SAWBONES said:
Why, in the perfection of God's written word in English as supposedly embodied within the "PCE", should lower case spirit refer to God in some cases when at other places the capitalized Spirit is seemingly correct instead?
You have wrong assumptions. You assume that lower case "s" "spirit" does not refer to God, and that you have a formula that says that when God is meant, it must be capital. If you laid aside those assumptions, you would then ask the question, like, why did all those Christian readers, editors and publishers of the KJB ever have the word "spirit" sometimes lower case? Then, you could ask, the question more specifically about the editions from the latter portion of the last 400 + years. Why did KJB editions, in the 20th century, have this feature?
The answer, from a believing perspective, is that there is some meaning differences depending on what is used. This answer applies broadly to the KJB, besides to the specificity of the PCE.
SAWBONES said:
That is what's in view here; trying to get you to actually provide some explanation about what you believe explains these features which seem unaccountably and capriciously variable or inconsistent to those of us who don't believe in such a thing as a single perfect English Bible translation.
The reason why you are perplexed and can only see only haphazardness keeps you from recognising patterns in the usage. You assume haphazardness based upon a naturalistic view. But when the various instances of the lower case "s" "spirit" examined in relation to God, interesting, exact and telling doctrinal details emerge.
SAWBONES said:
You have expressed the view that the "PCE" is utterly perfect.
Others have given numerous examples in the "PCE" that a reasonable man would accept as evidence of inconsistency and therefore of imperfection in usage of grammar, spelling or punctuation.
You wrongly call a doubter, or an uncertain man as "reasonable".
Even if you approach the issue without the idea of an exactly perfect editorial form, you would still recognise patterns and deliberate choices in the usage of grammar, spelling and punctuation. In fact, the attempted case for "inconsistency" has only really been manufactured as an attempted rebuttal of arguing for editorial perfection.
SAWBONES said:
You have maintained not only that the "PCE" is actually perfect in spite of these demonstrations, but that indeed anything other than whatever appears in the "PCE" at these points would be imperfect or erroneous, regardless of any appearance of error or inconsistency.
In reality, a truly reasonable approach does not assume the worst. Really, the so-called "reasonable" man is a doubter, something which the Scripture calls unreasonable, "And that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men: for all men have not faith." (2Th 3:2).
SAWBONES said:
We're trying to understand how you can believe this, and to get you to offer an explanation beyond "I believe it's perfect because it's the way the PCE is and God arranged it this way", when all the scientific and historical and text-critical evidence (including the approaches of the Reformationists, which was to emphasize ad fontes) flies in the face of such a presupposition.
You misrepresent this as an "because I said so"/"my opinion is king"/fideistic view versus reason. In fact, it is an ideological battle between belief and the fruits of infidelity.
Infidelity is always going to emphasise the human element (either by reasoning or by empiricism) over the actual providential provision of Scripture. Those who wish to emphasise a false scientific, false history, false textual critical and false scholarly interpretation are not presenting actual evidence, but rather a human constructed view. There is no authority in itself in those approaches.
Rather, by starting with the Scripture itself and by Scripture itself, proper conclusions will be arrived at. Ones where God has actually outworked to supply His Word properly, ones where proper interpretation is attainable, and one where knowledge is certain. The exact opposite is the beginning, outworking and conclusion of the methods which are borne of infidelity.
But, according to Scripture, as long as you begin from your wrong premise with you wrong presuppositions, of course you will always reject or wonder about how the words of the KJB can be accurate.
SAWBONES said:
What you've done thus far is to call views other than your own "rationalist", and to repeatedly appeal to the concept of the "perfection of the KJB", but you won't explain how such a view is compatible with the evidence.
Not so, because superstition or old time Romanism are not "rationalist", neither is Islam, etc. What I have said is that the spirit of error has come into the thinking of a lot of "Christianity", because of the infidelity of the world. Many have adopted assumptions based on that approach.
Thus, a person may actually be like a Deist, who believes God inspired the Scripture perfectly, but then allowed natural law to bring about the haphazard state of affairs with modern versions or with strained irregularities in the KJB editions, etc. etc.
SAWBONES said:
I'm led to suppose this to be a "faith view" on your part, that is, whatever may appear by way of imperfections in the KJV/PCE, those appearances are false, and are merely failings of our comprehension and understanding.
Not failings, but wilful rejections. Of course, there is a spirit behind all that happily obliging the more vicious, concerted and deceptive attacks against the perfection of the KJB.
