by calvaryyouth on 2009 Apr 03 Fri 10:37 am
I have a Third Millennium Bible a Greek-Orthodix church member gave to me once in our discussion of Bible Versions. Surprisingly, he was VERY Textus Receptus only. As far as I can tell, this TMB and the KJ21 (the version before it) are GREAT Bible versions, except for two things. Let me clarify.
I am not arguing the TR and MR here. If you want to read on that, go to the controversy page and read my seven part post. For those who accept the Bible truth contained in Matthew 4:4, Psalms 12:6-7 and MANY other places, you know God promised to preserve the WORDS, every jot and tittle, to each generation. You also know the Textus Receptus was the only Greek NT available to most generations between the time the NT was completed and 1800. You also probably know the early church fathers writings contain over 99% of the Bible's verses, and they ALWAYS agree with the Textus Receptus. Assuming you've accepted the TR and the preservation of God's Word (since no other Greek text has been preserved through the centuries), then you know a translation MUST come from the Hebrew Masoretic Text and the Textus Receptus to be God's words.
You most likely also know, since it was the words God would preserve, that a translation must be a static equivalence translation, AKA formal equivalence, complete equivalence, perfect equivalence translation.
The KJV is the ONLY one that meets these two qualifications. But what about the KJ21 and the TMB? They aren't translations at all. Neither is the KJV we use today. SURPRISE SURPRISE! They are just updates of certain words in the original AV of 1611 (or the first KJV.) The TMB keeps the "thee" and "thou". It keeps the same sentence structure. From all I can tell and all the preface teaches, the things the TMB changes are as follows.
1. Updating of words no longer in our current English dictionary such as "concupiscence".
2. Paragraph form (still retaining verse numbers.)
3. Retaining the original 1611 Apocrypha.
So what is the big deal? The TMB is perfect (as far as I can tell) in it's text. The only apocrypha is retained in between the Testaments (as the KJV 1611 did to keep it from being mixed through the Bible. This keeps people from thinking they are God's Word, but it does keep them in their historical location, between the testaments). This may not be bad, but when one reads the preface, he sees the reason behind it. The TMB's preface claims it is to be a book for all of "Christendom" So why add the apocrypha back in? Perhaps the motive is (and I can only speculate) to help the Catholics AND Protestants AND Baptists use the same book. That way, when a Catholic says purgatory is taught by the prayer for the dead in such and such verse of the Apocrypha, a Baptist could say "Oh yeah, I see where you get that". Dangerous? Not as long as the reader knows the difference. Honestly, I probably use my TMB a couple of times a year (if I can't find a misplaced KJV). The words updated are so sparse and rare, that it doesn't make much of a difference.
