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As far as the English version of the Bible is concerned:
None of the Bible was originally written in English; it was written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek and therefore needs to be translated into whatever language we understand.
Whenever you go from one language to another, or even one culture to another that uses the same language, some things can get cloudy or "lost" in the translation. (Example of culture to culture difference: the US and England both use the English language, but when someone from the US says, "Go jump in a lake," we in the U.S. know what it means, but the person from Britain will need help in the explanation as to its real meaning, even though they recognize the actual words.)
Vocabulary and grammar rules are different from language to language, so translating the Bible "word by word" makes it hard as well. For example, John 3:16 is usually translated in English "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life." If you translated it word by word from the Greek, it would read, "so for loved the god the world that son his only begotten he gave that who believes in him not should perish but have life everlasting". The Greek NT doesn't use capital letters or punctuation marks, so a translator would have to add these in himself and pray that he separated the sentences correctly. The word by word translation makes a good Greek sentence grammatically, but the word placement has to be rearranged to make sense in English.
So which English version is the correct "Word of God in English"? None of them are! Since most people don't know the original languages and since we don't have the original manuscripts, we have to depend on translators to help us. There are some English versions which are better than others. Some are better in the O.T. but not the NT. Some are better in Psalms, but not the rest of the scripture.
So until we all learn Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, and until we can obtain the original manuscripts, we need to depend on our English translations.
The problem with all Bible versions, not just the KJV, is as follows: (Please read an article about Jewish history and antisemitism at Antisemitism and the Holocaust. It will help you to understand how and why different Bible versions might have appeared.)
As the church spread far and wide within the Roman Empire and its membership was increasingly non-Jewish, Greek and Roman thought began to creep in and completely change the orientation of Biblical interpretation through a Greek mindset and not a Jewish or Hebraic mindset.** This would later result in many heresies, some of which the Church is still practicing. The problem is Man's various interpretations crept into the picture as soon as Yeshua died. Since basically the first century AD, Bible versions were often "tweaked" to fit the author's personal agendas (such as King James), and the result was, not only major differences in Bible versions, but also the birth of myriad religions, each with their founder's idea of what the Bible supposedly said. What God Himself originally said apparently didn't matter, as long as people could blindly follow some ear-tickling philosophy. And just look at the resulting mess! Satan had a field day with man's minds, inserting Paganism into the church and our religious customs and practices. He's done everything in his power to confuse us and get us away from God....
To get an idea of how different each Bible version is, please check out the following website which allows one to compare: Search the Bible.
**Greek mindset differs from Hebrew mindset in that, the Jews have a long history with God. God has revealed Himself to them in ways almost too miraculous to comprehend. Their language is extremely complicated, and certain words cannot even be translated. Each Hebrew letter has a certain meaning along with a numerical value. That's why some Hebrew words are actually impossible to translate, and so the Greek translators had to basically make do - all the while, missing the real meaning behind some of the words. (For example, take the word tsit tsit. Tsit tsits are the knots/fringes/braids on the edges of the tallit, or prayer shawls. The woman with the issue of blood touched Yeshua's tsit tsit, not "the hem of his garment" as many Bible translations say. While this doesn't really change the meaning of what transpired, it was, nonetheless, mistranslated.) When the Bible was translated from Hebrew to Greek, it lost much of its "Hebrewness" and it lost even more, once it was translated from Greek into other languages. My husband and I have The Stone Edition of the Tanach ("Old Testament"), which is directly translated from Hebrew into English. In it, you can see some scripture numbers that don't correspond to other Bible versions, as well as completely different wording. We don't mean to imply that the Jewish versions are perfect, and the Christian versions are all wrong, because that would be a lie. We see in the commentary sections at the bottom of the pages of Stone's Bible, scripture interpretations according to orthodox Judaism, which completely deviates from the Christian way of thinking. For instance, they simply refuse to "see" Jesus foreshadowed throughout the Tanach and in God's feasts, etc. As long as Man's mindset is involved, things will always get skewed somewhat....
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