I am breaking the "A Random Verse That Destroys Calvinism (And 'Is the ESV a Calvinist Bible'?)" post up into shorter segments so that each verse (or two) gets it own post.
#35: Now I found this one a bit interesting because I think the ESV and KJV both get it wrong (the ESV more so). In 1 Corinthians 1:2, the KJV says "Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord..." This "called to be saints" could sound like Calvinism's idea of election. But the ESV is even more Calvinistic because it strategically removes a comma and words it this way: "To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ..."
The ESV ties "called to be saints" together with "all those who call on Jesus," making it sound like all who call on Jesus do so because they were were called (in Calvinism: prechosen, elected, predestined) to be believers. At least the KJV has a comma between the two, making it more about 1 Corinthians being a letter to the church of Corinth (the sanctified saints there), as well as to all others everywhere who have called on Christ and been sanctified in Christ. In the ESV, it's that they've all been "called to be saints" together, but in the KJV, it's that they've all been "sanctified" together because they all call on Jesus.
However, even though "called to be saints" would make Calvinists very happy because it makes it sound like they were elected to be saved, chosen to be believers, when you look up the Greek for this sentence, you see the word is not "saints" but "holy." And it's not a noun, but an adjective, meaning to be different, set apart, sacred. But since both the ESV and KJV seem to use it as a noun, saying that they were called to be saints, they are both wrong (the ESV more so). It should be more like "called to be holy people," which is what "saints" implies and stands for - "holy people," not "(predestined) believers in Christ" as Calvinists would use it. So it's not that we are called to be something (a believer, noun); it's that believers are called to be a certain kind of people (holy, adjective). This verse does not support Calvinist "election," but it's about how all believers should act and live. We are all called to be holy because we all call on Jesus as Lord and are sanctified by Him. And this is who Paul is writing to.
A note about the ESV vs King James:
If you really want to get into the nitty-gritty, read these articles about the men who wrote the Greek texts that the ESV is based on: "Westcott and Hort: Translator's Beliefs" and "Westcott and Hort and the Greek Text." The ESV is based on the RSV, which is based on the Greek Texts of these two men (who, it sounds like, rejected the infallibility of Scripture, despised evangelicals, questioned Jesus's divinity and an eternal hell, did not believe Genesis and the creation story was literal, affirmed Darwin and evolution, etc.), which is based on two corrupted manuscripts which differ from the majority of the more reliable manuscripts that the KJV is based on.
So when something says that the ESV has only made 6% changes, it means "from the RSV," meaning that it's 94% the same as the RSV it was based on, a translation which was based on two corrupted manuscripts that disagree with the majority of the manuscripts available. It would be like if a journalist interviewed 100 people about an event ... and 95 of them said the exact same thing, but 5 told a different story ... and the journalist decided to side with the 5 and print their story as fact. Raises some red flags, doesn't it?
In the course of researching this issue, and after not knowing for decades what to think of the whole "which translation is most accurate" debate, I now side with the King James. I mean, I have several other translations, and I think different ones are good for different reasons, such as readability, compare and contrast, to hear God's Word in a fresh way, etc. But when having to decide which one is more reliable and accurate, especially considering the significant differences like those above, I have to side with the KJV (not the New King James, just the King James). And I've never been more sure of it than now, after all this research.
