The Calvinist ESV: John 1:9, Is. 48:8, Is. 46:3, Jer. 19:5... (to #101! Yay!)
Made it to #100 finally! Yahoo!
#94-100: (Thanks to Brian Wagner for sharing #94-96 in the comment section of Soteriology 101's post Calvinism Obscures the Simple Gospel, near the end.)
94: John 1:9 in the KJV: "That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." But in the ESV, it's "The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world."
Who's "coming into the world": people or the Light (Jesus)?
While I think both could be argued for and that this is a subtle and maybe insignificant distinction, it seems to me that the KJV is more specific that every individual person born has been "lit" and so, therefore, we all can and should see the truth of Jesus.
However, the ESV makes it sound more like Jesus just came into the world as a general light in the midst of all people but not every individual person can see it because not every individual person has been "lit". To me, the ESV's version more easily supports the idea of Calvinism's election, that God only "lights" the elect, giving only them the eyes to see the truth.
This becomes an issue of who's responsible for whether or not we believe. In the KJV, all have been "lit" and so all can see the truth, and so if we don't see it, it's our fault because we refuse to see it. But in the ESV, if we don't see the truth, it's because we can't see the truth because God didn't light our hearts.
95: Isaiah 48:8 in the KJV: "... and wast called a transgressor from the womb." But in the ESV: "... and that from before birth you were called a rebel." The KJV seems to say that from the moment they (the house of Jacob) were born, these people were rebels. But the ESV seems to say that they were rebels from before birth.
Once again, this is an issue of who's responsible. If they were "born" first, then they were capable of making decisions which means they chose to be rebellious. But if they were called rebels before they were even born - before they even existed or could make any choices - then God is responsible for it, as if He predestined them to be that way.
[Wagner points out that the ESV translated the same word in Is. 44:2, 44:24, 46:3 (last part), 49:1, and 49:5 as just "from the womb," with no addition of "before" as it did in 48:8. So the ESV translators clearly know the proper definition, yet they chose to add "before" to 48:8 anyway. Interesting! Suspicious!]
96: Isaiah 46:3 in the KJV (not from Wagner's list): "Hearken unto me, O house of Jacob... which are borne by me from the belly..." But in the ESV: "Listen to me, O house of Jacob... who have been borne by me from before your birth..."
Once again, the ESV adds the idea of "before" they were ever born, making it sound like God carried/sustained them before they even existed.
But the Hebrew makes it sound like these people have been upheld by God from the moment of their birth, that God sustained these people from their beginning, making the KJV more accurate and more sensical.
It might be small and subtle, but changes like these "befores" play into the Calvinist idea of predestination, that God preplans, causes, controls how everything goes and that everything happens just as He preplanned from the beginning.
97: Jeremiah 19:5 (about child sacrifice) in the KJV: "... which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind..." But in the ESV: "... which I did not command or decree, nor did it come into my mind..."
Oddly, the ESV is one of the only ones to say "decree" instead of "speak," that God did not "decree" child sacrifice. I only point this out because the ESV, which is a Calvinist Bible extraordinaire, shoots itself in the foot here. In Calvinism, God decrees everything that happens and everything that happens is because He decreed it, and so we couldn't do something unless He decreed it. And yet here, the ESV is saying that God never decreed child sacrifice and yet the people were doing it anyway. This is Calvinism contradicting Calvinism in one verse.
(Calvinists will simply respond to this by saying "Well, God decrees that we break His decrees." But can they not see the incredible damage this does to God's character and His Word and trustworthiness!?!)
98. [This is not a translation issue but an interpretive one.] Calvinists have used the "be perfect" verse - Matthew 5:48: "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" - to support their idea of "See, God commands us to do things He knows we can never do and so, likewise, He commands unregenerated people to believe in Jesus even though He knows they can never do it on their own."
But the "be perfect" verse is not about doing everything perfectly or never making a mistake or never sinning. According to the concordance (Strongs 5046), it's about spiritual maturity. And it's even translated as maturity in other verses about people. So it's not about doing everything exactly right or never sinning (something we cannot do), but it's about growing in spiritual maturity until the end (something we can do).
99. (And a few more related to interpretation errors, not to translation errors or the ESV in particular. But I think they're important.)
Calvinists quote verses like these to "prove" that God creates evil:
Isaiah 45:7 (KJV): "I form the light, and create the darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things."
Job 2:10 (ESV): "... Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?"
However, according to the concordance, "evil" in these verses is about "calamity, distress, adversity, injury, woe, etc." More like a physically bad thing, an emotional trial, a difficult struggle. NOT a moral evil along the lines of wickedness.
Click here for the Hebrew word and its definition/usage. In the Brown-Driver-Briggs list, Isaiah 45:7 falls under the definition of "evil, distress, adversity" (II.1.) and Job 2:10 falls under "evil, injury, wrong" (II.2.). So those verses are not saying that God creates or ordains moral evils, but that God can send physical/emotional/earthly distress or injury.
[God can cause distress, calamity, illness, or a natural disaster and still be a holy, just, and righteous God. But He cannot cause people to be evil - to do something He commanded them not to do, and then punish them for it - and still be a holy, just, righteous God. And He can use our self-chosen moral evils, working them into His plans, but He cannot and does not preplan/create the evil or put it in our hearts or make it irresistible.]
In fact, many times in the Old Testament, the word "evil" means "distress, adversity, injury, etc.," a physical, earthly kind of trouble - not "ethically/morally bad, wicked" (those verses are, as far as I can tell, listed under points I.10. and II.3. and III.3, and they all have to do with the moral wickedness of people/nations, never as a moral/ethical evil originating with God).
Also notice that in the right-hand list of verses, that word is sometimes even translated as "sad, ugly, wild, displeased, etc." This word "evil" doesn't have to - and often doesn't - mean "wicked or ethically/morally evil." So when a Calvinist quotes Isaiah 54:7 or Job 2:10 to "prove" their Calvinist belief that God creates moral evils, they are interpreting it wrong, using the wrong definition for "evil."
And finally #100. (Yay! We made it! With a little "cheating" by including interpretive errors. But that's okay, I'll let it slide.) Calvinists use Jonah 2:9 - "Salvation belongs to the Lord" - to "prove" that God determines who get saved from hell and who doesn't.
However, according to the concordance, in the Old Testament, the word "salvation" does not refer to salvation from sin, but it refers to God delivering people from external evils, earthly troubles.
From Strong's Expanded Exhaustive Concordance, Red Letter Edition, with Vine's Complete Expository Dictionary of the Old and New Testament: "'Salvation' in the Old Testament is not understood as a salvation from sin, since the word denotes broadly anything from which 'deliverance' must be sought: distress, war, servitude, or enemies."
So the "salvation" that comes from the Lord in Jonah 2:9 is Jonah's salvation from the earthly distress/trouble that he found himself in (being in the belly of a great fish) after he ran from the Lord in disobedience.
And a bonus, #101: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)
Calvinists say that faith is a gift that only God can give us. By this they mean God has pre-chosen some people to give faith to (the "elect"), but He withholds this gift of faith from others (the "non-elect").
But ... faith is not the gift.The whole concept of salvation, of being saved by grace though our faith. Salvation is the gift of God. Eternal life.
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.
