The debate between the KJV and Modern Versions
You have no doubt run across websites, books or sincere people reciting this information who have vicious attacks on any Bible translation other than the KJV (which is also loosely called “majority text”, byzantine text, or textus receptus). Like many arguments, on the surface their reasoning can be quite convincing. And some translations are bad so this makes “KJV only” arguments more believable to sincere and serious Christians wanting to do the right thing. But as always it’s important to watch for errors in two extremes. So I wanted to give a summary of the debate and show how I think there are some good translations that are trustworthy. I have looked into many of the KJV only accusations and found them to be unwarranted and sometimes even deceitful (hiding information).
Anyone learning a language and doing even simple translating work knows that you can easily get the thought across but sometimes getting the exact word for word meaning is difficult to portray due to language differences. E.g. You have to translate idioms differently. Translating “take a seat” means sit down, not take the chair. And some words can be translated slightly different ways and all are correct. So there is always a little room for variation in small details which leads some people to debate over Bible translations, which you’ll see is as old as the Bible’s very first translations.
The problem is that languages are always changing. But with something as important as God’s Word, people tend to get comfortable with what they have, thinking it is perfect, and resist any change. They place this precious life source on a holy and revered place in their lives – they venerate it. Venerate is not a word we use too much but it’s important for this article so I’ll pause and explain it. It’s just the natural tendency to place extreme importance on items relating to God, the older they are the more likely this is to happen. But it can be done so falsely, like how the Catholic Church treats relics. (They believe looking at old artifacts supposedly belonging to the apostles can actually reduce time in purgatory.)
It’s very understandable how this can happen to things that are important to us, such as things relating to God. But it’s important to remember that it’s not physical items or those exact words of our favorite English translation, but the thoughts that the original writers intended that’s important – God’s message to us. That way as languages change you are okay with changing the words to keep matching the correct thoughts. It is surprising that this veneration and reluctance to change has actually happened with each major translation of the Bible. There are certainly some bad Bible translations out there so we need to be careful to find a good one. But on the other hand we also need to be aware that we could have an unnecessary negative bias against any new translations. So this first section isn’t meant to discuss what versions are good or bad, but just to make sure we’re careful not to be overly protective of the exact version we have, because that does happen. Let’s see how this has happened throughout history.
I. History of Contention with translations
The first major translation was the Greek Septuagint of the Old Testament in the 2nd and 3rd century B.C. The people didn’t speak Hebrew anymore and needed a Greek version. This is so long ago that information is sketchy but a legend somehow developed that the 70 or 72 translators each did their own translation of the entire Old Testament alone and were surprised when they got together and found that each translation was all word for word exactly the same, a fantastic miracle. Right away this sounds odd because that’s not how a group of people do a translation. It is suspected that this is a legend propagated sometime after the translation was completed because different writing styles can be observed between different sections (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Septuagint), indicating that different people or groups of people translated the different sections of the Old Testament, not each person doing the entire thing. Jerome also rejected this as fable (“Praef. in Pentateuchum”). We don’t know for sure, but it appears that the legend was developed later on by people who venerated the translation itself, which you’ll see is very common in each generation.
The next major translation was in 400 A.D. when Jerome did his Latin Vulgate since the people by then spoke Latin. As a side note, Vulgate means in the common language from the word “Vulgar”, which meant “Common” at that time (which is another example of how word meanings change). So it was just like the original Greek New Testament, which was written in the Koine Greek form, the Greek of the common people. And thereafter translators have always attempted to balance accuracy with an easy to understand language at the time. Readability is a very critical requirement for a translation that should never be undermined. But when people get to venerate a translation too much they don’t mind diminishing this key need for a translation in order preserve their venerated translation. They almost like it to sound ecclesiastical and holy even if it’s difficult to read. In fact we’ll see they can eventually remove the need to understand it at all as we see with this Latin Vulgate. The Latin Vulgate was to later become so revered and venerated that people claimed it was the only true Bible and forbade any further translations in any language for almost 1000 years (discussed next). So the Bible could not be read at all and caused the dark ages. It’s a serious problem.
But as honored as it came to be, even the Latin Vulgate started with contention. Jerome came across a difficult word to translate in the book of Jonah. We know now that the word was a specific type of “gourd”. At that time the word was still somewhat unknown, so he just used the general word “ivy” to get the thought across. When his translation was eventually being read in public at Oea (modern Tripoli), the Christians almost rioted at his change in the word. Augustine wrote a letter to him reprimanding him for the change, not so much on the basis of it being incorrect, but because it broke the tradition that the people had accepted. So again venerated tradition is a very strong influence when making new translations of the Holy Bible.
After many centuries, Jerome’s Latin Vulgate (the formerly “new” and easy to read translation that was attacked by venerated tradition at that time) had become so venerated itself that the Church would not let it be translated into any other language. People were actually killed for trying to learn any part of the Bible in English. As we know, Wycliffe suffered persecution for translating the Latin into English. Desiderius Erasmus merely compiled some Greek manuscripts and published them alongside the Latin, neither of which could be read by the people. But even he encountered some resistance. Then of course Tyndale was killed for translating that Greek into English.
And now we find the same thing going on. That English version of Tyndale, which thru some changes eventually became the KJV, has been venerated itself today and all kinds of accusations are flying for anyone trying to translate it yet again into the modern language. Many sincere people are convinced by their arguments so I wanted to just point out the other side of things and explain it all as I see it.
1. Bondage to Veneration
Some translations are dangerous so we do need to be careful. But some people are contentious about any new translation. In fact one of the surest signs of this devotion to venerated tradition being the real root cause of people being contentious is their lack of desire to change the KJV in any way to make it easier for the modern reader to understand. A few sincere people who don’t have this bondage to venerated tradition but have a desire for people to understand the Bible have attempted to modernize the KJV, even just a little, by merely replacing the outdated words but keeping the translation exactly as it is. (Words like gay, superfluidity or purloining. It’s said there’s 300 words like this.) People who do this are very careful to make sure to use modern words that mean exactly the same as the old words so there shouldn’t be any contention, even among people who think the KJV is the only accurate translation (I don’t see any of their accusations against the KJV21 version so it could be an option). And I’ve met some who are okay with that. But unfortunately these seem to be fairly rare among people who have this conviction for the KJV. Many people want everyone to use the KJV of 1611 and nothing else and with no changes. So I’d just like them to consider that this strong tendency to venerate our particular Bible could be at least a contributing factor.
Some people have taken it so seriously that they have actually made it their life work to vilify any other translation besides the KJV. I’m not talking about the sincere people who are convinced by their arguments and share them with others, but I’m talking now about the people who are generating the books and websites, etc. Since this is their profession they should know the whole story but I’m concerned with their methods because they often don’t tell the whole story. Their arguments are pretty convincing until you check into them. I’ve seen outright deception being used by these people. They say things like the XYZ version denies some major agreed doctrine, like the Virgin birth for example. And they give examples of the differences in the translations so it sounds pretty convincing. That is until you hear the other side and find that they are only talking about one verse and that the XYZ doesn’t deny it but only omits an extra word that the KJV has, and that in only one of the places where that topic is discussed. The XYZ version has it clear as day in other locations thru the Bible. If these people were to share their concerns that a word is left out of one place but admit it is in others, I’d feel much better about their sincerity. But when they present these partial truths, which sound absolutely terrible, without sharing the whole story, I am very uncomfortable with their sincerity. And I think it scares people into using the KJV.
Another disingenuous thing I’ve seen is that when they are presented with hard facts that a newer translation is clearly closer to the Greek than the KJV in some spot (even to their own version of the Greek, more in a minute on that), then some go so far as to say the KJV is more correct than the original Greek manuscripts. This is called “advanced revelation” (a scary term also used by cults). They argue that the KJV is a specially ordained translation with this advanced revelation by using various historical or anecdotal (irrelevant) arguments.
These “KJV Professionals”, as I’ll call them, are fairly rare but when sincere people look into these issues they invariably run across these types of discussions, books or websites and so they are sincerely confused or afraid of other versions. So I just thought I’d prepare a short summary of the full story. So let’s look at the areas of contention separately so we can understand it better. But keep in mind that the differences we are talking about are very minor and don’t by themselves change any doctrine in the Bible, though these people try to make it sound like they do by exaggerating differences and presenting half-truths (more on that later).
II. History of Greek Texts and first English Bibles
The greatest debate is what Greek manuscripts should be used so I’ll give a quick background. Greek manuscripts were somewhat rare in the middle ages. Wycliffe had to use the Latin Vulgate to translate his English Bible around 1380 AD. Erasmus was a highly educated Catholic Priest and Scholar working with high government officials, and as such he had access to 9 manuscripts, 1 from the 9th century and the rest from the 12th to 15th centuries (this is the total for his first 3 editions which funneled into the KJV translation). And so in 1516 AD he did the world a great favor by publishing a bilingual Bible with Greek on one side and Latin on the other. He didn’t even mean to help the reformation but worked with the Catholic Church and had permission of the Pope and Emperor to do it. The additional language was only the archaic Greek, not English, so they weren’t as concerned. However it was still soon banned. Perhaps because he criticized the Catholic Church for a few of its practices. However he remained Catholic, and defended things like the Mass and Transubstantiation, and fought against the reformation.
But whatever-the-case, several reformers took that Greek and translated the Bible into their common language, including Tyndale in 1526. Tyndale was later martyred for this translation and his dying prayer was “Lord, open the king of England’s eyes.” Three years later the decadent King Henry VIII miraculously authorized an English translation that was a mere revision of Tyndale’s, the Great Bible – the first “Authorized Version”. Then there were a series of political and theological battles that took place with several more English Bibles published by each group, often the footnotes or preferred terms being to the flavor of the group. The Geneva Bible, the Bible of the puritans which was done independently of any government, chose to translate the Greek word ecclesia as “congregation” instead of “church” in order to distance the thought of the State Church of England they were opposing at the time. The Geneva Bible became popular among the people because of its convenient size and was replacing the authorized Great Bible. At the same time the puritans were calling for purity in the State Church and reform of ecclesiastical rituals, and so the popularity of their Bible was concerning to the State Church. The Church created the Bishop’s Bible in an attempt to regain favor but it was costly, used ecclesiastical terms and was known as the weakest of the reformation Bibles. When King James became king, around 1000 Puritan clergymen asked the King to look into problems in the State Church. Most of these were rejected but King James did commission the creation of a new Authorized Version and members from the State Church of England (modern Anglican Church) finished the KJV in 1611, using the same rigorous translation by committee methods that the Geneva Bible had used. They were specifically instructed by Richard Bancroft, Bishop of London who oversaw the translation for King James, to use the Bishop’s Bible whenever possible and to use the older ecclesiastical words (eg. Church instead of congregation) whenever possible. It’s also worth noting that Bancroft had a history of being against the Puritans, including their belief in the authority of scripture. [1] The KJV translators never intended to make a new translation but to improve the existing ones, as they state in their introduction. To help refine the text, they had access to an additional 16 manuscripts: Codex Dea (“codex” is a large fairly complete volume in book form. They are identified by letter, Greek symbols, or numbers) from the 5th century, Codex L from the 8th century and 14 miniscules (which use all lower case, a later writing format) from the 11th to 14th centuries. So it too had a very small window of Greek manuscripts compared to the 5700 they have now. Sometimes people mistakenly say the KJV uses the “majority text” method, meaning they use the text that agrees with the majority of extant (existing) manuscripts. But that’s not actually true. There are 2000 places where the KJV does not follow the majority text. It just follows this handful of 25 manuscripts. And since those manuscripts were mostly later manuscripts from the Byzantine area, which are numerous and all fairly similar, then much of the KJV does happen to follow the “majority text” most of the time. The KJV agrees even better with the “Textus Receptus” but it doesn’t actually follow it, because the TR is actually a Greek text that was formed later to match the KJV. So the TR actually came from the KJV, not the other way around. And by the way, “Textus Receptus” actually comes from a printer’s (the Elzevirs) advertisement who printed the KJV which said they printed it exactly as it came to them from the KJV committee. Later it became a more venerated term applying to the whole Erasmus/KJV set of manuscripts. However with those clarifications I must say I think it was a valid translation and by God’s grace and orchestration it had the authority and backing of the Crown and the royal printing press which helped spread it far and wide, so it became the world’s best-selling book and brought an end to the dark ages. The Puritan’s kept with their Geneva Bible though and that was the Bible that they crossed over to the new land of America with.
It might be worth noting that even though the KJV was influenced by politics to use words like “church” to help their State Church, they did still have to adhere to the Greek text so they couldn’t add “the State Church” or something like that. And so we Christians can look at the whole Bible in the KJV still today and see the truth plainly from other passages that “Churches” were often in houses by other verses which were translated faithfully – verses like “where two or three are gathered, there I am with them”. So even though the translation was influenced by politics and a large State Church, we can still see that small informal congregations are perfectly allowed by God. They were not able to hide this since they had to stick to the Greek. They only had small preferences in word choices. That’s why translations are reliable even in the worst circumstances and influences like this. I want to keep reemphasizing that all these stricter translations (I’ll discuss paraphrases later) are usable and won’t mislead a person to error if they are careful to take all scripture into consideration and not get tunnel vision on specific words and add extra meaning to verses. That’s where you get into trouble and that does happen a lot.
And you can’t overemphasize that the exciting fire of the Bible in the common language was ignited and started spreading light to the dark ages. And all these English translations, regardless of their origins and small differences, did a tremendous immeasurable good to the world and were clearly used by God. And they did use limited but valid Greek manuscripts. But you can see that besides the contribution from Tyndale’s great life and sacrifice, it was largely secular and political in origin and the KJV was done by the Church of England, which was born out of decadence (the King’s desire to divorce and remarry), a church that many would be weary of today. So I just wanted to point out that though it was a valid translation and clearly used by God, the KJV does not have a hallowed special origin that we should place the KJV in some special place and do to it like the Church did to the Latin vulgate and forbid any other translation. We should treat it like any other translation and determine its value by how well it translates the original Greek to the modern reader. I don’t want to demean the KJV but I see far too many people who have an overly exalted holy opinion (veneration) of it that keeps them from accepting later translations or even allowing others to. And there’s no reason for it. It keeps people from reading the Bible in modern language in a way they can fully understand it.
III. The search for early Greek manuscripts
Now that people had the precious Word of God, the fire for God’s word kept burning and people became very interested in the Bible and these Greek manuscripts. And as more and more manuscripts were found, they learned how to sort them by location and date and compare them with each other and ancient witnesses (early church fathers who quoted Bible verses). It became quite a collection and field of study to determine exactly what the original Bible said and what small changes were made over time. Their understanding of Koine Greek improved as well with the discovery of all these manuscripts and also secular Koine documents. They could compare how words were used in everyday life to get the original thought the apostles meant to convey.
Meanwhile English continued to change. In 1769 Blaney was able to revise the KJV by changing the outdated letters and spellings to make it easier to read for the modern reader at that time. This is actually the version most people read today, though it’s often still called the 1611 version (could be because of veneration of it). But then after another hundred years when a new version was needed and as people sought to once again make the Bible in the common language, this time they used this vast library of manuscripts that was now readily available to them.
All the manuscripts we have, which are from widely diverse locations and many centuries, are essentially the same in their message, which gives us great confidence in the accuracy of the copying processes. There are no doctrinal differences. However there are minor differences and this is what all the fuss is about (but shouldn’t be). As I’ve said, the KJV Professionals try to make big deals about these differences by adding a lot of accusations and presenting half the story. If you read a modern version they will put the differences at the bottom and you can see for yourself that they are trivial.
Honest and sincere scholars agree the differences are minor but they do carefully study the patterns of differences and their geographic locations, along with patristic quotes (verse quotes by early church fathers), to understand the progression and get the most exact accurate original wording possible.
1. How things change
There are various reasons why things can get added and here again there is a lot of study of various factors to try and determine how and why. As the copyist was copying, the extra words could have been copied from memory of a nearby verse or similar passage in another book which has the extra words or phrases. (e.g. Matthew, Mark and Luke have similar passage as do Ephesians and Colossians and others). Or it could have been added on purpose by an overzealous copyist at some point, who thought he was doing right because it was an undisputed concept and was clearly stated elsewhere. This is called harmonizing or assimilating scriptures. Some may have felt more freedom to make these types of clarifications in the early centuries before the term canon was even heard of. Even today the Orthodox Church says they can change the Bible. They say “We wrote it so we can change it”. Or one copyist might have added the extra words as a note in the margin (called a qere) and later another copyist saw the additional words to the side and thought it was a correction so he included it along with the main text in the copy. So there is a whole field of study for how these kinds of things happen. The nice thing is that we do have an abundance of manuscripts (5,700) from many different geographic locations so we are able to detect these types of mistakes, even though they are only minor things. If the Christians had at one point decided to standardize on one original text and burn all the others, as the Muslims did to their book, then we wouldn’t be able to do this.
Sometimes the variants (“variants” are variations in the text from different manuscripts) are pretty clear and show up at a much later time and in only one location. Other times the variations seem to happen fairly early so it’s harder to tell. But generally speaking it’s a great benefit to have so many manuscripts from different areas so you can look for patterns, commonalities and outliers to deduct the original text.
2. Explanation of why certain words were included or omitted.
The differences are usually noted in most Bibles but if you want a more detailed explanation of why the new Bibles chose a certain word or verse you can get this very comprehensive book: “A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament A Companion Volume to the UBS Greek New Testament” by Bruce M. Metzger. It has every important variant explained. You can also go to this website for the 16 complete verses which are omitted in the new versions. (not as exhaustive).
Here is an example from this website for why Matthew 18:11 is missing. It explains how this verse was not originally in Matthew but was harmonized by a copyist from the parallel account in Luke 19:10 which has this verse uncontested (no variants there). Notice the symbols used for the manuscripts.
This verse is lacking in א,B,L, θ, ƒ1, ƒ13, some old Italic & Syriac & Coptic & Georgian mss, and such ancient sources as the Apostolic Canons, Eusebius, Jerome, and others. It is found in some other sources, not quite so ancient, such as D,K,W,X, and the Latin Vulgate. It is not found in any manuscript before the 5th century. … [This verse was] manifestly borrowed by copyists from Luke 19:10.”
The manuscripts vary a lot in these small differences so sometimes it’s hard to distinguish, but generally it’s easy to group the manuscripts into the following four main groups below. As they look at all the manuscripts they see patterns in the four groups which helps them to make logical deductions on the reason for the variants. E.g. certain geographical regions liked to add details and harmonize the Bible more than others. Contrary to many accusations, the scholars consider all manuscripts from all four groups as you saw in the example above. They evaluate each verse separately for what manuscripts contain or omit the differences. So the verses are analyzed individually, not wholesale by text type. The text types are only used as one factor in the data to understand the spread of the Bible and notice trends to sometimes help discern the original. But again, keep in mind these are only trivial differences.
As you’ll see, writings from early church fathers are also used to support a certain text type, although writings from the church fathers are usually preserved by just a few copies of their work from centuries later and so the quoted verses in their documents could have been corrected to the contemporary Bible of the time. And they need to quote a verse that has a distinct variant and in a way so as to know they were quoting a certain text type. I’ve seen 5 variants quoted by early church fathers with this stricter criteria and I’ll discuss all 5 of them. But I’ve seen people say a church father quotes a verse but he merely mentions the topic generally or he quotes a similar verse. The church fathers don’t usually mention the author and they can’t mention the verse number since those were added in 1551 A.D. So they could have been quoting an uncontested similar verse. Or they quote a verse that doesn’t have any variants in which case the church father would quote every text type many many times. I’ve seen KJV sites inflate the numbers like this. Eg. The Textus Receptus agrees with the vast majority of quotes on scripture by the early church fathers. This “vast majority” is just the uncontested verses. Then they go on to say there are more than one million quotations of the New Testament by “the fathers”, leaving out the word “early” now. So this must include all the quotes from the 1st to nearly the 20th centuries, the latter of which is superfluous. But then they say they are from as early as the late first century, which again goes back to the “early” church fathers quoting uncontested verses. So with all this combined into one paragraph, which I’ve seen, you can be impressed with strong support of the TR by their lack of telling the whole story. It’s amazingly dishonest.
3. The Four Text Types
A. Alexandrian text type.
The earliest of all the manuscripts are almost entirely Alexandrian with 6 papyri (fragments) and 3 codices (plural of codex) before the 5th century and almost 200 total (up to the 11th century). The Sahidic and Boharic foreign language translations were also based on this. This text type was probably quoted by Clement, Origen, Didymus the Blind, and Athanasius,
B. Western text type.
Supported by 4 early Codices before the 6th century (Dea, Dp, W, and 8 chapters of John in ﬡ-the rest of ﬡ is Alexandrian) and 4 papyri of the 3rd century (Classifying these four papyri is questionable due to their small size and damage. It’s hard to see if a variant is there to classify the text type). In addition there are documents from later centuries for a total manuscript support of about 40. This text type is said to have been quoted by Marcion, Tatian, Heracleon, Irenaeus, Cyprian, Augustine, and Tertullian (church fathers of the West). It was translated into Old Latin and Syriac. It is likely an old text type with a good list of witnesses so it should and is considered by the scholars.
One interesting anomaly with the Western text is that the book of Acts is about 10% longer than the version we use today (including KJV). There is much debate whether it is the original or the others are, which are found in the rest of the manuscripts throughout the world. The differences are interesting to study but there are no differences to affect doctrine. The Western text has a lot of extra small details, like the number of steps going down from the prison that Peter was in. Some say it is the first draft and Luke later condensed it down for Theopolis. Others propose that Luke stayed in Rome and added details to the book later. Or maybe an early copyist made the changes. It seems that somehow the early church knew the shorter version, which is common to us, was the official one Luke submitted and that’s why it spread far and wide. So scholars suspect that the Western text type is prone to additions like this and take that into account when they find extra things in it. But actually all this is actually irrelevant to the KJV issue because the KJV doesn’t use it very often either. So if someone says we should consider these Western manuscripts the original they’ll have to explain why their version didn’t use it most of the time.
Acts 8:37 is completely omitted in the later Bibles (Philip saying the Ethiopian eunuch could be baptized if he believes). This verse appeared in the 6th century in a late Western Text, uncial “Ea” (which is actually a mixture of text types), and then only 10 minuscules of the 12-14th centuries, out of thousands of minuscules (so it’s not in the Majority Text). It’s not even in other Western texts (Unfortunately this section is missing in the earliest Codex, D). So it’s not very well represented. The verse wasn’t in one of the 12th century Greek manuscripts that Erasmus used and it was only in the margin of the other (picture is available online). Erasmus decided to include it, stating that he thought earlier scribes had just neglected to include it. This is exactly how marginal notes make it into the main text as discussed earlier.
However this verse is thought to exist early on because Ireneus seems to quote the Eunuch saying this in the late 2nd century, though as discussed earlier, late copies of his document could have been themselves corrected to a later Bible reading. And Ireneus could have been referring to some tradition or extra-Biblical document. But even given the fact that this verse was in some early Western Bible manuscripts, the issue with variants from these Western texts isn’t so much that they came later, but that the texts demonstrate a lot of additions which are usually rejected even by the KJV. So it’s suspected that this is one of those additions, especially since so few manuscripts have it, even Western ones. It’s only in the KJV because it was in a marginal note and Erasmus decided to include it. However this is one of the more doubtful conclusions. It could be that it was written by Luke and is a valid truth, it’s just that it wasn’t in the version that Luke presented as the official one. So there are a lot of unknowns but you can see that the scholars didn’t make this decision without good reason. They can’t be 100% sure but it certainly seems like an addition so they moved it to a footnote. This is why it’s good that the modern translations let you know about these uncertain verses. So you can know to be a little less dogmatic on any doctrine that comes from this single verse. And this is the only verse I’ve seen that was removed that has an early witness and is somewhat significant like this. When you use this verse it makes it real easy to refute infant baptism because you have to believe in Jesus and infants can’t do that. But you can still do so by looking unbiasedly at the scriptures. The KJV does help in this case but you can see why the scholars omitted it. It just isn’t well supported and was brought in from a side note on the whim of one catholic priest.
I saw an accusation that this verse was purposely removed so it wouldn’t interfere with churches wanting to delay baptism. But this is a weak argument because the Eunuch was clearly baptized right then and there as we see from the next verse which is not disputed.
Another example is the Comma Johanneum in 1 John 5:7-8, which adds the verse about the three in heaven, supporting the Trinity. Church Fathers mention Trinity terms but not these extra verses in 1 John 5:7-8. They argued a lot against Arianism and Modalism so they would have surely mentioned this very clear verse if they had it. The extra verses are not in any Greek manuscript or other language translations until the 1500’s and then there are anomalies with it (some Greek manuscript from the 1500’s have it in brackets, inserted in a later handwriting, or out of order, etc). It is however in the Old Latin and Latin Vulgate starting in the 6th century and quoted as early as the 4th century (if the copy hasn’t been altered). However these are all Western sources, which as discussed earlier, are known to add stuff. A very in-depth article is here: https://carm.org/king-james-onlyism/1-john-57-8-and-king-james-onlyism/. All the others variants I’ve seen are very trivial or not supported by early manuscripts or early witnesses.
C. Caesarean text type.
Also called an Eastern Text. Found in one Codex of the 9th century (Θ) and part of another codex (Mark 5-16 of W) as well as 5 miniscules. Two papyri are mentioned but they are very questionable. This text seems to mix Alexandrian and Western so some scholars don’t even give it a separate group.
D. Byzantine Text.
Greek began to phase out for the Roman Empire around the 4th century (changed to Latin). But the Byzantine Empire continued to use it up until the 15th century. So naturally as the centuries go on, more and more of the Greek manuscripts are Byzantine, up to the point where they vastly outnumber the other text types. So these easily make up the majority of the manuscripts (hence called “Majority Text”). They are especially common in the later centuries so they are what Erasmus and the KJV translators used. And as the Byzantine Empire grew in prominence, the profession of copying manuscripts became more organized. (Remember manuscripts copied before 325 A.D. were illegal copies by laymen.) So the later ones are more uniform (but not completely uniform). This is what drives a lot of the debate. Since they are so numerous and more uniform, some hold that they are more trustworthy. The earliest extant manuscripts for this type are from the 5th century and the earliest church father to clearly quote the Byzantine text type was John Chrysostom around 400 A.D.
Once again the scholars don’t categorically make one text type a better witness than the other. They will consider manuscripts and witness of the Byzantine text with all the others, but they do consider common traits that the different types exhibit, e.g. harmonizing scripture. They also consider the age of all the manuscripts that include or exclude a variant. They can generally tell the date of a manuscript within 100 years by looking at word spellings, text type, abbreviations, and punctuation. Many translations after the late 1800’s follow these efforts to try and obtain the exact original wording instead of using the version that has the most number of manuscripts (“majority text”). The belief was that as copies upon copies were made, small mistakes were made and copied from then on. So older manuscripts had fewer mistakes. So older manuscripts vss later manuscripts is the typical portrayal of it but there is actually a lot of forensics and other factors that go into it. The result of this effort is called the “Critical Text” though it’s not being critical of the Bible at all. And it’s based on about 100 older manuscripts that have been found by now as well as comparisons of all 5700 manuscripts, other ancient translations, ancient witness, etc. It’s quite involved. It’s certainly not just based on only a few old and corrupt manuscripts as the KJV Professionals accuse (though very early pioneers in this endeavor may have done so with a few of the first codices that were found). But date is the easiest way to group and talk about the two groups, and it is certainly one of the prominent factors. So that’s how they’re usually discussed. Now let’s look at the differences.
IV. Differences in “Majority Text” & “Critical Text”.
The important thing to keep in mind here is that no doctrine is added, changed or omitted because of these differences when you sincerely look at the teaching of the whole Bible. And many newer translations put the differences in footnotes so you can check them. The KJV Professionals will try to make a big deal about various differences but it’s all their own exaggerated conjecture. If you sincerely look at the differences you’ll see they are overreacting, especially if you know your Bible and that other places have the topic translated fine without any contention. And the truth is the very same type of exaggerated arguments could be made against the KJV with various other differences. But reasonable people try to follow Paul’s command (2 Tim 2:14) and not argue about words like this. Even this article isn’t an attack against the KJV, just against the idea that the KJV is a superior, or even the only allowed, English version.
As I’ve discussed, one common difference is that generally speaking, the later manuscripts (and KJV) tend to add words and phrases. They are the same words and phrases found elsewhere in the Bible so the only difference is how many times various terms occur in the Bible. For example “prayer and fasting” (both words together) is found 8 times in the KJV but only 3 times in the NIV. Prayer and fasting is obviously a valid concept but it is perfectly presented in the NIV. Dishonest KJV Professionals will point out the verses where the NIV “tries to hide it” and not mention the verses where the NIV says it clearly.
However, since some very true statements are omitted in some places in the new translations that use this method, this opens the door wide for attacks from the KJV Professionals that these newer translations are purposely removing essential teachings. For example, “The NIV denies fasting!” (And denying the Virgin Mary, and even the resurrection or divinity of Christ, etc). When stated like this it is outright dishonest. The newer translations only omit it in some places for logical reasons as I’ve described. But it’s still very clear in other places.
Others who are a little more honest give the whole story, that the newer translations only omit it in some places, but then say they are purposely trying to downplay a valid doctrine. But this too is a terrible accusation that ignores their sincere effort to translate the most accurate text using diligent research into the manuscripts and a logical process. The doctrines are very clearly and strongly stated in other verses. And we shouldn’t judge the validity of a doctrine based on how many times it appears in scripture. If it is clearly presented three times or eight times it’s a valid doctrine, if you consider context, who it was directed to, spiritual symbolism, look at the whole Bible, etc. And that’s where the whole field of hermeneutics comes in. We need to be careful to interpret the Bible correctly and various people have different methods, some of which do cause problems. But counting the number of times a topic appears should not be a measure for accepting a doctrine. It is true that many will reject Bible passages no matter how clear they are but that’s to their own downfall and is a separate issue. If it’s stated clearly once or a dozen times people will reject it. But do notice that I’m saying “clearly stated”. Some verses are unclear and with those it is nice to have other verses to clarify. But with the topics that are brought up by the KJV Professionals, there are clear verses in all versions. And the nice thing is that when you read a newer translation like the NIV, they put these differences at the bottom so you can decide for yourself. There is no cover up. When you read all these footnotes you see there are no doctrinal changes. KJV Professionals will scoff at the idea of using notes for uncertain verses because they say their version is perfect. But some KJV Bibles, especially earlier ones, have footnotes just like this. And the KJV translators wrote a very honest introduction to their Bible which expressed their uncertainty of translating certain words and why they used footnotes. As they said, “They that are wise, had rather have their judgments at liberty in differences of readings, then to be captivated to one, when it may be the other.” Or in other words when the reading is unsure it’s best to present both alternatives and let the reader decide.
There is one exception I’ll point out. The NIV adds a footnote on 1 Corinthians 11:4-7 about hair being the Woman’s covering. Paul mentions the hair being a covering once so they give a footnote that says the hair can be used for the other nearby verses too, which just say a covering. This is done with no Greek support at all, as they admit. This is the only place I’ve seen this and I have not found these problems with the ESV or NASB. I’m honest when I see things like this. And I have seen errors with the KJV too but they are fairly trivial so I’m not making a big issue of it.
V. Objections to using the Critical Text:
Here are some objections to using the Critical Text (older manuscripts). Again these differences between the Majority Text and Critical Text are minor and don’t make any doctrinal differences. It should be a trivial matter. They are typically only argued by the KJV Professionals to show that their translation is the only accurate one.
1. Personal attacks on individuals
Some accusations have been focused on the faults of two men who were one of the first to publish a new Greek text based on older manuscripts: Westcott and Hort. However this is superfluous because they merely were one of the first to do this. The process of analyzing the manuscripts has been redone over and over and continues independently of their work. And again, Erasmus, King James, and the Church of England of the KJV had plenty of problems too.
2. Early Church writings reference the later manuscripts
I’ve heard it claimed that early Church writings in the first centuries quote scripture references that match the later manuscripts, which would indicate that the later manuscripts were what these early church fathers used and so they were around at that time after all, it’s just that none of them survived. This is obviously to discredit the whole field of study to group and classify manuscripts to find the most accurate original. But I have checked into many of these and other than the two I mentioned earlier of the Western Text, I have found that early church writings usually don’t reference a Bible verse but merely mention the idea or concept. When I checked pro-KJV sites, I found the following.
A. Synoptic gospel harmonization
One website gives four examples of the critical text leaving out a phrase in one disputed location (E.g. Matthew). They don’t ever mention that the phrase is in all texts (critical and majority texts) in other locations (E.g. Mark). Then they quote an early church father who mentions the phrase in ~150 A.D. as proof it was in Matthew at that time. They also don’t mention that the church father doesn’t give the author or verse reference (Ps, watch out because online versions could add verse references incorrectly). So they say this proves the critical text took out a valid phrase that was present in early manuscripts. But with the extra information I’ve given, we can clearly see the church father was just quoting another passage (E.g. Mark) and not the disputed location (E.g. Matthew), so it doesn’t prove anything. The website omits critical information and makes you think the church father quoted the phrase from Matthew in 150 A.D., “proving” the disputed phrase was in the early text. And so they claim critical texts took out a valid phrase (and they usually add conspiracy theories of why). I’ve seen so much of this type of thing from KJV sites.
It is believed some copyist at some point added the phrase to the disputed location (E.g. Matthew), usually because it was missing in one Gospel but present in another (harmonizing the gospels) and it was copied that way after that. So that’s why it’s in the later texts.
B. Possible Patristic Support on Western sources
I found three examples of omitted passages with possible patristic support (quotes from early church fathers). The first is that the longer ending to the model prayer in Matthew 6:13 “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen” is quoted in the Didache. As I mentioned, patristic references are not infallible proof. The original date of writing and original text of this document is unknown because the only complete copy we have was written in 1056 A.D. and we only have two fragments dating to the 4th and 5th centuries. Patristic references to it are all from the 4th and 5th centuries. Modern Scholars guess it was anywhere from the late 1st or 2nd centuries and we’re not at all sure what the full text of the original said since the only full copy is from 1056 A.D. The longer prayer ending is also in the Diatessaron (160-175 A.D.). This is a combination of the four Gospels that was written by Tatian, who later taught gnostic heresy. Even the website I found says it’s not very reliable text. But if the dates and citations are correct and original to these documents then they are somewhat early references.
However (and this is the other half which they don’t tell you, which I found elsewhere) the longer prayer ending is absent in all early Biblical manuscripts and conspicuously absent from all early church fathers who quote the whole prayer, so the ending should be there. So the scholars think the longer ending was added early on to these special documents for liturgical use (church prayer recitation maybe). The ending makes it end better.
John Burgon (19th century KJV supporter) tries to say Paul quotes the additional ending in 2 Tim. 4:18. But Paul simply says this after thanking God: “To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.” This is a very generic statement and only a portion matches the model prayer so it’s a long shot to say Paul is quoting it. But here as always you see that this difference is trivial. The newer versions are not trying to remove praise to God, they are just following this logic that is was probably added since it is missing in early references.
C. Clear example of adding
In Luke 4:18, which quotes Isaiah 61:2, the phrase “to heal the brokenhearted” is missing in the critical text. There are a lot of variants with this passage. The Masoretic Text doesn’t have “recovering of sight to the blind” (it seems to have come from the Septuagint bringing in Isaiah 42:7). The Septuagint doesn’t have the next verse which is “set at liberty them that are bruised (or it says “oppressed” in Isaiah 61:2)”. And the early Greek manuscripts (critical text) don’t have “heal the brokenhearted”. Scholars have noticed that copyists or more prone to add text to make corrections than to remove text. So as expected, the later manuscripts have all these missing verses, including the one that is not in the Masoretic Text of the quoted verse in Isaiah 61:2. This is significant because the KJV people say the Masoretic Text is the correct version. So the later manuscripts, which they prefer, add a verse that is not in their own preferred Old Testament text. Because of the variants, the certainty of the exact original reading of this passage is low but there are no doctrinal errors with the inclusion or omission of any verses, all the topics are clearly taught elsewhere with no variants.
D. Mark 9:29 Prayer and Fasting
The next one is the addition of “and fasting” in Mark 9:29 and the parallel passage in Matt 17:21. It is actually missing in the Didache. The Didache teaches fasting but never even alludes to these important verses on fasting. The Diatessaron does include it. In ~200 A.D. Tertullian (a Western author) also seems to refer to fasting surrounding this event. Again the only copies of Tertullian’s document are from the 1500’s with one fragment from the 9th century. So these are from the later time period and we don’t know if his work was corrected to the contemporary Bible version of the time. But unlike the previous one, this variant actually does have a few early manuscripts in its favor and a few against so it’s more difficult than typical variants. The scholars decided the original probably didn’t have the extra words since they had observed that text is usually added and that mentions of fasting were particularly added. Since these are Western sources they think it was one of the many additions they make. But I can see why someone would question this decision and think the words are original. But to assume nefarious motives is not called for. You can see it doesn’t change any doctrine because fasting is well taught in the critical text. And these are the three best examples I’ve found from the KJV professionals. Usually the reason for the omission is more obvious.
3. Individual outliers
Sometimes some wording from one particular late manuscript does happen to match some wording of earlier manuscripts so again KJV professionals will use this to say the grouping is errant and worthless. But since all these variants are very small it’s expected to find a few variants that happen to match from different groups sometimes. But there still is a clear distinction with the manuscripts when looking at the whole document, so it is easy to group them in spite of outliers that cross over. Not to mention you won’t know this is what Anathema means either unless someone explains it to you.
4. Loss of meaning
I’ve heard people say the modern translations lose the strong meaning of certain words in the KJV, like “anathema” by translating them into modern words like “condemned”. They say the word anathema means to be eternally condemned without hope of repentance, not just simply condemned. But I’ve found that these extra meanings have been added afterwards and they aren’t in the original Greek or even heard of in the early church. So the original author just meant condemned and so that it what is translated.
VI. Translational Differences
These differences I’ve discussed up to now are called “textual differences” – there is a difference in the Greek text used based on what method is used – majority text or critical text. In addition to this there are also actual differences in words used to translate the same Greek text when there is no conflict in the manuscripts. This is called a “translational difference”. They are also insignificant. Both words are always correct when you compare with the whole teaching of the Bible. For example 2 Timothy 1:7 in the KJV has “sound mind” whereas other translations have “self-control”.
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. KJV
For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. ESV
Some KJV sites make a big deal about this. But the Greek word sōphronismos (Strongs #4995) can mean either. The Strong’s definition is “discipline, i.e. self-control:—sound mind.” It comes from the word sōphronizō (Strongs #4994) which is “to make of sound mind, i.e. to discipline or correct: – teach to be sober”. It is used in Titus 2:4 for “teach the young women to be sober…” So there is clearly an element of teaching or self-control and discipline involved. That’s why many translations have “self-control”. The exact translation of #4995 could be translated as “having been taught to be sober”. But again you can see that both common translations, “sound mind” and “self-control”, are Biblical traits. And when you look closely they are related and the Greek helps bring this out. So it is a sound mind that God gives us but there is clearly an element of self-control to it, which we contribute, that the newer translations bring out. So they are actually a little more accurate. I’ve actually found that the modern translations are almost always more accurate to the Greek for these translational differences. Many times you can look at the same word or a root word used in another passage, like I just did with this verse, and it becomes very clear that the modern translation uses it correctly.
VII. Word for word or thought for thought
The next big debate is do you want the exact translated Greek words or do you want the translators to help you a little by translating the thought. Like the hypothetical modern example I used earlier of “take a chair”. Do you want them to translate the actual words, or the thought so you get the real idea of what the original author meant? If you translate “take a chair” word for word to another language you will get a totally different idea from what the author meant. So we certainly want thought for thought in those cases. And I’ve found that even the strict word for word translations like the KJV, NASB or ESV do translate the thought if translating the actual word for word would be completely misleading. But various versions do this to more or less extent and there are charts that tell you where the different translations fall. E.g. https://www.mardel.com/bibletranslationguide. I’ve found the NIV to be careful to translate the thoughts correctly and still fairly easy to read. I actually enjoyed reading the NLT more but I could tell they were wandering from the original more. It is considered a paraphrase translation, and they may diverge more from the intended thought in order for ease of reading. Then the loosest versions are sometimes called “re-telling” versions, like The Message which doesn’t even try to match the original much at all. These are like reading a newspaper but the original message can certainly be lost so you really aren’t actually reading the Bible. When you read these you can’t really trust you’re reading the thoughts that God inspired.
The NASB is one of the strictest word for word translation next to the interlinear. It is not only strict at using word for word translations as much as possible but also tries to keep the original layout and structure of the sentence. Greek tends to have things backwards many times so sentences in the NASB are sometimes a little more difficult to a modern reader. But some people feel more comfortable with this to avoid any room for translator bias. I am fortunate to have had a father that devoted many thousands of hours (easily could have been 10,000 hours) into mastering Greek and reading many of the versions and comparing them with the Greek. I totally respected the fruits of his life and he assured me that all the major translations (not the paraphrases) are accurate at presenting the original thoughts.
VIII. Conclusion
I hope if nothing else you’ve seen from this booklet that the scholars who use a critical text method of translating the Bible are not doing so for nefarious reasons but are simply analyzing all the manuscripts we know have to pick the most exact translation as possible. Most of the time this is pretty cut and dry but sometimes it is hard to determine so you can disagree with their decisions without condemning their motives. And I’ve seen many terrible accusations. But when I look into them I see that the accusers are hiding information and there isn’t a problem or that they are greatly exaggerating things. The bottom line is simply that the KJV is based on a very small handful of manuscripts that were available to them at that time (about 25) and the translators use all 5,700 of them now. But once again, the great comfort is that when we look at these manuscripts that come from many centuries and locations, all the differences are trivial. You can use a translation that puts these differences in the footnotes and read them for yourself and see. I’ve done this for years.
And with the debate on Greek manuscripts aside (or maybe I should say in the footnotes), I’ve almost always found the actual quality of the translations to be better in the new translations (not paraphrases). I routinely check a translational difference when I see it and find that the newer translation is more correct. This is in addition to the obvious fact that they correct all the words that have changed or lost meaning (about 300 of them). This is very important.
The 2nd thing I hope you’ve seen from this booklet is that it’s crucial for a person to read the Bible in their native tongue and that older Christians are often reluctant to update the Bible to do this for the sake of the next generation. People may think they’re understanding the KJV until they read another modern translation and then they find the meanings start jumping off the page, making the Bible more meaningful. So at least allow the next generation to use a modern version of the KJV like the NKJV or KJV21.
Thanks for reading,
Mike
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[1] 15 rules by Richard Bancroft, Bishop of London who oversaw the translation for King James. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Richard-Bancroft