King James Only-ism: Is the KJV King?

this video is brought to you by nordpass check the link in the description below for a special deal for the religion for breakfast audience if you head to kjv1611.org the online merch store for the bible baptist bookstore in pensacola florida you'll find this poster a big black bible standing on top of a mountain crowned king on the spine you see av 1611 which stands for the authorized version or more commonly the king james version published in 1611 below the mountain are piles of forgotten and vilified bible translations the new king james version the new international version the nrsv the rsv the poster's message is clear in the competition of bible translations the king james version is the king of the mountain this bookstore is the clearinghouse for the late baptist pastor peter ruckman we call this holy bible the king james authorized version because he was translated under a king and the bible says what the word of the king is was power a fundamentalist who held to a particularly extreme form of king james onliaism which as the name suggests is the belief that the king james bible is the ultimate english translation of the bible superior above all other english translations and even a divinely inspired translation now i want to be clear king james onliests don't simply prefer the king james bible there are many christians specifically protestant christians who love the kjv for its poetic language the these thou's and shalt nots for generations the words of the kjv formed the common language for english-speaking protestants worldwide it's not an exaggeration to list the king james bible alongside shakespeare as two of the greatest influences on modern english its language is found in handle's messiah abraham lincoln's gettysburg address martin luther king's i have a dream speech it's a big deal and the kjv celebrated its 400th birthday in 2011 never having been out of print but this video is not about people who prefer the kjv for its literary or artistic merit we're talking about christians who believe it's the best english translation on a sliding scale from those who believe it's the only uncorrupted english translation all the way up to those who believe it's a supernaturally inspired translation now it's hard to get a precise figure on the size of the king james only movement but as recently as 2011 one scholar estimated that the number of churches is about 1 000 worldwide but the vast majority are in the united states especially among independent baptist churches as the scholar james henschel has said the king james only movement is rather young overwhelmingly baptist and thoroughly american specific examples include organizations like the new independent fundamentalist baptist churches as well as the baptist apologist kent hovind god preserved his word for in english and we've got it though king james onliest can also be found in seventh-day adventists and pentecostal churches as well but where did the king james bible come from what about the king james only movement and is the kjv really a particularly accurate translation in the first place published in 1611 the kjv was by no means the first english translation of the bible there were several major translations that paved its way especially the translations done by the englishman william tyndale in the early 1500s tyndale translated much of the bible into english from greek and hebrew manuscripts and although tyndale was eventually burned at the stake by church authorities in 1536 his so-called tyndale bible became the template for later translations two years later king henry viii commissioned an english bible for his newly established church of england calling it the great bible which was based heavily on tyndale's work then when henry's daughter queen mary the first restored catholicism in 1553 some protestant bible translators fled the country most of them to switzerland where they produced the geneva bible it was very popular among protestants but because it was the work of scholars persecuted by catholic royalty it had a decidedly anti-monarchy and anti-catholic tone for example in the book of exodus which just so happens to be a story of an oppressed people escaping a tyrant the translators explained in the margins that it's okay to disobey monarch if that monarchy is not godly when queen elizabeth the first returned england to protestantism she authorized her own bible the bishops bible once again drawing heavily on the tyndale bible but the bishop's bible was a complete dud critics complained it was not readable its translators were inconsistent in their sources and the first edition had some pretty significant errors the tyndale bible the great bible and the bishops bible all led to the king james bible when king james the first ascended the throne in 1603 factions of english christians were at each other's throats james wanted to appear both a peacemaker and a reformer so in 1604 he brought the factions together at his hampton court palace the puritan delegation suggested a bible translation but james settled on a revision that would heavily rely on the pro-monarchy bishop's bible he appointed a few dozen translators to prepare the new translation using the best hebrew greek and latin manuscripts available at the time and to use margin notes only where absolutely necessary the new bible was published in 1611 it included the old testament the new testament and the apocrypha or what's called the deuterocanonical books books that are not accepted by all as genuine or inspired it also heavily relied on earlier translations one linguistic study found that 84 of the kjv's new testament and 76 of its old testament are based on tyndale's translations at first a lot of people did not like the new bible critics called it harsh and uncouth writing at the time of its publication the irish clergyman ambrose usher said the cook hasted you out a reasonable sudden meal the puritans didn't like it because it contained the apocrypha and because they considered it pro-monarchy so they stuck with their geneva bibles but what's important for our study here is that it became the most prominent english bible in the american colonies until the revolutionary war there were no english language bibles printed in america but when virginia became a royal colony in 1624 the king james version was the bible of choice and its popularity began to grow by the early 1800s american printers started producing king james bibles locally a lot of them a philadelphia publisher captured the market for about 20 years and in 1816 a former member of the continental congress founded the american bible society with the goal to print the king james bible and to get it into as many hands as possible by 1860 they were distributing over 1 million kjv bibles per year the scholar of american religious history brian wilson says it's for this reason that the king james bible became one of the most generally available and widely read books from the eastern seaboard to the western frontier and it's here in the 1800s that we begin to see the first glimmers of the king james only movement even though we don't know its precise origins for example check out this document you're looking at the minutes from a meeting of the tennessee association of baptists it took place in october of 1817. on the agenda they were concerned that local baptists had accepted an alternate english translation other than the kjv they assert in the meeting that the old and new testament translated by order of king james the first has been always the standard for the baptists they then go on and condemn anyone who proposes alternate translations we believe that any person either in a public or private capacity who would adhere to or propagate any alteration of the new testament contrary to that already translated by order of king james the first ought not to be encouraged and have no fellowship with them so here we have a primary source document suggesting that some sort of king james onliest beliefs were shared by baptists as early as 1817 but the movement wouldn't really take off until decades later in 1881 with the publication of the english revised version an update to the king james bible sponsored by the church of england when the erv appeared the anglican scholar john burgin published a 500-page rebuttal of almost every single change made to the text he didn't go so far as to declare king james only but he was so close to this position that modern king james onlyists count him as one of their own then in the 1930s a seventh-day adventist named benjamin g wilkinson wrote our authorized bible vindicated the first book length kjv only argument then in the 1950s and 60s we get baptist writers like peter ruckman who we mentioned at the start of this video these guys expanded wilkinson's thinking to declare the kjv's 17th century translators were divinely inspired and had produced another revelation of god then in 1973 the new international version or the niv was published here's a copy of it right here niv bible crafted by 15 evangelical scholars the niv was written in contemporary english and was designed to be the bible that would unite the different evangelical denominations and independent churches plenty of evangelicals loved the niv it remains one of the most popular english language bibles in christian bookstores if not the most popular version ever sold having sold over 450 million copies worldwide but the kjv crowd hated it chief among these were peter ruckman and a woman named gail riplinger gail riplinger became a rock star to the movement because of her book new age bible versions published in 1993. the book essentially argues that so-called new age believers are in league with satan and aim to undermine the word of god kent hovind himself promoted her book in his talks well this one the new age bible versions is excellent by gail riplinger while this movement may be small it's alive and well today while researching this video i found that some of the strongest critics of the movement are baptists and some of the most strident rebuttals that i read came from baptist seminarians ministers my hunch is that while this might be a fringe movement within christianity as a whole it hits closer to home within baptist circles where it might come up more often writing in 2011 jeffrey straub of central baptist theological seminary said there does not appear to be any realistic hope that the kjv only position will die out any time in the near future if anything the internet has made the dissemination of even the most extreme forms of kjv onlyism accessible to a worldwide audience but let's turn to the question is the king james version even a particularly good translation and why do king james onlist argue it's the best but before we get to that a quick word from our sponsor nordpass brought to you by the same cybersecurity experts who built the privacy app 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was a research assistant back in the 80s during the development of the new revised standard version it's the preferred version for many scholars myself included especially in the united states i put the link in the description below to one of his lectures if you'd like to watch his full analysis according to dr airman there are several issues with the king james bible that fall into three categories changes in the english language since 1611 that can affect how modern english readers interpret the bible today theological biases in the translation and issues with the manuscripts used when creating the translation in the first place let's start first with the changes in the english language that affect how we read the text today i'm not necessarily talking about quirky or idiosyncratic translation choices for example many of you might be familiar with the fact that unicorns appear in the king james bible deuteronomy 33 17 mentions his glory is like the first sling of his bullock and his horns are like the horns of unicorns this is probably a mistranslation of a hebrew word that probably refers to some sort of wild ox the greek word for single horned beast somehow found its way into the greek septuagint translation of the hebrew bible which then ended up in the kjv other mythological creatures appear in the kjv as well but i personally feel this is pretty minor compared to other issues with the text but what i think is even more serious than outdated words are verses that look like they make sense in modern english but actually means something completely different for example check out philippians 3 20. the kjv says for our conversation is in heaven from whence also we look for the savior the lord jesus christ what the kjv translates as conversation is the greek word polituma which means citizenship or commonwealth thus the nrsv translates it as but our citizenship is in heaven and it helpfully includes a footnote directing the reader to the alternate translation commonwealth in my opinion the kjv translation is a serious problem if you're conducting a bible study and you're trying to explicate this verse while relying on the kjv the translated word conversation could trip you up it could cause you to miss a very interesting aspect to what the apostle paul is trying to say by using this word with political and administrative undertones there are many other examples like this but let's move on to the next category theological biases of the translators several passages in the king james bible seem to be the result of christian theological biases swaying the translator's decision making for example some of you might be familiar with the story of the fiery furnace in the book of daniel it's a story about three judean youths who end up on the wrong end of the babylonian king's justice system and end up being thrown into a fiery furnace according to the text a miracle then occurs the nrsv reads he replied but i see four men unbound walking in the middle of the fire and they are not hurt and the fourth has the appearance of a god the nrsv helpfully includes a footnote with the alternate translation of the aramaic word a son of the gods this translation suggests some sort of angelic being joins the three men in the fire protecting them but notice what the kjv translation does lo i see four men loose walking in the midst of the fire and they have no hurt and the form of the fourth is like the son of god the translators use the title son of god rather than the more literal a son of the gods son of god is a title for jesus christ in the gospels and makes the verse sound like jesus was in the furnace with the three men another example of theological bias comes from first john for those of you that are familiar with christian doctrine you'll know that god is conceptualized as one being with three persons the father the son and the holy spirit aka the trinity in the king james bible 1st john 5 verses 7 through 8 include an explicitly trinitarian formula for there are three that bear record in heaven the father the word and the holy ghost and these three are one this phrase appears in the latin translation of the bible but not in any greek translation it almost certainly was not part of the original text of first john and all modern critical editions exclude it but without it the bible contains no explicit mention of the trinity a core christian doctrine which may explain why some christians have resisted excluding it from modern translations and this example leads us to the third issue with the king james bible the manuscripts this gets a little technical so buckle up the king james onliest argument hinges on a conflict between something called critical editions of the bible and the textus receptus latin for the received text i'll define these in turn first critical editions modern translations of the bible are the result of biblical scholars piecing together the text from manuscripts some of these manuscripts contain nearly complete versions of biblical texts like the codex sinaiticus which is a 4th century manuscript that contains the entire new testament other manuscripts are just tiny scraps of papyrus with only a few verses on them the goal of a modern critical edition is to get as close as possible to the original text so scholars look at all available manuscripts compare them and then create what they think is the closest to the original the kjv on the other hand relies on later manuscripts the old testament translation relies mostly on what's called the masoretic text which are hebrew manuscripts from the 9th and 10th centuries and the new testament relies mostly on the textus receptus which is the greek new testament published by the dutch priest and scholar erasmus in the 1500s erasmus was working with a few very late byzantine manuscripts that were available to him and in some cases he needed to back translate some of the verses that were missing in his greek manuscripts from latin manuscripts later scholars modified erasmus texts but these are still called the textus receptus the french protestant theologian theodor beza for example created an edition that was the most popular manuscript used by the kjv translators the simple fact is the kjv was created before many of the greatest manuscript discoveries that revolutionized our knowledge of the original texts of the bible first the dead sea scrolls before the discovery of the dead sea scrolls in the 1940s our earliest manuscripts for the hebrew bible were the masoretic texts which date basically 1 000 years later the kjv was also published before the discovery of the codex sinaiticus the oldest complete manuscript of the entire new testament as well as dozens of manuscripts from the sands of egypt because of this modern critical editions are much closer to older manuscripts because modern scholars had access to them but for some kjv onlyists older is not necessarily better part of their argument rests on the fact that the textus receptus agrees with the majority of manuscripts which sounds like a good thing until you realize that the majority of manuscripts are quite late old manuscripts are rare so most manuscripts date to the 9th century or later and for some books like the letters of the apostle paul modern critical editions really need to rely on earlier manuscripts to try to get as close as they can to the original text as the scholar daniel wallace says for the letters of paul not even one majority text manuscript exists from before the 9th century to embrace the majority text for the pauline epistles then requires an 800-year leap of faith that they haven't changed which is why early manuscripts like codex sonaticus which does include the pauline epistles are so helpful for modern scholars these issues lead bart aroman to conclude that the kjv is one of the worst study bibles you could possibly use ultimately though these battles are huge exaggerations and they really don't matter that much in the end except for a very few instances like the trinitarian statement in 1st john no christian doctrine is affected by the differences between modern critical editions and the texas receptus they agree somewhere between 98 and 99 of the time so in the end this debate is only about trimming around the edges of the whole bible king james onlism is an interesting case study for christian fundamentalism and specifically evangelical protestant fundamentalism but what do i mean by this fundamentalism is a tricky term for scholars as the anthropologist of religion dr henry munson writes fundamentalism is a crude and controversial term it more often is used as a polemic to attack particular religious groups as fanatics rather than using the term as a practical analytical category now some religious studies scholars do use it as a comparative category in this case fundamentalism could imply a group's extremism militancy or certainty and defensiveness of specific beliefs ideologies or practices i'm using the term fundamentalism much more narrowly here to refer to a form of evangelical protestantism that emerged in the 19th and 20th centuries for these protestants fundamentalism is actually a term of self-description a label for those who hold to certain fundamentals of the faith starting in 1910 a protestant christian group published a series of essays called the fundamentals that stipulated what all christians should believe though through a protestant lens according to the story in george marsden protestant fundamentalism really took off in the 1920s though as a reactionary backlash against modernism a backlash against the theory of evolution growing popularity of liberal theology and biblical critical scholarship as you might have picked up in this video the publication of new bible translations was the animating force behind the king james onliest movement all the criticism was leveled against scholarly critical editions but scholars of fundamentalism in recent years have modified marsden's anti-modernism theory for example the historian margaret bentroth notes that christian fundamentalism is selectively anti-modernist christian fundamentalists are often on the cutting edge of technology from radio to television and now even tick tock moreover fundamentalists are not isolationists as marsden suggested other historians like matthew avery sutton argue they have consistently worked to reform and transform their culture in ways that match their beliefs and ideologies which is what we see with the modern christian nationalist movement in american politics so christian fundamentalism is not necessarily an attempt to turn back the clock but rather it's a form of ongoing resistance and protest against what they perceive to be the dominant culture for those of you who would like to dig more into this topic i'm including my sources in the description below thanks everyone for watching and i'll see you next time you

Channel: ReligionForBreakfast

Views: 180,334

Rating: 4.9388542 out of 5

Keywords: King James Bible, KJV, King James Onlyism, KVB, Alexandrian text, Byzantine text

Id: J52c9kb70oE

Length: 23min 3sec (1383 seconds)

Published: Thu May 27 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/gelfbride73]

I really enjoyed that. I had the KJV drummed into me as the only text to read and I was always struggling with it.

I also think that the advancement we have translating, that we can have a new bible written with the most up to date information. I think that the bible is being misread so much while sticking doggedly to whatever a teenage sunday school teacher told us to accept.

When I see documentaries and science combine and give us greater insight into why and how the Hebrews wrote things, and so forth, it helps me enjoy and understand more and i have an inquiring mind finally.

I am NOT a scholar, but I have enjoyed this sub very much.

[u/AramaicDesigns]

As I have said before many times: As a member of the Anglican tradition, I am flattered that there are folks who put our church's third Authorized Bible translation (after the Great Bible, and the Bishop's Bible) on such a high pedestal... but this appropriation among KVO folk is getting way out of hand. :-)

This was an awesome video.

[u/Peteat6]

I haven’t watched the video, so can’t comment on it. But help me patiently here, please. Do some people seriously claim the KJV is "accurate"? Do they disagree with the results of 200 years of scholarship? I won’t suggest that they haven’t heard of it. I won’t watch the video because it seems like listening to flat-earthers. What have I missed?

I won’t copy one of those lists of passages in the KJV that need correcting, except to add my favourite: Amos 6:12. They "wrongly divided" the text, as Paul puts it, and had to add a word to make sense of it.
Modern texts: Do horses run on rocks? Does one plough the sea with an ox? KJV : Do horses run in rocks? Do they plough there (added) with oxen?
The KJV has misunderstood the word for "sea", and turned it into the plural ending in "oxen".

[u/TemplesOfSyrinx]

Apologies if I'm digressing but Christopher Hitchens wrote a pretty good article mostly praising the KJV for its impact on Western culture and literature but not necessarily for its accuracy.

[u/bkjunez718]

Kjv is nowhere accurate

[u/sonnybobiche1]

It may not be as accurate as some modern translations, but I think I'm right in suggesting that the KJV is the most beautiful English rendering.

When reading the bible, I refer to all sorts of translations. For particularly troublesome bits, I go to the parallel hebrew/greek. But when I listen to the bible, I listen to Scourby's KJV recordings. Others don't quite have the same majesty to them.

Compare the KJV's translation of Philippians 4:8:

"Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."

to the NIV's:

"Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things."