I recently received an email message from Ken concerning our choice to use the ESV:
“With all due respect I’m not participating in any class that requires me to dedicate my studies to the ESV as you do there. That book has someone else killing Goliath besides David in 2 Samuel 21:19. Acts 8:37 is totally removed. Even the numbers in Acts 8 skip 37 totally… 34,35,36,_,38,39, etc… The verse they scissored out dealt with “believing” and Jesus being the Son of God (Diety). It also removes the blood atonement from Romans 5:11 including removing the blood from Colossians 1:14. etc… That book is pathetic. I’m sticking with my King James Bible.”
I feel the need to write about this absolutely criminal mentality. I have no problem with his conviction that the ESV is “pathetic” or that he is sticking with “his King James Bible”. Those are fine choices to make if he wishes. The problem is that he doesn’t know why those verses are different in the ESV, he hasn’t done his research. Opinions are fine but don’t bash newer translations only because you like the one you’ve read your whole life.
When King James ordered his translation back in the 16th century, they had some good quality manuscripts with which to translate into English. But in the 20th century with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls amongst others the number, the age, and quality of the manuscripts increased and so newer translations are working off of better source documents than the KJV was. So when they remove a verse its because its not in the earlier manuscripts that we now have that they didn’t have when the KJV was translated.
