18. The consequences of changing the Bible are clear to some
At the end of the Book of Revelation, two verses before the close of the Christian Bible, a warning appears – which is supported by others throughout the Old and New Testaments. It is a warning against altering the words of the Bible. Those who regard the Bible as the literal and immutable word of the Creator ignore a simple literal and immutable fact. The Bible was not written in English. Its characters did not speak English. A polyglot of languages were used to pass down its stories in oral traditions long before they were committed to the page in writing, and when they were it was in several different ancient languages, by several different writers, in different eras of history.
Even when it was first translated into English, it was in the English of Chaucer, itself vastly different from the English of today. The modern English alphabet had yet to be standardized when the King James Version first appeared. Four hundred years later English continues to change, and the knowledge of the ancient languages from which the Bible was created has led to a better understanding of the many words which were long found in the Bible. The King James Version of the Bible includes nine mentions of the mythical animal the unicorn as if it were real. The reason the animal appears in that version of the Bible is simply because of mistranslation based on misunderstanding of the Hebrew word re’em, translated into Greek as monokeros (one-horned), then to Latin as unicornis (one-horned) and finally into English by the translators under King James as unicorn.
Where do we find this stuff? Here are our sources:
“Authorized Version: A Wonderful and Unfinished History”. C. P. Hallihan. 2010
“Misquoting Jesus: the story behind who changed the Bible and why”. Bart D. Ehrman. 2005
Mary Mowczko – 7 Things You May Not Know About The King James Bible
History Extra – The Making Of The King James Bible
Baptist Press – Until 1950s, The King James Version Was ‘The Bible’
Smithsonian Magazine – The Origins of the King James Bible
“Begat: The King James Bible and the English Language”. David Crystal. 2011
“A Textual History of the King James Bible”. David Norton. 2005
“The Oxford Companion to the Bible”. Bruce Metzger, Michael Cooper eds. 1993
“The Greek New Testament”. Samuel T. Bloomfield. 1843
“A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament”. Bruce M. Metzger. 1994
“The New Testament in the Original Greek”. Brooke Foss Westcott, Fenton John Anthony Hort. 1881
“A Companion to the Greek Testament and the English Version”. Philip Schaff. 1883 (2011)
“A possible case of Lukan authorship”. Henry J. Cadbury. 1917
“Are there really unicorns in the Bible?” Martin Saunders, Christian Today. June 1, 2018. Online