A New Bible

[James]

I've been reading the Bible through. I figure that I ought to do this at least once. I'm reading from the ASV which I was told is the most literal of the English translations, but I have other translations close at hand. I also have a Criswell Study Bible (KJV). When reading I and II Samuel, I noted that Elhanan and David both killed Goliath. This appears to me to be a conflict. I read both passages in a KJV from Oxford Press. The KJV confirms the ASV. Then I read it in the Criswell text. Criswell (or his writers) inserts in the Elhanan account these words "the brother of Goliath". So I looked up how to read italics in this Bible. Criswell says we are allowed to use harmonization words to explain what the original writer/editor is really saying and to smooth over what appears to be conflicts within the Bible. So far; so good. The italics indicate an addition to the original text of the KJV. Then I consulted a KJV published by Baker Press. This version use the text as inserted as italics by Criswell. However, there are no italics here. The typeface is the same as all the words. This to me is unacceptable and deceitful. The inerrantists/fundamentalists have altered the received text.

All this raises another question. Does Rev 22:18 apply only to the book of Revelation or, at the last book in the Canon, does it apply to the whole Bible?

[Haruo]

Only to Revelation. The Canon was not yet in existence, and even after it was, the Bible was not a book, but a bookshelf of books, or more truthfully n umbrella stand of books, since they were published on multiple scrolls. I agree with you that not italicizing "the brother of" is either ignorant or deceitful, but I think the introduction of "harmonizing added words" to make the Bible appear internally consistent where it is not is itself deceitful. The KJV's stated aim was only to introduce those words needed to make good English out of good Hebrew, e.g. *is* in a great many cases, because Hebrew has no copula in the present tense.

[James]

Haruo, I agree with what you said, but my Uncle Bob, teacher of the Men's Bible Class at Knights' Missionary Baptist Church in Knights FL would be unhappy with both of us for even thinking about this. Part of my reason for doing this reading is to think about the why and how my intelligent Uncle could shut down his brain when he read the Bible.

[Haruo]

I was brought up a non-Bibliolatrous Baptist. My dad, the ordained Baptist minister, taught me in my grade school years that the Bible "is a library". The two versions we used most at home were Goodspeed (with the Apocrypha) and Moffatt. ASV yielding to RSV at church. That sort of literalistic approach to the Bible text was a foreign concept. I was taught JEDP in grade school, too, and of course we knew Moses didn't actually write his own obituary. Always amazes me when I run into people who should know better going literalistic for no apparent reason. Does that KJV that incorporated the Holman add-on omit the Preface, too? The translators' preface to the reader was one of the first parts of the KJV I ever read.

[Rvaughn]

[Rvaughn]

[Haruo]

[Rvaughn]

Leland, thanks for clarifying you meant time and not place. I couldn't imagine any public school mentioning JEDP at all, much less in grade school. Thought some private Christian schools might touch on it.

[Note: I actually meant to type the question as "did you attend a private school," but I never know what might come off my fingers!]

To the second, I've always heard "a man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still."

[Haruo]

I *did* take Bible As Lit in my public high school, and I think the origin of the Heptateuch was at least briefly considered there, though that may be because I brought it up...

[James]

I have checked several KJV in my library. All have "the brother of Goliath in italics or the same font as the rest of the text. Something still seems hinky to me. bread crumbs to the old text available on line and it seems to be a modern insert into the ancient text.

I was introduced to JEPD in the Junior Sunday School at my home church, Second Ponce De Leon Baptist. Dr. Swilley did not preach it from the pulpit, but he assumed that we were taught the theory in Sunday School.

[Tim Bonney]

Once I had taken a bit of Greek and Hebrew (and even a touch of French in High School) I've never understood how anyone can take a literalist approach to the English Bible.

I'm not trying to start an argument. I just don't understand it/comprehend it. It appears to me to be obvious. I've never been a member of a church that taught a literalist approach to the Bible (even when a Southern Baptist.) Yet I also know people who believe in a literalistic interpretation with great sincerity.

The older I get the more I have concluded that theological argument is pretty much useless when two people have very different world views. (Not that I don't find myself trying too often.) And while people sometimes change their own world view, I've never seen it happen by argument.