Rev 18:22->

[BenBenson]

Rev 22: (KJV)

18For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:

19And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

20He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

21The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.

What is meant here by "add unto these things" "take away from the words of the book of this prophecy"?

Is this this mean literally? What about for translation, including modernized translations?

Does this mean figuratively? How would the prophecy be interpreted in that case? Because:

rev 22:10

And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand.

Thanks in advance

[Wildcat81]

In context, "this prophecy" means "this revelation that I've just written down for you," i.e., the Book of Revelation in particular, not the whole Bible in general. In any event, the Bible as we understand it didn't really exist when Revelation was being written. All the books of the Bible had been written, but the canon was not yet considered closed, much less collected into a single volume called the Bible. As a former professor of mine pointed out, at this point in history the Bible wasn't a book, it was a closet full of scrolls, which would have been intermingled with all sorts of other scrolls, to boot.

As for the translation question: unless we want to take a leaf out of Islam's book (figuratively speaking) and argue that the Bible isn't the Bible unless it's in the original Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, then translations are a fact of life. If you want to say one translation is the translation, which one? Translation is an imprecise enterprise - as much art as science - and the arguments of KJV-Onlyism are profoundly inadequate. Even if we do manage to settle on one translation, what do we do when the English of that translation becomes so outdated as to be illegible? Do we update that translation (a la the NKJV) or produce a fresh translation based on the originals?

In sum, Revelation 22:18 applies to the immediate context, i.e., the Book of Revelation itself, (though the principle contained therein does apply to the whole Bible). However, applying it to the issue of translation raises a lot of sticky questions. The practice of translation is complicated, and we can't say that a translation "adds" to the Word of God just because it differs from our preferred version.