It's pretty simple - for the best word for word translation of the Bible in English, trust the KJV. Nobody corrects God's Word or puts in endless footnotes or omits, adds or rephrases it to confuse you. I like this book because it shows you what the differences in the different Bible versions in English are. There are over 50?! It shows the importance of having the FULL counsel of God.

The first chapter pretty well sets the stage for the entire book: build a straw man then show how only the KJV gives the right answer. Daniels examines John's account of Jesus and the Feast of Tabernacles in John 7. He then charges modern versions with making Jesus out to be a liar because He said He was "not going" (as opposed to "not going yet").

So what does the Greek tell us? The Greek word oupo appears twice in v. 8 and once in v. 6 according to the manuscripts which follow the Byzantium tradition. But many of the so-called Alexandrian Texts also agree with the majority, including the Vaticanus. In fact the NET Bible, while itself leaving "yet" out, acknowledges that "...most of the better witnesses, have “not yet”... My USB 2nd ed. list some 20 manuscripts or ancient witnesses that change the first oupo to ouk but list about twice that many that have oupo in both the main clause and the conditional clause in v. 8. Even Westcott & Hort followed the majority reading here.

I can only guess as to why the Critical Text switched but this is my opinion. As a general rule the Critical Text followers accuse the Majority Text crowd of adding to the Sacred Record, thus, they usually follow a shorter reading. Of course, the Majority Text folks believe their opponents delete words from the Scripture. For some time now I have been interested in the repetition of words in the Greek NT. Let me illustrate. When I was in high school, my English teacher stressed that we should be careful not to repeat words too often in our compositions. You may have noticed that in the first part of this paragraph I wrote "Majority Text crowd" but in the next sentence changed it to "Majority Text folks." Why? The truth is, I did it by nature without realizing that I could use it as an illustration. In the West we just have this thing about repeating something too often. Thus we are always trying to find different ways to say the same thing. But in Bible days they had no such compunction or uneasiness of the mind about such things. A good Biblical example can be found in Romans 4 where the Greek word logizomai appears 11 times but the KJV renders it with three different English words (counted, reckon, imputed). Here, instead of deleting the word logizomai, the KJV translators changed the English words to avoid repetition. And I believe this is exactly what some copyist did in the Sinaiticus and other manuscripts which chose to replace the first oupo with ouk. Since they had no preconceived notions about this change making Jesus look like a liar, they shortened the text.

A quick survey of about a dozen modern versions reveals that the NIV, Holman and New Century Version have the word "yet" but footnote it while the ESV, ASV, CEV, Good New, NET and NRSV leave it out but do footnote it. Only the NASB leaves it out without explanation.

But do these modern versions portray Him as a liar as Daniels claims? When He said, "I am not going" what limitations would we expect on the word "not?" For example, we live out in the country about 8 miles from our town. If my wife came into my office while I was studying for my Sunday school lesson and said "I am going to town" but I replied "well, I am not going to town" what limitations would she understand? Would she automatically think I am never going to town again? Not likely! No, she would probably assume that I understand she is going to the grocery store, to Wal-Mart and who knows where else. So she would probably understand it to mean that, if I go, I am not going with her! But, if I said, "You go (by yourself). I am not going to town because I don't yet have my SS lesson done" she would know I plan to go, just not yet.

To believe that his brothers would accuse Him of telling a lie amounts to reading into the text what Daniels wants to find. He suggests they went down to Jerusalem thinking that Jesus was going to break the Law yet Daniels paints His half brothers as believing " That 'goody two-shoes' never acted like everyone else in the family. He never broke a rule." (Emphasis his, p. 23). In the first place I do not think His brothers would use language like that. Second, if they knew He never broke a rule, why would they now think that He was going to break the Law, especially when his conditional clause suggests He will go when His time comes?

As someone who has used only the KJV in my preaching and teaching, I long for those days over 40 years ago when I joined the fundamentalist movement when we argued about which Greek text was superior rather than this johnny-come-lately argument that the KJV is the inspired, inerrant Word of God in English. ( )