Question 27: Is the KJV in error when it does not capitalize pronouns that refer to God?

why does the kjv not capitalize some pronouns that refer to god the father god the son or god the holy spirit is this an error so let's think about that let's think about that together so you know that i'm not going to say that the king james bible has errors but it is the case that there are pronouns that refer to god in the kjv that are not capitalized so what's what's the explanation let's start with this my general encouragement to you you can of course choose to handle this however you want is that when you read something in the king james that seems to be an error you should resist that conclusion it's far more likely in fact it is certain that it's not an error but there is an error in your thinking in other words there's something that we're not understanding if we think that the king james has an error and so the simple explanation i'll give you the conclusion up front and then i'll show you this the simple reason why the king james does not capitalize some pronouns that refer to god is that the king james does not always follow modern rules of grammar it simply doesn't now you may i trust you realize this language changes over time there are words that become archaic they're not bad words they're not wrong words they're simply words that we stop using and so the words become archaic the language has changed capitalization rules change over time punctuation rules change grammar and style rules change over time it's just simply a fact that what happens with language is that language changes over time what people often do is they look at the king james bible and they they see something they say well well that's not right it really should read such and such and what they're doing is they're applying their modern current understanding to the king james when that's not how things were done at that time let me give you an example so for example the king james was written it was first published in 1611 so let's take a more recent document let's take the united states constitution that was first drafted in 1787 and what i would encourage you to do with the constitution is read it i know that no one in washington dc does but that doesn't mean that you and i can't in fact i'd encourage you to read that if you read the constitution what you're going to notice is there are some words that are spelled differently from how we would spell them today if you read the constitution you're going to notice that capitalization is different from how we would do capitalization today that doesn't mean that the constitution has errors it doesn't mean that those differences are somehow defects what it means is that language has changed over time so when people look at the king james and they say well the pronouns should be different or this should be different or that should be different it's frankly rather presumptuous so let me give you uh three different examples of where the king james version does not follow the modern grammar rules that we would use today so i'll give you three examples of that first of all get mark we'll start in the book of mark get mark chapter six mark chapter six verse one and he went out from thence and came into his own country and his disciples follow him now the way that verse reads it really sounds like instead of saying his disciples follow him it should say his disciples followed him let's read it again and he went out that's past tense and he went out from thence and came past tense into his own country and his disciples present tense follow him now if you wrote that sentence in an english paper and you turn it into your high school english teacher today what would the english teacher say the english teacher would say well dave you have a problem the first part of the sentence is in past tense and then the next part of the sentence is in present tense and what you need to do for good writing is you need to write in a way where the verb tense is consistent and they would mark it wrong and they would tell you that you need to revise it that is the current style but god is not bound by man's rules as to style obviously god was aware that that read followed rather than followed if he wanted it to be different he could have made it to be different but don't tell me that that is an error it's just simply not following modern usage i'll give you another example so the first example we saw was that the bible does not always employ consistency in verb tense it will use different verb tenses even within the same verse the same sentence the second example is this the bible does not always follow the rule that a pronoun must refer to its closest antecedent i'll say that again the bible does not always follow the rule that a pronoun must refer to its closest antecedent so when you're normally when you're writing today and you're using a pronoun when you look at that pronoun that pronoun should match the noun of the same number and person that is closest to it look with me at second chronicles chapter 6. second chronicles chapter six second chronicles chapter six and verse thirty eight now i want you to notice the pronouns in this verse if they and that's a reference to israel in the context if they return to thee with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their captivity in other words israel is in the land of captivity and what second chronicles is saying is if they return to god with all their heart but then notice the next part of the verse and let me just read it all together if they that's israel return to thee with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their captivity whether they have carried them captives the they have carried them the they is the gentile nation the them is israel they have carried them captives so the they at the beginning of the verse is about israel but the next they changes from israel to israel's enemies with no indication it just makes the change now if you read the verse you can tell that's clearly what's being intended you can tell that's the clear meaning but that does not follow the modern grammar rule that a pronoun should be based upon its closest antecedent why is that well it's not that the bible has errors it's that the bible isn't necessarily bound by how we choose to do things today i'll give you another example the bible often changes from second person to third person without notice so get with me second samuel chapter 7. ii samuel chapter 7 and verse 23. and what one nation in the earth is like thy people thy people is a reference to god the thy is god it's god's people and what nation in the earth is like thy people even like israel whom god went to redeem for a people to himself and to make him a name and to do for you that's israel great things and terrible for thy land before thy people which thou redeem us to thee from egypt from the nations and their gods so thy refers to god in the second person but you see where it says to do for you great things and terrible it then refers to israel in the second person so the verse starts off talking about god in the second person but then it changes to you in the second person referring to israel i'll show you another example again second chronicles chapter 7. the simple fact of the matter is there are some practices there are some conventions that the king james bible follows or more specifically there are some human conventions that the king james bible does not follow and that doesn't mean that it's in error that's just a presumptuous judgmental thing to say second chronicles chapter 7 verse 9 19 but if ye turn away and forsake my statutes and my commandments the thee there is israel but if ye turn away and forsake my statutes and my commandments which i have set before you and shall go and serve other gods and worship them then will i pluck them up by the roots out of my land which i have given unto them in verse 19 god refers to israel in second person as you but in verse 20 he refers to israel in third person as them there's not consistency in the way pronouns are used again this doesn't make the king james bible wrong it just simply doesn't follow the modern rules that people think should be followed so when the king james bible doesn't capitalize certain pronouns that refer to god was god aware of that he knew that it didn't bother him he's not upset about it we don't need to be upset about it either the king james bible simply doesn't follow some of the modern rules that people believe should be followed now this is a good time to give you some bonus content so this is another issue that is sort of similar to this topic and i thought i would mention it i don't know if you've ever encountered this but some people will criticize the king james bible because it doesn't say anything about dinosaurs and what they'll essentially say is this look we have fossils we have all this evidence that dinosaurs existed and these creatures are huge and the bible doesn't say anything about it obviously the bible was a bunch of myths it wasn't written by people that had actual knowledge of the events that went on at the time because there would be more about dinosaurs now i've come up with an appropriate response to that balderdash that's just nonsense and so let me just share one thing with you that's fascinating you do know that the word dinosaur was invented in 1841 so when people say well the king james bible doesn't mention dinosaurs children if the word wasn't invented until 1841 that it's hardly going to be mentioned within the 1611. so that's point one point number two is this are you sure that the bible doesn't say anything about dinosaurs have you read job chapter 40 it talks about a behemoth i'm going to suggest to you the bible does say something about dinosaurs it just simply doesn't use that word because the word hadn't even been invented one last point before we move to the next question and that is this when you encounter people that tell you the king james bible has errors they're not telling you about the king james bible they're telling you about their heart you follow me in other words when people accuse the bible of air they think they're commenting on the bible no they're not commenting on the bible they're revealing the inward state of their heart is what they're doing

Channel: Columbus Bible Church

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Keywords: grace, dispensation, dispensational, dispensationalism, rightdivide, rightlydivide, biblestudy, kingjames, kingjamesbible, apostlepaul, bible, rightdivision, midacts, paulinetruth, mid-acts, pauline, mystery, rightly divide, bible study, king james, king james bible, apostle paul, pauline truth

Id: b9QDGTN0_EU

Length: 14min 16sec (856 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 13 2021