Complaint about Genesis

Why the constant attacks on the King James Bible? Well, some of it may be lashing out against King James-Onlyists. But some of it is for another reason. If you’re contending for the heavyweight championship, you don’t want to take on the losers at the bottom, but the champion at the top!

Someone on Facebook called attention to the video KJV Error: Mistranslation in Genesis 25:27, in an attempt to make hay against the King James Bible. It makes claims about Genesis 25:27.

• Genesis 25:27  (KJV) And the boys grew: and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents.

The maker of this video claims, “The Hebrew word tam means perfect, in the sense of being whole, complete, blameless and mature.” So, in his mind, the KJV gets it wrong.

It is my initial reaction that the purpose of the channel being “solely dedicated to demonstrating that the King James Version of the Bible, while a good translation, is not the one and only perfect word of God” makes the interpretations given possibly strained and suspect (in other words, to support and extend the purpose of the channel). The speaker is not clearly identified (but is possibly Jeff A. Benner). However, the agenda clearly is! The purpose is not just to interpret the Bible, but to undermine the support for the King James Bible. 

If the owner of the channel is Benner, notice here his translation of Genesis 25:27.

• RMT: and the young men magnified and Esaw was a man knowing game and a man of the field and Ya'aqov was a man of maturity a settler of tents,

This seems to exhibit some surface concordance level of Hebrew words.

Of the 50-something English translations on BibleGateway, only one goes in the direction of the video in its translation. The Jubilee Bible 2000 has “upright.” Interestingly, the Orthodox Jewish Bible has “an ish tam (quiet man).” I don’t know anything about that Bible, but I just found it interesting that a Bible that purports to be Jewish associates “ish tam” with “quiet man,” not “perfect man” as does this video The NET Bible has “an even-tempered man” and their note says “Jacob was calm and even-tempered (תָּם, tam), which normally has the idea of ‘blameless’.”

I also checked the nearly 20 Spanish Bibles on BibleGateway. Only one – the Spanish Jubilee Bible – has anything in the direction of what the guy in the video thinks it must be. It has “Jacob, empero, era varón entero, que estaba en las tiendas,” with “entero” meaning something like whole, complete. (But I believe its range of meaning can also include “upright,” which would match the English Jubilee Bible.)

The point here is that in fighting the KJV on Genesis 25:27, the antagonist has bit off a good chunk of fighting most everyone else as well. I do not find this video convincing that all translations are just changing the meaning of tam to fit the LXX. Of course, it could be that the LXX and the majority of English & Spanish translations get “tam” right in this context!

Comments of others:

• Barnes: “27. תם tām, “perfect, peaceful, plain.” The epithet refers to disposition, and contrasts the comparatively civilized character of Jacob with the rude temper of Esau.”
• Calvin: “The word תם (tam,) although generally taken for upright and sincere, is here put antithetically. After the sacred writer has stated that Esau was robust, and addicted to hunting, he places on the opposite side the mild disposition of Jacob, who loved the quiet of home so much, that he might seem to be indolent…”
• Clarke: “Jacob was a plain man — איש תם ish tam, a perfect or upright man; dwelling in tents - subsisting by breeding and tending cattle, which was considered in those early times the most perfect employment; and in this sense the word תם tam, should be here understood, as in its moral meaning it certainly could not be applied to Jacob till after his name was changed…”
• Constable: “The Hebrew word tam, translated ‘plain,’ probably means civilized and domesticated, a homebody…Translators have rendered it ‘perfect’ and ‘blameless’ elsewhere (Job 1:1; Job 1:8; Job 8:20; Psalms 37:37; Proverbs 29:10). It may imply a quiet, self-contained, detached person, complete in himself.”

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Some notes:

Well, it is his translation, whether or not he is the owner of that channel!

Benner’s own site does not claim the YouTube videos, but the YouTube channel links to Benner’s mechanical-translation.org site.

Renner seems to enjoy setting himself up as an authority who is smarter than everyone else. This becomes obvious is his 10 surprising facts about Jesus we’ve had wrong all these years.

3. Jesus’ last words on the cross were not Eli Eli Lama Sabach’tani.

“In Matthew 27:46, the phrase Eli Eli Lama Sabach’tani is the last recorded words of Jesus, but his last words must have been sh’ma Yisra’el Yahweh eloheynu, Yahweh ehhad (Hear, O, Israel, Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is One (Deuteronomy 6:4). According to Jewish tradition, the words of Deuteronomy 6:4 should be the final words of every Jew before death and we can be sure that these were the last words of Jesus, a devout Jew, on the cross.”