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Showing posts with the label King James Version

Unicorns in the Bible?

When people hear the word unicorn, they typically think of the mythical magical horse with a horn on its head. I'll allow that it's a reasonable assumption, since we only hear about the beasties in fantasy stories. So why did the King James Version of the Bible use the word unicorn? Monoceros, Canis Minor, and Atelier Typographique  by Sidney Hall, 1825 Let's look at Numbers 23:22 KJV, one of several uses of unicorn. John Wycliffe and associates in the late 1300s rendered this verse, "The Lord God ledde hym out of Egipt, whos strengthe is lijk an vnicorn". The Coverdale Bible of 1535 rendered it, "God hath brought the out of Egipte, his stregth is as of an Vnicorne". In 1587, the Geneva Bible translated this verse as, "God brought them out of Egypt: their strength is as an vnicorne". Several Bibles before the KJV, including non-English translations such as Martin Luther's version, also used unicorn. Many modern versions translate We

A Cowboy Bible?

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen Before I get going on this, I'd better clarify something, even though many of my regular readers (and podcast interview listeners) know: my "cowboy" moniker is not earned. It's a nickname I picked up a few years ago, and it shows my cowboy attitude. I don't know nothin' 'bout no hayburners; tell me to saddle up a horse and ride, I'd probably get kicked, fall off, and land in poo. So, I need a guide. Yes, I lived in the West — the west side of Michigan. Anyway, being a cowboy at heart has helped me get things done. My father had a cowboy attitude as well, which is something I learned from testimonials at his funeral. Anyway, adding some Western-style lingo in posts and articles adds color and personality, I reckon, even though I usually have a conversational style for the most part. Assembled from components at Clker Clip Art A while back, I was looking for cowboy Bibles and came across the " Simplified Cowboy Versio

I Like Bibles Part 3: Saturday Resource

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen  Trevor's Stack of Bibles Although I risk stricter judgment by presuming to teach (James 3.1), this installment is significantly less objective than other things that I have done. But I still hope that you can get something out of it. In our previous adventures, I told you a bit of my personal history , and then some of the history of English language Bibles . That last one was a great deal of work, but very rewarding. I left off somewhere around 1611, when the King James Version had been released. Since then, not only has the KJV had several revisions, but other Bible revisions and translations have cropped up. I believe that is a good thing to some extent (I am most definitely not a "King James Only" advocate), but there are also drawbacks. One drawback that I will briefly mention is that Bibles have been rewritten by and for cultists like Joseph Smith , Johannes Greber and the Jehovah's Witnesses . I urge Christians to rem

I Like Bibles Part 2: Some History

In the bigynnyng was the word, and the word was at God, and God was the word. This was in the bigynnyng at God. Alle thingis weren maad bi hym, and withouten hym was maad no thing, that thing that was maad. In hym was lijf, and the lijf was the liyt of men; and the liyt schyneth in derknessis, and derknessis comprehendiden not it.  (John 1:1-5, Wycliffe, 1394 A.D.) In our last episode, I told you a bit of my history, and that I have a fondness for Bibles . This time, I would like to go a few hundred years before my own history. No, not all the way back to "how we got the Bible in the first place", that is more than I am willing to take on (but you can check this out if you want more of that information , as well as this source ). Instead, I am going to do an overview of English language Bible history. The first Bible that was translated into English was done through John Wycliffe (or Wyclife). He trained teachers who translated the Bible from the Latin Vulgate in the 1380s.