WhatAbout Bibles In Other Languages?

WhatAbout Bibles In Other Languages?

WillKinney

Ifthe King James Bible in English is the perfect words of God, then WhatAbout Other Languages?

Iam frequently asked this question by other Christians who do not believe theKing James Bible or any bible is now the inerrant words of God.

Ifinally decided to put a concise answer together to respond to this commonquestion. Here it is.

Hibrother and sister......, this is a good question but not at all hard to answerif you think about it. God never promised to give every nation or everyindividual a perfect Bible. It certainly never turned out this way in history,did it?

Infact, for the first 3000 to 4000 years of recorded history, there was only onenation on earth that had the true words of God. "He sheweth his word untoJacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. He hath not dealt so withany nation, and as for his judgments, they have not known them. Praise ye theLORD." Psalm 147:19-20.

Nowthat the gospel is going out to the nations, the only promise from God we haveis that "this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world fora witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come." Matthew 24:14

Thegospel of salvation through the substitutionary death and resurrection of theLord Jesus Christ is found in any bible in any language it has been translatedinto, no matter how poorly or partially done it may be. God can and does useother bible versions, partial translations, or just simple gospel tracts tobring His people to faith in Christ. I do not deny but strongly affirm this tobe true.

Butthat does not make these other partial translations, bible tracts or versionsthe perfect words of God. There has to be at least one perfect Bible in thisworld that serves as the Final Authority and Standard by which all others aremeasured.

Itcertainly does not exist in the Hebrew or the Greek. There is no "theHebrew" and much less is there "the" Greek. Besides, once acomplete Bible is put together, there has to be a translation of some kind inorder to put both the Old and New Testaments into one language. Since God haspromised to preserve His WORDS (not just the general, ballpark approximation)in the book of the LORD, this book must exist somewhere.

Allthe evidence points to the King James Bible as being that book for over 400years now. It was the KJB that was used by English and American missionaries tocarry to gospel to the nations in the greatest missionary movement in history.It was the KJB that was carried out into space and read from.

Ibelieve in the sovereignty of God in history. "For the kingdom is theLORD'S; and He is the governor among the nations." Psalm 22:28. 

Godhas set His mark upon many things in this world that reveal His Divine hand atwork in history. Why do we use the 7 day week instead of the 10 day week? Whyare dates either B.C. (Before Christ) or A.D. (Anno Domini - year of our Lord)?(although the secular world is now trying in vain to change this too to BCE andCE.) 

Englandjust "happens to be" the one nation from which we measure the trueTime (Greenwich time, zero hour) and from which we measure true Position, zerolongitude. In 1611 the English language was spoken by a mere 3% of the world'spopulation, but today English has become the closest thing to a universallanguage in history. God knew He would use England, its language and the KingJames Bible to accomplish all these things long before they happened.

Todayit is only the King James Bible believer who boldly maintains that there reallyis an inerrant, complete and 100% true Holy Bible on this earth that a personcan actually hold it in his hands and read and believe every word. All modernversion proponents deny that any tangible, “hold it in your hands and readBible” IS now the inerrant words of God.

Godonly holds us accountable for the light He has been pleased to give us. To whommuch is given, from him shall much be required - "For unto whomsoever muchis given, of him shall much be required: and to whom men have committed much,of him they will ask the more." Luke 12:48.

Godhas given to the English speaking people His perfect words in the King JamesBible. We will be held far more accountable for what we have done with thisBook than any other people.

Inhis excellent book, Which Translation Should You Trust?, Timothy S. Mortonwrites: -

  http://www.biblebelievers.com/KJV3.htm

“Nowherein the scriptures does God make any statement or implication that there must bea perfect Bible in every language. He has promised to preserve His wordfor every generation as we have seen, but He has not promisedto preserve it in every existing language. Let's look at the language of theoriginal autographs for a moment. Nearly all of the Old Testament was writtenin Hebrew, however, no nation spoke Hebrew except theIsraelites. God was not obligated to give His word in Egyptian, Syrian,Chaldian, or any other language. His word was available to the people in thesenations also, but they had to go to the Jews to get it. To the Jews werecommitted the oracles of God, and there were provisions in the law to allowstrangers (foreigners) to convert to Judaism. Look at Ruth the Moabite forexample. She was David's great-grandmother, an ancestor of Jesus Christ.

Thesame can be said about the New Testament language, Greek. Thoughit was a more widespread language than Hebrew, there were still millions ofpeople who could not understand it when the New Testament was written. Again,God was not then, or now, obligated to give His word in every existinglanguage, and those who argue He must are ignorant of history and of thescriptures.

God,who will not be intimidated by modern "scholarship," decided tocombine His word into one universal language to make it moreaccessible to all men. He knew how English would circle the globe under theBritish empire and American influence. He knew how in the twentieth centuryEnglish would be the second language for millions. He knew how it would becomethe world language of diplomacy, finance, and airlines, aswell as of absolute time, temperature, and position. By hisgrace, God has made His word more available, readable and understandable byputting it in English; much more than it ever was in the "originallanguages." (End of quote by Tim Morton)

Tothe degree that foreign language bible versions follow the same underlyingHebrew and Greek texts, and to the degree that their individual translationsmatch those found in the King James Bible, to that degree they can beconsidered to be the true words of God. To the degree that they depart fromboth the texts and meanings found in the KJB, to that degree they are corruptand inferior.  

Ifwe really believe that the English text of the King James Bible is the completeand inerrant words of God, and I do, then use it to translate into foreignlanguages.

Why? What is the difference?

Ibelieve God guided the KJB translators not only to the right Hebrew and Greektexts, but also to the right translation of those underlying texts.

Ifa person is "TR" only or "Hebrew only", then what happensis that they end up being the final authority on HOW these texts should betranslated.  And I have found that the vast majority of theologicalblunders found in the modern versions are NOT textual in nature, as much asthey are TRANSLATIONAL.

That is, they translate the same text in the wrong way and endup corrupting the truth of God.

Here are about 40 examples of how Fake Bibles DO corrupt the truth of God.

FakeBibles Do Teach False Doctrines

http://brandplucked.com/fakebiblesdoctrine.htm

Somemay bring up the argument - "Well, what about the verses that say"Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word thatproceedeth out of the mouth of God. (Matthew 4:4 and Deuteronomy 8:3) So howcan foreign language Christians do this if they don't have a perfectBible?"

Thisis a good question, but again, I don't think it is that hard to answer. Whenboth Deuteronomy 8:3 was written, as well as when Jesus repeated it in Matthew4:4, the whole Bible had not yet even been finished yet. In fact, none of theNew Testament has been recorded.  

Wecan only live by every word of God that He has been pleased to give us for thetime and place we live in.  Many languages today still do not have acomplete Bible or even a complete New Testament. And some of theScriptures they do have omit many whole verses, phrases and words. But whatthey DO have that IS the true words of God is what He has been pleased togive them to live by.

Amongforeign language translations that I would recommend are the Spanish ReinaValera of 1909, or the more modern Reina Valera Gomez translation of 2004, theItalian Diodati of 1649 or the New Diodati of 1991, the German Schlachter Bible2000 and the French Ostervald of 1996.  All these Bibles are based on theHebrew Masorretic texts in the O.T. and the Traditional Greek texts in the NewTestament.  

Ido not believe that every foreigner in non-English speaking countries needs tolearn the English language and read the King James Bible. Salvation throughfaith in the substitutionary death, burial and resurrection of the Lord JesusChrist is not only found the King James Bible.

Ifthere are several different versions in their own native language (Spanish,German, Russian, Chinese, or whatever), then I would recommend they use the onethat most closely follows the same Hebrew and Greek texts that underlie theKing James Bible. If they only have a translation based on the ever changing,modern Critical Texts, then they should thank God for what they do have and useit.

Regardingthe question of “Well, what about before 1611?” please see my article here:

http://brandplucked.com/wordofgodbefore1611.htm

Asfor: “Can a Translation be inspired?” please see:

http://brandplucked.com/translationinspired.htm

Thisis how I see it and what I believe. Not a difficult question at all.

Incontrast to the KJB believer's views, the multiple choice, contradictorymeanings, and "different, omitted, added, or made up underlyingtexts" proponent has no Final Written Authority or Standard by which allothers are to be judged, and he has no inspired, inerrant and 100% true Bibleto give or recommend to anyone.

Note: TheBible for Spanish speaking Christians  

Thereis a similar battle for the Bible going on in the Spanish speaking countriesall over the world. I love the Spanish speaking people and know many of themwho are lovely Christian men and women. They have several good Bibles that arebased on the correct texts, but the Spanish Bible market is also being floodedby modern updates like the Nueva Versión Internacional and others that arebased on the Catholic Connection UBS Greek texts.  Their traditional ReinaValera bibles have been very good, but over time men like Eugene Nida areslowing changing some of the Greek and Hebrew readings to those now adopted bythe 'Evangelical/Catholic' collaboration committee of the United Bible Society. I highly recommend the 2004 Spanish Bible called La Reina Valera Gomezbible.  You can see it online here

http://www.reinavaleragomez.com/RVGhtml/index.html 

Andyou can watch a You Tube video with Dr. Humberto Gomez talking about theSpanish Bible issue here 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu4WtihVwb0 

Notesfrom the Internet -

LizaS... asks: - “So Will, you believe the King James Version is the only pure wordof God in our language today. So what happens to all the other languages. Whatbible do they use?”

Hi Liza.  I get this question a lot. Not hard at all to answer.

http://brandplucked.com/otherlanguages.htm 

Look at the alternatives.  Either we take the typical “ONLY the originalsWERE inspired” (or in the case of those who have not thought through theirposition at all - only the originals ARE inspired), in which case we have NOinfallible Bible or Absolute Standard now.

Or we tell folks the equally absurd - “you need to learn “the” Hebrew and “the”Greek”, when this is a virtual impossibility for most folks to do and there ISNO such thing as “the” Hebrew and much less “the” Greek anyway. What there isin fact is the reality of hundreds and even thousands of variant readings foundamong the Hebrew and especially the Greek and no one on this earth is inagreement with anybody else about which “the” Hebrew and “the” Greek we shouldbe using or how to translate it once we make a decision on which specific textto use.  THAT is the alternative.  God bless.

MoreNotes From the Internet 

Are People who are not KJB Only "out of luck"?

Bill Anderson posts" So Will, from the time that theApostle John died (around 99 AD) there was no perfect Bible? According to youGod left His church for 1600 years with no inerrant Bible? so all of theChristians between 96-97 AD (when we think Revelation was written) to 1611 werejust out of luck? Is this what you are saying you believe, I am not trying tobe belligerent I just want to make sure I understand you. And if the 1611 KJVis the only "perfect" Bible, are Christians in Iraq who cannot speakEnglish out of luck? Do they have to learn English to have a perfectBible?"

Bill Anderson, I don't know why this truth is so hard for youbible agnostics, bible correctors, self appointed authorities and deniers ofinerrancy to grasp.  Just take your own view of the Bible and apply it toyour own question. You guys don't believe there EVER WAS AND IS NOT NOW such athing as a complete and inerrant Bible.

Or if we take your own goofy view you stated where "the Biblia Sacra O.T. (which is in Hebrew and many of its readings arerejected by your ESV, NIV, NASB, NET, etc.) and the Nestle-Aland 28th edition(which is different that all previous 27 editions and NO Bible in all ofhistory every read the way it does) are inerrant", then this means thatthere never has been an inerrant Bible and STILL is not one in ANY languageother than these two books (one of which is in Hebrew and the other in Greekthat about .0001% of the people on the planet can even read)  Try to THINKthrough your own position, Bill.

You do not have to have an inerrant Bible in order to become aChristian or to learn a lot of things about God and how He has acted inhistory. There is a lot of good found in all bibles, no matter how corrupt theymay be in other ways and to varying degrees.

But when we come to an INERRANT and complete Bible, both intexts and meaning, I believe the final product and the masterpiece of God isthe English text of the King James Bible.  It has ALL truth and nocorruptions or perversion of doctrine.

A Spanish speaker or Russian, or Swahili or any other languagespeaker does not need to learn English in order to get saved or to learn a lotof truth. If they cannot learn English, then use a foreign language Bible thatmost closely follows the same underlying Hebrew and Greek readings that make upthe KJB and that have the same meanings of those translated texts.  

God gives different degrees of light to different nations andindividuals.  To whom much is given, much will be required.  He willnot hold a Russian Christian responsible for something He did not give them.They should use what light He has been pleased to give them.

But for those of us who do speak English, we have been givenmuch more light and will be held accountable for what we have done with it. Arewe embracing it and teaching it, or fighting against it - like you and so manyother self appointed bible correctors are doing?

There are many very good reasons for believing that the KingJames Bible is God's infallible Book. This is faith, but not a blind andunreasonable faith.  We have the purity of its doctrine. It exalts theLord Jesus Christ like no other.  And God Himself has born witness inhistory to the King James Bible like no other.

The Absolute Standard - God's Historic Witness to the AbsoluteTruth of  The King James Holy Bible.

http://brandplucked.com/absolutestandard.htm

And it is the only Bible that thousands of blood bought saintsstill today believe and defend as the complete, inspired and inerrant words ofGod.

And what do YOU bible agnostic guys have to give usinstead?  Each of you is your own authority who rummages through thevarious versions and manuscripts and decides for himself what should or shouldnot be in God's Book - and none of you agree all the way through with anybodyelse.

We have Bible believers on one side, and the Yea, hath God said?groupies on the other.

So, Yes, Bill, I stand by what I have said. I believe the KingJames Bible is the inerrant words of God and there was not one either before orafter it.

WillKinney

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