Why Use The King James Bible?

The first three hundred years of the Reformation produced a grand array of scholars, who have never since been surpassed ... It was said of one of the translators of the King James that “such was his skill in all languages, especially the oriental, that had he been present at the confusion of tongues at Babel, he might have served as interpreter general.”1 No-one can study the lives of those men who gave us the King James Bible without being impressed with their profound and varied learning. Furthermore, in the book Modern Bible Translations unmasked, Dr. R. Standish and Dr. C. D. Standish have documented quite comprehensively the highly advanced scholarship of just a few of the translators.2 The translators of the King James, moreover, had something beyond great scholarship and unusual skill. They had gone through a period of great suffering. They had offered their lives that the truths which they loved might live.

“King James responded to the call. He appointed fifty-four learned men, all with a reverent regard for divine inspiration to bring into being a Bible that would reflect the greatest possible concern to achieve fidelity of translation. By the time the work begun, the number of translators had been reduced by circumstance and death to forty seven.”3 This was because some of the translators and their families were poisoned by Jesuits.4 The forty-seven learned men appointed by King James to accomplish this important task were divided first into three companies: one worked at Cambridge, another at Oxford, and the third at Westminster. Each of these companies again split up into two. Thus there were six companies working on six allotted portions of the Hebrew and Greek Bibles.

Each member of each company worked individually on his task, then brought to each member of his committee the work he had accomplished. The committee all together went over that portion of the work translated. Thus, when one company had come together, and had agreed on what should stand, after having compared their work, as soon as they had completed any one of the sacred books, they sent it to each of the other companies to be critically reviewed. If a latter company, upon receiving the book, found anything doubtful or unsatisfactory, they noted such places, with their reasons, and sent it back to the company whence it came. If there should be a disagreement, the matter was finally arranged at a general meeting of the chief persons of all the companies at the end of the work. It can be seen by this method that each part of the work was carefully gone over at least fourteen times.

It was further understood that if there was any special difficulty or obscurity, all the learned men of the land could be called upon by letter for their judgement. And finally each bishop kept the clergy of his diocese notified concerning the progress of the work, so that if anyone felt constrained to send any particular observation he was notified to do so.5 What a contrast to the way most modern translations of the Bible are prepared. Never since that time from 1604-1611 has there been such dedication, commitment, and consecration in preparing a Bible in the English language for the common people. That is why today, at the end of this century, almost four hundred years later, many Protestants still use the King James Version in recognition of its outstanding accuracy.

It is a fundamental feature of the struggle that developed during the Dark Ages, between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, that the choice of manuscript (MSS) determined the system of belief. It can be traced through history that there are only two text families: one which originated from the apostles, given to their converts, hence called the Received Text, for it was received by the people who were converted. And the other, the corrupt Alexandrian MSS, which became the Sinaiticus and the Vaticanus. The manuscripts here mentioned, because of the hatred of the Gnostics to Jesus, were severely mutilated. That is why in all the modern and ancient Catholic translations there are hundreds of omissions. These corrupt manuscripts, which were tampered with by the Gnostics, who did not believe the plain gospel of Jesus, became the foundation of Roman Catholic Bibles. It would be an injustice to try and cover this topic in such a short space, but the reader can refer to Modern Bible Translations Unmasked, available through Hartland Publications.