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Corrected King James VersionComplete New TestamentThere is a legend that Thomas Jefferson used to take a knife and cut out verses of the Bible that he didn't like. The results of his labor are known through the Smithsonian Museum. He doubted the veracity of the biblical authors, even though he believed Christ to be a great moral teacher. Jefferson was not the only one to cut things out of his Bible that caused him problems. Martin Luther was famous for wanting to relocate the epistle of James to an appendix. He did manage to find grounded logic by which the could remove the books of the Maccabees from his Old Testament when they were invoked against his problems with indulgences. Most of protestantism has followed him in maintaining Bibles with an Old Testament handed over strictly by Jewish scribes.While I admire Jefferson's and Luther's sincerity, I disagree with their premise. Jefferson and Luther decided what God must have said, then shaped their canon to match. I would rather determine what the canon is and use that to determine what God must have said.I believe that The Holy Spirit has aided and guided the process of biblical development. I'm uncomfortable with some images of inspiration in the popular sphere. The best description I've heard for how inspiration works comes from Plato's dialog Ion. In that, Plato (through the caricature of Socrates) explains that inspiration is like a magnet, and that once it touches a ring of iron, the ring becomes magnetic as well. I believe that God, through the course of living events, touches some of us. When some, particularly the Apostles and Prophets, are in their closest communication with God, their thoughts become divine. When those thoughts come out on ink and paper, that ink and paper becomes (in a sense) embedded with divine thoughts. To borrow an analogy from another great thinker, it is like a map of a great idea. The map is not the ocean. It can't get me wet. I can't sail my boat on it. But if I want to know the safest and best places to get wet or the most efficient way to sail my boat, the map is a better guide than a swimming pool.I really understand where Jefferson and Luther were coming from. I really like bacon with my breakfast, and there was a point in my life that I really had to take some time and put the study in on that issue. After all, the Bible does say, "And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you." (Leviticus 11:7) and unlike Jefferson, I was unwilling to just cut that verse out because it was inconvenient. I wanted to know what God actually said, not what I wanted God to have said.I hope this dispels the fear that some could have regarding my project. My aim is more in line with Erasmus than Jefferson. However poorly he got started, Erasmus set out to understand what the Bible said in the original language.So if I still end up having texts that are difficult for me and not having the clarity of text I might hope for, what is the point of creating a Corrected King James Bible? The point is to get just a little bit closer to the magnet of Christ and the Prophets and the Apostles. The point is the bring my ear just a few inches closer to God's lips so I can hear him that much more clearly. I think that the King James translators got it wrong in 1 John 5:7-8. I think that they put words in the Bible that were never supposed to be there, no matter how convenient they are for me. So I'm taking those words out so that I can more clearly hear the words that God has placed in the Bible.My goal is to provide a single translation of God's Word according to the sources that prayer and study has convinced me is the best primary source. Ultimately, I would like to translate all of these myself as well, but in the meantime The Corrected King James gives me a standardized English text to read and study from.
