bibleprotector said:
logos1560 said:
Yet you are evidently OK with the makers of the KJV changing the pre-1611 accepted and loved English Bible [the Geneva Bible] or the pre-1611 English Bibles [Tyndale's to Bishops'] to agree with the that day's current sensibilities of the Church of England and its Episcopal view of church government and with the divine right of kings view of James I.
That is a loaded statement. You are assuming that the KJB is not an accurate translation, but was coloured by specific theology which may not be correct, and you are attempting to redefine doctrines and use emotive language, where such descriptions are not accurate.
The King James Bible is accurate, whereas, we find the idea of "colouring" the translation according to interpretive bias is common and manifest in various modern versions.
I took your own accusation against modern translations and properly applied it consistently to test it. Are you suggesting that your own assertion was "loaded" and used subjective, emotive language?
The assertion that there was "colouring" of the translating according to interpretive bias in the KJV would be just as manifest in the KJV as you claim it is in modern versions.
English-speaking believers in the 1600's properly noticed and pointed out this interpretive bias in the KJV. Clear, obvious examples can be given where the makers of the KJV changed renderings in the pre-1611 English Bibles that were used to advocate either congregational church government or presbyterian church government and changed them to renderings that tried to take away the basis for the other views or that could be used to favor Episcopal church government. Here is just one example of several that could be mentioned.
In his 1593 book advocating that prelatic or Episcopal church government is apostolic, Bishop Thomas Bilson, who would be co-editor of the 1611 KJV, acknowledged that some use 1 Corinthians 12:28 as one verse that they cite for Presbyterian church government. Bilson wrote: “There remained yet one place where governors are named amongst ecclesiastical officers, and that is 1 Corinthians 12†(Perpetual Government, p. 197). Bilson wrote: “Why should they not be lay elders or judges of manners? Because I find no such any where else mentioned, and here none proved. Governors there were, or rather governments†(p. 199). Bilson claimed that “Chrysostom maketh ‘helps’ and governments’ all one†(p. 212). In 1641, George Gillespie maintained that “Chrysostom, expounding this place, doth not take helps and governments to be all one, as Bilson hath boldly, but falsely averred†(Assertion of the Government of the Church of Scotland, p. 19).
The 1611 edition of the KJV does exactly what Bilson suggested by connecting the words “helps†and “governments†with “in.â€
David Norton pointed out: “1611, uniquely and apparently without justification from the Greek, reads ‘helps in governments†(Textual History, p. 34).
Was this change deliberately introduced in order to attempt to take away a verse that had been used by those who advocated Presbyterian church government? Did Bilson or other prelates take advantage of their position to attempt to undermine or obscure a favorite text used to support Presbyterian church government? What truth of the original demanded that this change be introduced into the 1611?
In 1641, Scottish reformer George Gillespie wrote: “We cannot enough admire how the authors of our new English translation were bold to turn it thus, ’helps in government,’ so to make one of two, and to elude our argument†(Assertion, p. 19). Andrew Edgar suggested that Gillespie “recognized in these words a covert attack on the constitution of the Church of Scotland†(Bibles of England, p. 299, footnote 1). In 1646, Gillespie wrote: “Whereas he [Mr. Hussey] thinks, helps, governments, to belong both to one thing, there was some such thing once foisted into the English Bibles; antilepsis kubernesis was read thus, helps in governments: but afterwards, the prelates themselves were ashamed of it, and so printed according to the Greek distinctly, helps, governments†(Aaron’s Rod, p. 103).