I thank Christianity Today magazine for the above title, which appeared on the cover of the May 2011 issue. In case you haven’t heard, the first copies of what we call the King James Bible was printed 400 years ago this month. Quite a number of printers were involved and it was a commercial failure. Later printing was taken over by the Cambridge University and after about 30 years it rose in popularity and by the middle of the next century was being praised for its literary beauty.
Like millions of other Christians, I was brought up on the King James, memorized it, and accepted that thee’s and thou’s were the right words to use in religious prayers. When we trained as ministers, Vivien and I were people of one book, and we’ve worn out several editions. As one teacher often said, “If it was good enough for the Apostle Paul, it is good enough for me!” Of course, he was joking, but seriously some Christians not only believed in the providence of God in preserving the manuscripts that have come down to us, but also the providence of God in making the KJV the world’s most popular English Bible, even to this day.
Just a few moments ago I picked from my library shelves a book I’ve had since the 1970s with the title God Wrote Only One Bible, and guess what, the book is about the King James Version! And Stephanus’ Textus Receptus on which the Baptist author, John Jasper Ray, claimed it was based! The author’s name does not appear on my second edition and the reason has since surfaced. The book was largely plagiarized from an earlier work by Benjamin Wilkinson, a Seventh Day Adventist theology professor who was the founder of the King James Onlyism theory, and it was felt by the Baptist publisher that any association with the cult would hurt sales. To their credit, Adventists are now permitted to also use other versions. Others who bought into the argument and whose books I have were Edward Hills (The King James Version Defended), and David Otis Fuller (Which Bible?, etc).
As you can tell from my published works and articles on this site, I am not a “King James Only” man, for I quote from many versions. Yet I do prefer “literal” translations in the King James tradition, the most recent being the English Standard Version. However, I use many verses from paraphrases which illuminate particular words or expressions. These come from the Moffat Bible (NT first published in 1913) through J.B. Phillip’s Letters to Young Churches (1947) and right through to the New Living Translation and the half-and-half NIV. Yet with this wide exposure and many volumes on my shelves and my hard disk, I still quote and think in King James. While the rise of other translations have ruined congregational readings (as a child it was often one verse by the preacher and the next by the congregation), nevertheless the literary influence upon our language of the King James Bible is immense!
So happy birthday, King James Bible. “With my lips have I declared all the judgments of thy mouth. I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies, as much as in all riches. I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways. I will delight myself in thy statutes: I will not forget thy word” (Psalm 119:13-16 KJV).
Three dozen years ago I had the idea that any version other than the KJV was inspired by heretics. It was almost sacrilegious to read from any other translation. Heck, KJV was nearly the original text. I never even thought how ridiculous an idea that was. It was as if Christ himself spoke in proper king’s English. And I didn’t think David’s Psalms made sense if not read in the “proper” dialect.
I no longer hold fast to that version theology now, but I do think that Bullinger would have had trouble writing all his appendices using the NIV. So for detailed study, KJV seems appropriate. At the same time I love reading The Message now without even considering myself a heretic.
Amen, Peter! To a lesser extent (no formal ministerial training or anything like that) I too relied exclusively on the King James Version for years. I always believed that it had “fewer coats of varnish” over the Greek texts than many of the later translations. But as I get older, I realize that working under an unstable monarch (such as King James) who was thumbing his nose at Rome might not have allowed for the most civil or wholesome environment for the group of translators working at his “request.” There had to have been an element of fear.
The finished work is a testament to their having risen above these circumstances.