Upadting the KJV to Modern English

This week saw some more painting of the backdrop for the studio. I got all the books for the bookshelves sketched in and more books painted on. I expect to get it done and be making more videos by next week. I could have finished it this week, but I spent some of the backdrop's time on a new project. Last week I mentioned this video about how corrupted modern paraphrase "translations" of the Bible are. I hope you were able to watch at least some of it. I hopped on the Google box and tried to find a modern translation based on the Textus Receptus. I could not find one.

I decided to do what I've thought about doing before, updating the King James to modern English. Where needed. It's out of necessity. I need a version that's in modern English but is still based on the KJV and the Textus Receptus and is still a literal translation and not a paraphrase. When I'm done, this is going to be my main Bible. I'm not retranslating the original texts. I'm updating the archaic words. To do this I have to identify a word as outdated, find the modern equivalent and compare the modern equivalent to the original language via multiple lexicons to make sure it's accurate. It's very time intensive. I've worked through Matthew chapters 1 to 15 so far and did a little on Genesis chapter 1. The plan is to do the NT first and then move to the OT, which I anticipate being easier and quicker.

This is for myself out of necessity, but I'm going to put it on Amazon for Kindle and in paperback. I'll put the NT up first and the OT at some future time. If I go at the present rate, the NT will take about 4.5 months plus proofreading. However, I still have books to write. I'll have to find a balance.

Skipping the genealogy of chapter 1, below is chapter 2 of Matthew. It may need some more proofreading and updating of certain words. You'll notice some of the sentence structure isn't completely modern. The reason for that is that the KJV translators followed the Greek word order as much as they could. It's not up to me to make structural changes except for small things like changing 'went he' to 'he went'. In other cases, if changing the word order to modern English made it closer to the Greek, I moved a word here or there. In those instances, this updated version is going to be more literal to the Greek than the KJV while still being more modern and easier to read. It's a win win.

Shall vs will. In school we were taught that shall was an older version of will. Shall actually means 'will have to', according to the dictionary. So, I left the shalls.. This is likely not the final version, but this is what I have so far.


Matthew Chapter 2

1 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold,
there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, 2 Saying, Where is he who is born King of
the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. 3 When Herod
the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 And when he
had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he asked of them where

the Messiah should be born. 5 And they said to him, In Bethlehem of Judea: for thus it is
written by the prophet, 6 And you Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are not the least among
 the princes of Judah: for out of you shall come a Governor, that shall shepherd my people
 Israel. 7 Then Herod, when he had privately called the wise men, inquired of them diligently
 what time the star appeared. 8 And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search
 diligently for the young child; and when you have found him, bring me word again, that I,
 also, may come and worship him. 9 When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo,
 the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, until it came and stood over where the
 young child was. 10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy. 11 And
 when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and
 fell down, and worshiped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented to
 him gifts; gold, and frankincense and myrrh. 

12 And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed
 to their own country another way. 13 And when they had departed, behold, the angel of the
 Lord appears to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother,
 and flee into Egypt, and be there until I bring you word: for Herod will seek the young child
 to destroy him. 14 When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and
 departed into Egypt: 15 And was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled
 which was spoken of the Lord through the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt I have called my
 son. 
16 Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceedingly enraged,
 and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the boundaries of
 there, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired
 of the wise men. 17 Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet,
 saying, 18 In Rama a voice was heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning,
 Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not. 19 But
 when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appears in a dream to Joseph in Egypt,
 20 Saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel: for
 they are dead which sought the young child's life. 21 And he arose, and took the young child
 and his mother, and came into the land of Israel. 

22 But when he heard that Archelaus reigned in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was
 afraid to go there: but, being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of
 Galilee: 23 And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which
 was spoken through the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.

Have a great weekend. 
  

Painting the Shelves and Such

The backdrop for the YouTube studio is still in progress. It's a painting of a bookshelf. The top shelf is done. The other two shelves are over half done. It's taking way more time than I hoped it would. The top shelf is a set of books that look like encyclopedias. They're all one color. Only the bottoms of the books will show in videos. The detail work wasn't too bad. The hard part was the highlights to give them dimensionality.

I had to repaint the shelves to make those stand out. Painter's tape made it easier. The hardest part of the whole process is the individual, "random" books. I'm finding that I can start working on them, and a half hour or an hour will pass. I'll have maybe six books done and can't figure out where the time went.

It turns out it takes forever to do all the steps. I have to set the heights so they won't all be the same height, same for the widths. I have to draw the edges and the tops, which means I have to use a level and a ruler so they're not crooked. Because the backdrop is vertical and already put together, the process requires a lot of squatting. It's like painting on a wall. I have to mix the paint to get different colors while making sure I don't match the set on the top shelf or the 12-volume set on the second shelf or the books to each other. There's a bit of cleaning of brushes in between all of it. Added together, it takes forever, and I still haven't put the words on the spines or the logos, etc. The books aren't even all sketched in yet. It's a massive time sink. I'm having to do some of the edges left-handed, trying not to overlap the paint.

I found an excellent audio channel to listen to on YouTube. One audio in particular, I have to recommend. New Age Bible perVersions EXPOSED. It explains how modern Bibles are translated. It goes into which manuscripts are used and how they were created to begin with. For example, when you see a footnote in a modern Bible that some verse isn't in the earliest manuscripts, it's referring to corrupt manuscripts found in a Catholic monastery garbage dump. Whoa! And there's more than that. If you're not painting a wall, this is a really long video, too long for a normal person to listen to all at once. If you can make time here and there, it's well worth it all the way to the end. The picture of the book that goes with the audio is a good read. I have it. It's eye-opening, too, and has more details than the YouTube audio. One fact that's missing from the audio is that recent research has discovered that the Codex Vaticanus was corrupted by the Gnostics. That alone means nothing translated using the CV is scripture.

The plan on the book front was to do the detective book next, but I'm thinking I might go straight to the Biblical non-fiction. After this backdrop is done, of course.

Have a good weekend.

A Bit of a Trompe L'oeil

In a previous post, I mentioned my electric company won't hook me up to their fiber line unless I pay around $15,000, but they're giving the exact same service to other people for $100. The CEO of that company has resigned. It sounded unexpected in the paper I saw. I'm not saying its karma. I'm not saying it's the result of prayers. I'm not saying people reap what they sow. I'm not saying those things. And I'm not necessarily saying I'll be looking at my ISP to see if they get theirs next. What I'm saying is maybe something will change on the fiber front. Who knows?

In the same post linked above, I talked about my YouTube "studio" and how I either needed to move it to another room or get a new background. This week I decided to buy some 18"x18"x24" cardboard boxes from Walmart and paint them. I have a ton of hobby paint I've been needing to get rid of. That was the deciding factor. I cut two boxes along one of the seams and fitted them together to make a backdrop. Since the plan is for me to sit in a chair, it's both wide enough and tall enough. Actually, it's too wide. No complaints, though. I can use it to brace it. I could always cut the extra away.

The background will be of book shelves. I've painted the shelves already, though they'll need touching up, and started on the books, which need to be more detailed than I'd like. The good news is I don't have to paint the area that goes behind the chair. I only have to paint around it to give the impression I'm sitting in front of a bookcase. I don't even have to paint to the edges of the boxes. The difficulty is the details. To get a realistic look, I'm going to have to paint a highlight on the edges of some of the books and work in shadows and stuff. I was hoping it would be simple. It's very similar to real painting. I'm going to have to find the balance between simple and realistic. It's kind of like a trompe l'oeil. See examples, here, here and here. And here. Maybe I'll be inspired to do one in my bathroom. I've had the thought more than once. It's just a massive amount of work.

I haven't painted anything since my dad passed away. I've tried a couple of times. If this wasn't necessary, I don't think I'd be doing it. I still need to do a painting of a bear for one of my cousins. This might be good practice for that.

Have a great weekend.

Did the Work, Got No Credit. Breakthrough Anyway?

There's a lot of confusion today over what the lie in 2 Thessalonians 2:11 is. The KJV puts it like this, And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie. Within the fairly recent past, someone figured out that in the Greek is doesn't say "a lie" it says "the lie". Suddenly, prophecy experts realized the lie was something very specific. The explanation I keep seeing is that the lie is going to be fallen angels posing as aliens. I see it called the coming alien deception or the great alien deception. That's not the lie.

I made a video explaining what the deception actually is but didn't quite have peace about making it public and didn't. Afterward, a good reason occurred to me. Remember the blog I did after Brexit in June of last year in which I explained that the map of the Roman Empire looks nearly the same as the map of the Mediterranean Union did several years ago but now it doesn't?  In that post I talked about the possible breakup of the EU and the MU and how they relate to Bible prophecy and the kingdom of the anti-Christ. Within the past couple of weeks, I watched a prophecy show. The guest, a prominent prophecy expert, mentioned the kingdom of the anti-Christ and the EU, then almost under his breath he said "Mediterranean Union". No explanation, no followup question, no clarification on what he meant. It was dropped and left.

The current map of the Mediterranean Union doesn't look like the map I remember seeing last year or the map of the old Roman Empire. How could this prophecy expert have made the connection this year to the MU map of several years ago? I have two public followers but more hidden followers than that. Nevertheless, not many people follow this blog. Apparently, things I mention here travel a lot further than I imagined. I got no credit on that show not even an anonymous mention, but my post is dated by Blogger.com, as will this one, so...

I've talked about my Biblical, non-fiction book that's still in the early rough draft stage. I had this idea that I could make YouTube videos about things I'm going to put in it, and the channel wouldn't catch on until the book was done. It usually takes a long time for a channel to catch on, if it ever actually does. We're talking a year, though I have absolutely no guarantees. The book could drive the channel instead of the other way around. It now looks like I won't be able to talk about anything that's going to be in the book. If that prophecy expert does a book based on my post, he's looking at at least $350,000 in royalties. That's based on publishing industry figures. With his prominence it could be much higher.

I feel better about my book now. If that MU revelation can make it to Christian television, the other things in it should be solid, too. Maybe after all these years of obscurity there's a breakthrough coming? Wouldn't that be nice?

Have a great weekend.