First and foremost there are some basic principles of scripture that are foundational for all Christians, without these principles understood and accepted, you might as well throw everything out and be an agnostic. The thing with Scripture is you either accept it or not, there really is no middle ground.
First principle, Scripture is the word of God, written by God through people doing the writing, but not by their words (2 Tim 3:16, 2 Peter 1:20~21, Isaiah 40:8, Matthew 5:18). It has no contradictions. I am also referring to the original Scripture in its original language, sorry, KJV was not the original. (It was actually the third translation to English and it was commanded to have it translated to jive with Catholicism1, not getting into that here, read the section later on translations)
Second principle, God never changes. His law never changes, His character never changes. (Hebrews 13:8, Psalm 33:11, Malachi 3:6, Psalm 110:4 and more)
Third principle, God cannot lie. (Hebrews 6:18, Numbers 23:19, Titus 1:2, 1 Samuel 15:29, James 1:13, and more)
These principles make the establishment of the authority of Scripture. The Bible authenticates its self, so does God. (Exodus 3:14 , Hebrews 6:13) The only book that has ever existed that has that level of authentication. Upon this foundation I lay this entire blog. The foundation of Scripture trumps everything, including my own experiences.
This leads in to the principle of human understanding. No human has the ability to understand God, or the things of God. (Proverbs 3:5, 2 Peter 1:20, Isaiah 55:8~9, Job 40)
That means that when a human reads Scripture and tries to rationalize it, or to them it seems to contradict or is just confusing, there are only two possible explanations. First, either our understanding is too limited to understand it and we will need to just accept it by faith because of our limited understanding, or second, our perspective is not correct and we will need to change our perspective until our reason lines up with the canon of Scripture. The only source of the correct interpretation is the Holy Spirit. (1 Corinthians 2:12~14, John 14:26, Hebrews 13:5, James 1:5, Acts 1:8)
Scripture was not written by man, so man cannot properly interpret it. The only person that can properly interpret a book is the author. The proper use of scripture is 2 Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;” 1 Corinthians 2:12 – “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God,”, so Scripture is a tool to be used by the Spirit, not by man.
An example of this is the widely debated God is Sovereign vs Free Will. (not going to go into the Scripture here, you can research that one yourself) Common example of trying to rationalize Scripture. You can go either way and there is Scripture that contradicts and that violates the authority of Scripture outlined above. In our human understanding the idea that God is Sovereign and Free Will coexisting is like oil and water, it makes no sense, but Scripture makes it clear that both are true. Scripture was written by God, God operates in a dimension that we as humans cannot understand. Somehow He does it, and I accept by faith that is just the way it is. I will understand one day, but now is not the time. (1 Corinthians 13:12, Hebrews 11:3,6, Romans 10:17)
That being said, a translation is exactly that, a translation. Greek and Hebrew (with some Aramaic) all have a different structure and grammar. So you have to read it in the original language and then phrase it in the proper structure using proper grammar and vocabulary for the listener to understand. There are many words in those languages that do not have a direct translated word in English, so you may have to use a phrase to make it clear. If you went to a different county and needed to use a translator, one translator may use a phrase different than another but with the same meaning, just like there are many different slang’s in the US that may say the same thing. There are different translations based off the different perspective, language skills, and purpose, but the original Scripture has not changed.
The Bible was written by 40 authors over the course of about 1500 years. Not many of the authors ever met. On a statistical point, it is completely, utterly, impossible for that many authors over that time span to write 66 books that completely fit together like a fine Swiss watch with absolutely no contradictions (in the original languages, some translations have translated errors that introduce contradictions in the translation) and keep the same storyline. God is the only one that could pull that off. If anything was changed over the years then it would show up as a contradiction or it would not properly fit, that is called the canon of scripture and why there are 66 books. There are plenty of other writings found, but they had contradictions or did not follow the canon, so they are not counted as the Word of God. If anything changed then it would be noticeable as mentioned above, its a all or nothing. You either accept it as a whole, or you reject it as a whole, you cannot accept or reject just parts of it. It’s one story, complete, cover to cover.
Translation List
Here is a list of the common transitions and what they are classified –
Literal word for word translations – KJV, NKJV, NASB, ASV, RSV, YLT
These translations are word-for word as close as possible to the original language phrased to English in their respective time periods and grammar. These are the best translations to use for deep study. They can be harder to understand because they do not follow English rules for grammar and vocabulary as closely so they can match the original text better.
Phrased Translations (also called meaning to meaning or thought to thought) – NIV, ESV, NEB, NAB, Good News
These are translated sort of word-for-word, but more like thought to thought. The translator reads a phrase or sentence and as close as possible describes it in English keeping the same thought as originally written, not necessarily the same words or grammar structure. It has better English structure and vocabulary to help understand the the passage. Used widely for study of scripture and in churches, especially ESV. Actually ESV can almost be considered a literal word-for-word, its kind of in-between.
Interpreted Translations (Paraphrased) – The Passion, Gods Word, TLB, MSG, Amplified, CEV, Phillips
These are paraphrased, than means the translator read the original text and put down what they interpreted it to say. They are highly by opinion and not recommended for study, but for easy reading and sometimes they can expand on difficult passages, but keep in mind they are written by interpretation and that interpretation may not be correct in all situations. If there is a question, go back and read it in ESV, NASB, or one of the other ones mentioned above.
Best online Bible resource I know of is Blue Letter Bible2, I have found no better place for studying scripture. It has side by side of all major translations with Strong’s and the original language, along with the dictionary, cross-references, interlinear, concordance, commentaries and more. You can search by word, phrase, verse, Strong’s, in any of the translations individually or at the same time.
My personal favorite is NASB 19953, but that is just me. Use whatever works best for you. I read from many different translations, but I like the straight forward style that NASB has. I would also recommend getting a version that includes the Strong’s cross-references, so you can study the actual text in the original language. Strong’s is a collection of the unique Greek and Hebrew words and their definitions from the Old and New Testament, organized by Dr. James Strong in 1890.
1 See Wikipedia article on the KJV version at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_James_Version
2See https://www.blueletterbible.org
3New American Standard Bible 1995, Copyright (c) 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995, by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, Calif. All rights reserved.
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