Are there real disagreements between KJB editions?

[bibleprotector]

Rick Norris claims that there real disagreements between King James Versions. (The debate is here: http://bibleversiondiscussionboard.yuku ... tween-KJVs )

1. He claims that there are real disagreements between editions of the King James Version.

2. He lists two examples from two different editions printed in 1769.

3. He then posits that these real disagreements and differences can be settled by consulting the original languages.

4. Furthermore, he then states that if editions of the KJB were really self-authenticating, there would be no way to resolve such conflicts.

5. He concludes that since translation is made on the basis of the originals, so should editing.

His points (as I have objectively stated them) bewray incorrect thinking. These are my responses:

1. There are indeed differences between editions of the KJB, but they are not differences in the actual King James Version itself, and they are also fully resolvable, and that we have an edition which resolves all such issues without there being any real grounds for the charge of any significant alteration to the version or translation.

2. Mr Norris purposely withholds which two different editions he lists from 1769. (Watch this short video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBlJNZ1KquM .) We know that in 1769 was printed: "The Complete Family Bible" (Francis Fawkes), Folio (Wright and Gill, Oxford), Quarto (Archdeacon, Cambridge), Quarto (Wright and Gill, Oxford), Octavo (Wright and Gill, Oxford) I think not a Blayney, Duo-decimo (Archdeacon, Cambridge), and a few Testaments. Of course, any of these editions, even the folio and quarto superintended by Blayney, are going to exhibit some differences in their typography and copy-editing work between each other. Mr Norris is therefore not presenting openly all the facts, for that differences exhibited in Bibles printed in 1769 is really the same as saying that there are differences printed in editions printed in EVERY year. He is implying as if there is something about 1769 which is different to any other example.

3. The differences between two editions can most simply be resolved where one edition might have something which is unique, not found in any edition before it, and that it is in the examination of common sense and very evident to some copy editor that it is merely a unique typographical error. There is no necessity to consult the original languages to resolve or answer whether or not something, in this scenario, is a mistake. Whereas Mr Norris implies that consulting the original languages is mandatory, as though the text and translation of the King James Bible itself could be altered (that is, that this would give opportunity to change the actual intended text and translation of the translators of 1611 because an editor, according to Norris, may in fact enter the realm of being a translator.)

4. It is a false dilemma to say that any single edition from the past themselves are to be used as the authority of self-authenticating where and when it is known that editions contained typographical errors and unstandardised spellings, etc. The verity of the text and translation of the King James Bible is not effected nor locked to a typographical error unique in any single impression. It is as absurd as claiming that a book is no longer a Bible because the corner of a page was ripped off. The readings (the version) and the translation of the King James Bible being present in all editions is itself what is self-authenticating. Of course, having an edition which resolves and is free from typographical errors and the like effectively nullify even the hint of such a spurious claim being made against the King James Bible.

5. Editing of the King James Bible has, in the main analysis, and according to what testimony we have, been done in regard to elimination of typographical errors and the standardisation of the language. Presentational issues do not require some sort of necessary reliance upon repeated checking of the original languages as Mr Norris demands. Instead, Mr Norris wishes to debase the historically accepted lineage of editing (e.g. the Pure Cambridge Edition) and supplant the King James Version with various textual and translational adjustments made on an relative standard of some editor’s opinion of the Greek and Hebrew. To the degree that someone like David Norton attempted to do this — and remembering that Norton had another precept about going to a draft copy — it has not yielded successful results.

What does Norris think? That by examining the whole body of variations in the King James Version, he could reconstruct a “correct” text, or else, on the opposite side, produce a critical edition with an apparatus showing all the viable editorial “alternatives” as based on the authority of shoddy printers and numerous editorial decisions? In the end, Norris is about making rumours of war, claiming that there are “conflicts” which need to be (and probably cannot be) “resolved”. Why not surrender to the already achieved victory, the one which has already been bought and paid for, instead of this doctrine of works?