Inerrancy and Translations
There’s much about my current context that was foreign to me before I moved here: the diversity of mullets (there’s not just one style, this thing is a hideous work of art), the cash-only-restaurants (who carries cash these days?!), and King James Only churches. It is the last point which has proved to be the most frustrating. In trying to build relationships across denominations and churches I have been met with many rejections because I do not use the KJV. For many in my context the King James Bible is the only true Bible, it is the “inspired translation.” This position is apparently very old, but it was as novel to me as were she-mullets and I think both need a trimming.
There are many variations of the argument for KJV-Only-inspiration, they all agree that other translations contain major errors and are therefore unacceptable for true believers. The most “scholarly” form of the argument stems from the conviction that the ancient manuscripts from which the KJV were translated are more reliable than the other manuscripts. Most KJV-Only advocates provide no logical reasons or proofs for why these manuscripts are more reliable, they turn to emotional appeals and rants at this point. They often discount the discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls as well calling them, “corrupt.” The truth of course is that the KJV translations are just as susceptible to “corruption” when you consider that they are actually revisions of previous English translations by Miles Coverdale and William Tyndale. That is to say that the KJV didn’t even focus on the Greek translations.
Michael Pearl represents a KJV-only advocate writing at the scholarly level. His article “Starting with the Final Authority” is an attempt to defend his position. Pearl’s misguided assumptions about translation are the real heart of his paper’s error. He assumes that for every Greek word there is a direct and perfect parallel into the English language, such is not the case, however. Languages are complex and for every translation there is some degree of interpretation that must go into it. A Greek word may have any number of glosses that do not mean exactly the same thing. So with prepositions you could have a word that means “with,” “for,” “by,” or “in.” So, which do you choose? The answer is often found in context, but it is not as simple as “Greek Word = English Word.” Pearl is wrong when he writes:
Very often, doctrines hang on the meaning of a single word. You arrive at the meaning of an individual word by using your concordance to find and read every time that word is used anywhere in the Bible. The Bible will define its own words by the multiple contexts in which it is used.
There are several major problems with this quote but at the root of it is the fallacy that a perfect parallel between English and Greek can be found. Such is not the case, and we see that even in our own language. For example, the word “board” cannot have an exact parallel into Spanish, because we use the word to mean many different things. So we can say that we, “board a window” or we “boarded a boat.” Neither of which means the actual piece of wood. Language is simply more complex than Michael Pearl admits, or perhaps realizes.
What does Michael Pearl believe constitutes sufficient assurance that we have the Word of God? Accurate translation of the original Greek manuscripts seems to be the answer. The question, of course, that leaves us with is what does the “accurate translation of the original Greek manuscripts” look like? There is no guarantee, and indeed many reasons to doubt, that the majority text used for the KJV is not as reliable as he assumes it to be. Rather in the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls we have found copies manuscripts of New Testament books that are closer in date to their originals. We have also found a collective witness, in some cases, against interpretations taken in the KJV. When one looks at the Dead Sea Scrolls and takes into consideration the dates, the locations of copies, the agreement in translations among them, you will often find a very reliable testimony to what the actual text of the original manuscript says. None of this, however, seems to satisfy Pearl. We must understand that his heart is in the right place. He wants 100% surety. Such, however, seems to undermine the value of what we receive in modern translations. Very often the differences in Greek manuscripts, which Pearl refers to as greatly differing, are small differences and can often be explained. And never, not once in Scripture, is a fundamental of the faith called into question on the basis of one word. Pearl is simply wrong here. Anywhere that some doctrine might be questioned is clearly understood in another part of Scripture.
The truth is that we have more of an accurate translation of the New Testament than we do of The Iliad or The Odyssey, two ancient Greek works that classical scholars believe have been almost 100% accurately obtained today. There is no reason, then, to call into question the validity of English translations to represent the original New Testament, and with this in mind we may use translations other than the King James Version and rest assured that what we have is the inerrant Word of God.
Sparrow & Heart Soul Care 