Ambivalence Towards the King James Version

By Alvin Fisher, 2006

I have both good and bad feelings towards the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible. According to KJV defenders, it is based on better ancient manuscripts and, they say, the translators were more orthodox in their theology. Thus, they assert, it was translated more accurately than the modern translations that they attack. If they are correct, then it might not be a bad idea to prefer the KJV or a KJV derivative Bible for Bible study. Another good thing is the poetic beauty of the language. The way the words flow easily off the tongue may make it easier to put the texts in your memory. And it can be good to have everyone in a congregation following along with the preacher, reading the same version together.

And if a Bible student knows the difference in meaning (in former times) between “thee,” “thou,” “ye”and “you,” he has a more precise understanding of some texts. In modern English, we only have one word for “you,” regardless of singular or plural and regardless of subject and object. In the KJV, “thee” and “thou” are singular, while “you” and “ye” are plural. “Thou” and “ye” are the subject form, while “thee” and “you” are the object form.

On the other hand, the KJV has one very serious drawback. It is written in a foreign language. In case no one has noticed, we don’t talk like that anymore.

For people who are reasonably literate, it is not too hard to figure out that “thou,” “thee,” and “ye” mean “you,” and that “doeth” means “does,” etc. But go with me into prison and listen to men or women who are only semi-literate stumble over the language of the KJV. If they can’t even pronounce “thou,” do they know what it means? It would be far better for their souls to be nourished on a version they can understand. (And for some people a simplified translation may be helpful.)

For someone who can read well, but has not studied into the older meanings of certain words, there is another problem. Even if he looks up in a dictionary the words he doesn’t recognize, he may get tripped up by words such as “prevent” (which used to mean “precede”) and “meat” (which used to mean simply “food”). In the KJV, Psalm 119:147 says, “I prevented the dawning of the morning.” The New King James Version (NKJV) is much more understandable. It reads, “I rise before the dawning of the morning.” In the KJV, Lev. 2:1 says that the “meat offering” is supposed to be made out of flour. In today’s language, that would not make sense. In the NKJV, it is called a “grain offering.”

Fortunately, in my opinion, now that the New King James Version is available, many conservatives who would have preferred the King James Version, are willing to use the NKJV now. This way, preachers can quote the Bible without having to pause to explain, here and there, what the words really mean.

Let’s take a quick look at the history of the translation of the New Testament (NT) into various languages and see where the KJV-only crowd fits in. The apostles wrote the NT in Koine Greek, which was the language of the people at that time. The Greek Orthodox Church still worships in Koine, even though the people can not understand what is being said. A similar problem exists in Russia and Ethiopia and probably other places. The Roman Catholic Church was in the same mode with Latin until the middle of the 20^th Century. It seems to me that KJV-only diehards are walking the same road and carrying the same flag as these others I have mentioned. The main difference is that the KJV is only partly incomprehensible, rather than totally so.

Let’s take a look at some other issues, besides the language changes. One KJV-only contention is that the NT Greek text compiled by Erasmus was vastly superior to other manuscripts. The way some people talk, you would think that this edition, which was called the “Textus Receptus,” was virtually perfect and that everything else was dangerous and riddled with errors. Does history bear this out? No. Firstly, Erasmus had some trouble finding the entire New Testament in Greek. He had to do some translating from Latin into Greek to have a complete NT. Later on, Greek manuscripts for the missing passages were found and so later translators were able to use the original Greek, rather than Greek that was translated into Latin and then back into Greek. Moreover, the KJV translators used the NT Greek text compiled by Beza, the associate of John Calvin, who had revised the versions of Erasmus and Stephanus. They also consulted many other versions in various languages.

Another issue is the influence of King James on the Bible. He demanded that the translation should reflect his views about the church. Thus, if a word could be translated in such a way as would be more comfortable for an Anglican than for a Congregationalist, they were to go with the Anglicans. It is also said that one of the chief editors of the KJV put a Calvinistic slant to the KJV.

What a lot of people may not realize is that one of the greatest strengths and perhaps one of the greatest weaknesses of the KJV is its poetry and majesty. Beneath this poetic majesty is the simple fact that it is virtually impossible to translate word for word from either Greek or Hebrew into English. The things that the Greeks and Israelites did with their nouns, verbs and sentence structure are so different from what we do with our words, that you can not simply go word for word from the ancient languages to our own. You have to internalize the basic thought of the original and then decide, “How can I convey this thought in English?” (I would like to add here, that given the fact that you can’t translate word for word, it is reasonable to make a translation into simple English for those who could benefit from it.)

When you have a committee deciding these things, you can come up with various possibilities. For example, in Hebrews 6:6, one of the translators suggested, “...caused him to be had in derision, or traduced him.” But, instead, we ended up with, “...put him to an open shame.” Which is a more precise translation of the Greek? I don’t know. But, “put him to an open shame” seems to slide more evenly off the tongue and maybe slides more easily into the mind. The point is, though, that it is not reasonable to believe that the exact words chosen in English by the KJV committee precisely matched the Hebrew and Greek to the extent that no better words could have possibly been chosen.

As a matter of fact, if you study the Bible with a Bible commentary, you may find the remark from time to time that the scholar writing the commentary can’t figure out why the KJV was translated the way it was in some specific phrase or sentence. We are not talking about a liberal scholar questioning miracles, or something like that. We are talking about a linguist who knows both Greek and English questioning the translation on a linguistic basis.

There is another translation issue that may confuse a Bible student sometimes. There are situations where the original text repeated a word, but the English text uses two or more different words. In some cases, this may be because the translator thinks it means something different in different places. For example, the Greek word, “psyche” is used repeatedly by the Apostle John, but the translators sometimes translate it as “soul” and sometimes as “life.” The translators apparently chose the meaning they thought was correct. Let’s hope they were correct most of the time. But a serious Bible student may need to get out a concordance and check things out. At other times, if, for a hypothetical example, a Hebrew word doesn’t match up exactly to either “lovely” or “beautiful,” the English translator may say “lovely” in one place and “beautiful” in the other, just for the sake of variety.

Not everyone was happy with the KJV when it came out. So, in the first edition, the translators wrote a long essay defending not only their translation, but also the idea that it was OK to make another translation at that time. After King Charles I was beheaded, there were calls for the KJV to be set aside and replaced.

But, instead, the monarchy returned to England and instead of being replaced, the KJV underwent revisions from time to time. The KJV, as printed today, is basically the revision of 1769. Between then and 1881, many different revisions or translations were made of the whole Bible, or just portions. But none of them came into general use.

In 1881, the Revised Version of the New Testament was printed and then the whole Bible in 1885. This was very popular in both England and the United States. However, some Americans wanted one that was more American. So, in 1901, the American Revised Version was published. It would be tedious to try to mention all the versions that came out over the succeeding decades. Some of them achieved quite a bit of success, but none of them ever became a new standard, the way the KJV was.

There have been various reasons put forward for new translations.

1. To update the language. This is probably the most important and defensible reason.

2. To be a more exact translation from Hebrew and Greek. This is useful for Bible students, but may not be as smooth and poetic as the KJV or NKJV.

3. To reflect the discoveries of new manuscripts. This is what has occasioned considerable debate and is fertile ground for conspiracy theorists. Who knows which theories and historical interpretations are correct?

4. To adapt the language to make it easier to read. This can be useful, but also has resulted in paraphrases that are felt by many to be dangerous theologically.

I personally prefer the NKJV for a couple of reasons. It is similar to the KJV, which I grew up with and I believe that the ancient manuscripts used may indeed be more accurate than the manuscripts that most other popular recent translations were based on. However, I respect those who prefer other translations. And the fact is that most major translations have kept the stories and the doctrines intact. There are a couple of translations that have done a poor job with a couple of verses, in my opinion. But, in a Bible study with someone, these can be cleared up by comparison with other versions. On the other hand, there is a place or two in the book of Hebrews where neither the KJV, nor the NKJV is the most faithful to the Greek, in my opinion. So, even if you stay with the KJV or NKJV, you may find it necessary sometimes to dig deeper.

The purpose of the Bible is to make God and His truth known to humanity. To the extent that anyone is blessed by reading, hearing or studying the KJV, the Koine Greek, Martin Luther’s original German or any other old translation, this is good. But to the extent that insistence on the use of the KJV or any other old translation has contributed to misunderstanding, ignorance or false doctrine, because of the natural changes in language, this is very bad indeed.

Whenever a church or an individual presents the Bible in a version that the audience can not understand, they are stealing from God and His children. Whenever someone uses the KJV in such a way as to teach false doctrine (basing their argument on obsolete meanings), he taking God's name in vain and committing spiritual adultery. Whenever somebody preaches with the KJV without knowing the original meaning, he is on dangerous ground. And whenever a person uses lies and deceit to put down every single translation that could ever be made (other than the KJV, of course), he is definitely bearing false witness. Those who oppose all modern translations out of ignorance, rather than lies, are on dangerous ground. Thus, those who defend the KJV against all others could be breaking God's commandments, while they think they are defending God and His Word.

In short, although the KJV has benefitted the English-speaking world for a long time, it is not right nor fair to try to keep 21^st century Americans from having a Bible in their own language.