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sscribner:
First off, I don\'t think we\'ve taken anything too far. What we\'re talking about here is very important. If we believe that God has revealed Himself through words and actions in history, then it is the job of the true student of the Bible and follower of Jesus to figure out what God said and what it means. No original document remains. We don\'t have the actual papyri that Paul originally wrote on, nor those of any other writer of the New Testament. Therefore, the task is three-fold: 1. What manuscripts (of the vast, vast multitudes of copies that we have) are as close to the original as possible? (This is textual criticism - good criticism, not bad. The kind that seeks to know what God actually said in space and time.) 2. How do we best translate these manuscripts into our own languages so that the masses can read it in their native tongue? (interpretation) 3. And how do we figure out what the message of the text is, i.e. what is Gof saying to us? (exegesis) For the sake of this discussion, to say the KJV is the \"original\" Bible, or the \"only\" Bible, or even the only good English translation misses everything. The KJV is only an English translation. While a good translation, and one that has been meaningful to many for several centuries, even the most pious believer (once he knows the facts) must admit that it is deficient. Since the days of Eusebius we have discovered earlier and more reliable manuscripts, and our understanding of the original languages is light years beyond what it was then. It only makes sense then that our translations reflect these changes and improve. I encourage you and all the others who read this to take these things into consideration. Even if you never learn Greek or Hebrew, that shouldn\'t stop you from learning all you can about how we got the Bible and what the process is for getting English translations. You can\'t always learn these things from those you admire most, for even the people you admire can be wrong. There are a lot of things my dad taught me as I was growing up, and while I love and admire him, as I have learned for myself there are just some things he was wrong about. That doesn\'t make him a bad person or not worthy to be listened to, it just means that as we learn and grow that we have to learn to think outside of the box sometimes, and that doesn\'t have to be a rebellious or inherently wicked thing.

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