I have the exact opposite view.  Anyone who is unwilling to consider the possibility that they are are has given up reason.  They are no longer using a conclusion based on evidence, and are an assumption that disregards evidence.  They've stopped thinking about it, and are acting like a machine.  Doubt is a good thing.  It's a healthy thing.  People who don't have doubt, aren't thinking hard enough about the subject at hand.  There's not much point in talking to them, because you're not going to learn much from them, and they're definately not going to learn anything from you.

Complete aside, Mentat, you keep bringing up the iniquities of the Catholic Church.  Would you be interested in addressing this in another thread?

For what they are worth, I'll toss my two cents at this problem:

The question carries with it the assumption that we have the word of God that we can either preserve or restore.  I question the assumption.  What should be preserved is the original meaning, but that requires "restoration" as the meanings of words change.  If an english word doesn't mean the same thing it did in the seventeen century, the meaning of the text has changed, even if the text itself hasn't.  In order keep the meaning the same, the text must change as well.  Granted, the original sources (or as close to them as we have) are the gold standard, and what we should refer to every time we try to update the wording so as to reflect the original meaning.

As for whether the KJV or the NIV is superior, I have no strong opinion.  I will agree with rouge4jc, however, that you've only shown that the two differ, not that one is superior ot the other, Mentat.  The fact that they differ is accepted by everyone here (even if they might not agree that the differences are significant).  But your claim of superiority requires additional evidence beyond just difference.  Cheerios are clearly different from wheaties, but that doesn't prove that one is better than the other.  I think you should suggest some metric by which the quality of a given version can be judged.  The metric "matches the KJV" would clearly show the KJV as superior, but I hope you'd agree that that's an entirely arbitrary metric that pre-supposes what you're attempting to demonstrate.

I don't think there were as many "iniquities" in the Catholic church as Hollywood and similar media seem to represent.  There were some bad people, but every religion has that, and there were people who abused power, and I think there were changes, but the Church as a whole unified beliefs in a time when Christianity meant a hundred different things and would have made itself go extinct otherwise by sheer volume of diversification.

I don't think so either, but I didn't want to derail the thread :P

Thank you, Heath. I have read the old thread and from it I have drawn my own conculsions.

History has demonstrated that the KJV has been flawed. Usually this is limited to spelling, grammar, or something equally insignificant. However, Rogue pointed out a passage just now that I honestly have no explination for. And while it occured to me to come up with some crap that sounds plusible, I'm not going to bother. In fact, I'm actually going to go a step further.

At the beginning of the thread Heath bumped for me, someone points out the inconsistancies the apostles had with the accounts of Christ's resurrection. All of them agreed it happened, certain characters were involved. It was the same event described in varying amounts of detail until one inconsistancy came up: Luke decribes two angels, while Matthew and Mark describe one. Now I'm inclinded to presume there is just one, but that isn't the issue here is it? No, the issue I was defending was that the KJV is consistant with itself, and for this moment, in addition to David's terms from God described in Samuel II and Chronicles II, there is a confliction.

Now obviously they cannot both be true at the same time, unless one angel left shortly after the conversation began. That just doesn't sound right. I don't buy it and I wouldn't expect anyone else to. Same goes for Samuel/Chronicles. Was it seven or three? Why would the scholars go with that, and why in the world has it not been corrected? To maintain an error like that is inexcusable. Same with Luke. One angel or two? These confusions should be eliminated.

I'll concede I didn't notice them either. However, this is why I sought opposition in the first place. My allies don't tell me where I am weak. Only an enemy to your cause will tell you that. Therefore, I'll grant the idea that the KJV is erronous a probationary basis.

Translation: If I find proof that I was right the whole time, I fire up this thread again. But I won't hold my breath about it.

However, (one change of tune coming right up) thus far, the KJV 1611 still remains an excellent measuring stick. As far as doctrine goes, it is still consistant, and the NT in particular retains the idea that works do not save you, only Christ.

With that in mind, my opinion of the NIV has not changed. In point of fact, the error you pointed out in the KJV could be found by simply going through the KJV for yourself and pointing it out. The NIV is unnecessary for that. Does the NIV imply at any point that works can save you? The KJV, if sliced into enough fragments, can be used for a compelling arguement in this direction, but read it the way it was presented. It does not back a work-based faith. The NIV seems to be rather shifty on the subject, switching back and forth between the two views. Irritating.

I'm permitted to backtrack on a view which is in error. It's called being human. Besides, whatever view I hold in life, I believe it, to the point where I will ruin myself attempting to defend it. But I'm not so narrow and conceited that I cannot admit I was wrong. So I'll just say it:

On the defense of the AV 1611 KJV, I was wrong. It does have errors in it which have not been addressed properly by church leaders.

(Since I'm still staying out of this debate except in incidentals, I feel it's safe for me to say that it's not only alright, but good that you're willing to shift your ideas in the face of new information.  It's the position to the contrary, that no piece of evidence could possibly change your mind, that makes it cease to be a discussion and become a monologue.)

Keep in mind that, except for John, the other three gospels were not actually written by the apostles themselves, but were either written by witnesses to the apostles' spoken word (like dictation) or were taken from other documents and pieced together.

Kudos Mentat, for being willing to change your mind when shown new information!  Very big of you to be so open about it, too.

Bump!

Found this when looking for the age of the earth thread, and thought it might be useful for the discussion in the "accusations" thread.

Two points to be considered here, one, The purpose of the King James Version was to produce a bible that everyone could be read, (see Rennerd, 2002), many matters were overlooked for the speed of descimination.

Also, Marshal Venter, an asteemed studies of eye witness accounts states that the four gossipls match all of the markers of it (Venter, 1991;1989;1986).

I've heard that, but at teh same time anyone at all familiar with police procedure knows that real eyewitness accounts have for more diversity in what is expressed to have actually happened than teh gospels. The gospels are more like what the witnesses testify to in court after being prepped by the lawyer and given 'example' questions about how their testimony differs from someone else's and how do they explain it?

Actually know, there inconsistencies would be more uniform, both  Hung Cha', (1946), and Hoperner, (1988), took that route in their investigation and realized that if they were trained, then the older texts would have greater consistency then they do.  Keep in mind, neither of these two were Jewish, or Christian.  Hopner, was an avowed achiest up until his death, although some of his comments against  various religious practices were very much on the mark, and Cha', was a Dowist, so they had no vested interest in reaching these conclusions.

Where would I find these texts? Internet searches seem to draw no results for searching for this pair.

more acurately 0 results for Hoperner gospel as a search parameter.

I can give you Hopner, now, I'll need to track down the other one, it's in my garage somewhere.

Hopner, P. 1988). An investigation of the value of religious texts; using a legal perspective.  Gothenburg Press: Berlin.

I'm sorry I can't give you internet sources, but there are so few sights that I can acces, that I have to go with what's around here, or at the Library of congress.

Okay then, do you have any actual points to make from teh text besides "somebody you should accept as impartial already looked at this and wrote a book"?

I did make a point; the point was that there would be a greater level of consistency between the gosssples if they were coached.  I then sight a source, two sources demonstrating this point.  Furthermore, what historical evidence we do have states that Luke did indeed write his own gospel, both him and John.  Sure the other two are debatable, but there is no evidence that anyone can find that at any point collaboration took place between those that wrote them.

For what it's worth, I haven't really heard of anyone saying they were written by "collaborators" as such, though I think it's widely accepted that the author of Luke knew of the book of Mathew.  Also, many believe that either Mathew was based on Mark, or that they were both based on an older "Q document."  I think most people consider it to be more a case of people telling the same story, but disagreeing slightly about the details.  Also, I don't think most biblical scholars think any of them were written by eye witnesses (I think Heath is of the opinion that they think John may have been, though, so it's not unanimous on that part probably).

   I was drawing a parallel to the coaching, not saying it was the result of collaberation or intentional coaching, merely pointing out that actual independent eyewitness accounts vary wildly in terms of what happened, whereas there has obviously been some communication after the event that has had a result of bringing the testimony in line with each other- simply standing arround reminiscing about past events csan have this kind of effect, but it does dilute the source value of the testimony.

With the flip side being, why did anyone have to be coached when, of the hundreds of testaments written, only the ones vetted by the early church were actually included as scripture?

Not saying that good data was intentionally excluded, but if you're going to make a conspiracy theory, you may as well take the easy route.

And agin, not trying to claim a conspiricy, just informational crossover.

"Jiizas - di buk we Luuk rait bout im"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16285462

Saw this article today, and got a bit of a grin from it.  I was up at Stirling castle yesterday, where they had a display about the KJV there, and some of the controversy at the time of translating the bible into a "vulgar" (in the literal sense) language like English.  Then saw this article today about the controversy of translating it into Jamaican patois.  Plus ça change... and all that.

What about translating it into a language that is not nearly like English Chinese is a very delicate language with the meanings of one word even very fluid in how its used?

Maybe it might be best to use the Psalms, Proverbs for the OT and the sayings and teachings of Jesus tossing out the rest it would solve many issues IMHO.

But back to the topic does it matter if its different?

"Thou shalt not murder"
"Thou shalt not kill"
"Thou shalt not kill another living being."

"the greatest of these is love."
"the greatest of these is passion."

Yes, different translations are important. They give us completely different meanings. I agree, I'd worry a lot about translating to Chinese, for exactly the reason you need. I'm glad that's not my job.

Tycho -- they're also writing a lolcat version. My dad, a deacon, thought that's pretty funny, so I guess it's not really an issue. But yeah, strange how things change.