The King James Bible (KJB) and other older bibles such as the Geneva Bible, that the American Pilgrims used, are
translated from the "Traditional Text," -- a tight knit collection of New Testament manuscripts descended from much
earlier Christian manuscripts.
The modern bibles are translated from the Critical Text,
a collection of older, much much more diverse manuscripts.
In response to my "petition" using
God's promise to believers in 1John 5:14-15, God showed me from John 17, Christ's High priestly prayer, that God's providential
transmission of His Word in the Scriptures, would come down through history directly connected with
his Church, the collection of all true believers, NOT long lost
in some obscure location.
That is, John 17 requires that God's authentic transmission
of his Word would come down through history hand in hand with his true people. This is true for the Traditional text,
but NOT for the Critical text.
The Vaticanus manuscript, one of the
two backbone constituents of the Critical text, was lost in the Vatican library for over a 1000 years, and the Sinaiticus
manuscript, the other main manuscript of the Critical text was found in a waste basket at the Monastery on Mt. Sinai on the
Sinai peninsula.
I believe the true Mt. Sinai is in present day Saudi Arabia, not at the
traditional location in the Sinai desert. See Ron Wyatt's site http://wyattmuseum.com/red-sea-crossing.htm and also Google "Red Sea Crossing" for many other excellent sites.
Modern Bibles
are produced by people whose brains a pickled in Darwinism, God-the-neuter-ism, gender-neutral-ism Naturalism, Political-correctness-ism,
and many other misconceptions.
Modern Bibles are commercial
products and are forced to compete for market share. They may not be trying to make a "killing,"
but they don't want to miss a profit, either. If one of them doesn't fudge in the political correctness direction, others
will.
The KJB and older bibles come out of the "Golden Age of Literature." Literary
expertise had reached it zenith at that time. The KJB translators were simply head-and-shoulders better than
modern scholars.
Modern seminaries may graduate people with two years of
Greek -- people needed two years of Greek to get IN TO major collegesin the 1600s - the time of the
KJB making.
The traditional text IS RIGHTLY CALLED THE MAJORITY
TEXT. In my article God was Manifest in Flesh! I quote Wilbur Pickering (The Identity of the New Testament Text, 1977) who notes
that 80%+ of old handwritten New Testament manuscripts, in the case cited of 1 Timothy 3:16, 97%, match the King James
reading.
Thus, modern bibles are based on the very small minority
of supposedly older manuscripts. As I said, Jesus in John17 indicates the Bible will come down to believers, providentially,
not by archaeological luck.
So, it is completely consistent with this concept that the
Traditional Text and the KJB enjoy the support of 80% or better, majority of ancient hand written Greek manuscripts.
Practically speaking, after hundreds of year on KJB dominance among English speakers, there are a zillion resources
still available for this version.
My Blackberry has the KJB in both audio, and text, and
JFB commentary (Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset, and David Brown, 1871), and Strong's Concordance, with Hebrew and Greek
dictionaries.
I dare say no modern bible has the breadth and depth of "helps"
available for serious bible study.
I recommend, one Bible for Life:
The explosion in numbers of modern bibles, and usage, has made MUSH out of the brains of many bible readers.
Although I have used other bibles for comparison, I have used mainly the KJB. God-The-Holy-Ghost is
easily able to bring to my mind the EXACT KJB wording and phraseology, and this allows my mind to automatically
cross reference to other bible verses, and to understand God's will, and to search the bible too.
Having been in many bible study with many people I have found very great confusion in the
minds of people who have used multiple bibles.
The differing wording and phraseology in
each verse, between bibles, confuses the reader's minds, so they cannot remember where in the bible a certain word
or verse came from, and they often confuse it with different passages.
They have
lost the "verbal" memory of what God said. A church will switch to a new "modern"
bible, then 10 years later, switch again to another bible, then 10 years later to yet another bible. The result
is chaos in the listener's or reader's minds.
In Matthew 4:4 Jesus was being tempted
by the Devil. He quoted the Old Testament VERBATIM: It is written, Man
shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
Notice -- EVERY WORD. God's message was given in WORDS to mankind
through the prophets.
To repeat myself, many people I have done bible study with, used one bible
for while, then their church switched to another bible and so did they, and then 10 years later their church switched again,
and so did they.
Their brains cannot resolve the exact wording of a passage. Three
different versions floating around in their brains -- they can't remember -- did it say this, or that, in this place, or was
it some other place.
Their brains have been destroyed in terms of any "verbal"
memory of the bible -- they are left with vague concepts that they have trouble resolving, or putting their fingers on.
The so-called "readability" issue is badly misleading. Dealing with God involves concepts strange
to our natural understandings. It matters little whether one has to learn a new, so-called modern word, or a
new archaic word.
There is another aspect to the "readability problem."
The KJB contains a very very rich fabric of small very important, details. These make it more difficult
to read, at first, but, as one becomes more experienced in bible study, these details become more
and more important.
But, modern versions, pave or smooth these over, so that
the reader is unaware they are there. So, such readers are handicapped in later bible understanding because they have
been blind-sided to the existence of these rich, critical, details.
It is much better
to use the KJB from the start, and either, temporarily, note, but pass over these details, or use a commentary.
Furthermore, as our society has gone more and more "politically correct." Behaviors
and concepts correct with God, are no longer socially acceptable, and thus, there IS NO MODERN word
for these righteous concepts and behaviors. The ARCHAIC WORDS ARE THE ONLY ONES AVAILABLE.
Modern bibles are forced to effectively mistranslate in order to use a modern word, which is actually
INCORRECT. They do this to avoid using the only available correctword, because it
is an archaic, or it is a KJB word.
Take the case of the "thees" and "thous"
for example. These are archaic in our modern English usage, HOWEVER, they DO EXIST
in the Greek and Hebrew manuscripts underlying our English bible.
So, modern versions
MUST falsify the bible in using a modern standard pronoun, because the correct
corresponding English pronouns are archaic.
To repeat myself, much or the supposed difficulty
of the old bibles is due to richness of important detail in the text. In order to be "readable" modern versions
will gloss over, or smooth over this rich detail.
This may seem to enhance readability,
but leaves the new reader blindsided to this rich detail, which is critical for more advanced, mature, understanding of God
and his Word.
It is much better to let the new reader note difficult areas, and bypass
them temporarily, letting the Holy Ghost bring their minds back to those areas of detail, for timely understanding, as
they become used to the "meat" of the Word (bible), moving on from the "milk" of the Word.
The KJB has been a major component in God's major, providential movement of the so-called Protestant Reformation.
The British Empire came to rule the seas, taking the KJB worldwide. Furthermore, the KJB followed in a line or previous
bibles as the Reformation advanced.
There are many many facets of the versions or bibles issue.
I have tried to set forth some main ones. Let me finish with reminding us that there is a major war going on, a no-fooling,
conspiracy.
The Devil and his agents are sparing no
effort in confusing and tripping up God's purpose and people. Psalm 2 is exactly correct: Psalm
2
Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder,
and cast away their cords from us.
He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the LORD
shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have I
set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.
I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto
me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and
the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.
Thou shalt break them with a rod of
iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of
the earth.
Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be
angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little.
Blessed
are all they that put their trust in him!