Why Is The Kjv Still Popular Today
For a book that was published in 1611, it’s amazing how influential and widely read the KJV still is today. Though there are hundreds of versions and translations of the Bible, the KJV is the most popular. According to market research firm Statistica, as of 2017, more than 31% of Americans read the KJV, with the New International Version coming in second place, at 13%. Five large denominations of Christianity Baptist, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Latter-day Saints and Pentecostal use the KJV today.
The KJV “works as both a word-for-word and sense-for-sense translation,” meaning it acts as both a literal translation of many of the words believed to have been used by Jesus Christ and his Apostles and accurately conveys the meaning behind those words and events, Gordon said. One line of manuscripts used in the KJV the Textus Receptus of Erasmus, translated from Greek to Latin by the 16th-century Dutch scholar and philosopher Desiderius Erasmus is thought by some to be a particularly important inclusion in the KJV, especially for those who see it as the purest line of the New Testament going back to the Apostolic Age , Gordon said.
Despite the KJV’s popularity throughout the centuries, Gordon said some scholars now view parts of it as outdated. He cautioned that there have been other ancient manuscripts discovered since the KJV was commissioned that enhance scholars’ understanding of some biblical events and possibly even change the meaning of certain words.
Has The Bible Changed Over Time
The Bible is the holy scripture of the Christian religion, purporting to tell the history of the Earth from its earliest creation to the spread of Christianity in the first century A.D. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament have undergone changes over the centuries, including the the publication of the King
The Textus Receptus Or Received Text Is Basically Erasmus Greek Text
Many KJV advocates claim that the New Testament in the King James Bible was translated from a Greek text known as the Textus Receptus and that the TR is especially accurate and inspired. The term Textus Receptus was first coined in 1633, after the KJV was first published, and it basically refers to Erasmus critical text. The current version of the TR was produced in 1894 by Scrivener who preferred the Byzantine, or Majority, Text.
Most modern translations of the New Testament are based on critical Greek texts that take into account a larger collection of texts than was available to Erasmus when he was creating his critical texts. A few of these previously unavailable manuscripts date from as early as the third century, which makes them much closer to the date that the New Testament books and letters were written by the biblical authors.
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King James Authorised The New Translation For Political Reasons
King James believed that a single, authorised version was a political and social necessity. He hoped this book would hold together the warring factions of the Church of England and the Puritans that threatened to tear apart both church and country. Most of the translators were clergymen belonging to the Church of England, but at least some had Puritan sympathies.
King James issued over a dozen rules that the translators had to follow. He disliked the Geneva Bible, the Bible used by the Puritans, because he believed that some of the comments in the margin notes were seditious and did not show enough respect for kings. James new translation was to have no commentary in the margins.
King James favoured the hierarchical structure of the Church of England and wanted the new translation to use words that supported a bishop-led hierarchy. In keeping with his preferred views on church government, he specified, The old ecclesiastical words to be kept as the word church not to be translated congregation. King James also ruled that only his new Bible could be read in Englands churches. The political motives of King James had a direct influence on the translation of the KJV.
Minor Decisions Like Removing A Comma Turned Jesus Into A Criminal
Translating the Bible is a major undertaking. The King James version of the Bible has 783,137 words, and the committee had to argue about every single one. But even punctuation could play a major role in how people interpreted Scripture. Just take a look at the blasphemous comma.
In some editions of the King James Bible, a single comma was removed that made Jesus sound like a criminal. In Luke 23:32, the text is supposed to read And there were also two others, malefactors, led with to be put to death.” But some editions dropped the comma, creating a blasphemous implication: And there were also two other malefactors led with , making it sound like Jesus was also a criminal at the front of a criminal duo.
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How The Kjv Was Translated
To oversee the translation, James commissioned six committees made up of 47 scholars from the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. They were tasked with translating all of the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Old and New Testaments into English. It was a complicated and sometimes contentious process that took seven years to complete. Though we don’t have a lot of the records of those committees, “through our best reconstructions, we understand it was a very rigorous debate with everyone committed to the most accurate translation of the Bible,” Gordon said.
Much of the resulting translation drew on the work of William Tyndale, a Protestant reformer who had produced the first New Testament translation from Greek to English in 1525. “It’s believed that up to 80% of the King James Version stems from the William Tyndale version,” Gordon said.
Considerations For A New Version
The newly crowned King James convened the Hampton Court Conference in 1604. That gathering proposed a new English version in response to the perceived problems of earlier translations as detected by the Puritan faction of the Church of England. Here are three examples of problems the Puritans perceived with the Bishops and Great Bibles:
First, Galatians iv. 25 . The Greek word susoichei is not well translated as now it is, bordereth neither expressing the force of the word, nor the apostle’s sense, nor the situation of the place. Secondly, psalm cv. 28 , ‘They were not obedient ‘ the original being, ‘They were not disobedient.’ Thirdly, psalm cvi. 30 , ‘Then stood up Phinees and prayed,’ the Hebrew hath, ‘executed judgment.’
The committees started work towards the end of 1604. King James VI and I, on 22 July 1604, sent a letter to Archbishop Bancroft asking him to contact all English churchmen requesting that they make donations to his project.
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Why Are The Apocrypha Not In The Protestant Bible
The Reformers looked at how we received our Bibles and how they were put together. They wanted to know the truth, which is a good thing. Concerning the Apocrypha, they discovered.
It all began with the fact that the Apocrypha was not considered part of the Old Testament Bible by the Jewish people. They were not kept alongside the rest of the Bible by the keepers of the Law in Israel during the time of Jesus. They also didnt call them the Bible. As a result, the Apocrypha was not included in the Hebrew Old Testament read by Jews.
The books were known to the Jews, who read them. They just accepted them as historical facts rather than divine Scripture. This stance does not seem to have altered. Because they are Old Testament literature, this should be enough to cause us to stop.
Are you starting to get a sense of how old this question is? Why was the Apocrypha removed?
It went on to say that Jesus, the Apostles, and the New Testament authors never once mentioned the Apocrypha. Nowhere in Jesus, Peters, Pauls, and others numerous allusions did they stateAs Scripture says in and quote Tobit or Maccabees. Every speech these guys give includes a Bible quotation.
To combat Satans temptation, Jesus cites from Genesis and relies on Deuteronomy. In other cases, they even cite non-Christian sources and lost works. They certainly possessed the Apocrypha, but they never mentioned it. Its an egregious and, in my opinion, damaging omission.
Did Jesus Read The Apocrypha
These books were kept in Catholic Bibles because it is believed that the Bible which Jesus read was a Bible that included the books of the Apocrypha, the deuterocanonical books. It is known that the most popular Bible at the time of Jesus was the Greek Septuagint version which includes these extra books.
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The King James Bible Had An Almost Immediate Impact On Seventeenth
The language of the King James Bible seeped into public consciousness and usage. Writers and orators incorporated its phrasing into their own works. Even people who didnt attend church and didnt own a Bible became familiar with it. As English culture spread, so did the influence of the King James Version.
In Acts 1:8, Jesus instructs His disciples to carry His message unto the uttermost part of the earth. The King James Bible did just that. It reached the shores of North America in the mid-1600s. Before the American Revolution, copies of King James Bibles were imported to the New World from England. That changed when the United States declared its independence. In 1782, an American printer named Robert Aitken gained the support of the United States Congress to print the King James Bible stateside.
In the United States and elsewhere, the King James Bible was used as a textbook. Many people learned to read in its pages. For three hundred years, it was virtually the only Bible used in the English-speaking world. Eventually, it became the most widely printed book in history.
Though it was originally intended for Anglicans, it was adopted and embraced by a wide variety of other denominations, including Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Quakers, and Baptists. As missionaries from those denominations spread Christianity throughout North America, Africa, the Caribbean, and South Asia, they took the King James Bible with them.
How Many Books In The Protestant Bible
A Christian Bible that was translated or revised by Protestants is known as a Protestant Bible. These Bibles include 27 New Testament books and 39 Old Testament books for a total of 66 books .
Some Protestants use Bibles that include 80 books altogether, including 14 more books in the Apocrypha section . This is sometimes compared to the 73 books of the Catholic Bible, which counts seven of the deuterocanonical books as Old Testament canon.
Not all Protestants understand the distinction between Protocanonical and deuterocanonical writings some individuals simply consider a book canonical or not, and as a result, designate works contained in the Deuterocanon, along with other books, as belonging to the Apocrypha.
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Why Did The Vatican Remove 14 Books From The Bible In 1684
In the year 1611 the Holy Bible was translated from Latin to English and at that time the Bible contained a total of 80 books. The last 14 books that made up the end of the Old Testament were as follows:
- Baruch with the epistle Jeremiah
- The Songs of the 3 Holy children
- The history of Susana
In the year 1684 these 14 books were removed from all versions of the Holy Bible except the 1611 edition which was the first edition translated to English.
In this edition you will also find that Jesus name is not the same in fact it is spelled IESUS and pronounced Yahashua is Ishuyah why then do we continue to call our savior Jesus, when the letter J did not enter into widespread usage until the late 1400s to early 1500s B.C.?
Of course many didnt know this. Did you know that these books even existed?
My grandmother used to tell me about them long ago she used to say you know Moses wrote more book that were removed from the Bible theyre at the Library if you want to read them but I didnt listen til now, and I am glad that I did! I hope the Questions that Im presenting will Encourage you to research further into this subject, and I pray that it gets you reading your Bible!
Then and only then will you begin to see what they have hidden from us in Plain Sight!
Wisdom of Solomon 2:1-24
2 For we are born at all adventure: and we shall be hereafter as though we had never been: for the breath of our nostrils is as smoke, and the little spark in the moving of our heart
Criticisms Of Recent Bible Translations
One of the criticisms levelled at some modern English translations is that the New Testament was translated from the Westcott and Hort Greek New Testament. However, more recent translations, such as the 2011 edition of the New International Version , are based on recent editions of the Nestle-Aland/ United Bible Societies Greek New Testament. This is a critical text that takes into consideration all known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, as well as New Testament quotations from early church fathers and from ancient lectionaries. Any criticism of the Westcott and Hort text, or the men themselvesand much of the criticism has been misleading and outright slanderhas no relevance whatsoever to the latest edition of the New International Version and other recent translations.
Another criticism of newer translations is that some words and phrases, and even a few passages, that are included in the KJV, are absent in newer translations. These are not omissions. Rather, these words and phrases are additions in the Textus Receptus and in the KJV. These additions are absent in some of the more ancient Greek manuscripts. Most modern translations still acknowledge the traditional additions in some way: in margin notes, in footnotes, or they are printed in a different font, etc.
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The Kjv Was The Same Bible For 300 Years
In fact, many alterations, updates, and improvements were made over the centuries, some small, some large. The main issues were some of the problems in the 1611 edition but also errors in the printing itself. But there were also attempts to update the language starting at least in the 1700s.
What marked the difference between these improvements and later new translations, is the fact that these revisions were done charitably and not as a replacement to the KJV.
The changes made to the KJV are typical for any modern Bible. In most cases, changes were based on a motivation to get beyond 17th-century language. John Wesley, for example, issued a revision of the New Testament, though he avoided associating with the KJV by name. His goal was not to ruin the reputation of the KJV but to make the Bible accessible to new converts.
The important point for today is the fact that the KJV was never considered untouchable until the 20th century. For most of church history, the main complaint was the language, though, after the discovery of older New Testament manuscripts in the 1800s, it became clear a better translation was needed to remove a few passages from the Textus Receptus.
For a video presentation, this video can be found on my YouTube channel
Ryan Reeves is associate professor of historical theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and he serves as dean of the Jacksonville campus. He and his wife, Charlotte, have three children. You can .
How Important Was The King James Bible
The commissioning of the King James Bible took place in 1604 at the Hampton Court Conference outside of London. The first edition appeared in 1611. The King James version remains one of the greatest landmarks in the English tongue. It has decidedly affected our language and thought categories, and although produced in England for English churches, it played a unique role in the historical development of America. Even today, many consider the King James Bible the ultimate translation in English and will allow none other for use in church or personal devotions. However, the story behind the creation of this Bible translation is little known and reveals an amazing interplay of faith and politics, church and state. To understand what happened, we need to go back to the world of the early 17th century.
Try to imagine what it was like to live in the England of 1604. Theirs was not a world like ours where speed, change, and innovation are consciously cultivated and thoughtlessly celebrated. Their world moved at a much slower pace and continuity was prized over change. In their world, the crowning of a new monarch was a grand event that deeply affected the life and identity of the nation. The monarch would rule for life. There was no continuous cycle of election campaigns in their world as there is in ours.
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Did Martin Luther Remove Books From The Bible
Luther included the deuterocanonical books in his translation of the German Bible, but he did relocate them to after the Old Testament, calling them Apocrypha, that are books which are not considered equal to the Holy Scriptures, but are useful and good to read. He also considered the relocation of the Book of Esther
Why Was The Apocrypha Removed From The King James Bible
They reasoned that not printing the Apocrypha within the Bible would prove to be less costly to produce. Since that time most modern editions of the Bible and reprintings of the King James Bible omit the Apocrypha section. Modern non-Catholic reprintings of the Clementine Vulgate commonly omit the Apocrypha section.
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