Biblical English is just English with a way to distinguish between plural and singular you. But we have that in modern English too; it just isn't standardized across locales. Some say "you guys" for plural, some "yous guys," some "you all" and some "yall" and some "yous." A translation into modern English as the new Biblical English is viable; you just have to choose one of these options, or mix and match.

But I'm sure Bible Protector would blow a gasket if he read a Bible where Luke 22:31-32 said "And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has desired to have yous guys, that he may sift yall like wheat: But I have prayed for you [personally], that your faith fail not: and when you are converted, strengthen your brethren."

Originally Posted by freesundayschoollessons

The use of colloquialisms throughout demonstrate the conversational nature of the English

You mean things like "I go a fishing" rather than "I am going fishing"? Bible Protector has already shown in his discussion with TRO that he thinks that the participial use of "a" is sacred. How dare you call it a colloquialism.

You mean things like "I go a fishing" rather than "I am going fishing"? Bible Protector has already shown in his discussion with TRO that he thinks that the participial use of "a" is sacred.

Here are some colloquialisms in the KJV:
"God forbid."
"God speed"

And my favorite...
"All Scripture is given by the inspiration of God..."

[bibleprotector]

"God forbid" or "God speed" are not "English additions", these wordings are the sense for sense portrayal of the originals, and therefore the correct English terminology in the presentation of God's exact message in English.

Some seem to think that the King James Bible is just religious form of Shakespearian or Elizabethan English. Nothing could be further from the facts. The style, grammar, vocabulary and rhythms are vastly different to anything else to be found in historical English literature. The Bible did not follow conventions, that is to say, was not merely the "common language on the street", but was the high form: it created the trends, it was the touchstone, it was Biblical English, pure, undefiled and unmixed.

It is a mistake to think that "common" or the old meaning of "vulgar" means that it should be on the lowest common denominator. It is incorrect. Bible English is conversant to all forms of English "dialects" spoken today, in that there is one English language, and that the King James Bible is comprehensible to anyone, but for their heart being open to the Spirit of God.

When the translators made a comment about the market-place, they were not meaning gutter talk or small talk of stall holders or something, they were talking about the public accessibility. There is a vast difference between "market-place language" and "market-place accessibility". English is the world's market-place language, but the King James Bible is (via the internet) in full market-place accessibility.

"Therefore the word of God being set forth in Greek, becometh hereby like a candle set upon a candlestick, which giveth light to all that are in the house; or like a proclamation sounded forth in the market-place, which most men presently take knowledge of; and therefore that language was fittest to contain the Scriptures, both for the first preachers of the Gospel to appeal unto for witness, and for the learners also of those times to make search and trial by."

To attempt to argue that the King James Bible is not "today's language" is both unfactual and not backed up by the own translators' words.

Originally Posted by Connie

The New Testament was written in "koine" Greek, or vulgar Greek, the Greek of the people and not of the scholars and philosophers. There is no such thing as Biblical English or at least there is no Biblical support for such an idea, although I would grant that such an idea is defensible as guided by the Holy Spirit.

This is only partially true. Yes, the New Testament was not written in the philosophers Greek, but rather koine (κοινoς) that is “common” as you have pointed out. However, you must realize that the koine Greek was influenced by the Hebrew, which as the time of the writing of it (i.e. the New Testament) was the standard Bible for the Jewish people.

Originally Posted by freesundayschoollessons

Biblical English? It is Shakesperean English with a few biblical terms.

Biblical English is English that transparently expresses what is in the Greek and Hebrew sanctioned texts.

Originally Posted by freesundayschoollessons

Koine Greek was the common, spoken language of NT times.

Yes, but certainly influenced by the Hebrew.

Originally Posted by sophronismos

Biblical English is just English with a way to distinguish between plural and singular you

When we talk about Biblical English we are not limiting it to just some words (e.g. ye, thee, thou, thine) or even to words endings like est or eth. We are really talking about the language as a whole. Its syntax, grammar, vocabulary, idioms and the like.

Originally Posted by sophronismos

A translation into modern English as the new Biblical English is viable; you just have to choose one of these options, or mix and match.

If we are talking about English, than we need a standard way of saying Biblical things. Leave the semantics to preaching.

Originally Posted by freesundayschoollessons

Here are some colloquialisms in the KJV:
"God forbid."
"God speed"

And my favorite...
"All Scripture is given by the inspiration of God..."

The phrase (μη γενοιτo) was an expression that was used in Hebraic fashion. Read what the Trinitarian Bible Society has to say in there Quarterly Record issue # 578 Jan-Mar 2007, p. 10:

_ Romans 3.4 –
The exclamation ‘God forbid’ is considered
far too free a translation. The Greek
literally means, ‘May it not be!’ but since
it is an exclamation of abhorrence, some
scholars, like Professor John Murray, have
defended the AV rendering. Murray writes,
‘It really needs the force of the expression
given in our version “God forbid”’. In
a footnote, Murray says, ‘me genoito corresponds
to a Hebrew expression and
actually occurs in the LXX of Gen 44:7,17;
Josh 22:29; 24:16; 1 Kgs 21:3. The
Hebrew expression is sometimes used
with names for God (1 Sam 24:6—“The
Lord forbid that I should do this thing
unto my master”. See also: 26:11;
1 Kgs 21:3; 1 Chron 11:19; Job 34:10)’.
He concludes: ‘Hence our English expression
“God forbid” has biblical precedent.
The Greek me genoito, indicating the
recoil of abhorrence, needs the strength
of this English rendering derived from the
Hebrew’.

So here we have a prime example of Hebraic influence on the New Testament Greek, and at that, it also being recognized by King James’ translators.

Even Ruckman acknowledges this bit of truth when he states (How To Teach The Original Greek p. 34):

WHO is it that lets things “be, or not be?” WHO is it that can let a thing happen, or prevent it from happening? Are we to assume a converted Orthodox Jewish rabbinical scholar (Phil. 3) wouldn’t have THAT in mind when he said “Let it not be!”?... If you were a Bible-believing Christian, you would know it was a PRAYER, as well as a denial. Paul is asking God to forbid such a thing from ever happening.(This is where the NIV got “NEVER” from). God is going to forbid it from “being” (happening). But without God as the source for letting some things happen, while stopping other things from “becoming,” the expression is not translated at all. It is missing its most basic essential element: the One who forbids.

As far as the expression (θεoπνευστος) is concerned, the word is a compound of the word God and spirit (or breath) and is speaking of the thing not only breathed by God but that which is in-spirited by Him. Meaning that His Spirit is within His word. Hence, the word inspiration or in-spirit-ion (that act of in spiriting). Howbeit the context in which it is being used clearly encompasses the giving of such.
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- “One accurate measurement is worth more than a thousand expert opinions”

- “...this is the Word of God; come, search, ye critics, and find a flaw; examine it, from its Genesis to its Revelation, and find an error... This is the book untainted by any error; but is pure, unalloyed, perfect truth. Why? Because God wrote it. Ah! charge God with error if you please; tell him that his book is not what it ought to be. I have heard men, with prudish and mock-modesty, who would like to alter the Bible; and (I almost blush to say it) I have heard ministers alter God's Bible, because they were afraid of it... Pity they were not born when God lived far—far back that they might have taught God how to write.” Charles Haddon Spurgeon (Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 1: Sermon II p. 31)

- “If, therefore, any do complain that I have sometimes hit my opponents rather hard, I take leave to point out that 'to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the sun' : 'a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embracing' : a time for speaking smoothly, and a time for speaking sharply. And that when the words of Inspiration are seriously imperilled, as now they are, it is scarcely possible for one who is determined effectually to preserve the Deposit in its integrity, to hit either too straight or too hard.” Dean John William Burgon (The Revision Revised. pp. vii-viii)

Originally Posted by Connie

Christians have the Holy Spirit, and that is how we are to judge things that do not have direct Biblical support and THAT in itself is a Biblical position and it's the one I have been taking in my posts above.

Yes I agree, We are to be Spirit led!



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- “One accurate measurement is worth more than a thousand expert opinions”

- “...this is the Word of God; come, search, ye critics, and find a flaw; examine it, from its Genesis to its Revelation, and find an error... This is the book untainted by any error; but is pure, unalloyed, perfect truth. Why? Because God wrote it. Ah! charge God with error if you please; tell him that his book is not what it ought to be. I have heard men, with prudish and mock-modesty, who would like to alter the Bible; and (I almost blush to say it) I have heard ministers alter God's Bible, because they were afraid of it... Pity they were not born when God lived far—far back that they might have taught God how to write.” Charles Haddon Spurgeon (Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 1: Sermon II p. 31)

- “If, therefore, any do complain that I have sometimes hit my opponents rather hard, I take leave to point out that 'to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the sun' : 'a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embracing' : a time for speaking smoothly, and a time for speaking sharply. And that when the words of Inspiration are seriously imperilled, as now they are, it is scarcely possible for one who is determined effectually to preserve the Deposit in its integrity, to hit either too straight or too hard.” Dean John William Burgon (The Revision Revised. pp. vii-viii)

As far as the expression (θεoπνευστος) is concerned, the word is a compound of the word God and spirit (or breath) and is speaking of the thing not only breathed by God but that which is in-spirited by Him. Meaning that His Spirit is within His word. Hence, the word inspiration or in-spirit-ion (that act of in spiriting). Howbeit the context in which it is being used clearly encompasses the giving of such.

What??? You should not try to explain the Greek unless you know it. pneustos (wish I knew how to do the Greek in BBC): means "breathed-out" or "exhale" It is God's spoken word being breathed out.

So, the most literal translation of the word is found in the NIV: "All Scripture is God-breathed" or my version "All Scripture is God-exhaled"

How is that for paradoxes? The KJV is dynamic equivalent in 2Ti 3.16

In the final analysis, I have no problem with the KJV rendering "inspiration." Just making my point above that it is a colloquialism which some say does not exist.

Originally Posted by freesundayschoollessons

What??? You should not try to explain the Greek unless you know it. pneustos (wish I knew how to do the Greek in BBC): means "breathed-out" or "exhale" It is God's spoken word being breathed out.

So, the most literal translation of the word is found in the NIV: "All Scripture is God-breathed" or my version "All Scripture is God-exhaled"

How is that for paradoxes? The KJV is dynamic equivalent in 2Ti 3.16

In the final analysis, I have no problem with the KJV rendering "inspiration." Just making my point above that it is a colloquialism which some say does not exist.

Perhaps I miss understood you original post (if I did I am sorry). The idea we were discussing was Biblical English. And the point I was trying to make was that “God forbid” was accurate and biblical seeing that Paul was using it in the Hebraic sense. The English of the King James Authorized Bible is Biblical as I have said because it transparently exposes and expresses the Greek/Hebrew syntax, idioms, grammar, etc. Moreover, the Greek of the New Testament is more than just common Greek.

Archibald M. Hunter (Introducing the New Testament third revised edition, pp.9-11):

Four or five centuries before Christ Plato had philosophized in Greek, Sophocles had written tragedies in Greek, Demosthenes had delivered orations in Greek. Did Paul, Luke, John and the rest of them use the same Greek?

The answer is Yes and No. The language they used was Greek, bit it was by no means the same Greek as men had spoken in the days of 'the glory that was Greece'. Their Greek is called 'Classical Greek'; the Greek of the New Testament writers is called 'Common Greek' (or, 'the Koine', which is Greek for 'the Common [language]').

This Koine, or Common Greek, was in Christ's time the international language of the day, very much as English is today...

It was in this international language, Common Greek, that the New Testament writers composed their Gospels and Epistles...

Yet it would be wrong to say that New Testament Greek is simply the Common Greek of the Roman world in the first century AD. If it were, how are we to account for the puzzlement of classical scholars when they come to read New Testament Greek? The strange and alien element which they find in it is Semitic. It is the Hebraic background of the writers glimmering through their Greek, intruding itself into their grammar, affecting the meaning of the words they use...

...take the word 'repentance'. The Greek is metanoia, and for a Greek like Plato it meant 'change of mind'. But the word on the lips of John the Baptist or of Jesus means something more drastic and existential – not simply 'grieve' but 'turn'. So when Jesus called for 'repentance', he called for a complete 'change of direction', a right-about-turn. This is because the New Testament's idea of 'repentance' reflects that of the Old Testament prophets and means a radical returning to God. (Other good examples of Greek words strained with Hebrew meaning are 'parable', 'law', 'covenant', 'righteousness' and 'glory'.)

To sum up. If New Testament Greek is Common Greek as spoken in the first century AD over most of the known world, it is Greek shot through with Semitic idioms of the Bible, as was Bunyan's prose with those of the English Bible.

As to what you noted, I originally said of (θεoπνευστος) that:

...the word is a compound of the word God and spirit (or breath) and is speaking of the thing not only breathed by God but that which is in-spirited by Him.

You are bring into question my understanding of the Greek language, however, your “pneustos” is, to my knowledge not a word. It is one half of the word if divided after (θεo) but that is it. So, I would check your understanding of Greek.

There are two debates concerning the word (θεoπνευστος). One involves the two words in which it is derived. Obviously, (θεoς) is the first word. Yet, the second is under some debate. Thayer’s Greek lexicon states that is it from (πνεω) meaning “to breath”. Although, this is only a presumed derivative (see Strongs). Notice that the second part of the word (θεoπνευστος) is very similar to the Greek word use fro spirit (πνευμα). Therefore, I contend that the word “spirit” is a legitimate understanding. To further our understanding here look over this word family list of Greek words that are related:

Word Family List
εκπνεω (verb)
εμπνεω (verb)
θεoπνευστος (verb)
πνευμα (noun)
πνευματικoς (adjective)
πνευματικως (adverb)
πνεω (verb)
πνοη (noun)
υποπνεω (verb)

As can be seen the root word for spirit (πνευμα) is (πνεω). To say that the idea of “spirit” is not present in this word is your opinion of which I disagree.

Too, it must further be noted that spirit in English can also at times be used for breath.

Now the word (θεoπνευστος) as you probably already know, is an adjective and more precisely because of the suffix (τος) is passive.

Listen for a moment to what John Calvin writes on 2Tim. 3:16 (Commentary On Second Tiomothy):

In order to uphold the authority of the Scripture, he declares that it is divinely inspired; for, if it be so, it is beyond all controversy that men ought to receive it with reverence. This is a principle which distinguishes our religion from all others, that we know that God hath spoken to us, and are fully convinced that the prophets did not speak at their own suggestion, but that, being organs of the Holy Spirit, they only uttered what they had been commissioned from heaven to declare. Whoever then wishes to profit in the Scriptures, let him first of all, lay down this as a settled point, that the Law and the Prophets are not a doctrine delivered according to the will and pleasure of men, but dictated by the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit took part in giving the Scripture.

Albert Barnes expresses on 2Tim. 3:16 (Notes on the New Testament Explanatory and Practical: Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, p. 240):

All this is expressed in the original by one word…It properly means, God-inspired— from θεoς, God, and πνεω, to breath, to breath out. The idea of breathing upon, or breathing into the soul, is that which the word naturally conveys. Thus, God breathed into the nostrils of Adam the breath of life (Gen. ii. 27), and thus our Saviour breathed on his disciples, and said, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost,” John xx. 22. The idea seems to have been, that the life was in the breath, and that an intelligent spirit was communicated with breath.

Here we see another connection with the word spirit.

The other debate in regards to this word deals with the application of this breathing and/or spiriting to the Scriptures. Does God breathed into the Scriptures or does He breathed out the Scriptures? I will stay the jib and spare you the bore here!

__________________________________

- “One accurate measurement is worth more than a thousand expert opinions”

- “...this is the Word of God; come, search, ye critics, and find a flaw; examine it, from its Genesis to its Revelation, and find an error... This is the book untainted by any error; but is pure, unalloyed, perfect truth. Why? Because God wrote it. Ah! charge God with error if you please; tell him that his book is not what it ought to be. I have heard men, with prudish and mock-modesty, who would like to alter the Bible; and (I almost blush to say it) I have heard ministers alter God's Bible, because they were afraid of it... Pity they were not born when God lived far—far back that they might have taught God how to write.” Charles Haddon Spurgeon (Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 1: Sermon II p. 31)

- “If, therefore, any do complain that I have sometimes hit my opponents rather hard, I take leave to point out that 'to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the sun' : 'a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embracing' : a time for speaking smoothly, and a time for speaking sharply. And that when the words of Inspiration are seriously imperilled, as now they are, it is scarcely possible for one who is determined effectually to preserve the Deposit in its integrity, to hit either too straight or too hard.” Dean John William Burgon (The Revision Revised. pp. vii-viii)

[PeterAV]

The AV translators did not even use the same language as the AV itself in their letter to the King.
Otherwise they would have said "thy majesty" and not the more common [even though addressed to royalty] "your majesty".
Biblically correct English would most definitely be "thy" and not "your" majesty.
These men knew this most acutely.
The highest standard to God. The highest acceptable standard to man.

PeterAV
Every word of God is pure:

The AV translators did not even use the same language as the AV itself in their letter to the King. Otherwise they would have said "thy majesty" and not the more common [even though addressed to royalty] "your majesty".

Isn't "thy" singular and "your" plural? I think kings and queens are often addressed in the plural and refer to themselves in the plural, so I'm not sure you've identified a discrepancy there.

Here's a reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluralis_majestatis