Statements for Consideration
Consider these three statements:
The King James Version is divinely inspired.
God immediately inspired the King James Version.
God gave the King James Version by inspiration.
Do all three have the same meaning? Are all three true? If not all three are true, then is any one of them?
I will answer these questions. To start, let’s read the first part of 2 Timothy 3:16 again: “All scripture is given by inspiration of God.” The King James Version translators (KJVT) translated the three Greek words: pasa graphe theopneustos. We have only this statement on inspiration, because it’s the only time theopneustos (“God breathed”) is found in the New Testament. Other passages elaborate or apply.
The Considerations from Scripture
God Breathed Out
2 Timothy 3:16 says God breathed out “scripture.” Inspiration applies in a technical and specific sense to these sacred writings that come from God. God inspired the product produced, not the men. Yes, 2 Peter 1:21 says “holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” That doesn’t contradict the truth of 2 Timothy 3:16. It elaborates. Inspiration, however, applies to sacred scripture alone according to 2 Timothy 3:16.
Inspiration occurred when God breathed sacred scripture (graphe). Again, depending on the context, graphe (scripture) refers to inspired writing. It does in 2 Timothy 3:16.
The Exclusion of Two Statements Above
God breathed out all sacred scripture. The KJVT, and I agree, took pasa graphe theopneustos as ‘given by inspiration of God.’ When given, the sacred scriptures were either Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek. That excludes the KJV from scripture given by inspiration of God. Therefore, that excludes two of the above statements:
God immediately inspired the King James Version.
God gave the King James Version by inspiration.
I’m saying these two statements are false ones. They are saying, I believe, the same thing, meaning “God inspired” and “God gave by inspiration” are the same [An early comment by Jon Gleason in the comment section explain the London Baptist Confession position of “immediate inspiration”].
To come clean at this moment, until now I never took it upon myself to come to sufficient, completed thinking on the exact subject of these posts. I’m not done considering it, but I have arrived at sufficient enough thought to write this post (the third in a series so far). A comment I wrote last week, I edited because it disagreed with what I am writing here.
God Immediately Inspired Some Translation
“Scripture Saith”
As of this moment, I believe God inspired some translation. Which translation did God inspire? He inspired at least these translations:
John 19:37, “And again another scripture saith, They shall look on him whom they pierced.”
Romans 9:17, “For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.”
Romans 10:11, “For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.”
1 Timothy 5:18, “For the scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, The labourer is worthy of his reward.”
James 4:5, “Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?”
God inspired all of these translations. . . . in their original Greek. He gave these by inspiration. In almost all of these, you are reading translations of translations, English translations of Greek translations from the Hebrew text. I use these specific verses because they say, “scripture saith.” If sacred scriptures say it, it means God said it.
“Have Ye Not Read Scripture?”
Jesus also used the language, “have ye not read this scripture”:
Mark 12:10-11, “And have ye not read this scripture; The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner: This was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?”
He translated a copy of the Old Testament Psalm 118:22-23. He again calls a Greek translation of the Old Testament Hebrew, “scripture.” Jesus and the Apostles also did more than just translate. In anticipation of this question, I say that Jesus targummed. Even the dictionary definition of targum says:
an ancient paraphrase or interpretation of the Hebrew Bible, of a type made from about the 1st century AD when Hebrew was declining as a spoken language
God inspired everything in the New Testament, including Jesus’ interpolations inserted into a translation of an Old Testament text.
“Spoken By the Prophet”
Other examples apply. The New Testament often says the two words, “spoken by,” referring to translated Old Testament scripture:
Matthew 2:17-18, “Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.”
Matthew 27:35, “And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots.”
Acts 2:16-21, “But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: . . . . . And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
Equating a Translation of a Copy with a Copy
Above are three of at least twenty “spoken by” passages in the New Testament. 1 Timothy 5:18 above gives unique information. Paul translates to Timothy an Old Testament text (Deuteronomy 25:4) and quotes a New Testament one (Luke 10:7), and he calls them both, “scripture.” He equates what we could call a translation of a copy of the Old Testament with a copy of the New Testament by calling them both, “scripture.”
Unlike what B. B. Warfield later asserted in his book on inspiration, copies are sacred scripture and accurate translations of copies are “scripture.” I contend, based upon 2 Timothy 3:16, that upon the completion of the canon, God did no more breathing out of translations. However, I also contend that accurate copies and accurate translations of those copies are in fact “scripture.” I also contend that these accurate copies and accurate translations are inspired. What God inspired, breathed out, remains inspired and breathed out. That occurs also with a translation in light of further New Testament elaboration.
The King James Version Is Divinely Inspired
Because of what I explain above, I believe one of the three statements, “The King James Version is divinely inspired.” I say that because it remains inspired. Insofar that the King James Version is an accurate translation of a perfectly preserved text, it is inspired by God. This is how anyone can say about the King James Version, it is the inspired Word of God.
I might disappoint some of you with the following. The King James Version is not the only inspired translation. Any accurate translation of a perfectly preserved copy is also inspired. When I say translation, I also mean translation into any language, not just English. That also means that if I sit down and do an accurate translation of a perfectly preserved copy, that too is inspired. If it is what God said, even in a translation, then it is also scripture.
No one translates today by inspiration of God. God by providence enables translation. He created language for translation. Verses above say a translation is scripture, so a translation of scripture can be scripture. An accurate translation of scripture is scripture. As scripture it remains inspired.
Hi, Kent. Obviously, the writers of the London Baptist Confession were NOT inspired, but they were pretty smart. They used two different terms, “inspiration” and “immediate inspiration”. I find the distinction helpful.
The first, they applied to the divine quality of Scripture, that it comes from the breath of God, that the life-giving breath of God is in it, that it is alive, that it is “in-Spirited”, the very Spirit of God speaking and still speaking today. That applies to any accurate translation in any language. Can it be present in more than one translation? Of course. The spiritual power of the Word does not die with translation (as we can clearly see both logically but also from a careful reading of Romans 16:25-26). But it will only have its power if the translation accurately reflects in the new language what God directly gave in the original language.
“Immediate inspiration” is the term they used for the direct act of God in giving the Scriptures.
The focus of II Timothy 3:16-4:5 is on the former, what the Scriptures were in Timothy’s hand as he preached the Word in Ephesus. The Scriptures had that quality because of the former, the direct act of God, which is more the focus of II Peter 1:19-21.
I appreciate your comment about still working through some of this. I don’t think you can affirm your first statement (“The King James Version is inspired”) without affirming your second. If it’s inspired, it better be inspired by God or we’d better stop using it! But your third statement affirms what the confession called “immediate inspiration” and that’s something that the Scriptures don’t support.
The God-inspired nature of Scripture lives on in any accurate translation, including the KJV. That does not mean that “immediate inspiration” was active in its translation (or any other translation).
Hi Jon,
I really like what you wrote. I appreciate your inclusion of the LBC statement and the distinction between inspiration and immediate inspiration. You wrote, it seems, that you disagree that the second statement is false. I would disagree with that, but I’m not sure you disagree, depending on what the second statement says. It isn’t following the first statement. It’s a separate statement. I believe “God inspired the King James Version” refers to immediate inspiration with the language “God inspired.” “Is inspired” I am distinguishing as continuing inspiration as an accurate translation. I’m going to change a few words in the post to be clearer.
I think it’s good to be clear that it’s not inspiration if it isn’t divine. The converse could be a wrong position of naturalistic inspiration, which I don’t believe.
I do think we believe the same thing here. 🙂 And that’s why I believe the LBC distinction is helpful, because if the statements used “inspired” or “immediately inspired” then it’s much more clear. If you wrote the second to say “immediately inspired” I would of course say the statement is false.
If you wrote the first to say, “The KJV is inspired by God” I would affirm it as surely as I affirm it the way it is written, and if you wrote it to say “immediately inspired” I would deny it whether you appended “by God” or not.
I think you’ve tried to use “by God” to communicate what the LBC called “immediate”. So I’m quite sure we’re believing the same thing! I just think that’s not the clearest way to communicate it.
You probably remember I tackled this myself in some depth a few years back. I can chase down the link if you want it.
I tweaked it one more time. I think you should put your link here in the comment section. I had not thought about your series, forgot about it. Some circumstances occurred that led to this writing of mine.
Here it is:
https://mindrenewers.com/2011/11/15/the-scriptures-inspired-or-expired/
That article focuses on the pastoral/practical implications of getting this right. It includes a link to this foundational article:
https://mindrenewers.com/2012/02/18/the-meaning-of-theopneustos/
That article does a deep dive on what theopneustos means. The pastoral/practical implications are not well-founded unless the foundational article is right! But the evidence seems compelling to me, at least!
Many have been influenced by Warfield’s teaching on inspiration. The main article does address that somewhat for anyone who thinks Warfield is the gold standard on inspiration — he admitted he was redefining theopneustos from how it had always been understood. There’s a link backing that up in that main article.
Someday if the Lord gives me time I will actually finish that “Book in Your Hand” series! But I’m swamped with non-online ministry right now.
This is, in my opinion, a hugely important topic that is sorely neglected in churches today. We’ve let Warfield shift the focus on inspiration from the divine quality to the original action. But in doing so, and by neglecting Biblical teaching on preservation, we’ve undermined confidence in that Book in our hands! We’re so busy trying to be technically right that we’re being technical where God was practical, and missing the power of what God said, did, and has given us. I’m glad you are writing on it!
Should have added, I like your tweak. But you knew that. 🙂
Another comment.
The KJV translators are not the apostles and prophets mentioned in Ephesians 2:20. If they gave us new revelation, it would invalidate the very foundation of the church. Any view that advocates this is heretical.
The Bible does tell us about God directly and miraculously intervening in a translation process. It is called “interpretation of tongues” in I Corinthians 12:10 and referred to again in 12:30.
Any view that the translators did not give new revelation, but that they miraculously gave us a completely perfect translation by the direct act of God, is affirming that they were exercising the gift of the interpretation of tongues. I believe virtually everyone who holds this view also believes that the tongues gifts ceased long before that. There is no Biblical basis for an expectation that it would reappear in 1611.
I call the view, “Tongues Translationism.” It’s an extra-Biblical doctrine (you won’t find it anywhere in Scripture) that tongues temporarily reappeared. That’s a very thin read on which to build a belief system! And ultimately, it’s a denial of the sufficiency of Scripture (II Timothy 3:17). It affirms that there is a doctrine which we MUST believe which is not expressed anywhere in Scripture.
It would have been so easy for God to say, “As you take the Gospel out into new lands and new tongues, I will move interpreters of tongues to interpret the Scriptures perfectly into those new tongues.” He didn’t say that, and it’s not because He forgot to say it.
Good comment. Helpful.
Great points, Bro Gleason, thank you for sharing those.
Footnote #33 from https://faithsaves.net/learn-greek-hebrew/ :
In the words of the 2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689:
The Old Testament in Hebrew, (which was the Native language of the people of God of old) and the New Testament in Greek, (which at the time of the writing of it was most generally known to the Nations being immediately inspired by God, and by his singular care and Providence kept pure in all Ages, are therefore authentical; so as in all controversies of Religion, the Church is finally to appeal unto them. But because these original tongues are not known to all the people of God, who have a right unto, and interest in the scriptures, and are commanded in the fear of God to read and search them, therefore they are to be translated into the vulgar language of every Nation, unto which they come, that the Word of God dwelling plentifully in all, they may worship him in an acceptable manner, and through patience and comfort of the Scriptures may have hope. (Chapter 1:8, W. J. McGlothlin, Baptist Confessions of Faith [Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1911], 230.)
Note that the original language text is “immediately” inspired, while a translation is not “immediately” inspired, but inspired in a way that leaves the translation dependent upon the original for its authority—that is, a translation is derivatively inspired. Compare also Thomas Ross, “Thoughts On the Word Theopneustos, “given by inspiration of God” in 2 Timothy 3:16, and the Question of the Inspiration of the Authorized Version,” elec. acc. https://faithsaves.net/theopneustos/. Richard Muller writes:
[T]ranslations can be authoritative quoad res [according to the substance or thing] because the authority is not so much in the words as in the entirety of the teaching as distributed throughout the canon. … [T]he issue of “things” (res) and “words” (verba) … is crucial to the Protestant [and Baptist] doctrine of Scripture[.] … [T]he words of the text are signs pointing to the doctrinal “things.” This distinction between signa and res significata, the sign and the thing signified, carries over into the language typical of scholastic Protestantism, of the words of the text and the substance of the text, of the authority of translations not strictly quoad verba but quoad res, according to the substance or meaning indicated by the original. … [O]nly the [original language] sources are inspired (theopneustoi) both according to their substance (quoad res) and according to their words (quoad verba)[.] This must be the case, since holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, 2 Pet. 1:21, who dictated to them not only the substance (res) but also the very words (verba). For the same reason, the Hebrew and the Greek are the norms and rules by which the various versions are examined and evaluated. . . . [There is] a distinction between authenticity and authorship quoad verba, which belongs only to the Hebrew and Greek originals, and authenticity and authority quoad res, which inheres in valid translations. . . . Thus translations can be used, but with the reservation that only the Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament are the authentic norms of doctrine and the rule by which doctrinal controversy is to be decided[.] Versions that are congruent with the sources are indeed authentic according to substance (quoad res); for the Word of God [may be] translated into other languages: the Word of God is not to be limited, since whether it is thought or spoken or written, it remains the Word of God. Nonetheless they are not authentic according to the idiom or word, inasmuch as the words have been explained in French or Dutch. In relation to all translations, therefore, the Hebrew and Greek texts stand as antiquissimus, originalis, and archetypos. Thus, translations are the Word of God insofar as they permit the Word of God to address the reader or hearer: for Scripture is most certainly the Word of God in the things it teaches and to the extent that in and by means of it power of God touches the conscience. Even so, in translations as well as in the original the testimony of the Holy Spirit demonstrates the graciousness of God toward us. All translations have divine authority insofar as they correctly render the original: the tongue and dialect is but an accident, and as it were an argument of divine truth, which remains one and the same in all idioms. (Richard Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy; vol. 2, Holy Scripture: The Cognitive Foundation of Theology (2nd ed.), Richard Muller [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003], 269, 326-327, 403, 416, 427-428)
Thus, the original language text has the two-fold Divine authority, the authoritas Divina duplex, in its words and in its substance, while accurate translations retain the authority of the thing or the substance:
[The] authoritas divina duplex [is a] twofold divine authority; a distinction [exists] between (1) the authoritas rerum, or authority of the things of Scripture, the substantia doctrinae (substance of doctrine), and (2) the authoritas verborum, or authority of the words of Scripture, arising from the accidens scriptionis, the … incidental property … of the writing. The authority of the substantia, or res, is a formal, inward authority that belongs both to the text of Scripture in the original languages and to the accurate translations of Scripture. The authoritas verborum is an external and … incidental property[’s] … authority that belongs only to the text in the original languages and is a property … lost in translation. Thus the infallibilitas of the originals is both quoad verbum and quoad res, whereas the infallibilitas of the versions is only quoad res. (Richard A. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1985], 19, 51-52, entries “accidens” & “authoritas divina duplex”)
That is, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life” (KJV), “Verely verely I saye vnto you he that beleveth on me hath everlastinge lyfe.” (Tyndale) and “Truly, truly, I say to you, He that believes on me has everlasting life” (author’s translation) are accurate renderings of John 6:47’s ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, ὁ πιστεύων εἰς ἐμέ, ἔχει ζωὴν αἰώνιον (amēn amēn legō hymin, ho pisteuōn eis eme, echei zōēn aiōnion). “Believeth,” “beleveth,” and “believes” are accurate translations, and, as such, convey the truth and mind of God in English. But woe to the man who changes one letter of the Greek and Hebrew texts dictated by the Holy Spirit (Proverbs 30:5-6; Revelation 22:18-19)!
Brother Ross, I would add that (in an admittedly limited sense) with a formal equivalence translation (such as the KJV) I believe an element of the authoritas verborum is retained. No, it is not the same words, but if we believe in verbal inspiration (that the very words are inspired), then the closer the English (or other language) translation matches a word for word translation, the more authoritas verborum can be said to be retained. Obviously, in translating, that has to be sacrificed at times to ensure the clarity of the authority substantia, but it should be preserved to the greatest extent possible.
That is why the “awkwardness” of the KJV in modern English is not a negative to me. It is carrying over as much as possible the actual equivalent wording and structure of the Greek and Hebrew. Phrasing that seems awkward in modern English often reflects a reverence for the actual wording in the source language.
You men are bad for me. I have way too much to do to get caught up in this discussion but it’s a topic I love! This really does need to be my last contribution on it. Blessings to you!
Dear Bro Gleason,
I think you have a point on the authoritatis verborum. I would be interested in seeing if it is stated that way in any Baptist confession (best) or classic systematic theology (also helpful).
Thanks.
I’ve never researched it, so it’s possible I’m out there on my own on this.
It’s partly based on observation of the way believers talk about Bible translations. If they want to object to a translation, they usually go to word studies and questions about whether individual words are translated correctly. Likewise, if they are defending a translation. That suggests to me that part of His sheep hearing His voice is an awareness that the very words matter, and that the very words of a translation do, too.
I don’t think anyone really defends the NIV on an authority / accuracy basis.
They choose it because they like the way it reads. People do defend formal equivalence translations on authority grounds. They may be mistaken as to the text and so defend a translation I wouldn’t defend. But the claim for the NASV, for example, is that it is accurate and thus authoritative. Believers just know that the words matter.
But I don’t have any confession or theology to point to. I would say, though, that the consistent behavior of faithful men and women in the pews may tell us more about true theology sometimes than the writings of the scholars. Not everyone agrees with me on that, though.