Why You Should Use the King James Version as Your English Translation of the Bible

 

 

 

First of all we want to lay a foundation with three important truths about this book that we call the Bible:

 

1.     The first part of Second Timothy 3:16 says, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God.” The word “scripture” means “writings.” The point here is that God has given His written Word to human beings. God gave these writings one time in the past. Actually, there are 66 books of the Bible, so God used this method 66 times. As it says in Second Peter 1:2, “For the prophesy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” Sixty-six times a holy man of God spoke as he “was moved by the Holy Ghost.” The first truth is this: the written words that make up the book that we call the Bible came from God. They are God’s words given to man and written down so that every person in every generation can read and know and benefit from these words. That is why we often call the Bible: the Word of God.

2.    Jesus said in Matthew 24:35, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pas away.” It says in Psalms 100:5, “…his truth endureth to all generations.” The second truth is this: not only did God give all the words of the Bible, but God has also promised to preserve all of His words. It is a good thing that God has promised to preserve His words because if He did not make such a promise, you could not have confidence that the book that you hold in your hands is reliable, and accurate, and truthful and without error.

3.    At the very end of the Bible it says in Revelation 22:18-19, “For 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: And 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.” Of course, an emphasis is being made on the words that God has given. The truth that we want to mention is that God gives a very stern warning for anyone who adds to or who takes away from the very “words” that God has given in the book that we call the Bible.

 

It is good to have a translation of the Bible into one’s own native language.  That was the purpose of the gift of tongues as it is recorded in Acts 2:6-11, “Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.” If we did not have a translation into our native tongue, then we would all have to learn Hebrew and Greek so that we could read the scriptures, because when God originally gave the scriptures, God gave the words in the Hebrew and Greek languages.

 

In looking for a translation to use that is in our own language, it is critical that we use a translation that we can trust. It is critical that we use a translation where accurate words were used to translate the original scriptures. God gave the original words. Those original words are the words of God, and therefore we want an accurate translation of those words. If we have two translations: and one is not very accurate, and the other is a very accurate translation of the original languages; then of course, we want to use the translation that is a very accurate translation. We want the most accurate translation that we can find that correctly translates the words that God gave to mankind. The ideas of the Bible are important, because those ideas come from God. But ideas are expressed by words. If you change the words, then you will be changing the ideas. The challenge for anyone doing translation work from the Hebrew and Greek is to accurately and correctly translate the words to the intended language.

 

The King James version of the Bible of 1611 is a translation that successfully followed the important principle of translating the words as accurately as possible. Evidently God greatly blessed the work that was performed by the translators of the King James version. From the time that it was translated until the early 20th century and beyond, the King James version was practically the only English translation used in all of the Protestant denominations. That is a period of over 300 years. Think of all of the souls that were saved, all of the sermons that were preached, and all of the hearts that were blessed through the reading and study of the King James version.

 

Probably the most common reason given by people for wanting to switch from the King James version (KJV) is because of some of the uses of the Old English words in the KJV. We no longer use “ye” and “thou” in our daily speech. Even so, these words are easily understood and are actually a more accurate rendering of the original languages because “ye” is plural for “you” and “thou” is singular for “you.” The King James Version also has some words that are no longer used in our normal conversation. Some of these words are archaic, and are sometimes not understood without looking them up in a dictionary or other study guide. The point to be made about this is that there are many words in the Bible that must be researched to fully understand them no matter what translation is used. For example, who understands simply by a casual reading of the Bible words like “redemption,” or “sanctification,” or “remission,” or “repentance?” Such words probably require a dictionary and other Bible study aides to fully understand them. The important principle to remember is that the King James Version of 1611 is a translation that was accurately translated word-for-word as much as possible. The reader will have to do some study to get all of the understanding that he or she needs no matter what translation is being used.  But at least if an accurate translation is used (as with the King James Version of 1611), the words being studied are God’s words. It says in Second Timothy “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”  

 

Another great problem with the modern translations has to do with the men who are actually creating these new translations. They are not men who are uniquely chosen of God as were the men who created the King James translation. Modern theologians are often well educated, but many of them do not have a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Simply put, many of them are not saved, and therefore they do not have the Holy Spirit to guide and bless their work. That is why it is not important to them if they accurately translate the words or not. These modern theologians often have an agenda whereby they are trying to influence the readers into a particular theological or societal emphasis. An example of this type of bias can be found in the NIV translation of the Bible. For many years the translators of the NIV have tried to introduce gender neutral phrases and words into the NIV translation instead of being faithful to an accurate translation of the words that God gave.

 

To prove the point that was just made, that modern theologians have an agenda to influence society at the cost of changing God’s Word, I would like to quote from an article from the Associated Press entitled: “Evangelicals prepare gender-neutral Bible.” To quote from the article, “The top-selling Bible in North America will undergo its first revision in 25 years, modernizing the language in some sections and promising to reopen a contentious debate about changing gendered terms in the sacred text.” In other words they might translate a word as “her” instead of “him,” or another word as “mother” instead of “father.” We see the problem here right away. These translators want to insert politically correct language into the translation of the NIV. What other bias have they put into the translation? This is a reckless departure from simply translating the words that God gave.

 

Another quotation from that same article about the NIV says, “The New International Version (NIV), the Bible of choice for conservative evangelicals, will be revised to reflect changes in English usage and advances in biblical scholarship, its copyright holder announced Tuesday. The revision is scheduled to be completed late next year and published in 2011.” Because there is a copyright holder, they can create a new revision whenever they want to, and they can make any changes whenever they want to. The King James Version of 1611 will not change. Those who use the King James Version of 1611 will never see their translation infected by such changes as these that go into the NIV both past, present, and future.

 

The article goes on to say, “But past attempts to remake the NIV for contemporary audiences in different editions have been beset by controversies about gender language that have pitted evangelicals against each other.” Anyone who uses the King James Version will not be wasting time in these controversies because they will be using the KJV. Also, those who try to argue with the modern liberal theologians will always be talking to a wall because the liberal theologians cannot understand the truth of God’s Word. They have not been saved by Jesus, and therefore, they do not have the Spirit of God within them. Whenever there is a seemingly small victory in these debates, the liberals simply renew their efforts to change the modern translations in more devious ways. For example, one final quotation for the article by the Associated Press says, ‘"We fell short of the trust that has been placed in us," said Mr. Danby of Biblica. "We failed to make a clear case for the revisions." However, Mr. Danby said that freezing the NIV in its 1984 state was also a mistake. He emphasized that in the revision, about 90 percent of the NIV will be unchanged.’ To change ten percent of the words in a translation is a lot of changes. That amounts to changing 6 or 7 books of the Bible. Anyway, notice the attitude of Mr. Danby. He is not going to change his method of attempting to insert gender-neutral phrases into the NIV. What he is going to do is to re-double his efforts to get people to accept what they are doing. He will not get me to accept it, because I will be using the King James Version of 1611.

 

One hundred years from now the King James Version of 1611 will be the same as it is today with no changes. It is not only good, it is critically important to be able to count on an accurate translation that you know will not be changed by modern theologians or by modern Bible translators. The modern Bible translations can and will be changed by modern theologians who have the wrong view of Bible translation work.

 

There is another very important issue about Bible translation that has to do with the Greek texts that are used for the translation. Before the printing press was invented, all Bibles in any language were hand-copied. This includes the Greek New Testament texts. This is what needs to be remembered about the Greek texts: the words were originally given by God (Second Timothy 3:16), and Jesus promised that the words would be preserved for every generation (Matthew 24:35.) What this means is that the Greek texts that were available in 1611 were the texts that God preserved and that God made available when the great translation work began of putting the original languages into the English language. The final text that was made up of the Greek texts that were studied and compiled and put together to form a whole in the sixteenth century is called the Textus Receptus. God blessed the work that resulted in the compilation of the Textus Receptus, and God blessed the use of the Textus Receptus in the creation of the translation that we call the King James Version of 1611.

 

Unfortunately for them and their eternal destiny, many modern theologians have rejected the Textus Receptus. They take other old Greek texts and continually try to find changes in these other Greek texts in order to try to justify making additional changes in the translations. This is called modern textual criticism and it is based upon the premise that the Greek text to be used for translation work needs to be constantly changed based upon new scholarship and new discoveries in regards to the Greek text. Of course, the problem with this philosophy is that it totally ignores the teaching that Jesus gave when Jesus said, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pas away.” It also ignores the truth of Psalms 100:5 that says, “his truth endureth to all generations.”

 

The greatness of the errors of these men who have been involved in modern Greek textual criticism can be seen by quoting Kurt Aland, Matthew Black, Bruce M. Metzger, and Allen Wikgren. Quoting from their Preface to what they call the “Greek New Testament” printed in 1965: “Since this edition is intended primarily for translators it is not to be regarded as in competition with other modern editions, e.g. the continuing Nestle-Aland editions, which provide a more restricted selection of data from witnesses on a much wider range of variant readings. It is the intention of the Committee from time to time to revise its work in order to take into account new discoveries and fresh evidence.” Notice carefully this last phrase. These modern theologians do not even think that they have a Greek text that is without error. But do not fear….they are so much smarter than we are: they are going to keep studying and keep revising the Greek New Testament for us by correcting all of the errors that they find. But those believers who understand the terrible errors of the modern theologians are not going to fall for the deception of these theologians. Believers who are wise understand the importance of having a translation that is based upon the Textus Receptus. Of course, this demonstrates one more great value to the King James Version of 1611. The KJV was translated from the Textus Receptus. To say that we do not have a Greek New Testament that is without error is heresy, and is the same thing as saying that we do not have the Word of God without error. These translators and theologians are basically saying that the Bible as we know it has errors, but as the years go by they claim that they will continually find more and more errors, and they will let us know what those errors are as they find them. Such a philosophy is ungodly and its result can be to destroy the faith of whomever is infected by that philosophy. 

 

By using the King James Version of 1611, we are using an accurate translation of the Word of God that does not change. We can hold up the King James Version of 1611 today, or tomorrow, or 100 years from now, and we can say that this is the inspired Word of God. It is reliable, it is accurate, it is truthful, and it is without error. It is everything that we expect the Word of God to be because it is the Word of God. The same thing cannot be said for the modern translations. Revelation 22:18-19 says, For 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: And 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.”

        

 

 

 

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Copyright; 2009 by Charles F. (Rick) Creech
All Rights Reserved