Subject: Oldest Book of the Bible Job? |
Bible Note: Sis. Tamara -- Posted for your consideration: The canonical order of the books of the Bible does not always coincide with the chronological order of the events recorded in the books. Perhaps you may wish to review this matter by consulting various resources such as a good Bible dictionary or the introductions to the books of the Bible that are common to various reference and study Bibles. By the way, I note that you prefer the King James Bible. Excellent choice! The KJV is a time-honored translation and has a certain charm and beauty of language that many persons, including this writer, feel has never been attained in an English Bible since 1611. However, I beg to differ with you that it is necessarily the best and most accurate on the market today. You have mentioned that some modern translations leave some of the truth out. This brings up the matter of textual evaluation, and I won't go into that; it's much too involved to take up in the short space allotted to a post. While there are some persons such as yourself who take the position that many of the modern translations omit certain passages that should be included, there is perhaps an equal or greater number of persons who feel that the text from which the KJV was translated was added to by copyists over the centuries. And we know that adding to Scripture is as great an evil as taking from it. At all events, the variances among all the textual families are remarkably slight and relatively insignificant ones that do not affect the core doctrines of the Christian faith. Any English-speaking person can learn God's plan of salvation as readily and as accurately from the New Living Translation or the New International Version as he can from the King James Version. I grew up with the KJV but I do not hold that it is the standard by which all other versions must be appraised. It was a clear and easy-to-read version when it came into being nearly 400 years ago. But English is a living tongue and living tongues constantly undergo change. The changes in the English language since 1611 are of such magnitude to render many passages of the KJV virtually incomprensible to the modern reader. Surely no one wishes to impose so great a yoke upon today's readers by insisting that the KJV is the best or the most accurate translation available. This may have been true in 1611, but I'd be hard pressed to justify the argument that it's true today. At the very least, if one is dead set on rejecting the newly-discovered manuscripts and thus rejecting the modern versions that take these manuscripts into account in translating Scripture, he would do well to consider exploring the New King James Version, which is based on the same text that the KJV translators used. All things considered, a person's decision about which translation to choose from among the growing selection of responsible translations is a personal one and by no means the most important one he will ever make. --Hank |