Friday, January 17, 2014

"Such As Should Be Saved"

     In the King James Version of the New Testament, Acts 2:47 says, "Praising God,
and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such
as should be saved." Our attention will be focused on the words, "such as should be
saved."

     The Greek text underlying the King James Version New Testament is the Textus
Receptus, sometimes called the Received Text. Theodore Beza published four folio
editions of the Stephens Greek text, and this included some changes of his own. The
1598 edition of Beza's text and the last  two editions of  Robert Stephens, were the
main sources used for the English  Authorized  Version  of  1611. Bonaventure and
Abraham Elzevir published  editions of  the  Greek  text  in 1624, 1633, and 1641,
following editions of Beza's 1565 edition. The Elzevir text became known as the
Textus Receptus or Received Text throughout Europe.

     The words "such  as  should be saved" do  not  accurately  translate the Greek
phrase as it stands in the Textus Receptus. It says, "prosetithei tous sozomenous."
The Majority Text, Westcott and Hort, and Nestle-Aland read exactly the same
as the Textus Receptus. There  is  no  variation  between  them. So, the intriguing
question is, "Why does the King James Version translate the phrase 'such as should
be saved,' when all modern versions  (ASV, RSV, NASB, NKJV, NIV, NRSV,
and the ESV) read differently. They say  something  like, "those  who  were  being
saved?"

     The answer lies  in  the  fact  that most, if  not all, of the translators of the King
James  Version  New  Testament  were  Calvinists. And  the  likely culprit as to
the   mistranslation   of   the  Greek  phrase  "prosetithei  tous  sozomenous"  in
Acts 2 :47 is the Calvinistic doctrine of salvation, that is, certain individuals were
predestined to be saved. There is not the slightest hint of this doctrine in the Greek
phrase. The word sozomenous is a present participle and should be translated
"those who were being saved."  The modern versions are correct in the way they
translate the phrase.
                                                                                                       R. Daly

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