Weather:
Your points are well taken by anyone who is willing to look at the Sacred Scriptures in both the context that with God as their author they are true, be the text a literal statement, ie “Thou Shalt not [i:ve720fqa][b:ve720fqa]Murder[/b:ve720fqa][/i:ve720fqa]” usually mistranslated in english from the hebrew to “Thou Shalt not [i:ve720fqa][b:ve720fqa]Kill[/b:ve720fqa][/i:ve720fqa]” or allegorical as is the case where our Lord tells the woman at the well of the water that when one drinks of it they will never thirst, (obvious to someone who as any wit about them that he was speaking of a spiritual water)
One of the problem with Fundies, (no slight on Protestants, as I know Catholics who take a literal view of a seven 24 hour literal days of creation view *) is that they see anyone who does not take every word as literal, and anything not covered (ie the existance of Cro-Magnon Man, or the playful little dinos) as either a fable, or as an overt athiest concept. Whereas when one studies the Sacred Scriptures from a point of view of absolute faith that God breathed into the writers His inspiration (Spiros = to breath) accepting that some of the tales are allegories and are written not to convey a scientific explination of creation or of every detail of what occured, but the spiritual concept behind the story. Combine that with an ignorance of the tounge (at the time) and the culture to which one is speaking from, literary styles, and the fact that not only was there no punctuation, but in hebrew at the time no vowels (jots and tittles where not universally used, nor do they always convey a clear meaning) but there was no such thing as upper and lower case, nor was there any separation between words. Nope many a Fundie takes the modern (or 17th century) vernacular text they have and tries to interpret the Scriptures devoid of historical and cultural context, forgetting that it was not written in english, spanish or french, nor was it written in their own time and culture.
An aside, for those who use the KJV as their only acceptable Bible, as if it floated down from heaven. 1. The original KJV approved by King James, (how does a king of England who even protesant historians and his contemporaries link to many homosexual lovers is empowered to approve a translation of the Bible is another issue all togeather) but the original edition had the Book of Maccabies and all the other books later tossed out by Cranmer. 2. Catholic editions of the Bible, including the Duoay Version (which predated the KJV) and other Greek and Latin Catholic editions where used as sources since the Tyndale and other Protestant translations where held to be corrupt translations.
On the whole the KJV is in it’s original and entire (pre-cranmerian) edition is not all that bad. Even with some of the revisions made to it to make it more Protestant, and to eject the books that had always been accepted as part of the Canon, it is a fairly good translation, as translations go. The poetry is good, after all Shakespere was one of the translators.
Next time you have a KJV, look up Psalm 46 just for fun. Psalm 46 is not unknown to cipher enthusiasts. This is the famous Psalm where
Shakespeare slipped in his name in cypher. You see, the 46th word from the beginning is “Shake”, and the 46th word from the end (not counting the final “Selah”) is “Speare”. The story goes that Shakespeare was 46 years old when he translated the Psalm, and jumbled the words to get his name in the Bible, fun factoid that does not change the fact that the Psalm is a poetical praise of God.
*I know YKW will probably have another kinipshin, but the Catholic Church holds as De Fide, that one does not have to hold to a literal seven 24 hour day creation, what it does hold is that you must believe that however the world came into being, it was made out of nothing and by the Power and Will of God.