Is the King James
Version the Best Translation?
Dear Friends:
I made a comment
in the February 2008, Wake
Up Report, “Did Jesus Claim to
be God?” that the
NIV (New International Version)
translation of the Bible was my
favorite study Bible. That
comment has prompted several
letters from people who are
concerned that I am using a
defective and errant translation
of the Bible. Since I do
not have time to address each
letter individually, I thought a
short response might be helpful.
First, if you are
acquainted with my work over the
past 30+ years, you know that I
treasure the Bible. I
believe the Bible is a means to
an end and that end is the TRUTH
about God. I have found
that God’s TRUTH is so huge
that it goes beyond human
comprehension. Of course,
there are essential truths which
most people grasp, but I am
speaking here about ETERNAL
truths. God does not favor
the English language above other
languages. None
(that’s zero) of the
original manuscripts that make up
the Bible were written in
English. This means the KJV
(King James Version) cannot be
more accurate than the Santa
Biblica (a Spanish translation),
or for that matter, any of the
other 1,000 languages into which
the Bible has been
translated. I know some
people argue that the manuscripts
used by the KJV translators were
better than those used today, but
that is not true
I have two
objections with the foolish
presupposition that the
KJV is somehow a superior
translation of the Bible. There
are people whose teachings have
created a context of fear and
rejection by “proving”
to people, who know nothing about
the development of the Bible that
certain verses and phrases in
other translations, like the NIV,
“are missing” or
deleted. To me, this is
nothing more than trickery and
in order for it to work, there
has to be ignorance and
the assumption that
(a) the KJV is perfect and
unimpeachable, and (b)
there’s an evil conspiracy
going around diluting and
diminishing the Word of
God. The outcome of
this trickery is
a lie that states that the KJV is
the only version of the Bible
that can be trusted.
For what it’s
worth, the so-called
“authorized” version
(KJV) was not authorized by King
James or his government.
King James gave translators
permission to proceed with an
English translation of the Bible,
but he did not put “a stamp
of approval” on their
work. Even if King
James had authorized the
translation, who do you want to
worship? Who has the
omnipotence and omniscience to
declare a 17 th century
English translation of the Bible
to be THE only correct and final
version of the Bible? If
this were the case, where does
that leave other translations,
like Latin? If you
insist that there must be an
authorized version for the
English language, then what about
this one: The Douay-Rheims
version? Catholics believe
the pope has divine authority
that came through Peter and his
successors when Jesus gave the
keys of the kingdom to
Peter. (Matthew 16:19) The pope
has authorized the
Douay-Rheims version and it is
based on the fourth century work
of the scholar, Jerome.
Jerome’s Latin Vulgate is a
very early work, so it is far
more valuable than the 17 th
century translation in
terms of antiquity.
So the bottom line is this: Do
you want a Bible having the
approval of some man or do you
want a Bible based on the best
manuscripts?
The KJV
translators hoped to have one
English Bible for all English
speaking Christians in Europe.
They wanted but did not receive a
statement of superiority so
that all Protestants could
“be on the same theological
page.” The translators
did not want to see Protestantism
fragment into denominations
– people breaking away from
the core of the
reformation. The
translators wanted Protestantism
to remain one body, united
against the Church of Rome.
The KJV translation was not
tested, verified, or seriously
reviewed by students of Hebrew
and Greek until many years after
its translation. You may be
surprised to learn that the KJV
has had to undergo more than 500
changes since it was first
printed and many grammatical
errors remain in the KJV to this
day. This is why
translators published the
“new” KJV to clear up
these mistakes. I am not
diminishing the KJV. As I wrote
in the Wake Up Report,
the KJV is one of my favorite
translations, but the fact
remains, I do not worship the
Bible.
History shows that
English speaking Christians used
the KJV version of the Bible for
about 200 years because it was
the first one to be mass produced
before the French Revolution
(1613-1793). During this
period, Protestantism fragmented
into four or five opposing
schools of theological
thought. This was the very
thing the KJV translators wanted
to avoid, but it could not be
stopped, even with everyone
having the same English
Bible! This proves that if
there was only one true Bible in
the world, there would still be
variation among Christians about
the content of TRUTH! There
are over 200 different Christian
denominations today! Just
because a person owns a KJV, this
does not ensure that person will
find the TRUTH. How ironic
is this? Isn’t getting
to the TRUTH the reason for
owning a Bible?
TRUTH is revealed
to man through a combination of
what has been revealed (in the
Bible) and the work of the Holy
Spirit. John 16:13 says, “But
when he, the Spirit of truth,
comes, he will guide you into all
the truth. He will not speak on
his own; he will speak only what
he hears, and he will tell you
what is yet to come.”
It is not a version of the Bible
that leads to TRUTH, it is the
Holy Spirit. A truth-seeker
considers several Bible
translations and the power of the
Holy Spirit leads him into
TRUTH. All translations are
a means to an end and that end is
TRUTH. A person who reads the
Santa Biblica can reach an
understanding of truth just as
certainly as a person reading the
KJV or the NIV. My library
contains several translations of
the Bible. I treasure them
all. After studying Greek
in college and making straight
A’s in it, and after
translating sizeable portions of
the New Testament, I can
appreciate the daunting task of
translating the Bible.
Words are imperfect vehicles of
communication, yet it is the
medium through which we must
communicate. People who
have studied languages and those
who have grown up in bilingual
settings understand the dilemma
of conveying ideas back
and forth between languages.
It seems foolish
to me that people quibble over
translations when there are many
manuscripts and fragments
available from which to compare
Bible verses. The discovery
of the Dead Sea Scrolls did not
change the substance of the
Bible, although those ancient
manuscripts are not identical to
the KJV. Given my research
on the topic of translation, I do
not hesitate to say that I find
the 1984 version of the NIV to be
one of the best translations
available today. First, it
was translated by one hundred
people who differed in their
religious backgrounds. This was
purposely done to prevent as much
human bias from entering the
translation as possible.
Second, translators of the NIV
had access to thousands of
manuscripts and fragments which
KJV translators did not have
available at the time it was
published. And finally, in
addition to all this,
today’s knowledge of ancient
Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek is far
more comprehensive than it was in
earlier times. The KJV has
been around since 1611 and a
thousand translations have
occurred since then. Even
with a translation as plain and
clear as the NIV, millions of
people are still in
darkness. So, this fuss is
just a foolish one the devil uses
to keep Christians divided in a
meaningless argument.
I often tell
people who complain at my
seminars that I am not using the
KJV that they should go find
someone who does. I say,
“If the KJV is such a
superior Bible, where are the KJV
people who are preaching and
teaching present
truth?” I have not
found oneyet.
Even more, how can any person
today explain present truth in
crystal clear terms using 17th
century English? It
will be interesting to see if the
144,000 located all over the
world use only the KJV. Do
you really think that God’s
servants will be speaking to
everyone on Earth in English and
reading from an English
KJV? No! The 144,000 will
be speaking in their own native
languages and reading from their
own translations of the
Bible. By the way,
that’s what the Second Seal
in Revelation 6 was all
about.
I hope this helps!
Best regards,
Larry Wilson
P.S.:
“Eternal truth is not what I
believe. Truth is greater
than me. Truth is not even
what I know for truth is larger
than anything I know. Truth
is fact. I may not believe
it. I may not know it. But, that
does not change it. It is there
nevertheless, waiting to be
discovered and believed.
Truth does not depend upon the
unsettled and changing opinions
of men. It was there before
it was believed and it remains
truth whether it is believed or
not. Truth is true.
Reason does not originate it nor
create it, it merely discovers
it. Consequently, reason is
not its source. Truth goes back
beyond the beginning of reason.
Some would have us believe that
the church is the source of
truth, particularly in matters of
theology. They are
wrong. The church is the
product of truth. It does
not originate it. The
church came into being by
accepting divine
revelation. The church is
not the source of that
revelation. Truth goes
beyond the church, it is
antecedent to it. Truth,
eternal truth." (Carlyle B.
Haynes (1882-1958), When
a Man Dies, p.4)
