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Originally posted by Kevin Iga:
What do ye say that the Word of God is?

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Originally posted by Anselm:
First, my humble apology to Babybear for getting the name wrong in my previous post;

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Not a problem. Some folk can get really picky about what others call them, but as long as it isn't too disrespectful ( ) I don't mind too much.

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This is not at odds with Jesus being the Word of God, since the scriptures are the faithful witness to Jesus. Christ comes to us clothed in the scriptures.

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Originally posted by Moo:
I have heard that some of the Dead Sea scrolls bear out the Septuagint version of certain verses which disagree with the Hebrew text.

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Some of the fragments echo the ... Masoretic text, others resemble the Hebrew underlying the Greek Septuagint; yet others recall the Samaritan Torah... Some Qumran fragments represent a mixture of these, or something completely different.

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Let us cast aside these faulty tools and take hold of the tried and trusted translation of the Scriptures. Let us return to the old path and stand foursquare upon the Authorised Version of the Bible.

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In this book Dr. Paisley slays the idea that the Authorized Version is outdated, outmoded, mistranslated and a relic of the past. No other translation is comparable in its faithfulness, as majestic in its language or as inexhaustible in its spiritual fruitfulness.

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Those who use the Authorized Version are looked down upon by the apologists for the NIV as ignoramuses, who do not understand the Hebrew and the Greek and therefore are in no position to judge. Unable to answer the arguments of the defenders of the Authorized Version, they turn to pouring scorn on their scholarship or lack of scholarship.

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Originally posted by Anselm:
<snip>..basically the Bible refers to itself as the ‘word of God’.
For example, in Mark 7:13 Jesus understands the OT to be the word of God.
For Moses said, 'Honour your father and your mother'; and, 'Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.' [11] But you say, ..<snip>.. thus making void the word of God by your tradition..

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Also posted by Anselm:
In the same way the teaching of the apostles is also understood as the word of God ..<snip>.. Acts 6:2 And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, "It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables."

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Originally posted by Caver:
As for the question of whether some people still believe the KJV to be divinely inspired, Ian Paisley in an article (Reasons why Evangelicals should not use the New International Version of the Bible) on why the NIV should not be used concludes:

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Let us cast aside these faulty tools and take hold of the tried and trusted translation of the Scriptures. Let us return to the old path and stand foursquare upon the Authorised Version of the Bible.

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Sorry that admittedly is a little heavy handed, but I think it answers the question.

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No translation of the Bible is inspired.

Every translation of the Bible is inspired.

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The quotes you provided seem to indicate he feels the NIV is not a good translation, and the KJV is a good translation, but I don't see evidence he believes the KJV is God-inspired in the same sense as the original texts were. Someone could say those things if they just believed the KJV was simply a more accurate translation on purely scholarly grounds.

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The implication seems to be that Qumran blows a hole in the idea that the Hebrew text has been passed down unaltered over the centuries, but not necessarily that the Septuagint is more reliable.

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Originally posted by G.R.I.T.S.:
[QUOTE]The longevity of the KJV almost leads one to believe it does has some "seal of approval" from God, although most all know now that there is man-made phraseology and other discrepancies that are better addressed in later translations.

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Originally posted by Adrian1:
... However, there are some passages in the Bible such as the first chapter of St John's Gospel which really must be read from the Authorised Version if you are to grasp the full beauty of them.

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Originally posted by IanB:
However - given the translation of the LXX as a corporate action, and its early date, I would have thought it difficult not to avoid giving it a high level of credibility in both its proximity to sources and internal consistency, which latter point I have seen commented on a couple of times recently.

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Aren't you retrojecting a 21st C translation assumption about how sources would be weighed etc?

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the thesis that there may not have been single sources for the OT books

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My horribly logical mind thinks it has more to do with the fact it was the first English language translation done after the massive linguistic changes of the middle/early modern English periods. A translation done 100 years earlier would have been incomprehensible by about the eighteenth or even the seventeenth centuries; the relative stasis of the English language between Stuart times and today is largely responsible IMV.

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Excuse me but I don't think so. The Psalter in the English Prayer Book is taken from Miles Coverdale's Great Bible of 1539. It is admittedly a far better and vastly better translation than that in the KJV. In Psalm 8, for example, it uses 'O Lord our Governor' - far better than the dull and unimaginative 'O Lord our Lord' of the KJV. Similarly the Psalm 23 in the older version reminds me that the 'The Lord is my Shepherd : therefore can I lack nothing not 'I shall not want' which as a youngster in my pre-BCP days, always baffled me.

Unfortunately the Great Bible itself appears not to be in print which is a pity. Arrgh!


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The Parson's Handbook contains much excellent advice, which, if it were more generally followed, would bring some order and reasonableness into the amazing vagaries of Anglican Ritualism. Adrian Fortescue

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Unfortunately the Great Bible itself appears not to be in print which is a pity.

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Originally posted by Adrian1:
In Psalm 8, for example, it uses 'O Lord our Governor' - far better than the dull and unimaginative 'O Lord our Lord' of the KJV.

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Originally posted by Mousethief:
Case made based on what? This is the teaching of the Orthodox Church, plain and simple. Where the LXX is "wrong" it is definitively "wrong." I believe you will find attestations by the early Fathers to that effect. Is that case enough? What sort of case do you want?

Confused in Seattle,
Reader Alexis

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I'm also confused by a few words in your reply. "This is the teaching of the Orthodox Church" I take to mean that the Orthodox teaches the very hypothesis I raised: that where the LXX differs from the Masoretic text or even the original Hebrew text (if we somehow knew what that looked like), the LXX should be taken to be correct. Then you say where the LXX is wrong, it's wrong. That leads me to conclude you are saying the exact opposite. Which are you saying?

I gave the rough outline of how the LXX reading might be preferable to the Hebrew reading (even if it was not suspected the LXX reading is the original one), to tease out a more fleshed-out argument. Since it's not a view I personally subscribe to (but might be convinced of) I was hoping for an explanation from someone who felt that way.

Kevin

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Presbyterian /prez.bi.ti'.ri.en/ n. One who believes the governing authorities of the church should be called "presbyters".

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Originally posted by Mousethief:

In the East, never having had any OT but the LXX

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Originally posted by Kevin Iga:
So does this mean that the Orthodox Church teaches that there was divine intervention in how the LXX translated the Hebrew, at the points where the two differ...?

And at the points where the Hebrew and the LXX differ, does the Orthodox Church hold that both are the inspired word of God...?

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So far as I know, the LXX is the inspired OT of the Orthodox Church, and even if any differences between LXX and Hebrew are considered to be changes in the LXX that weren't in the original Hebrew, these changes are equally considered inspired.

Another interesting point is the Deuterocanonical Books (i.e. the Apocrypha). I've seen various opinions on this, from the DB being full and equal parts of the OT to them being accorded a secondary status, read for instruction but not quite Scripture. I lean toward the "full and equal part of the canon" status for two reasons:

(1) Many of the criticisms of the Apocrypha would also invalidate other parts of Scripture, from lack of authorship attribution to apparently fantastic (i.e. unbelievable) stories.

(2) I think the case for the NT writers using the LXX is much stronger than I was led to believe previously; I've also noticed that in historical Jesus studies (by N.T. Wright, for instance) the LXX is a strong source for understanding the mindset of first-century Jews and Jewish Christians.


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In Orthodoxy, a child is considered an icon of the parents' love for each other.

I'm just glad all my other icons don't cry, crap, and spit up this much.

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Originally posted by ken:
In the East, never having had any OT but the LXX
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What about the Syriac?

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Oops. Well, MOST of the East never had any OT but the LXX.

Reader Alexis

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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...

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Originally posted by golden key:
Hmmm. I grew up in a very conservative church. The original manuscripts were believed to have been basically dictated by God. But I never heard of any translation considered that way, not even KJV.

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Originally posted by Balaam's Asteroid:
I've always had problems with the 'dictated' school of Biblical inspiration, especially those parts where the auther states it wasn't a dictation. Luke says his Gospel is a compilation; Paul says that part of 1 Corinthians are instructions from himself not God, (though the rest of the letter is from God!) John, in Revelation, was told to write what he saw (not heard).

Please, I'm not trolling, I know people will acuse me of apostacy for saying this, I have been told I'm giong to Hell (not the board) for this many times. I do believe the Bible is inspired by God, its just that I believe God inspired the different writers in different ways.

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Originally posted by Balaam's Asteroid:
Back to the LXX, the introduction to the NRSV states that the LXX was translated from earlier manuscripts than the Hebrew texts we have available and can, generally, be taken as more acurate.

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Originally posted by Kevin Iga:
True, there are many passages where people have made convincing arguments that the LXX preserves a text that the Hebrew Masoretic text has in error (or at least is an innovation on). But there are also many passages (much more I think) where the reverse is more commonly accepted.

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Kevin, can you steer us to any books/articles/websites that talk about this sort of thing in a way that your average layman (well, me) can understand? I love this kind of stuff.

Reader Alexis

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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...