have these same words infallibly preserved in English in the KJB.

Bibleprotector, it is interesting to me how those of your persuasion will insist that Scrivener's Greek text and the Bomberg edition of the Hebrew Masoretic text are in conflict with the KJV, yet you never provide any examples. I've been told by several "TR-guys" who actually take the time to read the Received Texts (one of which has been teaching Greek and Hebrew since 1945) that there are no conflicts or differences between those texts and the KJB. Whenever those of the Alexandrian Critical Text persuasion try to point out differences, the so-called "discrepancies" are only manifested to be a misunderstanding on the critic's part of what is actually rendered in the texts.

I contend that we do have the very words that God gave His prophets and apostles based upon the dozens of verses that deal with Verbal Plenary Preservation of the Scriptures. God does not lie. We have those words in the editions of the Received Texts already mentioned. And we have those words in the infallible KJB. In fact, as Shelton Smith points out, God providentially preserved His words in the Received Texts so that we CAN have the KJB. After all, the KJV translators weren't producing words out of thin air.

Originally Posted by bibleprotector

The problem is that a person who must consider the Greek and Hebrew somehow must automatically assume that what he has in English is not enough.

No. The person who considers the Greek and Hebrew in their studies are acknowledging their weakness in comprehending "the unsearchable riches of Christ" in the Word of God. So out of a sincere desire to learn they are availing themselves of whatever they can so as to help them. Bibleprotector, your problem is that you take certain truths and take them to such a ridiculous extreme. What we have in the English IS enough. But that doesn't mean we are going to grasp it all. Why else do you think God raised up "Pastors and teachers"? Since the "English is enough" perhaps God wasted His time raising up "Pastors and teachers" who can help us to understand the scriptures better. Perhaps we should throw away all of our commentaries since "the English is enough". No, although the English IS enough, God has allowed some things that we can avail ourselves as Bible students. Now I agree that the best way to define a word is through context, cross reference, and the law of first mention. But I also allow that the Words of God that He initially gave and providentially preserved HIMSELF is also a viable option for the sincere Bible student.