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4:09 AM

@curiousdannii - I took the quiz and got them all so apparently I speak KJV. ;-)

My experience may no be average, but in every Church I've been in that uses the KJV, (Which is maybe five, not what I'd call a statistically significant sample) the Pastors/preachers/guest speakers and missionaries have studied the original languages in Seminary and are conscious of the fact that the words in the King James era had different meanings.

They tend to pause to explain the original meaning frequently.

And most KJV Bibles have the notes in the middle column to clarify words that were translated one way, but could have been translated another... So if you pay attention it's possible to speak KJV and actually understand it. That said, I'm not a KJV-only guy, I just think people tend to overestimate the difficulty of reading the KJV.

AJ Henderson

I never understood the whole KJV only thing

David Stratton

I understand it. I don't agree with it, though many of my close friends do... I understand the mindset and the arguments, but understanding and agreeing with are two different things.

Some things get me going and I have to comment, and inthe KJV only debate, I get irked by the arguments from both sides. The idea that KJV is hard to read is silly. My 9 year old twins can read it and understand it. There are some times they need to ask about some words they don't recognize, and curiousdaniis quiz does highlight some of the words that they stumble on.

"Dad, why does it say this? That doesn't make sense." "Here, look at the note in the middle column. That word can also mean ___"

But they get the same questions from the NIV, New KJV, etc. It's really no harder once you understand that there's a difference in word meanings.

My kids can also understand slang from the 50's and 60's - at 9 years old, and think of how different slang is today. It's no different. The concept that words meant different things at onetime than they do now is an easy concept to grasp, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to look up meanings or gather them from context.

Sorry done venting.

AJ Henderson

4:35 AM

@DavidStratton yeah, I'd agree the argument against is silly, it's a pretty readable translation, especially if you have good cliff notes, but I'd hardly consider it the clearest version and I never understood any argument towards most accurate

for casual reading, I generally use the newest NIV which is a far, far improvement over the classical

and for more intense study, NASB with Strongs numbers is my favorite

though I'll pop open parallel translations if it is still unclear

but then again, I also have off the chart reading comprehension skills, so what I don't find hard may be trickier for some. I'd guess that most of the people who regularly hang out around SE probably have really good reading comprehension too

David Stratton

Probably many of the regular active members are pretty up-to-speed. Certainly, we get the occasional exception. As for me, personally for a physical copy, I do like my KJV, but I spend much more time online at the Biblehub.com site, looking at parallel translations and the commentaries right there. Makes me appreciate the technology at our fingertips. We sure have it a lot easier than the generations before us.

curiousdannii

4:57 AM

@DavidStratton Well the point of my post is that you can't tell when you're reading it wrong unless you always do that study which generally is impractical

A edition could I guess use footnotes to identify every instance of meaning change, but what's the point?

And even if the ministers/teachers have studied the original languages and can identify the meaning changes we want everyone to be reading, which is where the problem lies

The quiz is meant to highlight words that you won't stumble over. I'd be interested if you tried it with your kids how they'd go with it

Or ask them about Phil 1:27 without warning them that it's a verse with an archaic meaning

David Stratton

@curiousdannii - I get that. maybe I should drop it, but the whole KJV-only debate just gets under my skin. It's not you, and it's not your position, it's the whole thing. It's one of the arguments that never ends.

curiousdannii

The real KJV-only debate is more about source issues

my comments would apply to any old translation.

It's so sad to ignore the wonderful resources we have

especially when there are thousands of languages with no bible

David Stratton

@curiousdannii That and "Translation vs. transliteration". Which is a whole other tangent I don't want to rant about. ;-)

curiousdannii

yep

David Stratton

@curiousdannii Amen.

curiousdannii

5:03 AM

I'm in the minority, but my favourite translation is the NLT

It's not perfect by any means, but it's the closest I've found to the language I actually speak

bruised reed

I'm with you on that @curiousdannii

curiousdannii

It would be easier to learn Greek if it wasn't for the 3rd declension

someone should make an edition of greek with only one noun declension.

David Stratton

@curiousdannii Having never studied the original languages myself, I'd have to take your word for that. I'm a layman through and through, trusting the translations I read. I've never had any of the type of education for me to have even a rudimentary conversation on the subject of translation. Probably a bit of a handicap when discussing translations, but it's never been somtehing that interested me enough to pursue it.

AJ Henderson

@DavidStratton - hey, thanks for confirming that you thought it was the second case as well. I actually wasn't personally sure if I thought it was a truth question or not, but I also didn't want to step on toes and I thought it was close enough to a truth question. I was just trying to cover all the bases for question etiquette

David Stratton

@AJHenderson Don't worry about stepping on my toes. I certainly hope people will challenge me if I make a bad call. There are a couple of regulars on this site who have done so already, and I think their arguments are legit. I consider myself as still in learning mode as a moderator and I can't improve if I don't get feedback.

AJ Henderson

5:14 AM

@DavidStratton oh, don't worry, if I really thought something was out of line, I'd step on toes, though I'd probably do it in private since I have that option open to me

but that situation was close enough that I thought it fair even if I probably wouldn't have personally done it

2 hours later…

Does Elisha speak?

7:03 AM

Q: A tag for the Christian relationship to the OT

There are a number of questions about how Christians should relate to the OT. It might be how to interpret/use the laws, it might be about the usefulness of the OT in general, it might be about typology, or prophecy or many different things. Some examples: How is ignoring clear Biblical instru...

5 hours later…

El'endia Starman

12:18 PM

@curiousdannii Mine too!

TRiG

1:10 PM

@fredsbend Liberals view themselves as a Catholic.

1 hour later…

Does Elisha speak?

2:13 PM

Q: Are we ready for Catholicism.SE?

There are 669 questions with the Catholicism tag out of our 5555 questions. That's over 10 percent of our site. It's by far our most popular tag--more so than the tags [Bible] and [Jesus]. And that's just the Catholic questions that are correctly tagged. Has anyone considered proposing a Catholi...

discussion catholicism stackexchange

1 hour later…

Caleb

3:34 PM

fredsbend

4:15 PM

@TRiG I think the image is righteous humanitarians, not necessarily Catholic.

@curiousdannii I'd bet that's in the top five used in USA Churches.

AJ Henderson

@curiousdannii The Message is the most "language you actually speak" but it also goes really far in paraphrasing

like, really REALLY far

but NLT is fairly popular

it's a pretty nice balance between accuracy and meaning

I prefered it to NIV prior to the 98 edition NIV came out

which was such a big improvement that it was further updated and actually replaced the original NIV entirely for the NIV name

and if you want to get in to really weird translations, one of the Jamaican translations is pretty crazy

TRiG

4:36 PM

@fredsbend Yes, I just found it interesting that they used Mother Theresa to represent that. I was thinking of being snarkier and saying Liberals see themselves as (unwillingly atheist?) Catholics who pretend to help the poor while actually arguably doing more harm than good.

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