Expert: Cooper P. Abrams III - 10/21/2005

Question
Dr. Abrams,

I became a Christian at a young age.  I truly began to seek after the Lord in 2nd grade.  I grew up in church.  I have a passion for the Lord and for His Truth!  I recently discovered the KJV issue and was shocked and apalled.  I cannot beleive I have not heard this until now!  I have been researching it for several days now and want to tell everyone I know.  The concern I have is that when I have spoken both with my mother and my father in law - both steadfast and growing Christians - their response is essentially this, "I guess that if you want to try and be
totally accurate, you need to learn Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek and spend the remainder of your life trying to fully understand the society, times and cultural mindset that was present when the writers, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote."  This is a quote from my FIL, but I think it sums up what people truly believe.  What is the best way to respond? Of course I realise that only the Holy Spirit will open their eyes to the truth, but I want to have an appropriate response. I am asking you because I have seen your website and believe you have heard all these areguments many times!

Thank you so much,
Ashley Trant

Answer
Hi Ashley,
  The KJV is the most accurate and best translation of the Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew text into English.  A person does not need to learn these languages to know what "thus saith the Lord."  There are some inflections the original words have that is not apparent in English, but it is minimal.   Anyone can purchase a Greek/Hebrew dictionary of Bible words such as Vines Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words and see what is the difinition of any Bible word in the original language.    But even that is not really necessary as the KJV English is accurate.
   Even the "thees" and "thous" which are translated in Modern English versions "you" is best because the old English shows whether the original word was singular or plural.  That is lost in all modern versions.
   I have an article titled "How we got the Bible" and part of it deals with modern versions.  You can find this at http://bible-truth.org/Howwegot.htm#010a  subtitle "Attacks on the Bible."   If you read the article from that point you will get a good idea what the issue is.
    Basically the issue is that all modern translations since the mid 1800's have been based on a Greek translation of the New Testament made by two men named Westcott and Hott.  These men were not Bible believers and set out, as they stated, to slander and destroy the KJV of the Bible.   The used two corrupted texts that came from Egypt as the basis for their new Greek text.   My article explains this in some detail.    Thus the Greek text that the modern English translation are based on are in error, corrupted.   Egypt, from the second century on, was a hot bed of heresy and these two manuscripts are the result of scribes tampering and changing God's word.   This is a fact which any honest Bible scholar recognizes.
   The reason we have the modern translations is that there is a great deal of money to be made in new Bible versions, through copyrigths and new publishings.  Millions were spend in marketing it as a new translation and being better than the KJV....which is not true.  Millions and millions of dollars has been made just on the NIV alone, which is a poor and faulty version.
   Why do we need 40-50 English translations of the Bible?  What is wrong with having one which is accurate in English?   To read a wealth of article addressing the matter you might like to go to http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/fbns-index/versfbns.htm .  
   Thanks for writing.   I am not able to response the week ends due to my duties as a pastor.  That is why I was slow.   I appreciate your understanding about my slow response.
   If you have further questions or comments please write.  
Cooper Abrams
http://bible-truth.org