Part 13 - The Usual Suspects

From Textus Receptus

Revision as of 06:45, 9 January 2011

Among the various scriptural readings found in the King James Bible that Mr. Rick Norris criticizes in his book, The Unbound Scriptures, are "the usual suspects" that every anti-KJV critic brings up. These include 1. the Unicorns (Deuteronomy 33:17), 2. Lucifer versus Morning Star Isaiah 14:12, 3. Three verses dealing with the deity of Christ (Romans 9:5, Titus 2:13, and 2 Peter 1:1), and 4. "the profession of our FAITH" Hebrews 10:23, instead of "the profession of our HOPE".

I have written separate articles concerning these four common objections which can be found at my website. Every King James Bible defender has to face these at one time or another, and they are not that hard to deal with once the facts are known.

1. 1. The subject of Unicorns is addressed at this site: Unicorns by Will Kinney

2. 2. Lucifer versus Morning Star can be found at: Lucifer or Morning Star?

3. 3. Three verses of the deity of Christ is here: Deity of Christ 3 verses

4. 4. Hebrews 10:23 "the profession of our faith" is dealt with here:faith Hebrews 10:23. Another verse in the King James Bible that is often criticized is Isaiah 19:10.

Isaiah 19:10 "ponds for fish" versus "Anybody's guess"

On page 337 Mr. Norris asks: "Is Isaiah 19:10 a possible example of the influence of the Latin Vulgate on the KJV?" He also quotes a series of scholarly experts including James D. Price who claimed that in Isaiah 19:10 "all Hebrew manuscripts have a word which means "soul" while the KJV reads "fish" following the Latin Vulgate."

Mr. Norris says: "While the Catholic Douay-Rheims version from the Latin Vulgate has "fishes" in this verse, The English translation of the Masoretic Text BY JEWS has "soul".

Neither statement is completely true. The word "fish" does not come from the Latin INSTEAD OF the Hebrew, as we shall shortly see, and not all Jewish translations have "soul". The two Jewish translations found on the internet are completely different from each other and don't even come close in meaning. The Jewish Publication Society 1917 version says: "And HER FOUNDATIONS shall be crushed, all THEY THAT MAKE DAMS shall be GRIEVED IN SOUL", BUT the brand new 1998 Complete Jewish Bible does not translate this word as "soul" but omits the word entirely and gives a completey different meaning to the verse saying: "THE SPINNERS will be crushed, the HIRED WORKERS DEJECTED."

Here we begin to see the problems associated with this verse. "her foundations" = " the spinners", and "they that make dams" = "the hired workers". Say What?! And remember, both of these groups of Jewish translators went to "the original Hebrew texts" to come up with these entirely different meanings.

Mr. Norris continues with his list of scholars by telling us that Arthur Farstad, of the NKJV translation, also maintained that the KJV followed the Latin Vulgate with its rendering "fish" at Isaiah 19:10 in his book NKJV: In the Great Tradition, page 50.

James White, who wrote The KJV Controversy, also says the KJV has "fish" following the Latin Vulgate rather than the Hebrew text.

So, after this impressive introductory attack on the King James reading of "fish" instead of "soul", let's take a closer look at what the various bible translators have done with this verse and why the KJB translated the word as "fish" instead of "soul".

Let's compare several versions and see if we can determine whether the KJB reading comes from the Latin Vulage, as Mr. White and Mr. Farstad assert or if it comes from a legitimate interpretation of the Hebrew text.

KJB - "And THEY SHALL BE BROKEN IN THE PURPOSES THEREOF, ALL THAT MAKE SLUICES AND PONDS FOR FISH."

This is also the reading of the Wycliffe Bible 1395, the Bishop's Bible 1568, Webster's 1833 translation, the KJV 21st Century, the Third Millenium Bible, and the 1950 Douay Version. Not only do these English translations render the Hebrew phrase found here as "fish" but so also do the Spanish Reina Valera versions of 1909 and 1960. The 1999 Spanish Sagradas Escrituras (Holy Scriptures) also reads as does the King James Bible. They all say: "todos los que hacen viveros para PECES." - FISH. If you don't know Spanish, you might recognize the similarity to Pices, or the sign of the fish.

Now, let's take a look at the various modern versions to see what they have come up with by going to "the original Hebrew texts".

NKJV - " And ITS FOUNDATIONS will be broken. ALL WHO MAKE WAGES WILL BE TROUBLED OF SOUL.

NASB - "And THE PILLARS OF EGYPT will be crushed. All the HIRED LABORERS will be grieved in soul.

NIV - "The WORKERS OF CLOTH WILL BE DEJECTED, and all WAGE EARNERS WILL BE SICK AT HEART.

The 2001 ESV - "THOSE WHO ARE THE PILLARS of the land will be crushed, and all who work for pay will be grieved."

NRSV 1989 - "Its WEAVERS will be dismayed, and all who work for wages will be grieved.

The 2001 Easy to Read Version - "The PEOPLE THAT MAKE DAMS TO SAVE WATER will have no work, so they will be sad."

The 1998 Complete Jewish Bible - " The SPINNERS will be crushed, the hired workers dejected."

Lamsa's 1933 translation of the Syriac - "And all those who make STRONG DRINK FOR THE DRINKING OF THE PEOPLE shall be humiliated."

The Greek Septuagint (LXX) reads: "And ALL THAT MAKE BEER shall be grieved, and be pained in their souls."

Coverdale 1535 - "All the PONDS of Egypt, all the POLICY of their MOATS & DITCHES shall come to naught."

Geneva Bible 1599 - "For their NETS shall be broken, and all THEY THAT MAKE PONDS shall be heavy in heart."

Bible in Basic English 1961 actually omits words reading: "And the makers of twisted thread will be crushed, and those who ... will be sad in heart."

The 1970 New English Bible - "Egypt's spinners shall be downcast, and ALL HER ARTISANS sick at heart."

See how reading a variety of translations can clear things up for us?

Now let's see what some other Bible commentators, who are not KJB onlies, have to say.

Adam Clarke - All that make sluices and ponds for fish-"All that make a gain of pools for FISH." This obscure line is rendered by different interpreters in very different manners. I translate gain, and which some take for nets or inclosures, the Septuagint is 'And all they that make barley wine shall mourn, and be grieved in soul.' I submit these very different interpretations to the reader's judgment."

John Calvin comments on this verse: "And all that make ponds. As to the word (secher) there is no absolute necessity, in my opinion, for translating it a net; for the derivation shews it, on the contrary, to denote a lucrative occupation. Where fishes are very abundant, they are also preserved in pools and ponds; because the fishers would otherwise be constrained to sell them at a very low price. Besides, when they throw a net, they are not always successful. He therefore follows out the same subject, "It will not be possible either to take or to preserve fishes. Pools will be of no use."

John Gill - "All that make sluices and ponds for fish; or, "all that make an enclosure of ponds of soul" ; or for delight and pleasure; that is, not only such shall be broken in their purposes, ashamed and confounded, and be dispirited, mourn and lament, whose business and employment it is to catch FISH, or make nets for that end, and get their livelihood thereby; but even such who enclose a confluence of water, and MAKE FISHPONDS in their fields and gardens for their pleasure, will be disappointed; for their waters there will be dried up, and the FISH die, as well as in the common rivers.

Robert Young gives the definition of "breathing creature" for Isa. 19:10.

Jamieson, Faussett & Brown - "all that make sluices, ‹"makers of dams," made to confine the waters which overflow from the Nile in artificial FISH-ponds."

They accurately portray what the verse and the first part of the chapter is talking about. Isaiah is speaking about those that made sluices or an artificial channel of water. These sluices were designed in such a way as to lure fish into them. Then once in the man-made pond the fish were captured and sold by those that made their livelihood thereby. We find that all such people that depend on these sluices will mourn and lament along with the fishers because their ponds will be dried up and their livelihood taken from them.

The word renderd "fish" in the King James Bible and other versions is the Hebrew word nephesh. This particular Hebrew word has a great variety of meanings even in the NASB, NIV and other modern versions.

For example, some of the meanings given in the NASB for this same Hebrew word include "a living being, a life, appetite, body, breath, corpse, CREATURE, craving, desire, discontented, heart, feelings, greed, human, hunger, livelihood, longing, men, mind, mortal, murders, number, passion, people, soul, person, slave, strength, thirst, throat, will and wish".

Likewise the NIV renders this same word as "life, soul, heart, people, appetite, CREATURES, spirit, body, corpse, needs, desires, dead body, hunger, members, being, feel, greed, perfume, slave, throats, wishes and zeal." The NIV concordance likewise shows that 46 times they did not translate the word at all. The Hebrew word can have a great variety of meanings depending on the context.

Isaiah 19:8 reads: "The FISHERS also shall mourn, and all they that cast angle into the brooks shall lament, and they that spread nets upon the waters shall languish." Then we have verse 10 "And they shall be broken in the purposes thereof, all that make sluices and ponds for FISH." Once the context is determined to refer to "sluices and ponds", we can reasonably conclude that type of the creatures that live in the ponds are FISH, not "souls".

As has been shown, other Bible commentators have agreed with the meaning of the reading found in the King James Bible and others versions. The meaning of "fish" in this context is derived from the Hebrew text itself, and not from the Latin.

The Latin Vulgate has nothing to do with the King James rendering here, but rather the KJB translators referred to the Hebrew text. So what if the KJB happens to agree with the Latin? All bible versions are going to agreee in many places. If the Latin has "Christ died for sinners" and the KJB says "Christ died for sinners", do we then conclude that the KJB borrowed this from the Latin? The translations found in Isaiah 19:10 are a matter of different interpretations and perspective; not a difference of Hebrew versus the Latin Vulgate.

A similar example of the literal word "soul" is found in the New Testament Greek in Revelation 16:3. The King James Bible says: "And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living SOUL (psukee) died in the sea."

However in the NIV, NASB, ESV we read every living "soul" translated as "every living THING", while the NKJV says: "every living CREATURE died in the sea." Obviously the word "soul" here refers to the fish and other sea creatures that lived in the sea. Are we then to criticize these versions as well for doing the same thing?

To repeat - not only does the King James Bible render this word as "fish" in Isaiah 19:10 but so also do the Spanish Reina Valera of 1909 and 1960, Las Sagradas Escrituras of 1999, the Douay version 1950, Wycliffe 1395, Bishops' Bible 1568, Webster's 1833 translation, the KJV 21, and the Third Millenium Bible.

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• Part 13 - The Usual Suspects by Will Kinney