1. Introductory remarks: Recognizing the contribution of the King James Version

The King James Version [KJV] has made and continues to make a great contribution in its nearly four hundred years of enabling the Word of God to be known to humanity. Until the general acceptance of the Revised Standard Version [RSV], after its introduction in 1952, the KJV had remained almost^* the only Bible version standard for English-speaking Protestant Christianity for nearly 350 years.

^* Note: The Geneva Bible was the Bible version used by some communities of religious refugees, such as the Pilgrims who came to Plymouth, Massachusetts, to escape religious persecution by King James, but eventually the KJV won out, by the time the Plymouth Colony was assimilated by the Puritan's Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1691.

Though the facts presented in this document may at times seem unflattering to the King James Version of the Bible, I myself continue to have much appreciation for the KJV and for the many Bible study aids that are based upon the KJV. In my own study of the Bible throughout each week, I still refer to the KJV along with other English language versions of the Bible, Hebrew and Greek texts, biblical commentaries, and other resources.

2. The importance of knowing and understanding Jesus actual words, actions, and life as accurately as possible -- at whatever theological or intellectual cost.

Whether I am reading from modern versions, the KJV, or from texts in the ancient languages, I conscientiously try to ensure that what I am reading accurately represents (as closely as currently can be determined) the unadulterated, first-edition wording of the original biblical writer. Most important to me when reading the New Testament is to verify that I am reading an accurate representation of Christ Jesus' words, as reported by the original biblical writers.

Due to the conscientious endeavors of archeologists, textual analysts, and researchers in a variety of disciplines, it has gradually become more and more possible to verify or accurately reconstruct Jesus' words as reported in the first Greek editions of what are now the texts of the New Testament. At the same time, Jesus' message, reflected in both his words and his actions, continues to make its demands on each one of us, whether or not we are aware of those demands.

The more nearly we can verify, understand, and obey Jesus' actual words, actions, and life, the more we can cooperate with the demands (and opportunities) of his loving sacrifice, victory, and liberating salvation. These are demands that each one of us must ultimately face. With or without our cooperation, these demands and the genuine spirituality they require will increasingly compel us to "put off the old self with its habits and ... put on the new self. This is the new being which God, its Creator, is constantly renewing in his own image, in order to bring you to a full knowledge of himself." (Colossians 3:9,10 - TEV) Resistance to God's demands - even ignorant resistance - is ultimately both futile and very uncomfortable; thus, it seems much more desirable and more efficient to participate willingly, humbly, lovingly, reverently, and understandingly. An accurate and understandable representation of especially Jesus' and the apostles' actual words and actions can be a big help!

3. The history of the King James Version's dependence on the Textus Receptus

When using the King James Version [KJV] the Bible, it is apparent that in some verses there are major differences between the KJV translation and all modern translations*.

* Note: The New King James Version [NKJV; see book review] should not really be considered a modern version. The NKJV's New Testament wording always corresponds exactly with the KJV, because both the NKJV and the KJV are based the same Greek texts. (The KJV's New Testament was based upon Erasmus' Greek text as modified by Stephanus and Beza. The NKJV's New Testament was based primarily upon Erasmus' Greek text as modified by Stephanus and Beza, but its translators also consulted the so-called Majority Text.) However unlike the original KJV, the NKJV does not include the Apocrypha. Though the NKJV provides a modern English rewording of the KJV wording, the NKJV still has all of the same errors that the KJV derived from Erasmus' Greek New Testament, which is plagued with corrupt readings, as explained in this article. Below are three examples of corrupt texts in the KJV and NKJV. In all three verses, Erasmus' Greek New Testament text was based upon copies of the Latin Vulgate, not on any ancient Greek texts. In other words, the corruption of these verses had no support in any Greek texts prior to 1516.

• 1Jo 5:7-8 - For details, see:
• http://www.bibletexts.com/kjv-tr.htm#1jo0507
• http://www.bibletexts.com/versecom/1jo05v07.htm
• Rev 22:19 - For details, see:
  • http://www.bibletexts.com/verses/v-rev.htm#rev2219
• Act 9:5-6 - For details, see:
  • http://www.bibletexts.com/verses/v-act.htm#act0905

In the original 1982 Preface of the NKJV, "the New Testament Text" subsection included the following:

The New King James Version has been based on this Received Text, thus perpetuating the tradition begun by William Tyndale in 1525 and continued by the 1611 translators in rendering the Authorized Version.

In the revised Preface of the NKJV, "the New Testament Text" subsection of The Scofield Study Bible (NY: Oxford University Press, 2002, page xiv) and other Thomas Nelson Publisher reference editions now include the following:

In light of these facts, and also because the New King James Version is the fifth* revision of a historic document translated from specific Greek texts, the editors decided to retain the traditional text [explained earlier in the Preface as "first publilshed in 1516, and later called the Textus Receptus or Received Text"] in the body of the New Testament and to indicate major Critical and Majority variant readings in the footnotes.

* BibleTexts.com note regarding the 2002 Preface stating that the NKJV is "the fifth revision of a historic document translated from specific Greek texts." The Tyndale New Testament (1526-1530) was the first English translation to use the TR. Matthew's Bible (1537) simply used Tyndale's New Testament. The five 'revisions' mentioned may include those listed below, all of which were based on the Textus Receptus and all were influenced by Tyndale:

1. Coverdale Bible (1535) / The Great Bible (1539) (both Bibles done by Coverdale)
2. Geneva Bible (the Bible of the Pilgrims) (1557-1560)
3. Bishop's Bible (1568)
4. King James Version (a.k.a., Authorized Version; original version, 1611; Dr. Benjamin Blayney's final revision, 1769)
5. New King James Version (1982)

For some additional details on the NKJV, see http://www.bible-researcher.com/nkjv.html.

Truly major differences between the KJV and modern translations of the New Testament are primarily due to the inaccuracy of the so-called Textus Receptus [TR], the Greek text upon which the KJV's New Testament was based. According to Bruce Metzger (The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, Third Edition, Oxford University Press, 1992, pages 95-118), the TR primarily resulted from the work of a Dutch Roman Catholic priest and Greek scholar by the name of Desiderius Erasmus, who published his first Greek New Testament text in 1516. The first edition of Erasmus' text was hastily and haphazardly prepared over the extremely short period of only five months. (ibid., page 106) That edition was based mostly upon two inferior twelfth century Greek manuscripts, which were the only manuscripts available to Erasmus "on the spur of the moment" (ibid., page 99).

The Greek New Testament project was seen by its publisher, Johann Froben, as a considerable commercial opportunity. (ibid., pages 98 and 102-103) Accordingly Froben expeditiously negotiated with Erasmus, who had already nobly intended to produce a Greek-Latin parallel text New Testament for the primary purpose of allowing Latin readers to become better acquainted with the original New Testament text, which he wanted to approximate as best as possible. Froben rushed Erasmus' first edition text to market, in his attempt to get it into circulation ahead of the much more methodically prepared Complutensian Polyglot Bible, which was due to be published soon. (In contrast to the five months that Erasmus used to hurriedly put his text together and get it printed and circulated, the Complutensian text required eighteen years of careful preparation before its first edition appeared. Erasmus himself said in a letter in Latin in 1516 that this first edition had been "praecipitatum verius quam editum," -- more precipitated than edited.)

1Jo 5:7,8 - an example of textual corruption. Even up to the fifth and final edition of Erasmus' Greek text in 1535, Erasmus occasionally fell prey to pressure from Roman Catholic church authorities to add to subsequent editions phrases and entire verses that he strongly (and rightly) suspected were not part of the original text. Metzger (Ibid., pages 100-101) and others document how Erasmus was manipulated to include what later was translated into the KJV in 1Jo 5:7-8, the following text: "in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth." Conservative biblical scholar F.F. Bruce (History of the English Bible, Third Edition, New York: Oxford University Press, 1978, pages 141-142) explains the sad history of how those words were errantly added to Erasmus' Greek text of 1Jo 5:7-8:

The words ["in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth."] omitted in the R.V. [Revised Version, 1881] were no part of the original Greek text, nor yet of the Latin Vulgate in its earliest form. They first appear in the writings of a Spanish Christian leader named Priscillian, who was executed for heresy in A.D. 385. Later they made their way into copies of the Latin text of the Bible. When Erasmus prepared his printed edition of the Greek New Testament, he rightly left those words out, but was attacked for this by people who felt that the passage was a valuable proof-text for the doctrine of the Trinity. He replied (rather incautiously) that if he could be shown any Greek manuscript which contained the words, he would include them in his next edition. Unfortunately, a Greek manuscript not more than some twenty years old was produced in which the words appeared: they had been translated into Greek from Latin. Of course, the fact that the only Greek manuscript exhibiting the words belonged to the sixteenth century was in itself an argument against their authenticity, but Erasmus had given his promise, and so in his 1522 edition he included the passage. (To-day one or two other very late Greek manuscripts are known to contain this passages; all others omit it.)

[For more details on Erasmus' addition of the 1Jo 5:7,8 text, see Metzger's The Text of the New Testament, Second Edition, pages 101-102 and also http://www.bibletexts.com/versecom/1jo05v07.htm.]

Erasmus' Greek manuscript basis. Erasmus' final 1535 edition still relied upon no more than six Greek manuscripts, the oldest (but least used!) of which was from the tenth century. Though Erasmus did in later editions of his work consult the Complutensian version of the Greek New Testament, Metzger is able to truthfully state:

Thus the text of Erasmus' Greek New Testament rests upon a half-dozen minuscule manuscripts. The oldest and best of these manuscripts (codex I, a minuscule of the tenth century, which agree agrees often with the earlier uncial text) he used least, because he was afraid of its supposedly erratic text! [Metzger, p. 102]]

The very first complete Greek New Testament to be printed was the Complutensian Polyglot New Testament, which was to become the New Testament portion of the Complutensian Polyglot Bible. It was first printed in 1514, two years earlier than Erasmus' first edition, but it was not published until 1520, when the Complutensian Polyglot Bible was complete, including the Old Testament, and it was not circulated until 1522. Thus, Erasmus was the first to have a printed Greek New Testament actually published and circulated.

Textus Receptus: a publisher's self-proclaimed statement that became a dogmatic title. Though Erasmus' text was not as consistent with the original texts as was the Complutensian text, Erasmus' text was marketed earlier and much more effectively and thereby achieved centuries of preeminence. In 1550 a French publisher, Robert Stephanus, published his third edition of an Erasmus-based Greek text. (Stephanus, the name by which he is best known, is just the Latin equivalent of Estienne, which was his French surname.) Stephanus' 1550 Greek text was very close to being the same as Erasmus' fourth- and fifth-editions. It was the primary basis for Beza's 1565 edition, which was virtually the same as the Elzevirs' 1633 edition, which became known as the Textus Receptus.

The term Textus Receptus, or Received Text, was derived from the self-proclaimed statement by the Elzevir printer family, in their preface to the 1633 edition of their Greek New Testament. They stated (in Latin), "Textum ergo habes nunc ab omnibus receptum, in quo nihil immutatum aut corruptum damus." In English this means, "Consequently you now have the text received by everyone, in which we present nothing that has been changed or that is corrupted." Rather than pronouncing divine sanction, the Elzevirs simply were stating that they had made no textual changes in their 1633 edition of the popularly accepted 1624 text -- the text that had been received from the work of various scholars and publishers of the New Testament Greek editions and that had been received by the scholarly community as the standard text representing the Greek New Testament. Erasmus' 1514 text and the continuingly evolving texts over the next 119 years, which came to be known as the Textus Receptus, were to most European Bible scholars of that time what the United Bible Society's Greek New Testament, Fourth Revised Edition (UBS4) is to most international Bible scholars of today. They all represent conscientious endeavors to best approximate the original Greek New Testament writings. The reconstruction of the original Greek texts will continue as additional ancient manuscripts are discovered and analyzed and as the methodology for such textual reconstruction becomes even further refined. Though this reconstruction process -- which included the Textus Receptus and its conceptual offspring of today, the UBS4 -- will always be a work in progress, the Word of God is always complete.

4. The effect of the Textus Receptus on the accuracy of the King James Version

The TR was used as the basis for the KJV and all the principal Protestant translations in the languages of Europe until 1881, when the Revised Version [RV] was first published in England. The KJV translators most directly relied upon the 1598 Greek text by the Theodore de Beze of Geneva, but it also was virtually identical with Stephanus' 1550 and 1551 Greek texts, which were virtually identical with Erasmus' 1535 Greek text. Again, these all were noble efforts, but the editors of these editions did not have access to the current wealth of ancient documents and to today's more scientific knowledge of how those documents had been transmitted and partially corrupted over many centuries.

Due to the errors in the Hebrew and Greek texts from which the KJV were translated, the KJV contains some texts that are not consistent with Jesus' genuine teachings and other genuine New Testament teachings, as represented in the earliest Greek texts of the New Testament. For example:

(1) In Matthew 19:29 and Mark 10:29, the earliest and best available Greek manuscripts conclusively show that the words "or wife" (Greek: e gunaika, Strong's: #2228 and #1135) were not in the original Greek text and are contrary to Jesus' consistent, genuine teachings about marriage.

Note: See a thorough examination of Jesus' teachings and other New Testament teachings regarding marriage and separation at http://www.bibletexts.com/terms/divorce.htm.

(2) In Matthew 5:22, "without a cause" (Greek: eike, Strong's: #1500) was not in the original Greek text of Matthew.

Note: See a textual commentary of "Mat 5:22" at http://www.bibletexts.com/verses/v-mat.htm. See also S&H 369:31-32.

(3) In some cases whole verses or large parts of verses, such as 1 John 5:7-8 (as noted above), were added at the behest of church authorities who, according to some very reputable scholars, presented to Erasmus forged manuscripts in order to include texts that justified their teachings.

Note: See a textual commentary of "1Jo 5:7-8" at http://www.bibletexts.com/verses/v-1jo.htm.

Many, many other examples in the KJV of additions to, omissions from, and alterations of the Greek New Testament texts are listed in the following webpages:

http://www.bibletexts.com/kjvtexts.htm

http://www.bibletexts.com/bt.htm

In the latter webpage you will find links to textual commentaries for all 66 books of the Bible. For instance the webpages for Matthew (at http://www.bibletexts.com/verses/v-mat.htm) and many other books of the Bible, include numerous references to

• KJV wording:... - corrected wording:... - (based on the original text's correction of KJV's Greek text)
• omit from KJV wording:... - (based on the original text's correction of KJV's Greek text)
• add to KJV wording:... - (based on the original text's correction of KJV's Greek text)

5. The 1611 King James Version and its early revisions

Unknown to many people is the fact that the KJV actually was revised many times between the date of its first publication in 1611 and the publication of the Revised Version, which was published between 1881-1885. Those early KJV revisions were published without being labeled as a "revision." That today's KJV editions are revisions can be seen from the title page to the last verses of Revelation, which in the 1611 KJV was written, "Reuelation." The 1611 KJV text of the title page was written:

The 1611 KJV text of Rev 21:20,21 was written:

20 Hee which testifieth these things, saith, Surely, I come quickly. Amen. Euen so, Come Lord Iesus.

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

FINIS.

There was also an introductory dedication that is still found in most KJV editions printed today, but following this "Dedicatorie" section there was also an 11-page section titled, "The Translators to the Reader." Though unfortunately not found in modern editions of the KJV, this section the original 1611 edition stated (The Holy Bible 1611 Edition, Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, no date, no page numbers, but the passage below is on page 9 of this section):

Truly (good Christian Reader) wee neuer [never] thought from the beginning, that we should neede to make a new Translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one,... but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principall good one, not iustly [justly] to be excepted against; that hath bene [been] our indeauour [endeavor], that our marke.

"The Translators to the Reader" section also defends the appropriateness of having included marginal notes that suggested other possible renderings or translations. (Unfortunately these marginal notes also eventually were removed.) On this point biblical scholar F.F. Bruce (pp. 102-103) observes:

They mention that some readers have misgivings about the alternative renderings suggested in the margin, on the ground that they may appear to shake the authority of Scripture in deciding points of controversy. This obscurantist objection has been urged against other Bible versions, of much more recent date; some would prefer a false appearance of certainty to an honest admission of doubt.

In another reference to the inclusion of alternative renderings noted in the margins of the KJV, "The Translators to the Reader" section of the original KJV points out and illustrates how the KJV translators' expertise in the ancient biblical languages is limited.

F.F. Bruce further notes (p. 103):

This is an important point; our understanding of the Hebrew vocabulary, especially in regard to such terms as are indicated by the A.V. [Authorized Version, i.e., the KJV] translators, has been gradually increasing over the generations, and has received much welcome illumination in fairly recent times. The R.V. [Revised Version, 1885, and American Edition of the RV, 1901, otherwise known as the American Standard Version] reflects fuller knowledge in this field than the A.V.; the R.S.V. [Revised Standard Version, 1952] represents an advance on the R.V.; and the New English Bible will be found to have profited greatly by recent advances in Semitic philology, but even the New English Bible makes no pretence of having attained finality. Where, then, there is doubt about the meaning of a word or phrase, is it not better to warn the reader that this is so? And what is true of uncertainties in translation applies with equal force to variant readings in the manuscripts and other authorities for the text. This too the A.V. translators point out when they criticize Pope Sixtus V for his ruling that no variant readings should be put in the margins of his edition of the Latin Vulgate. "They that are wise had rather have their judgments at liberty in differences of readings, than to be captivated to one, when it might be the other."

Without changing its name or labelling it as "revised," the KJV in fact was revised many times from 1611 to 1769, including changes in spelling, changes in punctuation, changes in wording, the removal of the Old Testament Apocrypha, the removal of marginal notes with alternative renderings. It was in 1769 that Dr. Benjamin Blayney of Oxford completed what Bruce Metzger describes as "the most careful and comprehensive revision" that came to be known as "the Authorized Version." Blayney's 1769 revision produced the text that is used by most publishers of the KJV today. (This is explained in Bruce Metzger's article on "Translations" in The Oxford Companion to the Bible, edited by Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993, page 759-760.) Metzger notes that in the 1614 edition alone, changes were made in over four hundred places.

Even the changes did not satisfy many of the early critics of the KJV, including Dr. Hugh Broughton. This distinguished biblical scholar and translator was described by John Lightfoot as "the Great Albionean Divine, renowned in many Nations for Rare Skill in Salems [Jerusalem's; i.e., Hebrew] and Athens [Athen's; i.e., Greek] Tongues and Familiar Acquaintance with all Rabbinical Learning." After the KJV was introduced Broughton described the KJV as follows (History of the English Bible, Third Edition, New York: Oxford University Press, 1978, page 107):

The late Bible... was sent to me to censure: which bred in me a sadness that will grieve me while I breathe, it is so ill done. Tell His Majesty that I had rather be rent in pieces with wild horses, than any such translation by my consent should be urged upon poor churches. ... The New edition crosseth me. I require it to be burnt.

It took another two generations before the KJV completely succeeded in replacing the Geneva Bible in the hearts of the people and colonies of England. (Metzger, The Oxford Companion to the Bible, page 760)

In "The Translators to the Reader" section mentioned above, the KJV translators themselves provided the most convincing justification for the KJV's revision/replacement of the Geneva Bible and for later revisions/replacements of the KJV. (The passages below are on pages 3-4 and 6 of this section.)

...How shall men meditate in that, which they cannot vnderstand [understand]? How shall they vnderstand [understand] that which is kept close in an vnknowen [unknown] tongue? as it is written, Except I know the power of the voyce [voice], I shall be to him that speaketh, a Barbarian, and he that speaketh, shalbe [shall be] a Barbarian to me... Therefore as one complaineth, that alwayes in the Senate of Rome, there was one or other that called for an interpreter: so lest the Church be driuen [driven] to the like exigent, it is necessary to have translations in a readinesse. Translation it is that openeth the window, to let in the light; that breaketh the shell, that we may eat the kernel; that putteth aside the curtaine, that we may looke into the most Holy place; that remooueth [removeth] the couer [cover] of the well, that wee may come by the water, euen [even] as Iacob [Jacob] rolled away the stone from the mouth of the well, by which meanes the flockes of Laban were watered. Indeede without translation into the vulgar tongue, the vnlearned are but like children at Iacobs well (which was deepe) without a bucket or some thing to draw with: or as that person mentioned by Esay [Isaiah], to whom when a sealed booke was deliuered [delivered], with this motion, Read this, I pray thee, hee was faine to make this answere, I cannot, for it is sealed.

...Blessed be they, and most honoured be their name, that breake the yce [ice], and glueth onset vpon [upon] that which helpeth forward to the sauing [saving] of soules. Now what can bee more auaileable [available] thereto, then to deliuer [deliver] Gods [God's] booke vnto [unto] Gods [God's] people in a tongue which they vnderstand [understand]? Since of an hidden treasure, and of a fountaine that is sealed, there is no profit... Yet for all that, as nothing is begun and perfited at the same time, and the latter thoughts are thought to be the wiser: so, if we building vpon [upon] their foundation that went before vs [us], and being holpen [helped] by their labours, doe [do] endeuour [endeavor] to make that better which they left so good; no man, we are sure, hath cause to mislike vs [us]; they, we perwade [persuade] our selues [selves], if they were aliue [alive], would thanke vs [us].

After quoting some of the passages above, Sakae Kubo and Walter Specht (So Many Versions? Twentieth Century English Versions of the Bible, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1975, page 22-23) comment:

Unfortunately, the very version prefaced by these noble words is no longer speaking the language of the common man. To the average man of today the language of the KJV seems strange and foreign. There is therefore a danger that the Bible may seem to modern man to be something out of date and irrelevant. This has been recongized now for nearly a century. Hense, towrd the end of the ninetheenth and the beginning of the twentieth century a movement arose calling for translations of the Bible in modern English.

This movement was strengthened by the discoveries of large quantities of papyri in Egypt particularly at about the turn of the century and later. These papyri have illuminated every aspect of the life of the Greek-speaking people of the ancient world in which the NT was written. They have revolutionized the study of NT Greek, for they have shown that in the main the NT was written in the vernacular Greek of common people. The NT documents are written in a plain, simple style to meet the needs of ordinary men and women. Should it not then be translated in the same kind of English? This is the argument of the translators of the modern-speech versions.

Encouraged by such "noble words" as found in the original KJV's "Translators to the Reader" section, revisions of the KJV continued to be used without any change in the title, until the publication of the 1881 Revised Version New Testament and the 1885 Revised Version of the Bible. The title page of the 1885 Revised Version of the Bible stated:

6. Dependency on the King James Version versus dependency on the original texts -- the controversy continues

In 1881 the Revised Version of the New Testament was published, and by 1885 the Revised Version of the Bible (including Old Testament and the New Testament) was published as the first major English translation of the Bible in over three hundred years that did not base its New Testament on the Textus Receptus. These issues resulted in a serious campaign of opposition to the RV from some very articulate, influential, and outspoken Christian theologians throughout the Protestant world, who were very critical of the RV. When the RV was introduced in its 1881 New Testament edition, it aroused great indignation and outrage among many English-speaking Protestant theologians. Most church leaders considered it to be a scandalous and heretical sacrilege for anyone to use any version except their time-honored KJV.

That the RV did not remain - or that the ASV did not become - the standard Bible version used in Protestant church services is not surprising, given some of the extremely severe criticism of the RV and the ASV during the years immediately following their publications. In the intervening years, the RV has been largely vindicated as having ushered in a new era of English-language versions of the Bible; however, some of the original criticisms are still seen as valid today by modern Bible scholars, even those who have high regard for the RV's role as the initiator of a new era of Bible translations. Among those vigorously articulating the shortcomings of the RV was an outspoken nineteenth-century English biblical scholar named Dr. John William Burgon. He wrote:

How it happened that, with so many splendid Scholars sitting round their table, they should have produced a Translation which, for the most part, reads like a first-rate school-boy's crib, tasteless, unlovely, harsh, unidiomatic; - servile without being really faithful, - pedantic without being really learned; - an unreadable Translation, in short; the result of a vast amount of labour indeed, but of wondrous little skill: - how all this has come about it were utterly useless at this time of day to enquire. (F.F. Bruce, p. 150)

F.F. Bruce (p. 152) summed up the RV's impact as follows:

Although the R.V. has been widely used in schools, colleges and universities, as well as by private students who realize its superiority in accuracy over the A.V. [KJV], it never began to replace the A.V. [KJV] in popular esteem.

American biblical scholarship had been part of the RV translation effort since 1870. In that original 1881 edition of the Revised Version of the New Testament, the English scholars agreed to publish the American Committee's preferred readings and rendering in an Appendix for a fourteen year period, and the American Committee agreed not to publish an American edition of the Revised Version (which was to include textual changes reflecting the American Committee's preferences) for the same fourteen year period. The "Preface to the American Version" [ASV, 1901, page iii] stated:

In the course of the joint labors of the English and American Revisors it was agreed that, respecting all points of ultimate difference, the English Companies, who had the initiative in the work of revision, should have the decisive vote. But as an offset to this, it was proposed on the British side that the American preferences should be published as an Appendix in every copy of the Revised Bible during a term of fourteen years. The American Committee on their part pledged themselves to give, for the same limited period, no sanction to the publication of any other editions of the Revised Version than those issued by the University Presses of England.

In 1901 the American Committee published what was to become known as the American Standard Version (ASV). The title page actually describes it as follows:

The Holy Bible containing the Old and New Testaments, translated out of the original tongues, being the version set forth A.D. 1611, compared with the most ancient authorities and revised A.D. 1881-1885, newly edited by the American Revision Committee A.D. 1901.

For reasons similar to the criticisms of the RV, the ASV did not gain much popular support.

Even C.I. Scofield in the original 1909 edition of his very popular Scofield Reference Bible wrote in the "Introduction,"

After mature reflection it was determined to use the Authorized Version [KJV]. None of the many Revisions have commended themselves to the people at large. The Revised Version [including both the 1885 English version and the 1901 American version], which has now been before the public for twenty-seven years, gives no indication of becoming in any general sense the people's Bible of the English-speaking world.

Though Scofield had great respect for the RV, he knew that it was not widely enough accepted to be used as the basis for the Scofield Reference Bible. "After mature reflection" Scofield decided not to challenge the then virtually uncontested supremacy of the King James Version in English-speaking Protestant churches.

Roman Catholic biblical scholar John McKenzie provides this insightful observation:

Latin did not become the language of the Roman rite until the 6th century; the language of imperial Rome was Greek. As a sacred language Latin really has no parallel. Jews have always made a genuine effort to learn some Hebrew, and other sacred languages are archaic forms of the vernacular; the English of the Authorized Version [King James Version] of the Bible became the language of prayer in many Protestant churches. The effect of Latin was to make the liturgy the preserve of the clergy, and the laity became purely passive. This was countered by the efforts to use sound and spectacle in the performance of the liturgy. The Canon of the mass, the central eucharistic formula, for centuries was recited by the celebrant inaudibly; this was a kind of verbal "sanctuary" that the laity were not even supposed to hear. The abandonment of Latin as a result of the second Vatican Council excited deep antagonism; one sees in the Latin liturgy an image, cherished by many, of the timeless and changless Roman Catholic Church. Yet, the restoration of the vernacular should restore to the liturgy two functions that it had in the early centuries: to instruct converts and to confirm members in their faith. (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1978, Vol. 15, page 996)

It should be noted that though Scofield himself really would have preferred to use the Revised Version for his Reference Bible, his true preference was not publicly articulated in the "Introduction" to his Reference Bible. In his following statement of support for the KJV, he is really publicly justifying his private resignation to the fact that the KJV public would not endorse a challenger to the KJV at that time. He continued his above-quoted statement as follows:

The discovery of the Sinaitic MS, and the labours in the field of textual criticism of such scholars as Griesbach, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Winer, Alford, and Westcott and Hort, have cleared the Greek textus receptus of minor inaccuracies, while confirming in a remarkable degree the general accuracy of the Authorized Version of that text. Such emendations of the text as scholarship demands have been placed in the margins of this editions, which therefore combines the dignity, the high religious value, the tender associations of the past, the literary beauty and remarkable general accuracy of the Authorized Version, with the results of the best textual scholarship.

In actuality Scofield included in his margins only a very few of the many textual corrections that were made by the scholars he mentions above and that were included in the Revised Version and virtually all subsequent modern translations. His above statement about the KJV was very generous indeed. He knew that the Protestant clergy and public would not endorse his use of another translation. Scofield's "mature reflection"/pragmatism enabled his Reference Bible to become the leading study Bible for the next half century. In recent years the Scofield Reference Bible became available with the following versions: NIV, NASV, and NKJV. There is also a New Scofield Reference Bible, first published in 1968, which substitutes into the text itself corrections for what textual scholars' consider the KJV's most unbearable textual errors.

Until 1952 there continued to be no serious competitor to the KJV in Protestant churches in America. It was in 1952 that the complete Revised Standard Version [RSV] was published as an authorized revision of the ASV, which itself was an authorized revision of the KJV.

Public book-burnings: Even the RSV met with great hostility when it was first introduced. In 1983 when I visited with Dr. Bruce Metzger in his private library at Princeton Theological Seminary, Dr. Metzger took me to one of his shelves to show me something that was obviously quite special to him. He pointed out a simple can, which he described as containing ashes. They were the remains of a copy of the RSV, intentionally burned during a public book-burning in 1952. It was especially meaningful to Dr. Metzger, because he had served on the RSV's translation committee. He still humorously remarks that he is grateful that opponents of the RSV translation had only burned the book and not the translators. Here he is referring to the burning at the stake of William Tyndale, 1494-1536, whose translation later served as a primary basis for the KJV!

F.F. Bruce (p. 196) graphically describes the intense animosity toward the Revised Standard Version [RSV] as follows:

When the whole Bible was published in 1952, the cricitism which greeted it from some quarters was remarkably reminiscent of criticism voiced in earlier days against the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate, against the versions of Luther and Tyndale, agains the A.V. and R.V. One American preacher was reported to have burned a copy of the R.S.V. with a blowlamp in his pulpit, remarking that it was like the devil because it was hard to burn... Pamphlets appeared bearing such titles as The Bible of Antichrist (an echo, untting no doubt, of More's description of Tyndale's New Testament), The New Blasphemous Bible, and Whose Unclean Fingers Have Been Tampering With The Holy Bible, God's Pure, Infallible, Verbally Inspired Word? (The last-named opens with the sentence: "Every informed and intelligent person knows that our government is crawling with communists, or those who sanction and encourage communism" -- which indicates another line along which the version was attacked.)

For a remarkably fair but disturbing account of some groups' continuing, wrathful resistance to any use of any Bible version other than the KJV, you can read The King James Only Controversy: Can You Trust the Modern Translations? by James R. White. It is published by Bethany House Publishers in 1995. The back cover includes the following quote from Dr. Metzger:

The King James Only Controversy is scholarly and accurate, and its evaluation of opposing viewpoints fair. Anyone troubled by criticism of English translations will find White trustworthy. I hope his book will be widely circulated. It will do much good."

Now in the beginning of the twenty-first century, the situation has changed quite a bit. In most English-speaking churches, the KJV has been largely replaced, except primarily in the most fundamentalist, conservative churches. Many churches had switched to the Revised Standard Version Bible after its initial publication in 1952. Then later many churches switched to the New American Standard Version (1971), the New International Version (1978), the New Revised Standard Version (1989), or one of the other more recent versions.

Note: According to recent marketing surveys the NIV leads with about 40% of the market share. The KJV continues to decline in use and now has less than 20% of the market share, and the NRSV has been endorsed by Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, and other mainstream denominations. The NRSV may actually have a much higher percentage of distribution than market research has registered, because NRSV's primary means of distribution directly to churches reportedly has not been tracked by traditional marketing surveys.

7. Conclusion

We have been considering which are the most viable ancient texts to be used from which to translate the Bible into English. The original Hebrew (Old Testament), Aramaic (Daniel only), and Greek (New Testament) texts are what actually constitute "the Bible." All other versions, whether in Latin, English, Chinese, or Hindi, whether produced in 384 A.D. or in 1611 A.D. or in 1996 A.D., are merely translations indirectly derived from those original Hebrew and Greek texts. The BibleTexts.com Bible Commentary at http://www.bibletexts.com/bt.htm provides verse-by-verse textual corrections that are based upon the most current knowledge of those original Hebrew and Greek texts. Most of those corrections are relevant only to the KJV, because most modern versions such as the NRSV and the TEV were translated from Hebrew and Greek texts that are much more consistent with "the original texts" than those Hebrew and Greek texts from which the 1611 KJV was translated. In the KJV most of the substantive errors are due to the faulty Hebrew and Greek texts from which the KJV was translated. (See S&H 139:15.)

Objectively viewed, those Hebrew and Greek texts that most accurately represent the original texts should be used by translators and should serve as the final standard for biblical interpretation. In this context the words of Protestant Christian historian Ernst Wilhelm Benz provides appropriate perspective:

The translation of Holy Scripture into a vernacular language generally has been based upon the form of the language that was spoken at the time of the translation. Hence, the sacred language and the vernacular language initially correspond to one another, and the translations of the Bible thus represented a linguistically creative enrichment of the living popular tongue. Use of the Scriptures in worship services, however, generally led to the development of a "sacred" church language that no longer was able to keep up with linguistic development. It rather has remained fixated upon the ancient substratum of the language from the period of the translation of the Scriptures (eg., Old Church Slavonic in the liturgy of some Eastern Orthodox churches, or the King James Version of the Bible in early 17th-century English). Translation of the Scriptures into popular languages thus is a never-ending task... (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1978, Vol. 4, page 464)

APPENDIX

Important Comments on Textual Criticism

food for thought

In Biblical Hermeneutics, Second Edition (edited by Bruce Corley, Steve W. Lemke, and Grant Lovejoy, Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2002, page 388), Harold Freeman, in his chapter on "Biblical Criticism and Biblical Preaching" honestly comments on the textual corruption of 1Jo 5:7, which appears in both the Textus Receptus and the KJV:

Textual criticism is the discipline that seeks to identify the original wording of an ancient document. Textual criticism of the Bible benefits preaching by preventing nonbiblical sermons... We regret giving up a nice doctrinal sermon on the Trinity based on 1 John 5:7b (KJV). Nevertheless, if it is determined that these are additions to the original writings, whether intentional or accidental, biblical preaching based on these texts cannot occur... Sermons based on spurious or corrupted texts cannot be genuinely biblical. The determination of exactly what the Scripture said is the starting point for biblical preaching.

 

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