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
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
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