Jack Chick #fundie

Jack Chick #fundie chick.com

QUESTION: If there is a perfect Bible in English, doesn't there also have to be a perfect Bible in French, and German, and Japanese, etc?

ANSWER: No. God has always given His word to one people in one language to do one job; convert the world. The supposition that there must be a perfect translation in every language is erroneous and inconsistent with God's proven practice.

(etc etc...)

Thus in choosing English in which to combine His two Testaments, God chose the only language which the world would know.

125 comments

old comment by John

If God wanted us to have one language, why did He destroy the Tower of Bable?

Why didn't God save Tyndale from being burned at the stake for translating the New Testament into English? It can't be that he did a bad job of it - the KJB translators copied most of it word for word.

Why did the KJB translators take such pains to explain why it was OK to translate the sacred scripture into other languages?

Why would God choose a language that was unintelligible only a thousand years ago? Lord's prayer in "English", 1,000 years ago:

"Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum, Si þin nama gehalgod. To becume þin rice, gewurþe ðin willa, on eorðan swa swa on heofonum. Urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg, and forgyf us ure gyltas, swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum. And ne gelæd þu us on costnunge, ac alys us of yfele. soþlice."

old comment by

Unfortunately for Chick, the facts are different from this. The Old Testament was translated into Greek in the BCs, which was the language the New Testament was also written in. The Eastern Orthodox Christians (in their Greek-speaking churches) still use the LXX translation of the Old Testament and the original Greek New Testament.

The KJV was based off of a version of the Bible by Erasmus (who was condemned as a heretic by the Catholic Church following his death) called the Textus Receptus. Martin Luther also translated his version of the Bible (which, of course, was in German) from the same source text.

But, the KJV-only crowd never lets facts get in the way of their fantasies. You know that a group is batshit crazy when even most Fundies think they are crazy.

old comment by Helena Constantine

1. Chick is an idiot, and the Hebrew was translated into many ancient languages (such as Greek and Aramaic) before the brith of Jesus. Hence the two testaments existed in a Greek form, and Later in at least two differnt Latin translations (the Vetus Latina and the Vulgate of Jerome). However the KJV (which was far from the frist complete translation of the Bible into English--the Lollards had one and Henry VII commissioned one, among others) was done from the best avaialbe Hebrew and Greek texts, not the Vulgate as some commentors here wrongly asserted.

2. I must admit, however, that there is something to Chick's assertion (if you check the whole quote on his website), that English has a natural superioirty to other modern languages and that it reached this condition for the frist time in the late 16th century, as Sir Philip Sydney said, 'English hath it equally with any other tongue in the world.'

3. As for this comment above:

"Let's not tell him that English is a germanic language and that it has a load of french words."

And more Latin and Greek loanwords than any other Modern language--All that is what gives it ist strength. But how is that relevant?

old comment by Helena Constantine

'Let's see. When the apostles were about to start their mission, they were bathed in the fire of the Holy Spirit and acquired the ability to speak in tongues, meaning that regardless of the fact they spoke ancient Hebrew, EVERYONE could understand them. There is a Biblical precedent that the Word transcends every language.'

I doubt if any of the Apostles could speak Hebrew, a scholarly language by that time (except possibly paul but he was not present at Pentacost). In any case the language of the early Church was clealry Greek--most of the early members would have been bilingual in Aramaic and Greek--Even Jesus might have known enough Greek to get by with the bosses he would have encountered as a day-laborer.

old comment by CJ

The medieval Welsh (who certainly knew at least as much about the matter as Jack Dick), held that French was the language of pigs, English was the language of men, and that Welsh was the language of heaven. From this, we can see that the translation of the Bible into Welsh, first completed by William Morgan in 1588 (encouraged and authorized by Queen Bess and Parliament), was in the intended "one language" that God had in mind, and that those who think that English is supposed to be the one language have, quite simply, gotten it wrong. So all these supporters of the English--whether KJV or other version--need to go learn Welsh, so they can read their Book in the language of heaven, as god obviously intended!

So there.

old comment by Delmania

"I doubt if any of the Apostles could speak Hebrew, a scholarly language by that time (except possibly paul but he was not present at Pentacost). In any case the language of the early Church was clealry Greek--most of the early members would have been bilingual in Aramaic and Greek--Even Jesus might have known enough Greek to get by with the bosses he would have encountered as a day-laborer."

Thanks for the clarification!

Still the Bible states that at Pentecost, the Apostles received the gift of Tongues, so there is actually Biblical precedence for the belief that the Word of God would be understood in every language rather than the belief that (american) English is the One True Language. Throw in the story of the Tower of Babel which was supposed to explain why people spoke different languages, this claim pretty much has no basis in Bible, which is what most fundies seem to think.

Jack Chick #fundie chick.com

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