All in the King James Family

The King James Version (KJV) of the Bible was not the first English translation from the original Hebrew and Greek (that honor goes to the work of William Tyndale), but it has become the best-known. It was translated by a commission appointed by James I of England and authorized for use in the Church of England in 1611, replacing the Bishops’ Bible (1568) and the Geneva Bible (1560). Also called the Authorized Version (AV), it had an immense influence on English literature and the wording of its verses have become immortalized in our culture. Among some, however, the KJV has become so sacrosanct that it is akin to blasphemy to either change it or question its inadequacies.

The Early Revisions

But the inadequacies of the KJV are legion. It wasn’t an entirely new translation; much of the English phrasings can be traced to earlier editions (for example, 1/3 of the NT is worded exactly like Tyndale’s). The Greek basis for the KJV was the Textus Receptus (TR), a compilation of a half-dozen inferior Byzantine manuscripts collected by Erasmus in 1516 and slightly corrected by others.

By the late 19th century, the evolution of the English language and discoveries of more ancient texts demanded a revision to the KJV. Published in 1885, the Revised Version (RV) was a product of mostly British Protestant scholars. It used a Greek text based on older Alexandrian manuscripts instead of the later Byzantine manuscripts reflected in the Textus Receptus. The RV also retained archaic terms from the KJV like aforetime, howbeit, must needs, etc.

A separate version of the RV with readings preferred by the American translators on the team, the American Standard Version (ASV), was released in 1901. One of decisions of the Americans was to translate the name of God (YHWH) in the OT as “Jehovah”. Judged too literal, the ASV never seriously challenged the KJV in popularity.

King James I of England and VI of Scotland, after John De Critz the Elder (died 1647)

No Longer a Virgin

Recognizing the deficiencies in the ASV, in the mid-20th century the National Council of Churches authorized work on another revision of the KJV. Called the Revised Standard Version (RSV), it was released in 1952. It reverted to the practice followed in the KJV of translating YHWH as “the Lord” but retained the antiquated second-person pronouns (“thou, thee, thy”) and verbs (“art, hast, didst”) in conversations directed towards God.

The RSV was mostly well-received among mainline Protestant churches, but it was also attacked vigorously by more conservative denominations. While some of the complaints related to the RSV not using the TR as the Greek base for the translation of the NT – something that would also apply to the RV and ASV – the main charge was that the RSV denied the virgin birth with its translation of Is 7:14:

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (KJV) 

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Imman′u-el. (RSV)

I have previously discussed the differences in the Hebrew and Greek translation of this verse. “Young woman” reflects the Hebrew but it doesn’t square with Matthew’s prophetic citation of Isaiah in Mt 1:23. The RSV translation of Is 7:14 does not cast doubt on the doctrine of the virgin birth of Jesus because that is still clear in both Matthew and Luke.

A Conservative Reaction

Conservative denominations wanted an alternative to the RSV and got it in a revision to the ASV called the New American Standard Bible (NASB). Released in 1971 and updated in 1995, in addition to restoring “virgin” to Is 7:14, it also restored some theological terms like justification, sanctification and propitiation that had been downplayed in the RSV. Here’s an example of Rom 3:25:

whom God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith, in his blood, to show his righteousness because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God; (ASV) 

whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins; (RSV) 

whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; (NASB)

You can see how the word “propitiation” in the ASV was changed by the RSV to “expiation” and then restored to “propitiation” by the NASB. The NASB also followed the reverential tradition of capitalizing deity pronouns even though that was lacking in earlier translations.

Return of the Textus Receptus

While conservative in some ways, the NT of the NASB – like the RSV – was not based on the TR but on a critical Greek text giving preference to the oldest Greek manuscripts. In practice, this meant that certain verses and sometimes entire passages were relegated to footnotes because they were not found in the oldest and most reliable Greek manuscripts. Compare 1 John 5:7-8 in the KJV and the NASB:

For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one. (KJV) 

For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. (NASB)

To devotees of the KJV removing the words in bold from the passage was part of a satanic plot to eliminate vital Christian doctrines such as the Trinity. Since modernizing the Elizabethan English of the KJV was a laudable goal in and of itself, a new modern-English translation using the same Hebrew and Greek source of the KJV was published in 1982. This translation eventually came to be known as the New King James Version (NKJV). In the passage above, the only noticeable difference in the NKJV from the KJV is replacing “Holy Ghost” with “Holy Spirit”.

A "family tree" of the KJV showing its various revisions through the years. The Living Bible was a paraphrase of the ASV, but the NLT was a true translation in the style of The Living Bible. The NIV is an example of a translation created outside the KJV tradition.

All-Inclusive

As mentioned above, the RSV retained the “thou” pronouns and verbs when referring to God, so one goal for its revision was to eliminate them. Another goal was the elimination of masculine-oriented language when the source language was gender-neutral. For instance, in 1 Cor 6:18, the RSV (and all the other translations mentioned so far) reads “Every other sin which a man commits is outside the body.” The Greek word behind the bolded word is anthropos, which is Greek for human.

The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), published in 1989, attempted to correct these defects. 1 Cor 6:18 in the NRSV reads “Every sin that a person commits is outside the body”. Sometimes it gets awkward. The RSV renders Gal 4:7 as “So through God you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then an heir.” The NRSV translates it: “So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.” While it is laudable to be inclusive, Paul had just written in 4:1 that “heirs, as long as they are minors, are no better than slaves.” In modern English, the word child conjures up the image of an underage minor more than it does a mature adult. So it’s a work in progress.

Not surprisingly, just as the release of the RSV prompted the conservative NASB as an alternative, publication of the NRSV prompted a conservative alternative called the English Standard Version (ESV), released in 2001. The ESV – as the NASB before it – has as one of its goals retaining theological terminology like redemption, regeneration and reconciliation. Another goal was to be more constrained in the use of inclusive language. The ESV rendering of 1 Cor 6:18 is almost exactly like that of the NRSV, whereas Gal 4:7 is almost like the RSV. Is 7:14 is translated with “virgin” and 1 John 5:7-8 follows the RSV and NASB.

This brief tour through several of the biblical translations in the Tyndale-KJV tradition illustrates how some revisions are driven by changes in languages and discoveries in ancient manuscripts. Others are in reaction to real or perceived attacks on biblical doctrines or preferred readings.

In my next article, I will discuss translations outside the Tyndale-KJV family, especially Catholic translations.

An Inerrant Translation?

The King James Version (KJV) of the Bible is, without a doubt, the most influential translation of the Bible in the English language. Commissioned by James I of England and completed in 1611, it became the standard for quoting scripture. Written in the language of Shakespeare, millions can quote passages of it from memory: “man shall not live by bread alone,” “for whither thou goest, I will go,” “the Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want,” and so on.

Since 1611, however, many discoveries either gave us older versions of the manuscripts that were then available to the KJV translators or shed light on the meanings behind the Hebrew and Greek words. Yet, the KJV had become so beloved over the centuries that release of the Revised Standard Version (RSV) in 1952 was greeted with accusations of blasphemy and book burning. It was only inevitable that, after having been used almost exclusively for almost 350 years, there would be a contingent of bible believers who conclude that the KVJ was the only English translations that Christians should read: “If it was good enough for St. Paul, it’s good enough for me.”

But it is one thing to prefer the KJV for the beauty of its language or its familiarity. It is quite another to fetishize it as a divinely inspired translation, based on specific Hebrew and Greek texts that are also divinely inspired. To be clear, many evangelicals believe the original Hebrew and Greek autographs – originals which everyone agrees are no longer in existence – are divinely inspired or inerrant (or both). But there is a certain cadre of fundamentalists who argue that the Hebrew Masoretic Text and the Greek Textus Receptus underlying the KJV are superior to the Hebrew and Greek texts today that have been reconstructed using older and better manuscripts.

If you turn to Gen 4:8 in the KJV, you will read: “And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.” Now, let’s compare to the RSV: “Cain said to Abel his brother, ‘Let us go out to the field.’ And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him.”

Cain’s words “Let us go to the field” (only two words in Hebrew) do not appear in the KJV. In the RSV (and other modern translations that have the line), there is a textual note: “Sam Gk Syr Compare Vg: MT lacks Let us go out to the field”. This note is telling us that the Masoretic Text (MT), the authoritative Hebrew text for rabbinic Judaism, is missing Cain’s actual words, but we are able to fill in this gap by looking at other ancient texts such as the Samaritan Pentateuch (Sam), the Greek Septuagint (Gk, also abbreviated LXX), the Syriac Peshitta (Syr), and the Latin Vulgate (Vg). All of these texts were copied or translated from a Hebrew text much older than the oldest complete Hebrew text we possess today and serve as a check against the MT. 

The relationship between the various ancient manuscripts of the Old Testament, according to the Encyclopaedia Biblica

In the case of Gen 4:8, it turns out that the MT appears to have lost a couple of words and the ancient versions were able to supply them. And Gen 4:8 is not an isolated example. Despite the care of the scribes copying the texts, over the centuries mistakes were made. Sometimes the eye of the scribe would jump over a line and miss copying it.

When you have several ancient manuscripts that agree with each other against the MT, what most likely happened is that the words were originally there in the root Hebrew text. When the other versions branched off they copied or translated the words that were there. But in the branch that led to the MT the words accidentally dropped out at some point.

While logical, this is not an acceptable explanation for the KJV-only crowd. Their doctrinal belief is that the MT on which the KJV is based is without error because God would not inspire the human authors to write down his words, only then to allow those holy words to succumb to scribal copying errors. No, he would divinely preserve his words through the centuries. Any “gaps” in the MT are only apparent gaps. The other ancient versions independently (and erroneously) concluded there were words missing from Cain’s speech and just happened to supply the same words to plug the hole. The KJV translators were divinely inspired to perceive that, in fact, there were no missing words and thus translated the passage exactly how God intended.

It only makes sense if you are already predisposed to the conclusion.

I appreciate that ancient texts can correct mistakes that were made somewhere down the line when a copy of a copy of a copy was being copied. I welcome new discoveries of non-biblical texts that shed light on how biblical words should be translated. We should always be striving to improve our understanding, to make known that which was once hidden.

Or as the KJV itself put it in Luke 8:17, “For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad.”