Quote:
Originally Posted by againstheresies
After careful consideration of the Preface to the KJV (enclosed is an excerpt) do you really think the translators of the KJV had the same standard for certainty that KJV only advocates of today require? None of the original translators would affirm the KJV only position.
KJV Preface excerpt:
Now to the later we answere; that wee doe not deny, nay wee affirme and avow, that the very meanest translation of the Bible in English, set foorth by men of our profession (for wee have seene none of theirs of the whole Bible as yet) containeth the word of God, nay, is the word of God. As the Kings Speech which hee uttered in Parliament, being translated into French, Dutch, Italian and Latine, is still the Kings Speech, though it be not interpreted by every Translator with the like grace, nor peradventure so fitly for phrase, nor so expresly for sence, every where. For it is confessed, that things are to take their denomination of the greater part; and a naturall man could say, Verùm ubi multa nitent in carmine, non ego paucis offendor maculis, &c. A man may be counted a vertuous man, though hee have made many slips in his life, (els, there were none vertuous, for in many things we offend all) also a comely man and lovely, though hee have some warts upon his hand, yea, not onely freakles upon his face, but all skarres. No cause therefore why the word translated should bee denied to be the word, or forbidden to be currant, notwithstanding that some imperfections and blemishes may be noted in the setting foorth of it. For what ever was perfect under the Sunne, where Apostles or Apostolike men, that is, men indued with an extraordinary measure of Gods spirit, and priviledged with the priviledge of infallibilitie, had not their hand?
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They clearly did not mean that a translation whose base text has purposefully removed verses is the complete word of God, as the continuing text of their preface shows, seeing that they compare a translation of the word of God to a translation of the king's speech. If a translator translating the king's speech were to leave out whole sentences of what the king said in his speech, would we not call it a translation
of an abridgment of the king's speech rather than a translation of the whole of the king's speech? Even so, they themselves say "set foorth by men of our profession (for wee have seene none of theirs
of the whole Bible as yet)." That is, a translation that is not of the complete word of God does not contain nor is the word of God, although a poor translation of the complete word of God can be said to be the word of God. How can you not see this? As TRO (Textus Receptus Only) I can accept their line of thinking here, and say that both the KJV and NKJV are the word of God in the sense in which they speak here. But the NIV does not contain Acts 8:37, and therefore it does not contain, nor is, the word of God. As they say of the Puritans, "wee have seene none of theirs
of the whole Bible as yet" so also I say of the modern translations. We have not seem a complete translation of the Bible from them, because they refuse to translate the whole thing (with the exception of the NKJV).