I love the King James Version; it deserves its honored place in English church history. Its words will never leave my heart. But to be honest, I have trouble reading it in places—even though I grew up with it. And this is a concern to me, because I want to understand...
KJV
C.S. Lewis on the KJV
Some wise words from C.S. Lewis, who read Greek with a fluency I'll never hope to match. I think Lewis overstates the case slightly in the bolded line, because irreverent translations do exist. But as applied to all the major modern English translations, he's right...
The Odd Bible Translation Situation We’re In
The Book of Mormon (1830) and the Pickthal translation of the Qur'an (1930), both completed long after "thee" and "thou" faded from common English usage, both adopted the archaic syntactical and grammatical forms used in the KJV. Why? Here's the Book of Mormon: Holy,...
Grandiloquence and the KJV
I have long felt that this was the case, and it's nice to have it confirmed by someone with an ear for Hebrew as well developed as that of Robert Alter (scroll down to find his presentation), who's been reading the language since boyhood: Poetry in the King James...
Boy Was Scrivener Wrong
I wish F.H.A. Scrivener, the editor of a version of the Textus Receptus that mimicked the textual critical choices of the King James translators, had been right when he wrote the following in 1873. I have taken the liberty of bolding every erroneous prediction. If a...
Bible Translation Tribalism
It’s been a while since I’ve been so excited about a post by Scot McKnight (um, I think this is actually a first), but he really nailed it in this post on Bible translations and tribalism. Here's an excerpt: The politics of Bible translation is a sad case of...
Hilarious Story: The Name of Abraham’s Servant REVEALED!
True story, told with permission: Dr. Dan Olinger was once an editor for Faith for the Family magazine, a publication of Bob Jones University. It was his (occasional and usually unenviable) task to review unsolicited submissions to the magazine. He had to read these...
Comparing Bible Translations
Comparing English Bible translations responsibly is very hard work. It requires a number of skills: Comparing Bible translations requires a knowledge of Greek and Hebrew. Like most things that should go without saying, it really can't. To be truly responsible when...
Another Verse I Never Understood
Another verse I never understood, and I'm pretty excited about this one. I can't exactly blame the King James, because I don't think the KJV translators did anything wrong. And the ESV and NASB translators did pretty much the same thing. Here's the verse, Psalm 16:6:...
KJVOism and Circular Reasoning in a Small Circle
This thought occurred to me the other day: the KJV-Only use of Psalm 12:6–7 is circular reasoning. Some people will hear that as the ultimate put-down. If someone can successfully prove that another person is guilty of assuming his conclusion in all the reasons he...
Augustine on the King James Version
From Augustine's On Christian Teaching (4.10-11): What is the use of correct speech if it does not meet with the listener's understanding? There is no point in speaking at all if our words are not understood by the people to whose understanding our words are directed....
NIV Origin
It's excessively, almost unbearably sad to me that the story told in this video goes back 60 years. If a businessman in a hotel in the 1950s laughed out loud at the archaism of the KJV, what does it sound like to people today?