Question: How accurate is the King James Version (KJV) Bible compared to other translations? How much does doctrine change from one translation to another?
Google: Which version of the Bible is most accurate to the original?
The New American Standard Bible is a literal translation from the original texts, well suited to study because of its accurate rendering of the source texts. It follows the style of the King James Version but uses modern English for words that have fallen out of use or changed their meanings.
Comment: Basically, the Old Testament was translated from the Hebrew Scrolls into Greek in BC 300 approx., before the first Alexandrian fire.
The New Testament was completed between AD 100–250 in Greek, and the most used was the “Peshitta” which was between AD 200–400.
The KJV is from the “received text” and is considered the most accurate by many scholars and progresses from the efforts of men of God from Tyndale and others, especially during the “Protest” period against the Roman Church by Luther and others in Europe.
The Roman Church has its own translation by Jerome into Latin approx. 390 AD.
Many of the earlier versions were suspect due to various religious doctrines, and that is why as Academic and Spiritual opinion settled down into an acceptable consensus, the main groups, Protestant, Roman and Eastern, became more settled, and in the case of the Protestant the “Received Text” became almost universal!
However, even the KJV has been examined by high level Scholars, and where translation or error has occurred deliberately or inadvertently a side note is shown to allow the student to consider!
There are quite a few such available, and a favourite is the “Companion” Bible; which has profuse notes and comments. The work was undertaken by an English Vicar (Dr. E.W. Bullinger, see: Dr. E. W. Bullinger (Hebrew and Greek Scholar, author Companion Bible)), and a Jewish Rabbi, who had converted to Christianity (Dr. David Christian Ginsburg, see: Dr. David Ginsburg: (Hebrew Scholar, Jewish academic, Jewish language Scholar for the British Library, and Museum), who worked for the British Library and British Museum. They used the KJV as the basic, and worked through all the manuscripts from UK and Europe, including Jewish and Greek texts. The result was the “Companion Bible” which first printed in 1912 in the UK. It is available world-wide, and is also printed in China.
See:
If you have questions or comments, please click here.
Subjectindex or