The King James Version continues to be the best-liked rendering of the Bible into English. This translation continues to hold first place among English-reading students by reason of its diction, its fidelity to the original text, and its spirituality. While its wording has become archaic, its text has become sacred.

"For almost three centuries the Authorized, or King James, Version has been the Bible of the English-speaking world" (The Ancestry of Our English Bible, by Professor Ira Maurice Price, ninth edition, 1934, p. 282).

Mary Baker Eddy consistently maintained her preference for the King James Version. In all her writings there are only six or seven quotations from other translations, and some of them are only incidental. (See Science and Health 313:19, 360:22, 525:12; Miscellaneous Writings 97:22, 373:7; Unity of Good 31:1; Message for 1902 16:1.) Once when she received a copy of a recent translation, her acknowledgement of the gift included the following comments: ' I am not fond of new things unless they are more spiritual than the old... In some instances the text seems clearer, e.g., where 'deadly thing' is changed to the word 'poison.' Yet this lucid word may be objectionable."

Because of the extent to which the King James Version of the Bible is the basis of and enters into our Leader's Writings, it is and should be the accepted English translation for Christian Scientists. In our church services no other English translation should be used; and in the study of Christian Science other English translations should be consulted or used only as additional reference works.

BibleTexts.com note regarding the first paragraph above: This article was written prior to the publication of the completed Revised Standard Version [RSV] of the Bible, in 1952. The RSV became the first English translation to seriously compete with the KJV and ultimately to surpass the KJV in popularity. In 1973 the RSV received "international endorsement by Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, and Protestants" as "the Common Bible." (So Many Versions? Twentieth Century English Version of the Bible by Sakae Kubo and Walter Specht, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1975, page 52.)

Today the KJV text not only uses archaic English, but the Textus Receptus Greek text from which the KJV's New Testament was translated is corrupt in many, many places, which resulted in the KJV's translators rendering many New Testament verses unrepresentative of the original Greek text of the New Testament, now best represented by the United Bible Societies Greek New Testament, Fourth Revised Edition (UBS4). The UBS4 is the the standard Greek text used as the basis for almost all current translations in all languages. Other than The Church of Christ, Scientist, the only churches that still use the KJV are fundamentalist churches. In 1901 even Mrs. Eddy herself was exploring what Bible's other Protestant churches were using. At that time the report came back to her that the KJV was still the only accepted translation of Protestant Christians in America. As indicated above, a report to Mrs. Eddy would be far different today. For more details, refer to http://www.bibletexts.com/bl-ver.htm.