208 thoughts on “Thee and Thou”

      1. What else is funny is that he comments about TEH GAYZ on a post that has absolutely nothing to do with homosexuality. Projection much? I get the feeling that he secretly fantasizes about being in the middle of a plethora of penises and doesn’t know how to process that. So he lashes out against anyone who has ever said anything supportive of gay people. Any chance it’s our friend greg posting from a different account on a computer at the library?

        1. The ranting style is familiar. But then, the ranting style of so many fundies is limited. It might be greg. Then again, Someone Else may be some other troll. Trolls are ugly. And they don’t want you to get across the bridge.

        3. I did notice that our friend ”Someone Else” was carrying topics over from another post, (or maybe just pulling hatred out of his bag of tricks.) I mostly laughed at the whole sucking up to the gays in hope of their respect, thing. Does he realize that ‘The Gays’ are not an organized group who only give respect to people who ”suck up” to them, (extremely juvenile use of language there, by the way), but individuals who have individual tastes, likes, dislikes etc?

      3. Someone Else, until a few years ago, I knew so many people like you. I might even have agreed with you on some things. When you get out of the Fundy cage and start thinking on your own you look back and are embarrassed by the way you thought and spoke. I sincerely hope you reach that. I hope your mind is freed someday. Freedom is wonderful. Hating because it is all you know is a sad thing. I suspect deep inside of you, you know this.

        4. Wow — the banhammer came down? I must have REALLY missed out! I’ve never heard of someone getting banned here before.

        5. It’s not the first time Darrell’s had to do this. In fact, it was relatively recently that the fundy dude who said I was innately ignorant got banned.

    2. Hmmm, such slander. And, of course, you err. I don’t love homosexuality, I love people regardless.

      A pity you don’t see that, Someone Else. “By this shall all men know you are my disciples, if you have love to one another. The Cardinal Sin, my dear fellow, is Pride. And from Pride follows hate.

      “The Bible teaches” is a rather idiotic phrase, seeing that it teaches a lot of things, many of which are contradictory. It teaches the Law, then it sets it aside. It teaches judgment, then it seems that God learned how to give grace and mercy — and not to just a few favorites, but to sinners! Jesus goes so far as to warn us that the very kind of judgment we give will be the kind given to us. We take from the Scriptures what we find resonance with. If you go for grace and help, you may find it. If you go for wrath, you will find that, too. Your belief about what the Bible “teaches” is a mirror of your own psyche.

      If you were sincere, Someone Else, you would address the points I brought up instead of just attacking my person. I suppose that is too much to hope for. But a discussion of the issues is always more profitable. Your slander doesn’t dissuade me. Your lies simply confirm I am trying to do right.

      Just remember, Christ said that out of the abundance of you heart your mouth speaks. If the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness!

      But good day to you, sir. I hope you find what you are missing.

      1. Give it a break. Calling something out for its stupidity or idiocy does not equate to hating it. I find certain Christians are good at hating though.

        But why are you even here Someone Else? Why bother? Wouldn’t your testimony be ruined by visiting a site that “sucks up to the gays”? Do you hate the freedom we have to think, feel and express what we like without repercussions from the pulpit for concerned family members.

        I can never understand why someone would waste their time by posting on a web site that they do not agree with. Oh wait, yes I do. It’s called being a troll. Carry on then.

      2. Sigh. Haters are going to hate, and evidently, you hate.

        I do not hate the Bible. I probably know it better than you do, my friend.

        You may teach “from the Bible” by being very selective in your approach. Or you may teach “from the Bible” by looking at how the Bible takes larger issues. You may teach “from the Bible” by using only Old Testament or only passages of condemnation. You may teach “from the Bible” by using only New Testament or by using passages showing grace and mercy.

        The Bible itself does not “teach” anything. It is a record. It is a compilation of books (scrolls), fragments, stories. We believe Ezra was the first editor of much of what we see the Old Testament form has become.

        The Bible does not “teach.” You do. I do. Recognizing that fact does not mean I hate the Bible. I have worn out several of them, reading and studying and learning.

        You get from it what you come to receive and sometimes with a surprise. You read the Bible (well, maybe you do) to see in it what you want to see. You walk away feeling justified in your own prejudices, because selectively read, the Bible can support prejudices. The Bible supported slavery, after all. Do you support slavery? Look at it. Does the Bible condemn slavery anywhere? Well then, I suppose you must be in favor of slavery! Unless you look at the larger issues the Scriptures point us to you will never get beyond the talking points for the law. You will never get to Grace.

        Do you know anything about the Bible? Can you talk about the issues with any coherence whatsoever?

        In any case, you make me glad I am no longer a fundamentalist. Living with such bile and venom must be really tough. I feel sorry for you. How do you find a way to show the love of Christ to others? Is that even of concern to you?

        Come again to talk when you actually have something to say — and can say it nicely.

    3. You are what you are. Don’t you think it’s time to come out of the closet instead of just shouting insults?

      If you aren’t any of those things, stop acting like them. After all, Jesus says that you will be judged by your words and actions.

    4. That means so much coming from someone who posted a comment irrelevant to the topic of the OP and told us to keep sucking and then made a false claim about a sex change. Seriously dude. WTF? What is so wrong in your life that you feel the need to lash out here?

    7. Well, it’s nice to know you do have at least a little bit of a sense of humor…

    1. YES!!!
      Can thou now expectest thy pew coushin (embroidered, preferably) to cometh thy way?

      1. My husband wears one because the kids have never seen his chin, he says they never will. Lol.

        2. If clean shaven = godly then it follows that goatee = evil. You have imbibed deeply at the well of Fundamentalism, lol.

        2. I thought wearing a goat on your chin would be uncomfortable. Better than a sheep though.

        3. Last day I shaved my chin was on my wedding day almost 13 years ago. I’ve thought about shaving many times, but my wife convinces me to keep it.

      3. Apologies. I associate the goatee with The Nineties and ESPN sportscasters…and douches. Just grow a beard.

        Don’t ban me! (Ducks for cover.)

        3. Maynard G. Krebs! (The “G” was for “Walter.”)
          I’ve been a Maynard fan since I was a little kid.
          A few years ago, a stray cat started hanging around. The cat was white, but with dark spots that looked exactly like a painted-on goatee and beret. I started calling him “Maynard G. Krebs,” but my younger neighbors had no idea what I was talking about. That part of our cultural heritage apparently hadn’t been transmitted to them.

          According to Wikipedia, “In 1999, TV Guide ranked Maynard G. Krebs number 22 on its ’50 Greatest TV Characters of All Time’ list.”

          http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0047955/quotes

      4. My sweetie James has a goatee. It balances out his face and the beginnings (past beginning, but he won’t admit it) of double-chin doesn’t show so much. I wish he’d go back to the full beard, which looks great on him, but I can’t seem to talk him into it. And if he goes with just the moustache, he looks like Snidley Whiplash.

    2. Is it possible that Brandon wears a goatee so that in the event he preaches that we ought to use the KJV to correct the original Greek, people will focus on him and say, “Is that hair I see?”

      Don’t know whether Brandon is a Ruckmanite or not, by the way.

  5. If Brandon says it’s not good enough for him, then I, in no wise, am willing to settle for a thee & thou less text!

  6. Third.
    Fundies use “thee’s” and “thous” and other 17th century English forms when they pray so that God can understand what they saying

  7. Man. For starters, this dude is ignorant of the English language – what he claims about “thee” and “thou” and “you” and “ye” isn’t true in English. He also fails to realize that the English is supposed to be translating the Greek. And there are no rules for how the KJV translators applied these words to different Greek aspect (side note – Koine Greek does not have tenses in the tradition sense, so scholars generally refer to the “tense” as aspect). It is so obvious that even my hyper-fundy greek teacher at PCC admitted that there wasn’t a shred of reliable information that could be gleaned from the KJV translators’ choice of personal pronoun form.

  8. “It is part of God’s Word”
    If these words are changed, is it no longer God’s Word?

  9. His wallpaper is nice. Did he just say that “thee” and “thine” gives us important information that the Holy Spirit wants us to have? Something about that reminds me of Monty Python

    Five is right out!

  10. From the AV1611 page, “the KJV is God’s word in English, and is the result of God’s providential work of preservation throughout history. Modern versions of the Bible, on the other hand, are translations of manuscripts that have been transmitted in a secular form throughout history, tainted by liberal, un-believing scholarship as early as the days Paul began penning Holy Scripture under the inspiration of God.”
    Wow.

  11. Fortunately for those of us not fluent in KJV 1611 language they offer a helpful dictionary. It is said to be an “abridgment” of Webster’s 1828 publication. Unabridged version is also available. Hmmm…1828 is not 1611, and it’s not authorized by his majesty, but is it still acceptable because it’s old fashioned, maybe?
    Also, if one uses this dictionary to understand the KJV, does that mean he/she is learning from the KJV, or the dictionary? And does this possibly suggest that the KJV language may just be too difficult for some readers to understand? But maybe it is more right to use a dictionary to understand the KJV than to read a translation. So many questions… WWJHD?

  12. It is difficult to claim moral superiority without thee’s and thou’s.

  14. The fundamental problem with this gentleman’s presentation is that his argument only holds water if English was the original language of the text. Once again, we have a denial that the KJV is a translation.

  15. I’d really like to hear what Brandon has to say about why hast and dost and saith etc should remain in the Bible.

  17. Well, he just spent nearly 15 minutes telling me something I already knew, which in any case can be explained in 30 seconds– that “thee” and “thou” are singular and less formal, while “you” was originally plural and sometimes honorific (the latter point seems not to have made an impression on Brandon, though).

    Meanwhile, though, he confuses quite a few things, oversimplifies the history of English, and doesn’t really make much of a case that we need archaic pronouns in the Bible.

  18. Oh crikey – he is boring. I am so glad to see that he is tackling all the important stuff.

    Now if we could all just focus on whether the bible needs “thee” and “thou” then all the horrible problems will just go away…

  19. Exactly, Lost Highway. KJV is a Translation. I wish they would get that. As is probably the NIV, and others. If they want something translated from the Greek and Hebrew, they need to get the Jewish Bible. The only thing is they use the actual names of people. (Kinda makes is confusing when you’re used to our translations.)

    1. Dear Jewel:

      ‘Getting’ it isn’t the point.

      KJVOism means that worship is heretical where the KVJ is not used.

      Aeons ago, I debated KJVO people. I stopped the day it occurred to me that KJVOism is a scam to secure their income by claiming the whole church as their private reserve thereby putting other congregations ‘off limits.’ Since they don’t use the Bible [KJV], they can’t be genuinely Christian [or so KJVOists claim]. So methinks it isn’t what they can’t ‘get’ but what they won’t admit…

      Blessings!

      Christian Socialist

      1. CS, you just made me realize a possible motivation for the KJV-Only heresy.
        I tend to think of it as just a weird fetish based on misunderstandings. But if it can prove their church (and maybe a few others) to be the only true church, while nearly all the others are false churches, then it becomes important.

        1. Most hogs love being washed, but not being clean. The reason being that they sunburn quite easily. Indoor hogs are usually pretty clean for a barn animal; outdoor hogs roll in the mud as a natural sunscreen.

  22. But don’t you know that since Merica is a Christian nation God saw fit to only give a select few “informed” ones the “right” Bible. Course in reality this belief goes along with the entire lineup of crackpot fundamentalist doctrine and polity.

    1. Dear Gabriel:

      LMAOROTFPIMP:

      ‘Fundamentalist’ and ‘polity’ in the same sentence!

      Christian Socialist

  23. Assuming they’re all accurately translated, “thee” and “thou” vs. “you” and “ye” is one of the handier points of the KJV. I won’t necessarily say I miss reading them, but they did come in handy for knowing singular vs. plural on occasion.

  24. So thee and thou do not denote special relationship.
    But thee and thou are not equal to you, they are more special than that….
    And you cannot just substitute you for thee and thou…because thee is singular and you is plural in the Bible…
    Honestly, if your adherence to a particular Bible translation means you have to explain thee and thou in 15 minute video, it probably is not really worth your time and energy. Thou ist grasping at straws to holdeth onto an archaic translation.

    2. That’s why I think modern translations should implement “y’all” for the plural form of you. It would make things clearer and wouldn’t sound so old fashioned!

      1. But “you” works just fine. It needs to be read in context just like anything else.

        the Admiral

  25. All I can say is aauuugh! When will these KJVO guys ever let up and find something useful to say? Never, it was a rhetorical question.

  26. I would have to concur that nothing was said of the thees, thous, you, yours as those singular and plural references stack up to the MSS we currently have possession of, particularly the earliest manuscripts in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic.

    He has implied the inspiration of the KJV once again. But, he is a smooth talker and somewhat likable, so I’m sure he was a following.

    One last thought: My former fundy pastor (a man of unquestioned character) of the Greenvillian stalk prayed in King James English for years. His argument was that the language drew worshipers attention in a reverential awe to the ONE to whom we were praying. The prayers were lengthy, specific, and purposeful. I don’t fault his sincerity, or motive.

    When the church made the switch to the NAS, those KJV-esque prayers fell by the way in favor of more contemporary dialogue. I’m not sure why he made the switch, except to say that it would probably be “holier that ewes” to those people who came after.

    B.R.1

  27. Dear Brandon:

    The word of God for all peoples, in their vulgar tongue. This is a Great Commission/gospel issue, and as such it is requisite to Christian orthodoxy.

    Christian Socialist

    1. I always thought it was funny how many of the KJV-onlyers that I knew respected Tyndale and Hus and others who wanted the Scriptures in the language of the people, but they were completely opposed to having the Bible in the language of TODAY’S people.

      1. That whooshing sound you hear is your comment going over the heads of most KJV-only Fundamentists

  28. Here’s a twist: today, I am visiting a rare books library and will have a chance to see its 1611 edition. So, what would you look up in that volume?

    (This is a real deal, btw. I will be looking at a Shakespeare first folio as well.)

    1. Sorry, but you won’t be allowed to touch the books. Look, yes.

      Folger Shakespeare Library in DC?

      1. Touching is indeed occurring! The Lilly Library, Bloomington, IN.

        1. These days they let you touch- turns out that the minute amount of skin oils on clean hands is not as hard on the books as the fibers from gloves.

          A number of years ago I got a chance to go up to the Special Collections unit in the Knight Library at UO. Held in my hands a leaf from a 12th century text, and nearly fainted. It was almost… I dunno, a mystical experience? I could imagine the scribe, some 800+ years ago, with a quill, slowly and carefully lettering the page. It was almost like I could feel his hand. I had to put the page down and put my head between my knees for a few minutes.

        2. I own a page of manuscript of Psalm 24 dated to 1465 from a Book of Hours. Bought it from an invited dealer at an academic conference of medieval studies. Not illuminated, but a good gothic hand, written in Latin, with some gold and blue lettering. Thinking about the work it took can make one pause a bit.

        5. I was last there in ’97, want to go back but I’m disabled now, and coming up with th money for plan tix, car, etc is not happening. I really miss it. Especially the merchants’ room! You have to set aside a couple hundred dollars for books…

          And I always have a hard time choosing which sessions to attend! There’s several hundred now, and the ones I want always seem to be scheduled against each other!

        7. I will be spending the second week in August in Louisville to work at a prison in Lagrange; however,I think that is after the festival has run its course. I would like to see the plays, but I am not sure it will work out.

        11. Having some McAfee’s from Buffalo Trace right . . . then.

          By the way, I found a pub in Bloomington, IN with Pappy’s on its bourbon list. Unfortunately, none in stock.

  29. So lemme get this straight, he is going to say that the KJV translation is divinely inspired? Just like the entire bible itself? This one TRANSLATION, is inspired by the Holy Spirit, but all the other modern translation (based on more accurate information), pay them no attention?
    That takes some hutzpah.

    1. Dear Disillusioned:

      At the risk of your further disillusionment, I regret to inform you that some have declared the KJV to be more authoritative than the original autographs.

      Christian Socialist

  30. Dark clothing and he’s sitting in a dark chair.

    Looks like a disembodied head and neck.

    Come to think of it, the Gospel reading in the liturgical churches last week was the beheading of John the Baptist!

    1. If this guy went the way of John the Baptist, would he miss his head?

      Er… Yes he would. He is a Fundamentalist. He needs somewhere to keep his Mouth.

      3. He couldn’t go the way of John the Baptist because he would have to let his hair grow indefinitely, and you know they have proof that Jesus had short hair.

  31. That plural vs singular is something I miss but the number of people who know that distinction is vanishingly small anyway. At And you know what? If have a question about it, a KJV is pretty easy to find. At any rate, the vastly increased understanding far outweighs this defect. I am constantly ridiculed for saying the KJV is hard to understand by people who think that Jesus has gone to prepare a giant fancy house for us. It isn’t so much the words like “anon” that we know we don’t understand, it’s words like “mansion” that we think we understand but really don’t.

  32. And thither shall be nay removal of the letter K from musick and publick lest thy Bible be made modern.

    1. I believe we should all stop using those evil modern devices called books and henceforth use only scrolls.

      1. Books! Liberal new-age nonsense I say. I only use stone tablets. If they were good enough for Moses………

        2. Hey, they say Jesus wrote in the sand. Why not just carry sand tables with us everywhere?

        3. Hey, they say Jesus wrote in the sand. Why not just carry sand tables with us everywhere?

  33. He has a point. (When translating from Greek to English, the distinction between singular and plural in the second person is lost because English doesn’t make a distinction. We infer from context.) That’s true of any translation though.

    All languages have different nuances that are lost when translated. For instance, Greek has a third person imperative, which is incredibly hard to convey in English, where all our imperatives are second person.

    Another example is prepositions—Koine Greek has about 20 of them, whereas English has over 100. So from context, translators have to figure out which meaning the one Greek word has in English.

    I also remember hearing a Bible translator talking about a language that doesn’t have a word for sheep or lamb. How do you translate the verses where Jesus is called “The Lamb of God”?

    I don’t think the answer to translating dilemmas is to make up new words in the target language (or in this case pull in Archaic language). You translate as faithfully as you can, and if you feel that lack in the target language will inhibit meaning, you make a footnote.

    1. I have heard someone state categorically that we are forbidden to add footnotes. That is adding to scripture and somewhere in Revelation (can’t remember where) God has some very harsh things to say about adding to scripture.

      (I listened to him, smiled politely then walked away and banged my head against the nearest wall)

      1. Hopefully you didn’t pick his pissing wall on which to bang your head. Isn’t that what thou calls the Blarney Stone?

        1. Yeah, there is a legend about kissing the Blarney Stone. I wonder if some Fundy preachers have eaten bits if it.

        3. Probably the same person who is dead against tattoos who also states that it is sinful to jot down even a telephone number on your hand because that to “print marks on the flesh” and that is forbidden by scripture (Leviticus 19:28). Yeah, I’ve heard that too.

      2. I’ve heard that too, as well as people horrified if you wrote comments in the margins of your Bible because you were adding to the Word of God.

      3. Huh. In my field they call it a gloss, and you’ll find them all over in Biblical scholarship.

        What does he call Scofield’s notes then?

  34. I am looking directly at a 1st edition KJV, and this is part of the dedication “to the most high and mighty Prince, James” from “the translators of the Bible”:

    “And now at last, by the mercy of God, and the continuance of our labors, it being brought unto such a conclusion, as that we have great hope that the Church of England shall reap good fruit thereby; we hold it our duty to offer it to your Majesty, not only as to our king and sovereign, but as to the principal mover and Author of the Work.”

    1. Which is to say that the translators themselves of the AV1611 have credited King James as its author.

      1. But not “author” in the contemporary sense. In the 1600s, the moving force behind something could be called its “author.” It doesn’t necessarily mean the King wrote a word of the text himself.

        1. True, but they give him credit which the AV1611 clowns give to God. A moving force is what it is.

        3. Strictly speaking, the authors of the King James Bible are its translators.

          And if anyone really wants to beat a hornets nest . . . have a look at the love letters one of translators wrote to his college roommate, quoting the Song of Solomon. They are in Adam Nicholson’s book about the translation process.

  35. This reminds me of that bit in the first Avengers movie. “Uh, Shakespeare in the park? Doth mother know you weareth her drapes?” Lol

  36. By the way, the marginalia of the AV1611 has frequent notes along the lines of “The Hebrew actually says . . .”

  38. I’m sharing this response to the video from a friend who is an Old Testament professor and has a PhD in Biblical Studies (like, a real earned one, not a fundy one):

    “Yes, he is correct that Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek all use pronouns or inflection to distinguish between singular and plural (Hebrew also has a dual form that he does not seem to be too concerned about preserving).

    Two things. First his contention that the use of such forms is by inspiration of the Holy Ghost reveals more a bias than understanding of language. There would be no other way for a person to write in either language without using those forms since that is the fundamental structure of the language. It is much like grammatical gender, even in modern languages like Spanish or German. There is no other way to write or speak the language.

    Second, he is dealing with theories of translation, whether a translation should be literal (word for word), dynamic (ideas), or free (paraphrase). He is opting for a very rigid literal theory of translation, but is focusing only on one aspect of the biblical languages in order to defend the KJV as superior to other translations. However, he says nothing about how the KJV deals with other translation issues in the languages such as preserving case or declension inflections in Greek, the use of capital letters, which are lacking in Hebrew and are not used in many Greek manuscripts. For example, KJV capitalizes “spirit” when it thinks it refers to God, and Satan, which often has as a definite article as a title.

    KJV also uses theologically laden terms to translate basic Hebrew idioms. For example, “soul” is a later Greek concept not inherent in several Hebrew terms that it translates. It also converts the structure of sentences to English word order (subject, verb, object), while both Hebrew and especially Greek sometimes use word order for emphasis.

    There is always some information lost when translating since languages, especially very dissimilar ones, cannot always have exact parallels. Yet the KJV also adds a lot of additional information that is not in the original text, a fact with which he is apparently not concerned.

    In other words, his argument about accurately preserving the original text because it was inspired by the Holy Ghost (which implies a dictation theory of inspiration) cannot be consistently maintained in reference to the KJV.

    Grace and Peace,

    Dennis B.”

        1. Me, too!

          I was a devout KJV-only when I went to BJU. My doctrines teacher asked me, “Are you afraid of the truth?” I answered no, so he replied that I should take the course, look at the facts and then make a decision. The course talked about translation principles and the history of our English Bible. They were quite thorough in knocking down KJVonly arguments.

          As a result, I returned home NOT a KJV-onlyist. This infuriated my family. The next year I married and went home with my bride to introduce her. My little sister saw me with an NASV and called me a heretic and after a bit of conversation where I tried to tell her I was not a heretic, claimed I was trying to destroy her faith. My dad said if he’d known what I would try to do (what?) he’d have killed me. Can you say wildly irrational? I knew you could. Later, despite 16 years of attempting reconciliation, my parents disowned me.

          Interesting. I have avoided thinking this much about it for a good while. But every year or so … hmmmph right about this time of year, I guess, it comes back. Still hurts.

      2. That’s a really sad story. What a shame to divide a family over something so silly. Thoughts and prayers.

        1. I wonder what people like that think when they read the words, ”Without natural affection.” It is so sad and sadder still, it is not the only story of it’s kind.

        2. The story makes me very sad.
          My parents disowning me because I like a different version of the Bible from their favorite? I can’t even imagine such a thing.

    2. Dear revdavepett and Dennis B:

      The difference between genuine scholarship and spurious KJVO proffered arguments is apparent immediately. As has been said, please continue visiting/posting. Blessings!

      Christian Socialist

  39. By the way, Someone Else, just yesterday a member of our congregation sent an E mail to me and other leaders outlining the Sundays he expects to be in church, and offers to assist in the service.

    Of course I welcome E mails like this!

    The man has been married to another man since 2009. when same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts.

    No problem for us at all. We’re glad that he is offering to help! And glad that one of his duties in the congregation is that of Treasurer.

  40. “There is always some information lost when translating since languages, especially very dissimilar ones, cannot always have exact parallels.”

    Absolutely. Take, for example, switching between English and American Sign Language (ASL). Very different linguistic structures, idioms and everything else.

    For example, there is a particular kind of “nose twitch” that means “I quietly agree with you.”

    1. People think that sign language is an exact duplication of English, but it truly is its own language.

      It is much more literal than English. There’s stuff that just doesn’t make sense if you translate it in exact English. It’s easy to switch “thou” and “you” but woe to the interpreter if the preacher is reading the verse that mentions “superfluity of naughtiness”. Then of course there’s the OT that talks about shittim wood. I’ve never seen a shittim tree.

        1. You’re the sign language expert, JC. 🙂

          Somehow the interpreting classes I took never covered either shittim wood or depositing fecal matter on vegetation.

          Miss Jeffries was remiss, it would seem.

      2. There are a lot of different theories about what “shittim wood” was, or, for that matter, the identity of most of the trees and plants mentioned in the Bible.
        Some think it meant wood from an acacia tree. Others think not.

        An intriguing example is the “mustard seed” parable told by Jesus. He says that the mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds, yet it grows into a great, tall tree.
        The mustard plant known to the English-speaking world does not have an especially small seed, and it definitely does not grow into a tall tree. So it seems likely some other plant was meant.
        One Bible scholar I know claims that Jesus was making a joke, because in his largely agrarian society, his listeners would have known the aforementioned botanical facts. Perhaps so, but if so, I don’t get what’s funny about it.

        2. Well, the mustard “tree” grew big enough that the birds could nest in it. But yeah, it wasn’t as if the parable was intended to make literal sense. Analogies and exaggeration go together.

  41. Dear Toddmiester:

    The KJV is a fundamentalist Vulgate. Increasingly closed to each generation, pastors become indispensable ‘explainers’ of a book people ought to access directly. Of necessity, KJVOers shift from an explicit faith in God to an increasingly implicit faith in what approved and often elevated speakers say ABOUT the meaning of the KJV. Soon or later, Toddler, you must face this. If not, the rest of us get to settle it for you.

    From the Tyndale New Testament comes this reminder of the ongoing evolution of language.

    Goo wesshe the in the pole of Syloe (Joh 9:7)

    Then brought they to the pharises him that a lytell before was blynde: (Joh 9:13)

    thou shalt not wesshe my fete whill the worlde stondeth (Joh 13:8)

    he sprage stode and also walked and entred. (Act 3:8)

    it fortuned that he drue nye to Damasco and sodenly ther shyned rounde about him a lyght (Act 9:3)

    the father of Publius laye sicke of a fiever and of a bluddy flixe. (Act 28:8)

    Wherfore yf the faule of them be the ryches of the worlde: and the mynysshynge of them the ryches of the gentyls: How moche more shuld it be so yf they all beleved. (Rom 11:12)

    They are gelous over you amysse. Ye they intede to exclude you that ye shuld be feruet to them warde. (Gal 4:17)

    Which thinges betoken mystery. (Gal 4:24)

    And they had habbergions as it were habbergions of yron. (Rev 9:9)

    them that sate on the havynge fyry habbergions of a Iacyncte coloure. (Rev 9:17)

    the fyrst went and poured out his viall apon the erth and there fell anoysom and a sore botche apon the men (Rev 16:2).

    Completed 7 decades before the KJV, Tyndale’s work was within the lifespan of one individual. This might lead you to ponder the accessibility of KJV language in 2090. Those sober Presbyterians got it right when in the WCF 1.8 they wrote that the Scriptures:

    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. . 1 Cor. 14:6,9,11,12,24,27,28.

    For els when thou blessest with the sprete how shall he that occupieth the roume of the vnlearned saye amen at thy gevinge of thankes seynge he vnderstondeth not what thou sayest. Thou verely gevest thankes well but the other is not edyfied (1Co 14:16-17). Brethren be not chyldre in witte. How be it as concerninge maliciousnes be chyldre: but in witte be perfet (1Co 14:20).

    Recognizing KJVO churches as a whole are in pre-converted condition and that they are largely untouched by the gospel, the day comes, Toddster, when the church must take God’s word of the gospel into those closed societies that you call your congregations. The gospel mandate requires no less.

    Christian Socialist

  42. One useful thing I learned from the KJV: We used to have a perfectly good second person plural pronoun and for some reason we dumped it.

    1. Wasn’t needed. Languages tend to shed elements that overly complicate things. If singular/plural can be found in context, then it works just as well — or at least well enough to not be worth the extra effort.

      1. Very true. As well, ambiguity is often more helpful than not in language. But the real reason we shed it is that no one was using it. This is one of the reasons that these kinds of arguments are just plain old silly to people who have studied some of the English language (English minor here). If you read anything vernacular in middle English or early modern English (like the KJV) you will find that they just weren’t that careful with their pronoun usage. They didn’t care because in most contexts it doesn’t matter. For example, in his book on manners, George Washington often used the “wrong” pronoun for the grammar, but the “right” pronoun for his intended audience. The subject might require a singular pronoun, but because he was addressing men at large, he would switch to a plural pronoun. By the way, this is very common in languages with different noun forms – including Greek. There is all kinds of “wrong” grammar in the NT, and it is probably not a good idea to read too much into it.

        1. There’s a risk of overinterpretation when reading any text.
          If something has a strange nuance, it may mean the writer was trying to communicate something very specific, but just as often, it really just means words tend to be ambiguous.

          That’s why legal writing is a very special field– the challenge is to make a sentence mean only one thing, but still not be stilted or wordy.

        2. But we now have a long-running argument about whether stuff like “you guys” and “you all” is proper English or not, suggesting that at least some English speakers think that there is a “ye”-shaped hole in our language.

        3. Nah. We fill it as we need, and to the extent we want. Even “ye” is nonspecific. Is it “ye few”, “ye all”, or “ye haw”? Is it “ye disciples” or “ye crowd”?

          Language is always in flux. Users change it.

        4. True. In Southern vernacular, “you” is singular (usually), and “y’all” is plural (always).

    2. Second person singular pronouns (thee, thou, thy, thine) were the ones that got dumped.
      Now we use the plural (you, your, yours) for all second-person purposes.

  43. I have been in fundyland for well over 20 years and don’t ever remember hearing your seeing the fact that one was plural and the other singular. Either that knowledge is being lost or it’s not being passed on in which case it will be lost within 3 generations (because in fundyland it’s always 3 generations). Either way it’s becoming so obscure as to be irrelevant. If the distinction is important then we need a translation that people can understand without extensive use of an outdated dictionary. The we ayers 1828 is pushing 100 years old, it won’t be long and we will need a modern dictionary to understand the websters dictionary to understand the KJV bible.

    As for those words being archaic in 1611 I would have to disagree. He readily admits they were still used in certain situations such as prose so common people would certainly have understood them. Similar to the word “groovy” today, not commonly used but mainstream culture understands it.

  44. First time posting, here, though I’ve been lurking a while.

    The NET Bible translates Luke 22: 31, 32 as ““Simon, Simon, pay attention! Satan has demanded to have you all, to sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. When you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”

    It doesn’t seem to have been that hard for the NET translators to distinguish multiple “yous” from individual “yous” without resorting to language that isn’t clear without a decoder ring.

    I appreciated Joshua Crosby’s comment (that we’re more dangerous when we think we know what we’re talking about, but really don’t) While oddly, I do know what “anon” means, I looked up the “I go to prepare a place for you” verse in the NET as well. Got a nice little education on the whole “mansion” thing that stretched my view of Christ. Thanks for that!

    And thanks to Christian Socialist, who points out that the real purpose ‘KJVOism is a scam to secure their income…” Not having been an IFB-er, I wouldn’t know if the motivation is financial.

    I do know something about creating special distinctions so as to know who is “really” a Christian and who isn’t. At it’s worse, the “real” Christians I encountered convinced me that my Methodist grandmother didn’t “really” know the Lord because she didn’t know the “truth” God had specially revealed to them.

    At my grandmother’s funeral, people took me aside and told me stories of how my Grandmother had quietly gone about doing good for people who were often overlooked. One story in particular was from the depths of the Depression. Obviously, she and my grandfather were struggling to feed their own children, yet she’d secretly slipped sandwiches into the pocket of one of my father’s schoolmates when he’d come to their house to study after school. Often those sandwiches were the only food he’d had that day. I already knew she’d known what fear and hunger looked like when she saw it. She could’ve looked away. She trusted Christ enough to share what she had, instead. And did it all that good without fanfare, while protecting the dignity of the people she helped.

    That story and the plethora of others I heard that day made me rightly ashamed of having judged her as my spiritual inferior. And made me take a good hard look at the people who said her trust and obedience wasn’t the “right’ kind of faith.

    From what I see, KJVOism isn’t even a “special” kind of heresy, it’s just a version of that same garden variety of pharisee-ism that claims to own God himself, they alone represent him, they have exclusive rights to admit or deny access to him, and violates the 3rd commandment by hijacking God’s authority to advance their own agendas.

    The agenda, so far as I can see, is to make the body of Christ into something like a club, defined not so much by who they include as by who they exclude.

    But again, not having been an IFB-er, I’ll leave all y’all (there’s more than one way to skin that “multiple yous” cat) to discuss your unique experience. From what I’ve been reading here, I had it easy.

    1. Thank you for this beautiful story. I can relate!

      Let me encourage you to participate freely in the group. Despite the name it isn’t *all* about IFB. And we like to make friends.

      My favorite version is the NET, by the way!

      1. I had the NET on my old phone. Haven’t gotten around to putting it on this one. It’s a good translation; it and the ESV are my faves. That said, I use them more to look things up than to actually read.

    2. “The agenda, so far as I can see, is to make the body of Christ into something like a club, defined not so much by who they include as by who they exclude.” I was not an IFBer either but you have describe the branch of the Plymouth Brethren I was raised in to a T.

  45. Brandons point was that the thees and thous give us a more precise pronoun than exists in modern English, and that one of the pitfalls of no longer having singular and plural pronouns is that it isn’t always as clear whether it is an individual or a group being addressed. In an attempt to update things, one winds up making the passage less clear. I haven’t seen anybody in the comments section address the validity of his point.

    1. It has been addressed. Sometimes the comments are split between two pages, so you have to look.

      Thee and thou dropped out of usage in the language because no one was using them. Context and other phrasings were sufficient.

      Indeed, context is almost entirely sufficient if one eschews the fundy practice of snatching single verses or phrases out of context and actually reads larger sections of Scripture. Messages from God were contextual, never singular phrases or individual words.

      In other words, his plaint is not only invalid, it speaks to the inherently sloppy manner in which he approaches Scripture to begin with.

      1. I didn’t watch the video. I’m just here to comment on the comments.

        3. “Endarkening”– does that indicate the hearer will actually know less after listening to him? 😉

  46. I think some comments here are being a bit unfair to the original video. What he’s saying (at least in this video) is logical even if you acknowledge that the KJV is a translation. The KJV translators were trying to retain the distinction between sigular and plural found in the original languages.

    The question is, which is more important: the singular/plural distinction or producing a translation in the modern vernacular of the readers. It seems to me that that’s a matter of opinion.

    2. If you don’t produce a translation in the language of the readers, what is the point? Go ahead, use archaic language no one else uses! Create another impediment between God and Man!

      So, are you going to tell us that the Gospel is first, that you must understand archaic language as King James English? Then, and only then can you read the Scriptures to be wise unto Salvation?

      No, dammit! The point is that the KJV-onlyists are trying to make salvation to be based on works, on their pettiness. They are putting burdens on people that cannot be borne!

      Why shouldn’t the Scripture be put into the vernacular? That is what Bible translation exists to do! And I dare say, even with using today’s vernacular, translations like the NET are far more accurate than the King James Version.

      I think we are being more than fair in calling out the guy. As for “logical,” logic doesn’t work if the premises are bad, and his are BAD.

    3. Kevin,

      If you take the viewpoint that the Bible is important and has relevance for mankind today, then wouldn’t it follow that it should be translated into a form that people would understand it?

      My kid, upon receiving a new NIV, remarked on how much easier it was to understand than the KJV. My kid actually wanted to read it. The “correct” pronoun usage isn’t very useful if no one reads it.

      If the 400 y/o language is mandatory for the Bible, why don’t they mandate that we talk like that every day? Why the dichotomy?

      If no one understands what is read, is it saying anything? I believe there’s an epistle in the NT that says something along those lines.

      If there’s no point in speaking in tongues without an interpreter to make plain the message, is there a point in publishing a book full of vocabulary that no one uses or understands?

      If the distinction between the singular and plural of the second person is so important, that can be settled with the usage of Southern American vernacular: “y’all” for singular, “all y’all” for plural.

      It seems to me that the distinction can be easily discovered by reading the applicable pronouns in context.

      Cheers,
      TIILS

  47. Let’s see if this shows up where i want it to this time…

    I think some comments here are being a bit unfair to the original video. What he’s saying (at least in this video) is logical even if you acknowledge that the KJV is a translation. The KJV translators were trying to retain the distinction between sigular and plural found in the original languages.

    The question is, which is more important: the singular/plural distinction or producing a translation in the modern vernacular of the readers. It seems to me that that’s a matter of opinion.

    2. Except he’s wrong. The translators were completely willy-nilly about it. Not only that, the form of the pronoun in Greek may or may not match the antecedent (as in English, authors don’t always follow the rules of grammar).

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