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The Many Misleading Flaws
In the Vocabulary
of
English Bible Translations
The King James Bible of 1611 was written, “that it may be understood even of the very vulgar.” The common people, as is true today, speak many words incorrectly, meaning the original word’s meaning has been corrupted or lost all together. For example, the word, awesome today is defined as “extremely impressive or daunting; inspiring great admiration” but this definition has nothing to do with the word, awesome; awe meaning terror, dread. Communication is loss when words lose their meaning. The Bible translators of 1611 used the vulgar vocabulary, then in use, when translating their King James Bible of 1611. Bible translations today, except the Rotherham Emphasized Bible, also commit this same error even though our culture is literate. Instead of reclaiming the English language by correcting the readers they accommodate the readers, leaving them in the dark. Yahweh’s sacred words can not be treated this way. Yahweh’s communication to his children has to be exact, as is done in the sciences and legal disciplines. Are you aware that the words mercy, worship, grace, atonement, hell, compassion, etc., as used in Bible translations are incorrect usages of these words? When these words are used, are we to understand their vulgar meanings, if so, what generational vulgar usage (1600’s, 1700’s, 1800’s etc.), or their true etymology meanings? One generation can restore integrity to Yahweh’s Sacred Word (His Word that has been Magnified Above His Name), by reeducating the vulgar to these communication errors, thereby restoring lost truths, unknown to the vulgar, which today, is the majority of Christians. John Locke addresses the abuse of words in his writings, ‘Of the Abuse of Words.’
Of the Abuse of Words
“This is necessary if language is to succeed—so necessary that in this respect ignorant people and learned ones all use words in the same ways. Meaningful words, in each man’s mouth, stand for the ideas that he has and wants to express by them. A child who has seen some metal and heard it called ‘gold’, and has noticed nothing in it but its bright shining yellow colour, will apply the word ‘gold’ only to his own idea of that colour and to nothing else; and so he will call that same colour in a peacock’s tail ‘gold’. Someone who has also noticed that the stuff is heavy will use the sound ‘gold’ to stand for a complex idea of a shining, yellow, and very heavy substance. Another adds fusibility to the list; and then for him the word ‘gold’ signifies a body that is bright, yellow, fusible, and very heavy. Another adds malleability, and so on. Each uses the word ‘gold’ when he has occasion to express the idea that he has associated with it; but obviously each can apply it only to his own idea, and can’t make it stand as a sign of a complex idea that he doesn’t have…
In addition to language’s natural imperfection, and the obscurity and confusion that it is so hard to avoid in the use of words, there are several willful faults and failures that men are guilty of, making words less clear and distinct in their meanings than they need to be…
…another great misuse of words is inconstancy in the use of them. It is hard to find a discourse on any subject, especially a controversial one, in which the same words—often ones that are crucial to the argument—are not used sometimes for one collection of simple ideas and sometimes for another. In arguments and learned disputes the same sort of proceeding is often mistaken for wit and learning…
…another misuse of language is intentional obscurity—either giving old words new and unusual meanings without explaining them, or introducing new and ambiguous terms without defining them, or combining words in such a way as to defeat their ordinary meanings…
Mankind’s business is to know things as they are, and to do what they ought, and not to spend their lives in talking about things or tossing words to and fro. So wouldn’t it be good for us if the use of words were made plain and direct, and if our language—which we were given for the improvement of knowledge and as a bond of society—were not employed to darken truth and unsettle people’s rights, to raise mists and make both morality and religion unintelligible? Or if these things do go on happening, wouldn’t it be good if they stopped being thought of as signs of learning or knowledge?
To conclude this consideration of the imperfection and misuse of language: the ends of language in our discourse with others are chiefly; 1) to make one man’s thoughts or ideas known to another, 2) to do that as easily and quickly as possible, and 3) thereby to convey knowledge of things. Language is either misused or deficient when it fails in any of these three purposes…
To provide some remedy for the defects of speech that I have mentioned, and to prevent the troubles that follow from them, I think it would be useful to conform to the following rules. First, a man should take care to use no word without a meaning, no name without an idea that he makes it stand for.”
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