Preface to the Reader

Purpose and Intent: The premise of this humble effort is simple:  The assumption that the main purpose in reading God’s Word is to learn more of Him.  One of the impediments for the casual Bible reader is the unfortunate use or assignment of pronouns in virtually all extant translations. 

The spectrum of difficulty ranges from perfectly clear and obvious, to somewhat vague, to a little confusing, to outright misleading.  Most of the vague usages can be readily resolved from the immediate or broader context; others require more diligent research; and some defy certain resolution.  The cause of the difficulty may be simple ambiguity, failure to adhere to antecedent rules, or in a few cases ‘dual resolution’.  In some instances, the entity that a given pronoun refers to will change within a verse or sentence – a phenomenon some have come to refer to as “pronoun swap”.  To varying degrees, these can cause confusion as to who is being discussed; and what conclusions are to be drawn from the passage.  This is particularly critical when the subject may be God.  The goal here is to use visual clues (font colors) to enable the reader of God’s word to more readily comprehend what His word tells us of Him, without the distraction of having to decipher what are true references to the Triune God - to one or more members of the Holy Trinity.  This is by no means a scholarly work; and it likely will find little appreciation or value among true Biblical scholars, or those well versed in the original Hebrew or Greek texts.  Indeed, it may earn their well-deserved disdain.  But they are not the ones for whom this was undertaken – but rather the layman in the pew who simply wants to be able to read God’s Word, with greater comprehension and appreciation of who God is – and of His character - without the confusion or distraction of having to interpret on the fly who is being referenced – God, mortal man, or some other entity.  This is what this poor effort seeks to remedy in this simplistic fashion.  In a sense, it is not unlike the “Red Letter Edition” of the Bible (first published in 1900), which set out to readily identify to the reader the words uttered by our Lord, Jesus Christ, while on earth.  Frankly, the words of Christ are more readily distinguished from the context than are many of the references to God – as opposed to references to other entities throughout the Bible.  Some Bible translations seek to remedy this pronoun resolution problem by capitalizing pronouns that refer to God.  While helpful, the capitalization remedy is inherently limited, since the pronoun “I” is always capitalized, as are any pronouns that happen to start a verse, sentence or quote, rendering capitalization an unreliable indicator.

Caveat: With the higher level of difficulty of this undertaking comes the higher risk of unintended misinterpretation and misrepresentation.  The goal of this effort is ease of reading and comprehension; relieving the reader of the task of repeatedly solving those identity riddles within Scripture that can, through careful study, be resolved.  This is a great majority of these identity questions.  However, there is a residual minority of tougher identity questions – the exceptions – that cannot be resolved with any high degree of certainty.  The intent here is not to favor one answer over another in these questions.  The author is uniquely unqualified to act as ‘referee’ in areas of dispute.  Let him here apologize for and disavow any instance where it might be construed that he has ‘taken sides’ on any such dispute.  He will attempt to serve as a convenient ‘clearing house’ of those reputable scholarly and authoritative sources of light that can be focused on these issues; but will not knowingly represent one view as more credible than another.

Implementation notes and Conventions followed in this Implementation: 

The purple font – readily available in most word processors (what I like to think of in this implementation as “royal purple”) was chosen to identify all references to Deity – be it Father, Son, or Holy Ghost / Spirit.  (The original intent was to only use this single font color in this project.) 

In many instances, it is easier to distinguish references to the First Person (God, the Father) from the Third Person (the Holy Spirit) of the Holy Trinity, than it is to distinguish between references to God, the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.  In this work, all nouns that refer to any member of the Trinity are capitalized and receive “royal purple” font treatment and are also capitalized.  “Weak” references, such as the “that”, in “Him that”, or “own” as in “His own”, will not be capitalized, but will have the purple font.  Also, the word “name”, where it refers to the name of God (Father, Son or Spirit) receives the purple font without capitalization change.  Certain nouns and adjectives that are applied to God also receive the purple font treatment, such as in Psalm 62.  To aid in distinguishing between references to our Lord, Jesus Christ and references to the other two members of the Holy Trinity, the “Bold” font is used for the references to God, the Father, and the Holy Spirit, while leaving those references to our Lord, Jesus Christ, in normal (non-bold) font.  That choice was an afterthought in this simplistic implementation to enhance distinctions between them – but does not in any way suggest or imply a slighting of any member of the Holy Trinity.  The exception to this “bold/no-bold” rule is the pronoun “I”.  Because it is a single letter pronoun, and is already always capitalized, it will be made bold in all instances where the pronoun “I” refers to any member of the Holy Trinity, to make it more readily noticed.  As Theophanies and angelic beings were dealt with, the need to distinguish between them became apparent, as well as the need to identify those references where there is disagreement as to the identity of a referenced entity.  A blue font was adopted to represent non-deity angelic beings to distinguish between them and members of the Trinity.  (Words for Satan and his “angels, however, have only the normal black font applied to them.)  A darker ”deep purple font” is applied to words where it is not clear whether the referenced beings are angels or true Theophanies (manifestations of God or pre-incarnate Christ), or in instances where the identity of the referent is in dispute. 

There is another special case that also warrants explanation here.  When a pronoun is used in a question as to the identity of an entity, and the correct answer to that question is a member of the Holy Trinity (i.e., Deity: Father, Son or Holy Spirit), the pronoun which the question seeks to resolve will have the “deep purple” non-bold font applied to it to signify that it represents God, when the question is answered correctly.  The “Who” at the beginning of Isaiah 41:2, and the “Who” at the beginning of verse 41:4 are examples of such pronouns.

In rare cases, notation for explicit identification of entities is required.  An example of this is found in Ezekiel 43:3, where we read: “3And it was according to the appearance of the vision which I saw, even according to the vision that I saw when I came to destroy the city; and the visions were like the vision that I saw by the river Chebar; and I fell upon my face.”  In this verse, where the pronoun “I” appears four times, the 3^rd occurrence refers to God, while the other three occurrences of “I” refer to Ezekiel.  In such cases, a parenthetical insertion enclosed in blue parentheses () is employed to further clarify ambiguous or conflicting references, as illustrated here: “3And it was according to the appearance of the vision which I (Ezekiel) saw, even according to the vision that I saw when I (the LORD) came to destroy the city; and the visions were like the vision that I saw by the river Chebar; and I fell upon my face.”

Bible Text Version Utilized and its Preparation - The Authorized King James Version was chosen for this project because it is “public domain”, and free of copyright encumbrances.  The copy used as the base text for this “Purple Letter Edition” project was not what a “purist” might regard as “the 1611 AV KJV”, if, indeed, such a text exists.  There are several ‘flavors’ of what is today called the “AV KJV”.  The text base as received did not have the Gothic type set that the original 1611 AV printing had, with the attendant letter and spelling variations.  Nonetheless, this old KJV text had inherent problems that posed greater consternation for most readers than what this project set out to alleviate.  These problems were primarily in the areas of bizarre punctuation, and archaic words.  (It also included the Apocrypha, which was deemed beyond the scope of this project, and is not included in this “Purple Letter Edition” rendering.)

Re-punctuating the text was required to better conform to current punctuation rules and usage.  (As received, it was characterized by the prolific use of colons where periods, commas, and semicolons were better suited.  About the only places where colons rarely occurred were those places where they were appropriate.)

Then there was the need to replace archaic words with ones we are more familiar with today.  After doing word-substitution through much of the Pentateuch, I was suddenly gripped with pangs of remorse for having replaced those fine old words.  So I began the word change process again – this time retaining and enclosing the archaic words with ‘braces’ ({}), and preceding them with italicized substitute words to effect a “verbal bridge” to span the four centuries from the 1600s to now.  It was only after these preparatory efforts that the text was ready for the intended “pronoun color-coding” project.  Throughout this project, every effort was made to preserve and not alter the text from its original intent and meaning.  Even so, the resulting text may not exactly match your favorite AV KJV. 

The popularity of many more recent English translations and versions is also recognized; but this “Purple Letter Edition” is KJV based.  However, much of the ‘color-coded’ information contained in this KJV could be transferred to and implemented in other translations without much difficulty, beyond the legal copyright issues, if someone sees merit in such an undertaking.

Deep Purple Registry - Upon completing the “Purple Letter Edition” of the KJV Bible, the research notes accumulated while dealing with the “difficult passages” and “exceptions” that required the “deep purple font” treatment were used to compile a “Registry”, in book, chapter and verse order, of these occurrences.  Each Registry entry identifies the question or issue, the passage, any appropriate notes or comments, and its resolution.  This “look-aside” registry approach seemed preferable to imbedded notes within the scripture text, which would have been an undue distraction to the reader.  It enables any reader whose curiosity is raised when a noun or pronoun with the “deep purple font” treatment is encountered to look it up in the Registry, while not encumbering those who do not share his or her curiosity as to why it is so treated.  This “Deep Purple Registry” is available on this website and can be accessed by clicking the button (box) that appears on the lower right of the website page when the KJV Purple Letter Edition Bible text is displayed.  While many readers prefer other Bible translations, the “Deep Purple Registry” may prove useful to them, as well, in resolving the pronoun ambiguity problems they encounter in reading their favorite translation.

My apologies in advance for any confusion, oversights, errors or inconsistencies that may appear in this implementation.  I trust that it serves its intended purpose, despite my foibles.  (jam)

©2009 by Jim Musser. Used by Permission. All rights Reserved.

 

 

1611 Authorized Version of the Old Testament

Beginning Resolution of ‘problem passages’ 10/14/08

In this (10/24/08) version, I plan to use blue font to signify angelic beings – as opposed to members of the Holy Trinity: God the Father, Christ the Son, and /or the Holy Spirit (identified by the “royal purple font); and use the ‘dark purple’ for those entities where there is significant question whether the reference is to a member of the Holy Trinity or a non-deity angel of God.

Notes on clarifying ‘difficult passages’:

There are several classes of ‘difficult passages’ that are being copied to separate .doc files as they are encountered for further research and consideration.  The “classes” identified are:

Class I – Theophanies - Dealing with diverse OT manifestations of God and His angels.

Class II – Passages With a Duality of (or Multiple) Pronoun Resolutions

Class III – Examples of “Pronoun Swap”

Class IV – Ill-Defined Pronouns - Trying to identify what entity a pronoun represents.

Class V – Confusing Passages - Trying to resolve conflicting / troubling passages.  These are passages whose confusion is not rooted in ambiguous pronoun use, but in other causes; and pronoun resolution is impacted or made more difficult by these other confusion factors.

Upon (assuming) proper resolution of the above ambiguous or difficult passages, there remains the need for “a notation scheme” to identify these ambiguous references and their resolution so that the reader can both recognize the source and benefit from the resolution.

What I plan (at least initially) to implement is the use of bold blue “braces”, or ‘curly brackets’ (e.g., { . . .}) to denote the replaced ambiguous term, with the substituted term in underscored italics immediately preceding the ‘curly bracketed’ replaced ambiguous term.

For example, in Ezekiel 43 we have this KJV rendering of verse 3, where the pronoun “I” appears four times, with the 3^rd occurrence referring to God, while the other three occurrences are references to Ezekiel:

“And it was according to the appearance of the vision which I saw, even according to the vision that I saw when the I came to destroy the city; and the visions were like the vision that I saw by the river Chebar; and I fell upon my face.”

In the proposed implementation, replacing “I” with “the LORD”, that would be rendered:

“And it was according to the appearance of the vision which I saw, even according to the vision that I saw when the LORD {I} came to destroy the city; and the visions were like the vision that I saw by the river Chebar; and I fell upon my face.”

In this implementation, the use of underscore, as well as the italics, is merely a mechanism to identify to the reader the substituted word or term, and not for added emphasis.