Psalm chapter number 12. We are talking about the translation of the Bible. Psalm chapter 12. We're just rereading a verse that we've already read over and over and over again. We'll just take a look here. It says Psalm chapter number 12 in verse number 6 and verse number 7. Psalm 12 verse 6 says, The words of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried in a furnace of earth. purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O Lord. Thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much, Lord, for this time together, Lord. And we thank you for your word. And we thank you, Lord, for the fact of your preservation. And Lord, we thank you for the translation of your word as well, Father, from one language to another that we're able to understand it in our own tongue. And Lord, we just pray now that you would speak to our hearts Teach us much of the history, Lord, and help us to take these things and remember and just stand in awe of a mighty God who's able to preserve His Word as He promised. In Jesus' name, Amen. Alright, the translation of the Bible. The crowning product of English scholarship is unquestionably the authorized King James Version of the Bible. A Bible conceived by the work of William Tyndale, gestated in the womb of the English Reformation, perfected with the words of the great English language, and proved through its powerful witness in succeeding generations. Nevertheless, the average Christian today has been led to believe that the authorized King James Bible is obsolete because it is now almost 400 years old. Actually, at this point, it is over 400 years old. In fact, it is 401 years old. And it contains many archaic words and phrases. So they say that the average Christian believes that it's obsolete, it's outdated, it needs to be replaced. But the more informed Christian has also been told that the authorized version contains many mistakes and faulty translations because of the fact that it was translated from a few late manuscripts. That is a lie, by the way. Thus, a lie, they've been told. So, the King James debate is a burning issue today. There's a lot of people who argue back and forth about what Bible to use. There are some who argue, King James is the Bible for the English-speaking people, and there are others who say, no, it's not. It's any Bible. And there's a lot of debate and argue back and forth at this time. So, we all understand that we accept the authorized King James Bible of, our text says of 1611, that would be this one. As the Word of God, I would say that I would agree with that, but I would also agree that none of us can read that because of the font type and the spelling. So we probably could read it. It would just take a whole lot more labor to read it. It would take a whole lot more to get into it and understand. But we still hold the same thing in our hands today. It's just been updated as far as the spelling and the font type. easier for us to read. So anyways, we accept the King James Bible as the pure, preserved, infallible Word of God in English language. The question is, why? Why the King James over other versions of the Bible? So this is what we're going to concern ourselves with, answering that question, why. Number one, A brief history of the Authorized King James Version. The Authorized King James Version came about in the providence of God through a series of events in England. Letter A, Wycliffe. The Wycliffe Bible. John Wycliffe, who lived from, if you're taking notes here, John Wycliffe was the one who wrote the Wycliffe Bible. He lived from 1302 to 1384. Don Wycliffe translated the first complete English Bible in 1380 to 1382. I could show you guys a, I don't have any of my equipment hooked up for projection or anything, so I can't really show you that way, but I could show you some verses of the Wycliffe Bible if you'd like. But this was translated, the problem is the Wycliffe Bible was translated from the corrupt Latin Vulgate. the wrong Latin version. But, however, it did create a hunger in the hearts of Englishmen for the Word of God. It began to create this stirring and this hunger for English-speaking people to have the Word of God. And so some of them begin to read it and it begins to burn this hunger in us for the Word. Like when the disciples, they were They were reminiscing on the walk with Jesus on the way to Emmaus. And they said, did not our hearts burn within us as He spoke the Word of God to us? I'm paraphrasing, but they're saying that Word of God, you begin to get little tastes after hundreds of years of no Bible. And then we say, give me more. They had a hunger for the Word of God. And it sowed the seeds of the English Reformation that happened about 130 years later. But letter B here is our favorite in this particular, you know, in the trail down to the King James. And that is the Tyndale Bible. William Tyndale lived from 1494 to 1536. A.D. and he translated the first English Bible from the original tongues. He's the one who translated the first English Bible from the Greek and Hebrew. His New Testament was translated from the Greek text prepared by Decidurius Erasmus, which is the Greek in that Bible right there on the top. But he was the one that He translated it from the Greek that was compiled or prepared by Erasmus. Erasmus lived from 1466 to 1536. In 1516 to 1535 AD, which later came to be known as the Received Text, this is when Erasmus translated into the Greek language, it was sometime between 1516 and 1535, and it later became known as the Received Text or the Textus Receptus. Textus Receptus, which is the Received Text. That's something to take note of, right Melissa? Which text is the right text? Textus Receptus. T-E-X-T-U-S. R-E-C-E-P-T-U-S. That is Latin for received text. They even had texting back then, yes. They received text messages back then. Erasmus in 1536 got his textus. His textus. Like we say, right? I texted someone. I don't know. I have no clue. It's text with an extra T if you... I don't know. I don't know how you say text in the previous tense. When was that? 15 what? 1536. Well, it was 1516 to 1535 is when the work was done. It was compiled and collated and so forth. Letter C. The reign of King Henry VIII. Remember, in the story that I read you guys about Tyndale, years ago, or months ago when we were continuing to go through this series, and I said, I've got something to tell you about William Tyndale, and I had all this long story. But I just told you guys mainly about, as he was about to be executed, he said what? Do you guys remember what he said? He said, Lord, open the king of England's eyes. Yes, amen. That's exciting. Here's what happened. This, shortly after, or actually around that time, what's interesting is King Henry VIII ruled England from 1509 to 1547. Now notice that 1509 to 1547 would contain 1536, which is when William Tyndale was executed. And in 1534 AD, he broke with the Church of Rome. Interesting. Henry VIII broke with the Church of Rome, and thereby, and church is in quotes. It's not really church, but you know, he broke from the political affiliation of the Roman Catholic institution. and thereby beginning the English Reformation. It began with King Henry VIII, and they became Protestant, so to speak. So, not officially, but the next reign. When he died, 1547 is when he finished reigning, But then Queen Elizabeth was established. Queen Elizabeth I. You guys ever hear of anything like Elizabethan? What was the Elizabethan period famous for? Does anyone know? Yes, that would be one thing. The Elizabethan period, or era, or whatever, it was the period when a certain man who was very popular in his plays and his writings, William Shakespeare, lived during the Elizabethan period. And in fact, he would write plays that she would attend. And so anyways, she established, or Protestant was established in, or Protestantism was established in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. And this was from 1558 to 1603, and it was done so in no small way. That was letter D, and then number one under letter D is the execution of Mary, the Queen of Scots, who reigned from 1542 to 1587 AD, and she was the cousin of Queen Elizabeth, and heir to the English throne. She was going to be the heir to the throne of England. She was going to become the Queen of England. Well, she was a staunch Catholic and plotted against the Queen and that didn't work so she was executed. Mary, Queen of the Scots. Mary Stuart. T-U-A-R-T. Queen of what? Queen of Scots. She was Scottish. Is that it? Or they're also Irish. Irish. Irish. Irish. They're also Jewish. Yeah, they're just a bunch of mutts. Alright, number two. We're talking about my family name, what he was talking about. Number two, under letter D, is the defeat of the Spanish Armada. The defeat of the Spanish Armada. King Philip II of Spain sent an armada of 136 ships to go against England in 1588. This was against Queen Elizabeth and they They had a purpose of restoring Catholicism in the nation. You know how they do that, right? They show up with their armada and they bomb them with cannonballs and their army and they come in and they re-establish Catholicism. That's how you establish a religion, right? You bomb people and you stick a sword to their throat and you say, convert. And then they convert. finally they all become Catholic. That's the way they went about doing things, but the Armada was defeated by a makeshift English fleet, just kind of thrown together and then later decimated by storms. The English fleet kind of held them off, and then as they left, these storms came and they're gone. So, obviously God had something to do with that, not to say that God was necessarily blessing off on them, on Protestantism, but He certainly had a work in that and a purpose because had they have done that, had they have been successful, the Spanish Armada, there's a lot of things. By the way, when we go back into history, we say, had this major event happened a little bit differently, then nothing would be the way that it is today. For example, you even go back further than Wycliffe, you know, in the 1300s, you go back to 1066 at the Battle of Hastings ended up a different way. If the Welsh would have won, or the Angles, if the Anglo-Saxons would have won and pushed the Franks down and out of their country, then our English language would be nothing like it is today. We wouldn't have the empire that we had in Europe. England would not be. It would be just a bunch of barbaric Saxons which were kind of German dramatic, but Well like Welsh German Scandinavian kind of you know bunch of mix bunch of mixed people there, so Yeah, but what happened was you know I can't remember the guy's name. He was a Frank, but he came up King Man I can't remember his name I read all about this like two years ago, just reading, reading, reading, reading about it. But anyways, he came up and he whooped up on the Angles, or the Anglos, the Saxons, and when he whooped up on them, they established French as the national language, or the language of the Franks. I don't know if that's where they get the hot dogs or not, I don't know. But they made that the official language, And so all business was done by that language and so forth. And the common language of the people was the language of the Welsh or the Saxons. So they ended up assimilating the languages together and you end up having what we have now as English. That's why we have a lot of French influence and German influence and Latin all these different influences on our language because of who we got beat by. That's what we pretty much got our languages by getting whooped up on. So whoever beat us, we just adopted some of their language. So what's that? Yeah. So, but if the outcome of that battle would have been different, then our language would have been different. We wouldn't have what we have today as the King James Bible. In fact, I don't know if King James even would be in existence because of who King James was and the political atmosphere of the time, you know? And then, you know, Queen Elizabeth, I don't know if she would have even been, you know, if Henry VIII hadn't have had, you know, all the wives that he had, who knows what would have happened, you know? Part of the reason that he became, that he pulled away from the Church of Rome is because of his divorces that the Church of Rome excommunicated him over. And so the whole Protestant Reformation was over some guy that had divorces. That was the whole point. It was like, you're not going to tell me what I can do. I'm the king of England, and I'll have, you know, seven or eight wives if I want to. And you're not going to have anything to say about it. And they said, There were many kings, by the way, that would say stuff like that, but then the Pope would say, all right, no Catholics have to obey that king anymore. And basically, mutiny. And the king would, basically, they would ransack the castle, and the king would be pretty much dethroned, unless he surrendered and said, okay, okay, I apologize, I will submit to the Pope. So the Pope is higher than the King of England? Yes, yes. The Pope always has been higher than the King of England until Henry VIII. When he said he got his big old gut out and he said I'm gonna make something happen here. You know that's why we button our jackets the way that we do, right? You button your jackets all the way down to the bottom button and you leave the bottom button unbuttoned because Henry VIII was too fat to button his bottom button. And we do it out of respect of him. It's actually just tradition now but that's actually why I guarantee you, go anywhere in the world where there's English descendants, okay, and their suits, they will have the bottom, if they have proper etiquette, so to speak, they'll have the bottom button unbuttoned. What's that? For that reason. Yep. Yeah, I don't know why they do the top polo button opener. Probably some other fat guy, but... So, no, but that was why we did that, was because of that. But anyways, you just think about these things. What would have happened if that didn't happen that way? You know, what if? What if Kendall escaped and finished the Bible? I don't know. It didn't happen, so really the what-ifs don't really work very well. But, if some of these things didn't happen the way that they did, history would not be what it is, you know, today wouldn't be what it is today. So, letter E is now the reign of King James I. Now, King James was the son of Mary, Queen of the Scots. Remember Queen Mary, Queen of the Scots, the Mary Stuart here, the cousin of Elizabeth, which would have made him the second cousin of Elizabeth. So he was proclaimed King James VI of Scotland as an infant because his mother died. as he was young, and so he became the, did you catch all that? That King James was, or James was the son of Mary, the Queen of the Scots, and his mother died, and he was proclaimed King James VI of Scotland as an infant, and raised by the Scottish nobility as a Protestant. Why would that be? Well, because Elizabeth saw to it. because she was in charge of all England, and Scotland is not technically part, but at some times it becomes part of the whole thing. So he ruled from 603 to 625 AD. During that time, though, after he became king of Scotland, And then obviously because he happened to be somehow next in line to the throne, when Elizabeth passed off the scene and died, or left the throne, he became the King of England. And because he was the first James to be King of England, he was King James I. Although he was before King James VI, because he was the sixth king named James of Scotland. Interesting. He was the sixth king named James of Scotland. But when he became the king of England, he was the first king named James of England. So that made him King James I. Obviously there were eight kings named Henry. So how would you go from being a king to being a king of another country? Well, because England, I believe England was over Scotland. It would be like if the United States and Mexico and Canada were like one region and they all had three separate like kings presidents whatever and then but there was some there was someone who presided over the whole region of all three countries then basically, we'll say it was all monarchy, okay? So America's a monarchy and the other two are monarchies. So we have King Obama and we have King, it was Fox down there, I don't know what his name is now, but King whoever it is down there in Mexico, and King whoever it is, or Queen whatever, whoever it is up in Canada. I don't know why I can't remember Canada tonight. But anyways, you have these three, we three kings, and then, We'll say that the king over the whole realm dies, and so the next one in line moves up. So they're not really kings, though. They've got a king above them. They are kings. Just like King Agrippa, and King Festus, and Felix, and, you know, throughout the... They're a king of a region. But a kingdom is really nothing more than a realm that you rule. And you can have a larger kingdom that is ruled by someone above you. For example, someone that you answer to. He probably would be more like a governor, but they use the term king, because he probably had a pretty loose ability to do what he needed to do in his kingdom. but he still had to answer to the king or the queen actually above him. So that's why like right now we have, and then there's the whole other situation of how people become queen and king and duke and duchess and what are the other things that they call them? Prince and princess and stuff. Right, so like when prince, who's this last prince that got married? What was his name? No, it wasn't Charles, it was his son. William? Yes. Prince William. He got married and he became the Duke of some place. It was wherever his grandma said he was going to be. Right. That's pretty much what happens. The queen or king at the time, when one of their children, grandchildren, whatever, get married, they say, I dub thee so and so of such and such, and they become a nobility over that realm. over that area, so they become a duke or a duchess, or the men become dukes and the others become duchess, or they'll be a prince, or they'll be whatever. If he was to be a prince, and now you can't have, as far as princes, before you're married, like Prince Charles, he's not really technically over anything, he's just kind of there with his mom, next in line for the throne, technically. But his sons were all princes. But as they get married, they become a duke here or a duke there or whatever. And then when the dad becomes a king, then he can say, okay, now you're going to be moved up to whatever, you know, and they can move him around or whatever. So it's an interesting form of government. England is not technically still a monarchy. Technically, they still have a parliament and they have a government. The queen doesn't really make all the rules, but she's kind of a background figurehead, I guess, so to speak. But anyways, it's interesting stuff. At least that's the way I understand it. I might be off on something there. But as far as a realm where someone is the king of a certain area, but then they become the king of another area, it's because they moved up or moved down. So he became king there of England. And in 1604, two events took place. which eventually led to the translation of what we call the Authorized King James Version. The one thing that took place was the Millenary Petition. We called it the Millenary Petition because there were a thousand people, or a millennium of people, who signed, they were Puritan Presbyterian clergymen, who were calling for changes within the quote-unquote, Church of England, okay? They were still, the Protestants were still, they, by the way, the Protestants believed the Church of England, or the Anglican Church, the Church of England, they believed in a universal church that was physical and visible, and the head of that universal church was the king at that time. Well, the Catholics believed in a universal physical visible church, and the head of that church is the Pope. And so that's all of its contrary to Scripture. But anyways, the second thing that happened was the Hampton Court Conference, and this was proclaimed by King James in response to the millinery petition, and it was called to settle some of the differences between the Episcopalian and the Puritan parties within the Church of England. These were various political parties, so to speak. They were two different, they were varying beliefs of the Church of England. You had the Puritan and the Episcopalian. So though the conference went decidedly against the Puritans, a suggestion by Dr. John Reynolds was that a translation be made of the whole Bible as a consonant, or as consonant as can be to the original Hebrew and Greek, and this to be set out and printed without any marginal notes, and only to be used in all churches of England in time of divine service. So this caught the attention of the king. The question is why? Well, because the Puritans favored the Geneva Bible, while the Episcopalians preferred the Bishop's Bible. Both were pretext Bibles that differed mainly in certain slanted translations and marginal notes. When we say pretext, they were before the King James, but they were kind of forgotten about. They were compared, but they weren't They were referenced, I guess, in the translation, but they kind of scrapped everything and started over. But they used a lot of stuff that was already there, but most of what they used was Tyndale's stuff. So, on July 22nd, 1604, King James announced that he had approved 54 selected men to translate a new Bible, and the work of translation began in 1607. Number two, the translation. We just dealt with, all of our time just now was dealing with a brief history to get to the point of the translation of the King James Bible. Number two is the actual translating or translation. And then we have, let's see. says the authorized King James Version was the fruit of a number of earlier English Bibles which were basically revisions of the work of William Tyndale. Did anybody have any questions about that first major point? Yes. I saw you looking like you wanted to... So what did William Tyndale actually do besides... I mean, he translated it and made the text as receptive? He translated it from the text as receptive. It was erasimus, it was deciduous erasimus who translated it, or who, he didn't do any major translation, he did more of a compiling work, but he arranged or prepared the Texas Receptus, the Texas Receptus, that was what Erasmus did. Tyndale actually translated from the Greek and the Hebrew to English. Okay, so he was, it was the first Bible translated from the original languages. have it for the other people? Well the reason that they had it, well here's the thing, Tyndall was murdered because of what he was doing and they didn't finish it. If you ever look, if you ever find the Tyndall Bible, you're gonna find that there's a lot of stuff missing because he wasn't able to finish the work. Because he was, well I say he was murdered, he was executed and not able to finish. Then you have what was called the Cloverdale, which was a completion of the Tyndale Bible, but it was not a, it was not a, the Cloverdale was kind of like a, somebody, one of his followers picked up his work where he left off and finished it, pretty much. And so that's where we have the Cloverdale Bible. Then the Matthews Bible is just another revision of that, of the New Testament that he gave. And then we had the Great Bible and the Geneva Bible, which were all part of those. The Bishop's Bible was kind of a shoot-off of the Great Bible, and so we had to split between the Geneva and the Bishop's Bible because of, mainly because of marginal notes, because of what the Puritans believed concerning the divine right of kings and so forth, and what the Episcopalians believed concerning the divine right of kings and sovereignty issues and things like that. The Geneva Bible was was primarily a Calvinist-type Bible, whereas on the other side was more of a, I can't say necessarily that it was like an Arminian-type Bible, but it was more of a, they were against the divine right of kings, which is a concept where people believe that God chooses who's going to be king. And God has given him a divine right as king to rule with complete and total authority. And that's what some of the Calvinists would teach, that that's what happened, that that's how God put the king in place. And that's the way it were. Well, the Puritans would say things like, you know, we have no king but Jesus, and they would have a problem with their king, and they would put things in the notes that would indicate such. And so when this argument over Puritan versus Episcopal doctrine, when it came up with these thousand Puritan priests, or clergymen, whatever, obviously when someone said, hey, let's just come up with a translation that we do together, and then we can argue our differences while we're doing this, and have it come together. It's awesome how God worked that out, because a lot of the problems between the two were... That's why a lot of places in the Bible where you're like, oh man, it says this here, but then it says this over here, it's like... And it's not a matter of translation. What they decided to do was let's do a literal word-for-word translation. And that's what Tyndall did, but they didn't have a complete work. All they had was Tyndall's work, and then they had these other guys who just as they're running here and running there, tried to finish the translation so that we would have a complete Bible. Well, it wasn't finished perfectly yet. And so that's why a lot of people will go back to Psalm 12, verse number 6, and read it where it says, The words of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. And they'll point out the fact that from Tyndale you had seven revisions until the King James. And they'll say, the Bible even told us ahead of time that his word was going to be purified seven times. Now some people that will make that statement will also say that this is the Bible, right here, and this is not. Because they say this replaced this. I don't believe that there's differences. They're both the same thing. At the same time though, see some, there's, when we start talking about this issue, this doctrinal issue, or it is a doctrinal issue, but it's more of an issue of where we stand on things. There are several different camps, so to speak. There is the Burgon camp, the Dean Burgon Society type camp, and they hold to a original languages type thing, and they'll hold this thing up here and they'll say, well, if I think that this Greek word should have been translated this way or that way, then I'll tell you that it would be better translated as this, and we can correct the King James because it wasn't translated correctly, is what they'll say. Okay, that's their camp, that's one camp. There's another camp that says the King James is it, and that's it, it's what they would call the Ruckman camp, and Peter Ruckman was one who believes that the, he would say that the King James is the word of God, period, We're not going to talk about other languages, we're just... The King James Bible is the Word of God, and if you're going to translate anything at all, you're going to correct it by the King James, not by that Greek and Hebrew. I disagree with both of them, because I believe they're the same book. Okay, now, the Ruckman guys will point out, what Texas Receptus are you talking about? There were revisions of the Texas Receptus. You have various revisions, and there's a reason for that. Part of it is because the Latin that we had, the early Latin that we had was a, not the Latin Vulgate, but the early Latin, was compared with the Texas Receptus. When they did the King James, they found some things that Erasmus failed to put into the Texas Receptus because he didn't use the Latin, he just compiled Greek. And so, somewhere, like there's a couple of verses, there's a verse in 1 John where there's like a number of words missing. In your King James Bible, it's in italics. However, when they go back to the Latin, not the Vulgate, but the good Latin, they go back to the Latin, they see it there. Why did they put it in italics? Well, because it wasn't in the Greek that they were using as their standard. Okay, but it was there. In fact, all of the other Bibles that they used, the Waldensian Bibles that they used, would verify that it's there. Not only is it in the Latin, but it's in the Italian, it was in the Spanish, it was in, you know, and so the Spanish Reina Valera was actually, the Reina, when I was talking about Spanish at one point with you guys, the Reina Valera was done in 1602. and that was translated from the Texas Receptus and the Latin and some of the others. So, this is where when we start talking about some of this stuff on text stuff, we can get like super deep, or we can, you know, I'm trying to stay as shallow as he's staying, but you can get really far down into that stuff and start, I mean, and really there's some points where you're like, Wow, just like, whoa, wait a minute, if that wasn't, then how did, and then this, oh, we're here and there, and you know, you're just trying to figure, the fact of the matter is, in 1611, any Bible scholar, so to speak, or someone who knew their Bible, they didn't just know English, they knew English, and for example, we're gonna talk about Are we going to talk about the translators? I thought we were. What did the 50 people that translated translate it from? Greek. Greek and Hebrew. OK. But they used some other things as well. Like, we'll point out here in just a minute some of the things that they used. But the translators, yeah, we're going to talk about some of the things about the translators as we talk about the translation itself. But some of the things that they used were, are mentioned here as well. But as far as like when we talk about what was wrong with this or what was wrong with that and some of these things, it was the fact that it just wasn't here yet. We just didn't, we did not, God preserved his word. It was just a little bit, it took a little bit more study to know it because you had to know the language it was written in because in English, We didn't even have standardized grammar and spelling and all that. I mean, it was coming together, and we were actually at the point of 16... In fact, in the 1500s, in the Elizabethan period, that's when the English language was reaching, coming up the hill to the top of the pinnacle. I believe in 1611, it's probably right at the top. 1769 is when we fixed all our spelling. which I don't think makes any difference whatsoever as far as the richness and the ability to communicate concerning the language, except for the fact that it simplifies things a little bit so that you're able to know what's what. But it was common that you just spell it how you think it sounds. Everybody just understood that. It wasn't weird for something to be, quote unquote, spelled wrong. In our society today, it's like You know, spelling is a huge deal, but back then it was like, one of our presidents, in fact, said, he said, it's basically a sorry man that doesn't know how to spell words in at least two different ways. You know, I think it was Andrew Jackson. But he, anyways. So. Yeah, we're talking about, yeah. Yeah, they can have some, a picture to color here. We got a cool guy with a beard. You want to take one back to Isaac and Imelar? Sorry. Wow! That went right through the pew. This is actually a picture of a scribe copying the Bible, but Translating, copying, you know, you can kind of get the idea. Okay, so letter A under the translation of the authorized King James Version, letter A is the rules of translation. Oh, I left all the crayons back here in the hallway. You getting crayons, Amelia? Oh, the crayons are somewhere. I don't know where I put the crayons. Look in that back room, Amelia. Well, go check in that back room. There's a whole big old thing of crayons, I think. Look and see. Okay. So, letter A here is the rules of translation. So, they had 15 rules of procedure that were drawn up by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Okay. Translating, yes. It was 15 rules of procedure. Many Baptists have been quick to criticize the King James Version over its failure to translate Greek words such as baptizo and ekklesia, claiming it to be a more Protestant Bible with Protestant-based or bias, or let's see, with Protestant bias toward infant sprinkling and a universal church. So, but let's look at that statement, okay? The statement that a lot of Baptists will say, but this failure, quote-unquote failure, came about, it is claimed because of the third rule, which prescribed that old established ecclesiastical words were to be retained. So words that were common. So the fact is that the words baptize and church were and still are English words. Some people will say, well, baptize wasn't an English word. And it was just a transliteration. I've said that quite a few times. And then I learned, well, they've used that transliteration since our English language started. So it's obviously an English word. And then church has always been an English word as well. So it says, sure, they need explanation because people don't understand what the words mean. We need to explain them, help people to understand them. But the New Testament is well able to do that. We don't even necessarily need to explain them. We can say, look up every time the word is used, look at the context, look at how it's used. Then we start talking about the doctrine of the church here in a little while. There's some complicated things that a lot of people have confused because of their misunderstanding of what the word church means. And it's because they've been programmed by the world around them that's controlled mainly by the Catholic Church, always has been since the Catholic Church took over the world. or the Catholic Church's daughters, the Protestants, one or the other, is trying to tell everybody that there's a universal church. And because of that indoctrination, from a little bitty kid, you just automatically assume that when you're looking at the phrase, the church, you're seeing some grand universal thing, but that's not, when you look at the context and you really study the issue, you find that you're not looking at some grand universal thing, you're looking at to whom it applies. You're looking at the church at Ephesus, or the church in Corinth, you know, depending on who we're talking about, or we're talking about it in a general sense, like we would say the school, you know, or kids went to school today, well, or they all go to the universal school, No, they all went to their individual, local, visible schools. You know, each kid, you know, or they're homeschooled. You know, they went, they did school at home. They don't have a school building to go to. They do their schooling at home. So it's, you know, that's, it's a lot like, you know, when we'll say the church building. In fact, I got a quote on adding to our sign, the words, the meeting place of, meeting place of and then colon and then our church name so that way no one confuses the building with the church but that's just one thing to kind of you know for people that as you come in when you see that it's it helps get the perspective you know people get the right perspective I'm not gonna beat on anybody for calling this building the church it's but I might correct them and say you know, or joke with them, but, you know, like somebody says, I drove by your church. No, you didn't. We weren't there. Or I'll say, when? When? Oh, yeah, when? And they're like, such and such time, or whatever. And I'm like, oh, well, we weren't there, so you just drove by the building. You know? They're like, oh, yeah, that's funny. So anyways, so the New Testament is able to teach us what those words mean. So besides, if these words were translated, we would lose some of our Baptist heritage. So instead of having Baptist churches, we would be attending dipping assemblies. Dipping assemblies. If they translated the words, instead of transliterating the words and making them English words to be a transliteration, if they would have translated them, they would be dipping or immersing assemblies? Baptist Church. Yeah, Baptist Church would be because, but church is a, it's, it's, it's a, yeah. John the Dipper. What's that? John the Dipper, yeah. It would be John the Dipper or John the Immerser or whatever, yeah. John the Dipper. Yeah, I mean, we needed the word Baptist. I mean, come on. I mean, what would we put on our flag? Let's see. Dippers, the book, the blood, the blessed hope. Right? Or Mercers, or whatever. Would that make you the Big Dipper? Yeah, you'd have Little Dippers and Big Dippers. So, letter B here, under number 2, is the method of translating. The method of translation. So, of the 54 men chosen for the work, only 47 are positively identified. Okay? There could be various reasons for that, but we won't necessarily go into that, because I have no clue why. But there's talk that maybe some of them died before the work started or before it was over. Because to know a whole lot, probably you may be possibly old. So you might die of old age during the process. So there's different reasons why maybe some of them positively identified. Or some of them may have said, look, I just, I don't, you know, I'm glad I'm doing this and everything, but I don't want praise for it. I don't want to be mentioned. And so that's a possibility as well. So number one, the men were divided into six companies. Two at Westminster, two at Cambridge, and two at Oxford. Each of the companies was assigned a particular portion of the Bible to translate. That's number one there. Number two, each member of the company was to make his own translation first. So they would take their portion of scripture and each member of the company, of each company, would translate the portion of scripture on their own. Number three, the members of each company then met to compare one another's work, reading the passages out loud while comparing written notes. They would compare and see how that all works out. Then, number four, when each group completed a book, it was sent to the other five groups for their independent assessment. You can see how there's a lot of scrutiny going on here. A lot. Every verse goes through a whole lot of Scrutinization, okay. In fact, we'll mention that here at the end of this list of things. So number five, so everybody get number four? Okay. Does anybody need me to fill in one through three, any of them there? Okay, number one was the men were divided into six companies. Six companies. Two at Westminster, two at Cambridge, and two at Oxford. Obviously those are large places where the companies would meet separately. So each of the companies was assigned a particular portion of the Bible to translate. That was number one, all of that. Six companies, each one had a particular portion of the Bible to translate. Number two, each member of the company was to make his own translation first. So individual translation first was number two. And then number three is the members of each company met to compare one another's work, reading the passages out loud while comparing written notes. By the way, what this means, well, after I read four, I'll say this. The number four, the number three was they meet together and they compare them out loud and comparing notes and all that. Number four, when each group completed a book, It was sent to the other five groups for their independent assessment. So what this means is every single person on the committee inspected every verse of the Bible at least, let's see, one, two, three or four times at least, every verse of the Bible, each person. Now, yeah. So let's back up on my math, though. He's got the math right here, so I'll just read it to you. But number five is, when the complete Bible was translated, it came before a select committee of 12 men, two from each company. In 1609 AD, this group met daily in London at the Stationer's Hall. So they would review it, review it, review it, review it daily, they met. In 1609, this is three years before 1611, okay? So they met daily. Finally, the work was assembled and polished by a publication committee of two men before being sent to the royal printer. So, yeah, that's a lot of scrutiny. So this method, by this method, each passage in the translation was scrutinized a minimum of 14 times. Each passage was scrutinized a minimum of 14 times. Could you imagine? I mean, we're talking about every passage of scripture looked at at least 14 times. Now obviously, Each individual, as they're translating, they've probably translated and went over it, and then translated and went over it themselves, individually. And then when they came together, they probably went over it more than once, before they came to a consensus on how it should be. So, everybody catch there, number two was the translation, was the rules of translation and the method of translation, okay? You guys were just, what's that? Yeah, five and six. Five was, when the complete Bible was translated, it came before a select committee of 12 men, two from each company. And then in 1609, this group met daily in London at the Stationer's Hall. They met daily to review and make sure it's right. It looks like it just says in 1609. So I would think it was that year. I guess maybe it took a while to print. What's that? Yeah, every day that year. So at least 365 times together than that. It said daily, so. Then number six is finally the entire work was assembled and polished by a publication committee of two men before each, or before being sent to the royal printer. So this is, at this point, they've gone over it and gone over it and gone over it and gone over it and gone over it and gone over it and then they got two guys that just got together and said, okay, let's make sure that it's all the way that we thought it was to begin with. It doesn't say. But in 1611 is when it was approved, or when it was authorized. So obviously, Somewhere in that process, that year of 1610 went by. Probably the polishing took place during that time and part of the printing. And then it was probably printed, presented to the king, and the king said, good. It was good, and I authorize it. So number three, the translators themselves of the authorized King James Version. For the most part, the men who translated the King James Version were obscure churchmen or scholars. They weren't like famous people. Among the translators, there were sharp differences of opinion over church polity, but the one binding conviction each shared was that they were dealing with God's sacred truth and that the scriptures were the inspired, inerrant, and authoritative word of God. That's a unique situation to be in. to have all those men, those dozens of men together, who had basically, they shared that conviction of God's word, but they had sharp differences in opinion over church polity. And church polity, believe it or not, Melissa, church polity, like, you know, local versus universal, government and how you and the ordinances and offices and all those things it's a pretty big deal because it makes tons of practical differences concerning what depending on what you believe and so they had many sharp differences of opinion concerning those things and it's good they did because they had to do they had to make the they had to make the translation a literal word-for-word translation and not put their own opinion in there, because they didn't agree on their own opinion. So if one guy said this and the other guy said, no, it's supposed to be this way, they're like, wait a minute, what does it say? It needs to be what it says. Not what I think, not what you think, but what it says. And that's what it came down to. And that's why, you know, again, God putting this whole thing together It's amazing that that's how that happened. It was like orchestrated that the people that disagreed needed to be together so that they could put it together, you know, without error, without problems or bias. So every translator was a brilliant scholar in his own right. One eminent translator, Sir Lancelot Andrews, the Bishop of Winchester, he was noted for his godliness, gravity, dignity, integrity, and ability. He spent five hours each day in prayer and devotions." Man, that would be awesome. I wish I had that much time to do that. That would be awesome. He was fluent in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Chaldean, Syriac, and Arabic, and was fully conversant in 15 modern languages. He was fluent in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 languages. Fluent. Fluent. It means you know the whole language. And then he was fully conversant, meaning he could talk to you in 15 languages. It means that he was able to read and write fluent, you know, in 6 and then, so 21 languages. He had a control over 21 languages. able to communicate in 21 different languages. Could you imagine? By the way, that's not uncommon. Most of the men at that time that were Bible scholars, studiers of the Bible, Bible students, it was common for them to know at least a half a dozen languages, probably more. Most of the time, more, because you had to know Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Kaldi, in Syriac, you know, those were things that you wanted to know. What's that? Well, some of these languages are dead languages. So, like the ones that he was fluent in, most of those are dead languages. So, meaning that they didn't change. When a language dies, it ceases to develop or change. No, it still exists. It's just, basically, it no longer develops. But we still, we have like modern Greek, which is similar to point A Greek, but it's not exactly the same. So, he was the leader of the quote-unquote high church, Episcopalian faction within the Church of England. He was also a strong Protestant and an outstanding preacher, they said. Another translator and leading spokesman for the Puritan faction, the other side, was Dr. John Reynolds. He entered Oxford University at the age of 13. College. Age 13. You getting ready, AJ? College. He entered Oxford University at the age of 13, graduated at age 17, and began lecturing in Greek. In Greek. Teaching school in Greek. at age 23. He possessed an almost miraculous memory and was called the living library. He was also noted for his holiness of life, gravity, integrity, and skill in languages. Dr. John Reynolds. He was the one that suggested the translation. Remember back in the Hampton Court Conference? He suggested the translation of the King James Bible. So, number four. We're gonna try to breeze through this if we can. Man. Wow. Maybe we should turn this into two parts. What was the first guy's name actually? Sir Lancelot Andrews. He was an eminent translator on the Episcopalian side, and then John Reynolds was an eminent translator on the Puritan side. So, the textual basis... The next major points, we have the textual basis, the language of the authorized King James Version, and the... That's mainly it. I have A lot of stuff to get into. Well, you know what? I think we can dive into this. I'll decide somewhere along the line if we're going too far. OK. So the textual basis for the authorized King James Version. This is number four. Big number four. Who? 830, right? Not 930? All right. OK. I think we can go through at least this section. Number four. The Authorized Version was much more than just a revision of the Bishop's Bible. It was translated out of the original tongues, as the translators say in front of your Bible if you have a note to the readers from the translators, Hebrew and Greek, yet cast in the basic language of Tindal. The translators were given access to numerous versions and works and to the best scholarship available. So the Old Testament text. The Hebrew Masoretic text was the Old Testament text. There were four printed Hebrew Bibles available dated 1488, 1491, 1494, and 1517. These were the ones that they had available at the time. Previous translations diligently compared were Tyndale's Old Testament translations. Remember, Tyndale's wasn't complete. Matthew's, Geneva, Bishop's, Complutessen polyglot, the Antwerp polyglot, the Targthums, and the Peshitta, which is like the Syriac version. Those were the Old Testament texts. The New Testament texts were, the text, the main text there was the Greek received text, or the third edition of Stephanus, which was done in 1550 AD. And then number two here is the previous translations diligently compared. They had Tyndale's New Testament, the Matthew's Bible, the Geneva Bible, Bishop's Bible, the Olivetan Bible, which was the French Waldensian Bible, the Diodati, which was the Italian Waldensian Bible, Luther's Bible, which was German, but it was, again, these are the ones they compared them with. it was from the bad Latin, but the Waldensian, the other Waldensian Bible, the Old Italic Bible, which was Italian, the Peshitta, which is the Syriac, the Rems Dewey, or Rems Dewey, which is the, it was just the New Testament, or well, the New Testament portion of it. Spanish translations, they had the Enzinas, the Peres de Pineda, and the, Rene Valera. And then they had the Tremulius Latin version and the Besas Latin version. Yeah, we'll go ahead and do it. We just like blasted through a whole page real fast. All right, number five. The language of the Authorized King James Version. The Authorized Version is the purified end product of a number of other English translations belonging to the turbulent early years of the English Reformation. Letter 8, the use of previous English translations. In deference to the comfort of the people, the translators of the authorized version retained as much of the wording and style of popular English Bibles as possible. The criterion was that such words and style were accurate translations of the original tongues. The reason it was translated the way that it was translated, even though the language began to deteriorate and was losing the these and the thous a little bit, it was still in deference to the comfort of the people. They translated it with the older, you know, the, what did I say it was? retained the wording and style of the popular English Bible. So it retained the style of, like, Tyndale. Consequently, the Authorized Version retains between 80 and 90 percent of the language of the Tyndale Bible. 80 to 90 percent of the language of the Tyndale Bible. About 4 percent comes from the Wycliffe Translation, and then 3 percent from the existing translations, including the Rems Dewey New Testament. So most of it, vast majority of the language came from Tyndall, who was a Lollard, which was a Baptist. Letter B, the language of the Authorized Version is superior. The Authorized Version was translated providentially, means God kind of put these things together as we've already seen, at a time when the English language was at its zenith. We have a quote here from our Bible and ancient manuscripts by by Kenyon, it says, the English of the authorized version is the finest specimen of our prose literature at a time when English prose wore its stateliest and most majestic form. Letter C, the use of italics. I wanted to spend just a second on this particular point of the topic here, the use of italicized words. Many people misunderstand this point, and I want to make sure that we point this out and understand it. The translators used an italicized word to indicate that it was not found in the Greek or Hebrew text, but that it had been supplied by the translators to facilitate the readability of the English. Basically, if it was not in the source text, They italicized it for readability, for us to be able to read it. But I have some things to mention concerning that. But when he gets to the interesting aside, I'll talk about that a little bit as well. So this is a demonstration of a few things. The translator's view of inspiration. They could not dare add to the sacred words of God, that is, they believed in verbal inspiration. They did not believe that they were okay adding words. So if it was a word that they didn't see there, or that wasn't there, they put it in italics, and then moved on, okay? Because of readability, but they didn't believe it was right for them to add to the word of God. So they would put it in italics so that you would know. Now many people will conclude, based on that basic point, that the italicized words are not the Bible, that they're just from the translators. I will prove to you that that's not the case in just a few moments, okay? However, it also showed us their honesty, the honesty of the translators. By using italics, they were informing the reader of what had been done and not keeping any secrets, okay? With all the new translations, when they take a word out or add a word, you don't see any of that. There's no italicized words unless it's like a quote or whatever. But the purpose of the italicized words was to keep things honest. And then number three, it also shows the ability of the translators. Good translating requires such meticulous detail. Compare the authorized version with that accurate, faithful, and scholarly work that's quote unquote because people said it was accurate, faithful, and scholarly. the New American Standard Bible, the NASB, in 2 Samuel 21, verse 19, to see which group of translators we might best trust. The problem is, by omitting the necessary italics, they omitted the italics in the NASB, they caused Elhanan to kill Goliath instead of David, because they took an italicized word out. So David didn't kill Goliath, it was Ilhanan, according to the NASB. That was a problem. That's a problem. There's a reason that when you read something in another language, sometimes you need to add words to make it readable if you translate it. It's like if I speak to you in Spanish, I can say a whole bunch of stuff with a few words. Or I can say a few things with a whole bunch of words, depending on how I say it in Spanish. And when you translate it into English, there's a few different ways you can translate it. But if you want to keep it as a word-for-word translation, you want it to be correct, then you're going to carefully do so. And you might want to italicize words so that people know which words were added for readability. So for example, if I were to say, vamos a comer. I would say, I would translate that in English. We, or I could just say, literally, that is, we go to, to eat. Now, I would probably take some words out, because they don't need to be there in English, we would say, We are going to eat. So the word are there would be an italicized word. But if you took the word out, it would make no sense to us in English. There's a reason for that. Now, if I were going to say estamos la iglesia, I'm saying we are the church. Estamos is just, it's one word that indicates we are. But it's actually the word are. and it's understood by the ending that it is, we are, okay? So if I say we are, then I would have to have we as a italicized word. Technically, I wouldn't because it's a, but anyways, and then the church is the rest, but there's many different examples of that, but I wanna prove to you some other things. But it says, an interesting aside which confounds those who criticize the use of italicized words is seen in the comparison of Psalm 16, eight, where the words he is are italicized indicating that they are not in the original Hebrew and then comparing that with Acts 2 verse 25 which quotes Psalm 16, 8 but where the same words are not italicized indicating that they are in the original Greek. But here's what I wanted to do. I believe that Jesus believed that the italicized words of the Old Testament were inspired Word of God. And here is how we will prove it. Psalm 82, verse 6. Turn there right quickly. First one to get there, hold your hand up. Psalm 82, 6. Psalm 82, 6. Yes, read it, John. Somebody turn to John 1034. I have said, ye are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High. Okay, what word or words are italicized there? I don't have any. What translation you have there? Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's the word R. Okay. All right. Now, now think about it. If you took the word R out because, hey, it's not in there. It's not in the Hebrew. Okay. And I have heard preachers. In fact, I've heard a preacher less than a month ago say he was quoting a verse and he left a word out and he said, I left that word out because it wasn't there. Okay. Well, maybe you need to study your Bible a little better. Anyways, he left a word out. Now, if we took that word out, we would say, I have said, ye gods. It changes the meaning. Now, turn to John chapter 10, verse number 34. It's not. That's the point. So, Jesus answers someone and says, Is it not written in your law, I said, we are gods? Question mark. Not italicized. Jesus quotes the italicized word, are, saying it as part of the text. Notice that. Now Exodus chapter 3 verse 6. Exodus 3 verse 6. Exodus 3, verse 6. Okay, Melissa, read it. All right, what's the italicized word? Am. I am. Now think about it. We take that word out. I, the God of thy father, the God of Abraham. We changed the meaning a little bit. Now go to Matthew 22, verse 32. Matthew 22, 32. This is Jesus speaking. Matthew 22, verse 32. I believe it's Jesus speaking. I think that's the only ones that I got there. Matthew 22, verse 32. Did anybody have a red letter Bible? Is it red? Okay. Alright, this is Jesus speaking. He says what? I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac. He's quoting, okay? He says, Have you not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham? Now notice, am is not italicized. That's because Jesus believed that it was scripture. Okay, now the translators probably could have figured this out. But, hey, I learned it in Bible college. That's one thing I learned in Bible college. That was when I was actually going to Bible college when I was still in high school. In fact, I sent an email to my professor, who's no longer a teacher in Bible college, and I said, hey, you remember when you taught on italicized words? Can you send me that document? That's what I'm reading from right now. He sent it to me. So, anyways, let's see. Deuteronomy chapter 8 verse 3. Now there's a little bit of a difference in wording but we still see that the same italicized word is as I was showing you. So, it says right there, it says, man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, or out of the mouth of the Lord. Is that right there? Deuteronomy 8.3. Now go to Matthew 4.4. So Jesus is, He's referencing this passage, and by the way, remember that if He references it with a little bit of a different, you know, thing, I mean, He has the ability to do that. He is the Word of God. This is, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word, not italicized, that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Notice, the word word, not italicized. He believed that that italicized word of the Old Testament was, in fact, the word of God. So he writes here, he says, Jesus translated the quotes italicized, or in quotes, italicized words as part of the text. The question is, did he make a mistake? No, of course not. Jesus used synonyms in translating and quoted them as equal. Bread only must be equal to bread alone. Bread only is equal to bread alone. Jesus translated mouth of the Lord, or translated mouth of the Lord, mouth of God, They're both correct. Italicized words are necessary when translating from Hebrew to Aramaic to Greek to Latin to English. Jesus spoke and quoted italicized words and said, with the authoritative, it is written, showing that the words are inspired or given by inspiration. New version writers make a huge issue out of the King James Bible's italicized words, but they add words to their translation without italicizing them, so the reader would not know. So who are the honest translators? We would say, obviously, the King James translators. Now, the use of punctuation here. We're wrapping up. This is like the last section, or last known thing here, is letter D. The use of punctuation. Another criticism of the Authorized Version is that it overuses punctuation, so they say. Especially commas. However, this Bible was made for public reading. Faith cometh by hearing. And so its use of punctuation facilitates this. Makes it easier to read. It facilitates public reading. When you're reading it, you know, so the use of punctuation helps that. The King James Version was also designed for use in private study. For the first editions contained over 9,000 cross-references. So, there's some interesting stuff. Next week we'll talk about, Lord willing, we'll talk about the versions of the Bible. Various other versions. And that one will probably take us a little bit of time. Because we have page 83 to 94 is ten pages, so. It will take a moment. Any questions? Comments? Complaints? Arguments? Yes? You said that Jesus believed in the italics or whatever? The italicized words were the word of God. I mean, isn't it actually that he... Well, of course, yes. That's amazing. He put them there. Yeah. I believe he did it that way to kind of show us, you know, the truth of... The power. Yeah. So, it's pretty awesome. Pretty awesome. Anything else?