Credit where credit is due.
I have a number of times cited the New King James Version for being less than it claims to be – when it prefers to follow the bandwagon of modern versions rather than be a “new” King James Version. On Philippians 2:6 I must give them credit for revising a modern reading which matched modern versions back to a reading that more closely matches the King James Version.
In Philippians 2:6, the Authorized (King James) Version states:
- who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
When the New King James New Testament came out in 1979, this verse read:
- who, being in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.
Unsurprisingly, this more closely matched translations like the RV, ASV, RSV, and NASB. Apparently in 1982 when the whole Bible translation was released (at least I have found it in NKJVs that are dated 1982) the verse was corrected to read:
- who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,
Two Johns and others have considered readings and interpretations such as not grasping at equality with God an innovation of Arianism and/or Greek philosophy:
“No, say they, but he means that being a little God, he seized not upon being equal to the great God, who was greater than he. Is there a great and a little God? And do ye bring in the doctrines of the Greeks upon those of the Church? With them there is a great and a little God. If it be so with you, I know not. For you will find it nowhere in the Scriptures: there you will find a great God throughout, a little one nowhere.” John Chrysostom, Homily 6, Philippians 2:5-8
“...as for the sense which some put upon the words, that he did not ‘affect’, or ‘greedily catch’ at deity; as the phrase will not admit of it, so it is not true in fact; he did affect deity, and asserted it strongly, and took every proper opportunity of declaring it, and in express terms affirmed he was the Son of God; and in terms easy to be understood declared his proper deity, and his unity and equality with the Father; required the same faith in himself as in the Father, and signified that he that saw the one, saw the other...” John Gill, Exposition of the Whole Bible
Note: 1. This was a translation matter and not a difference in underlying text. 2. Though I commend the NKJV for this change, I do not recommend the NKJV.
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