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The Vineyard Pentecostal Church was launched in 1991
with Pastor The Vineyard Pentecostal church is a multi- racial church but one in Christ. We believes in divine power of God for solutions to every problem and situation. We take every thing to God in prayer. Come and experience the great love of God, share the harvest of joy with the glorious family. You have visited this page times
" The Word of the Lord came to me"(Jer. 2:1). The most commonly used English Bible is the Authorized Version (AV) or the King James Version (KJV) of 1611. Some copies and the words "Translated out of the original languages with the previous translations diligently compared and revised."A revision of the King James Version appeared in England in 1885 and is known as the English Revised Version (ERV). This same work, printed in 1901 with minor changes urged by the American members of the joint Revision Committee, is called the American Standard Version (ASV). THE KING JAMES VERSION The King James translators were believing men whose theology was in agreement with the teachings of the Book they were translating. The King James Version, although it is some hat antiquated now in details of expression, is an excellent representation of the original Greek and Hebrew texts available at that time. The English language has changed somewhat in the last 350 years and some of the Old English of the Authorized Version may be a bit strange to young Christians and children. It should be noticed that the translation we use today is not an exact copy of that printed in 1611. An examination of the earliest printing shown many strange spellings which were modified during about the first hundred years after it was published. For instance, "son" was spelled "sonne" "year" was "yeere". "he" was "hee" , "music" was "musick", The present-day Authorized Version contains all the changes made to approximately 1750. In the turbulent days of King James and his son Charles 1 the King James Version was never actually authorized by the King. Presumably the lack of official approval has not affected its usefulness .It continues to be widely accepted because of its own good qualities, especially by its great faithfulness to the original Greek and Hebrew The idea of translating the Bible into the language of the people was by no means new. God gave the Old Testament to the Jews in Hebrew ,except for a chapters which were written in Aramaic toward the end of the Old Testament period when Aramaic was becoming widely used. The New Testament was written in Greek for the people of that day,most of whom spoke Greek.Moreover, it was not in the old classical Greek dialect which was largely out of use,by the people. A very old tradition says that Mathew, being the Gospel written especially for the Jews, was written in Aramaic. This is possible ,but in any case it was soon brought out in Greek. The Bible was given in the language of the people. Wycliffe
Previous translation of the Bible into English had begun
with the work of John Wycliffe ,the Morning Star of the Reformation who
died in 1384 . His translation was done out the Latin Vulgate . He
claimed, The Sacred Scriptures are the property of the people and one
which no one should be allowed to wrest from them . He suffered for his
work . After death his body exhumed , burned, and his ashes scattered
on the Severn River that ran through his town. His purpose was noble
and his version and his traveling preachers whom he trained
called the lollards doubtless did much to prepare the way for
the spread of gospel doctrine in England later. TYNDALE Wycliffe was followed by William Tyndale ( 1483-1536) who saw that the great need of England was the the knowledge of the Bible . He vowed that the ploughboy of England should the Bible better than many of the priest of his day did. Being opposed `by the Bishops `in the reign of Henry the V111 , he fled to Holland ,where he printed the New Testament. Later he smuggled copies into England .He was finally captured by deceit and burned at the stake for his work. Things changed , however, and in England and also on the continent the Reformation progressed rapidly from its beginning in 1517. The dying prayer of Tyndale , Lord, open the King of England s eyes .was answered, and the next English version had a picture in the front ,showing King Henry V111 approving of and giving out the English Bible, the Great Bible of 1539 . It was followed by the Geneva Bible of 1560 , sparked by the reformers of the Geneva School. The Bishops Bible appeared in 1568. All these translations were used by scholars who translated the King James Version. After the middle 1500 s the English Bible was multiplied in England and a copy placed in every parish church.Since then the Bible has ever been available freely to the English -speaking world . The King James Version did not immediately displace the earlier translation . The old form of the Lords prayer Forgive us our trespasses had been used in the Prayer Book and is still used the Episcopal , Methodist and some other churches. By and large, however , these early translations can only be seen in museums. DOUAY VERSION The English Catholics in exile in France during the time of Queen Elizabeth brought out the Douay-Rheins Version in 1582-1635. This version was later modified considerably, in particular having added to it many objectionable footnotes. It uses the word priest to refer to officers in the Christian Church . This has been corrected in the Catholic New American Bible (NAB). EARLIER VERSION Before the time of Christ, the Jews in Egypt felt the need for the Scriptures in their common language,and around 200 B.C., the Old Testament was translated in Greek. This version is called the Septuagint,from the tradition that it was done by seventy scholars. About 200 A.D, in the Eastern Mediterranean World ,the Greek language gave way to Latin . The Church ,faced with this new need ,translated the Bible into Latin' Only fragments of this early Latin Version remain today. In the East ,in Mesoptamia and Armenia, Christianity spread among those who spoke Syriac. To fulfill l this need ,several translations were made into Syriac- a dialect very similar to Aramaic. A translation was also made in Gothic for use in evangelizing the Goths of Europe. THE LATIN VERSION About 400 A.D scholars in Rome realized that the common people no longer understood Greek. They also knew that the old Latin translation was not fully accurate,so Jerome began the work of translation in order that the people would have the Bible in their tongue. He wanted an accurate translation , so he decided to translate the Old Testament from the Hebrew directly. This he did,after first translating the Psalm from the Septuagint. In order to be sure of doing a good work, he went to Bethlehem and learned Hebrew from a Jewish scholar there. His translation was opposed at first ,but it finally became standard for the Western World .This version known as the Vulgate is used to this day by the Roman Catholic Church . The Vulgate was made in order to give the Bible to the people in their own language ,.It is a curious fact that in later years, after Latin became a dead language, this same Vulgate continued in use by the Roman Catholic which, in spite of the Douay Version, did not in general encourage Bible study bybthe laity. New emphases in the Roman Catholic Church have given new translations such as the Jerusalem Bible (JB) and the New American Bible (NAB) thus accepting Wycliffe s ancient principle that the laity should have the Bible for themselves. NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS Side
by side with these translations of the Bible, the manuscripts of the
Greek New Testament have been more or less available for study by
scholars. Only recently has Greek become practically unknown in large
areas of scholarship. A hundred years ago no person was considered well
educated unless he had studied at least some of the Greek classics.
European educators still require students of the higher classical
schools to study four or more years of Latin and two years of Greek.
All through the Middle Ages the study of Greek was kept alive,
especially in the As
can be understood by any secretary y, this hand-copying has resulted in
slight differences among the various manuscripts. It is interesting,
however, to notice that these differences are actually of very little
consequence. As the Greek language changed through those early
centuries, some manuscripts show that slight changes were made in
spelling and grammar. The copyists kept abreast of the language
development. Again, these variations make no difference in the meaning
or translation. Certain manuscripts, however, were more carefully
copied than others. These have fewer misspellings and are more
accurate. Some are very old and therefore have special value.
OLD
TESTAMENT LANGUAGE The
Hebrew Old'Testament presented an entirely different problem until the
discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947. After the Jews rejected
Christ and the gospel, Christianity spread among those who spoke Greek.
For 1400 years there was no significant knowledge of Hebrew in As
a result of these practices, there are no Hebrew manuscripts (except
the new Scrolls), earlier than about 900 A.D. There is good evidence,
however, that the present manuscripts are very accurate copies of the
text in use about 200 A.D. All extant Hebrew manuscripts are in close
agreement. These were used by the translators of the King James
Version, the English Revised Version, the American Standard Version,
and the Revised Standard Version. The latter translators also had the
Dead Sea Scrolls of Isaiah and Habakkuk, but found only a few places
where these improve the reading of the usual standard Hebrew text which
was produced by Jewish scholars of the Middle Ages. The scholars were
known as Masoretes, and their text is called the Masoretic Text. The
Old Testament picture has been changed through the discovery of the
Dead Sea Scrolls. These are the old leather scrolls discovered since
1947 in several caves near the northwest end of the Others
give insight into the lives and beliefs of the Jews who lived there.
They show that these Jews apparently belonged to the sect of the
Essenes (pronounced Eseenz). The Scrolls are a wonderful confirmation
of the Christian faith. They provide a clear picture of the varied
Jewish background of our faith. They do not detract from the
distinctiveness of Jesus Christ as the supernatural and risen Son of
God. Although some scholars have questioned the value of the Scrolls,
they do uncover valuable information on the 010 Testament text. The
best preserved Scroll is the whole book of Isaiah, dating from about
125 B.C. Another COPY of Isaiah, less well preserved, is almost
identical with the well-known Masoretic Text. There are several
portions of Daniel dating from the late second century B.C. Daniel is
quoted at this date along with other Old Testament books. This shows
clearly that Daniel was regarded as inspired. The copy shows the change
from Hebrew to Aramaic at the same place as our text has it. A
portion of Job dating from about 200 B.C. was written in the old Hebrew
characters-the so-called Phoenician alphabet. Some pieces of Jeremiah
were found from about 200 B.C. Extensive portions of Samuel have been
found from about 225 B.C. These last manuscripts show close similarity
with the text of the Greek version called the Septuagint made at about
this time. The Septuagint does not differ essentially from the Hebrew,
and it is now believed that in some details it preserves an older form
of the sacred text than our Hebrew copies. This is interesting because
the New Testament quotes most frequently from the Greek Septuagint. The
new discoveries have shown the correctness of the New Testament in
these little details. MODERN
VERSIONS There
is now an abundance of translations made in modern times. The first
major effort was the Revised Standard Version (RSV) of 1952. It was not
a new translation and retained some of the flavor of the King James
Version such as the use of thee and thou in address to Deity, Much of
it was done by scholars of liberal persuasion and this fact shows,
especially in the Old Testament. Messianic prophecies are particularly
unsatisfactory. The Revised Standard Version has been matched in Two recent translations done by evangelical scholars are noteworthy. The first was the New American Standard Bible (NASB). Technically, this is a revision of the American Standard Version, but with constant attention to the original text. It utilizes the newly discovered texts and advances in language study. In an effort to be true to the text, it sometimes is too prone to follow Greek or Hebrew order, or to reproduce too mechanically the wording or tenses of the original. However, it is an excellent study Bible. The other such translation is the New International Version (NIV). This is the fruit of a large group of conservative scholars who have worked in translation teams and editorial committees much as did the King James translators. The effort has been to make a careful, true, and reverent translation which will be suitable for public reading, private devotion, and careful study. It is not a word-forword translation but more sentence by sentence taking the statements of the inspired author and putting them in the language of today. It is possible these two versions will become standard among those who wish to supplement the King James Version with a modern English version.
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