Inspiration and the Authorized Version
This was written to a forum of Christians who are being worn down by their fear of man (critical text scholars in this case), and are starting to state publicly that they no longer consider the Authorized Version 1611 to be inspired. They are confused. I wrote what is below for them. It contains a striking and very accurate analogy that you will see no where else...
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Note on inspiration. If you all had (or had more) experience with great literature - secular - you would understand what inspired means. Some works can be discerned to have been shepherded into time, into their form, by higher forces. Secular works. A handful. Once you are able to discern this in the realm of secular literature it is not difficult to discern it regarding the English Bible, the crown of which is the Authorized Version 1611.
The very fact that the great English Bible is the necessary foundation for all the modern garbage versions of scholars is telling. Without it their versions would be babble. If they didn't have the English Bible to follow and deviate from *they wouldn't even know the meanings of half the words in the Holy Canon.*
The Homeric epics are inspired in a way Milton's Paradise Lost isn't. The works of Shakespeare are inspired in a way the plays of Eugine O'Neill aren't. Many works of classical historians are inspired. Etc. That *means* they have unique and unusual provenance and level of influence; and *stand out* in this sense. The same can be discerned when one leaves these summit works and moves on to the beyond-summit work that is the Word of God. The AV1611 is inspired in a way the NLT, NASB, NIV ESV et al. are not.
You may prefer Milton to Homer, but just don't claim that they are equal. Milton himself wouldn't, and didn't. He had discernment for such things.
To use the epic analogy further: the AV1611 is an organic epic, emerging from realms not accessable to individual man, over time. The modern versions are 'literary epics', constructed by individual man, usually *always* basing themselves - just as literary epics such as Virgil's and Milton's did - on the *real thing.* The real thing in the realm of epic poems being the Homeric epics; the real thing regarding the Word of God being the crown of the English Bible the Authorized Version 1611.
3 Comments:
NIV is not based on the AV, but it is interesting the others are. Also, part of your argument sounds like an argument from aesthetics, but Muslims make the same argument (ie. if you learn arabic & read the quran, it's so beautiful, etc. etc.).
ct,
I get it, and you have written well. For Anonymous Dec. 8, 2009 @ 11:46 AM, the NIV would not have been written if the KJB were not already in existence. Read the foreword and you will find a claim of KJB sequence. No, the NIV is based on the Critical Text - that eclectic one that the mixed religion correctors are still attempting to assemble, never able to actual deviate from Westcot and Hort's 1881 version very much.
As for Muslim's and your argument about them, you don't have a valid comparison.
Sorry,
Joe
It's not an aesthetic argument. It's not a horizontal different. It's a difference in kind. The difference between an organic and a literary epic poem is not aesthetic. It's like the difference between the ocean and a landscaped garden with fountains and pools.
The only thing I don't like about the analogy is the sound of the term 'literary epic' sounds too complimentary to what critical text scholars are doing and the product they produce. The analogy is 'constructed' by known, individual man (or men). Of course what critical text scholars produce is anything but literary (other than what they crib from the AV).
And it's true what Joe says about the NIV. It relies on the crown of the English Bible, the AV1611, as much as the others that are more explicit in claiming genealogy from the AV. God said let there be light, and there was light.
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