When I was being examined by the Pulpit Committee in view of becoming the Pastor of this Church, one member asked me

“What Version of the Bible do you preach out of”?

I explained that I preach primarily from the King James Version (what many called the “Authorized Version”), but that I also referred to the original language of the Scriptures (the manuscripts) as well as other versions.

Since I’ve been at this Church, I found out that – though many use the King James Version – others use other versions. I have had people call and ask me if we were a “1611 King James Only” Church, and when I told them “No, I’m sorry, we’re not” they hang up. Sadly most people who are in the “1611 King James Only” camp have never studied nor even thought about what they believe. Let me ask this question:

If the 1611 King James Version is the only real Bible that there is, what did people use for Bibles before 1611?

Slide One Picture of my 1611 KJV

Did no one have a Bible before 1611? Did God deprive His people of the Scripture until King James came along? No, He did not. God has always given His Word to His people. God has given His Church two gifts:

1 God gave us the HOLY SPIRIT to guide us into His Word.

Slide 2

John 16:13-14 (NKJV) However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. 14 He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.

Slide 3

John 17:17 (NKJV) Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.

The Word of God – the Bible – is the TRUTH the Church is built on. God has always given His Church the Bible, a Bible we can understand. God gave His Old Testament people a Bible they could understand. Therefore,

2 God gave BIBLE TRANSLATIONS to His people.

I Love The King James Bible

Lest you think I have a “problem” with the King James Bible, I don’t. But if I love you, I will “speak the truth in love so that you will become more like Christ” (Ephesians 4:15). I was saved under the preaching of thew King James Bible – the version many of you are using today. The original 1611 King James was translated by 47 scholars. All scholars were members of the Church of England and all except Sir Henry Savile (a scholar and mathematician, Warden of Merton College & Oxford) were clergy. The Bible was commissioned in 1604, and published in 1611. It was sponsored by King James VI and I. Known as King James VI from July 24, 1567 as King of England and Ireland. When the Scottish and English crowns united he was called King James I until his death in 1625.

My commentary notes that the King James Version was the third translation of the Bible in English approved by the Church of England.

The first translation of the Bible into English approved by the Church of England was the Great Bible (1539). The Coverdale Bible (1535) was the first complete English Bible printed on a press (1535). Incorporating the Matthew 1537 Bible into his work, Miles Coverdale produced the Great Bible (1539).

Slide 4 The Great Bible (1539)

Though the Coverdale Bible was the first whole Bible printed in English, it was never “Authorized” by the King or the Church England. The Great Bible – which incorporated Matthew’s 1537 Bible,

Slide 5 Matthew’s Bible 1537

The second “Authorized” translation into English was The Bishop’s Bible (1568), though in Switzerland the “Reformers” translated the Geneva Bible (1560) from the original Hebrew and Greek Scriptures.

The King James translators referred to the Geneva Bible as they worked – and it influenced the translation.

Slide 6 Bishop’s Bible & Geneva Bible

Though the Geneva Bible (1560) was more popular than the Bishop’s Bible, the translators of the Geneva Bible translated the word KING as TYRANT some 400 times. This is one reason the King refused to “Authorize” the Geneva Bible.

The original King James text (1611) contained a number of differences from the King James text you have today. Though you may or may not have the 1611 Preface in your King James Bible,

Slide 7 KJV 1611 Preface

The King James Bible you have is NOT a 1611 version. The original 1611 Version had a monthly Moon Chart and Prescribed Prayers for each day of the week:

Slide 8 Moon Chart and Prescribed Prayers

The original KJV had a much older English than what you see in your King James. Here we see a “Table and Kalender” that gives an order to read the Psalms and lessons to be learned. You can easily see this is very old English.

Slide 9 Table And Kalendar
Slide 10 Proper Psalms On Certain Days

The original 1611 KJV did not just contain the 39 Books of the Old Testament and the 27 Books of the New Testament (the 66 Books of our Bible), but also contained the false scriptures known as the Apocrypha.

Slide 11 The Apocrypha

These are the 14 books rejected by the Protestant Church as Scripture, though the Catholic Church still holds these books to be part of the Bible. Though the Church of England broke from the Catholic Church, the translators kept the Apocrypha in place in the 1611 King James. The Apocrypha:

1 Taught a person was saved by their good works and not by faith in Christ:

Slide 12

Tobit 12:9 For alms giving saves from death and purges away every sin. Those who give alms will enjoy a full life …

2 Taught that a person who was not good enough for Heaven could go to “PURGATORY”, and could be bought out of Purgatory if enough good was done on the earth by their relatives:

Slide 13

Second Maccabees 12:41-45 The noble Judas exhorted the people to keep themselves free from sin, for they had seen with their own eyes what had happened as the result of the sin of those who had fallen. He also took up a collection, man by man, to the amount of two thousand drachmas of silver, and sent it to Jerusalem to provide for a sin offering. In doing this he acted very well and honorably, taking account of the resurrection. … Therefore he made atonement for the dead, so that they might be delivered from their sin …

3 The Apocrypha taught that God hears the prayers of the dead:

Slide 14

Baruch 3:4 O Lord Almighty, God of Israel, hear now the prayer of the dead of Israel, the children of those who sinned before you, who did not heed the voice of the Lord their God, so that calamities have clung to us …

There are many other reasons the Apocrypha was rejected as Scripture. It teaches that souls preexist before a person is born (Wisdom 8:19-20), that God created things out of preexistent matter (Wisdom 11:17), that the body weighs down the soul (Wisdom 9:15), and on and on. The Apocryphal writings are false scriptures that the Church rejected.

Slide 15 The Changing English Language

Thankfully we do not have a 1611 King James Bible now, because frankly, I don’t think we could read it. On your screen you see a page photographed from my 1611 King James Bible, John 3:14-17. Notice how much the language has changed from 1611 to the version of the King James you currently have. Notice the spelling of the words in the Book of Proverbs:

Slide 16 Prouerbes

The 1611 King James underwent two major revisions in 1629 and 1638, courtesy of Cambridge University in England. Thomas Nelson Bible Publishers note:

“Two of the leading universities in England—Cambridge (again) and Oxford—began work on updated standard editions. Francis Sawyer Parris oversaw the Cambridge edition, and Benjamin Blayney oversaw the Oxford edition. The Cambridge edition was finished first, in 1760, but the Oxford version, which was finished nine years later, superseded it.

Blayney’s exacting work on the Oxford revision calls to mind Psalm 12:6: “The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.”

His revisions fall into five categories. The first is the use of italics. Blayney used italics to identify words that are inserted into a passage to make the meaning clear but aren’t found in the original Hebrew or Greek text.

The original 1611 version used small “roman” type to identify such words. Because of printer’s errors and other factors, however, not all of those words were properly identified. The 1769 Oxford edition is much more heavily italicized than the original.

The second category of revisions involves very minor changes to the text itself. For example, in the 1611 version, Matthew 13:6 contains the phrase “had not root.” In the 1769 version, the phrase is changed to “had no root.”

The third category involves spelling (“sinnes” is changed to “sins”), capitalization (“holy Ghost” is changed to “Holy Ghost”), and punctuation. In the century and a half since the original version was written, the rules of writing had changed. Spelling, capitalization, and punctuation had become more standardized. Blayney attempted to introduce this standardization into the Bible text.

The fourth category involves changes to the margin notes, including removing references to the Apocrypha. The fifth category involves correcting a handful of printing errors, including changing “might” to “night” in Matthew 26:34.”

The version of the King James you are using today is the 1769 Oxford edition. You have the essence of the 1611 King James – a wonderful translation – but it has gone through updates that are necessary because of the changing nature of language. It is indeed a Biblical masterpiece of translation. However, it is not the only translation God has given us.

People Change, And All Languages Change

The first translation of the Bible from the original manuscripts into the people’s language was not the King James, but the Septuagint. The Encyclopedia Britannica notes:

Slide 17 Hebrew Language Bible

“The Septuagint was presumably made for the Jewish community in Egypt when Greek was the common language throughout the region. Analysis of the language has established that the Torah, or Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament), was translated near the middle of the 3rd century BCE and that the rest of the Old Testament was translated in the 2nd century BCE.”

Slide 18 The Septuagint

The Septuagint (so called because there were supposed to be 70 or 72 translators) translated the Hebrew text of the Old Testament into Koine or Common Greek, the language of the people of that day. One article I read noted:

“The Septuagint is quite possibly the most important translation of the Bible. It is the oldest translation of the OT into another language. It was considered by Philo and Josephus to be on an equal footing with the Hebrew Bible. It was preferred to the Hebrew by the Early Christian Church. And it sheds much-needed light on the development of the New Testament. …

Hebrew ceased to be a spoken language as early as the exilic or post-exilic period (cf. Nehemiah 13:24), and Aramaic became the {language} of the Jewish people. With the rise of Alexander the Great and the Greek empires, the Jews in the diaspora were Hellenized, and for some Jews, especially those living in Ptolemaic Egypt, Greek became the primary language. Thus, it became necessary for the Scriptures to be translated into Greek.”

God will not leave His people without His Word, so He raises up translators to insure that we have access to His Word. Languages change over time, and God wants His people to know His truths.

As I preach through the Bible, you may have noticed that there are times I allude to “the original text”. In my office and online I have access to lexicons, which are a type of dictionary that ties the Bible translated word back to the original manuscript that it was translated from.

Slide 19 Lexicons and Greek New Testament

Now I’m no expert Theologian by any means, but if you are using a King James Bible there are a number of Lexicons out there keyed to the King James text. There are a number of online resources as well that help you find the original language word. These resources are very helpful. Even though your King James is the 1769 Oxford edition, English has undergone many other changes since 1769. For instance, when people brought their children to Jesus to bless, but the disciples tried to stop them. What did Jesus tell them?

Slide 20

Matthew 19:14 … Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.

The word translated “SUFFER” is the Greek aphiēmi (pronounced af-ee’-ay-mee) which means “allow, permit, do not hinder”. The same word is used when Jesus told John the Baptist to baptize him, and John initially refused. Jesus told John:

Slide 21

Matthew 3:15 … SUFFER (aphiēmi) it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he SUFFERED (aphiēmi) Him.

In our day to “suffer” means to hurt. But in the Greek aphiēmi means “to allow, to not hinder”. But depending on the context, the word can mean “to leave one place for another”, as in:

Slide 22

Matthew 4:22 And they immediately LEFT (aphiēmi) the ship and their father, and followed {Jesus}.

It can also mean to ABANDON SOMETHING, as in the Lord’s Prayer:

Slide 23

Matthew 6:12 And FORGIVE (aphiēmi) us our debts, as we FORGIVE (aphiēmi) our debtors.

Jesus intends that we ABANDON VENGEANCE against others when we are offended. That is the way that aphiēmi should be translated in those instances. Now, why did I show you all these illustrations from this one word?

Because study of the Scripture is not merely MECHANICAL, but it is SPIRITUAL. Bible translators – who are God given people – come together to translate the Scripture from the original text to our language. Yet English and all languages are constantly growing and changing.

Let’s go back to my beloved King James text. Is the Third Person of the Trinity the Holy GHOST or the Holy SPIRIT?

You will find the Third Person of the Trinity referred to as “Holy Ghost” 183 times in 89 verses, but as “Holy Spirit” 44 times in 21 verses.

Is there a different word used in the original text for “Ghost” and “Spirit”. No, it’s the same word – Pneuma – which means “Spirit”. The Strongs Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible tells me that Pneuma is translated:

“Spirit (111x), Holy Ghost (89x), Spirit (of God) (13x), Spirit (of the Lord) (5x), (My) Spirit (3x), Spirit (of truth) (3x), Spirit (of Christ) (2x), human (spirit) (49x), (evil) spirit (47x), spirit (general) (26x), spirit (8x)”

It’s all the same word. In modern English when we speak of a “ghost”, we think about a disembodied soul that is roaming the earth. God is not a ghost, but a “Spirit”. Our Lord Jesus said:

Slide 24

John 4:24 God is a Spirit (Pneuma): and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.

God is not a disembodied soul, but a Spirit. God took upon Himself flesh and bones so that He could save us, but God in His essence is Spirit. God is everywhere, not localized as we are. The theological term for this is OMNIPRESENT. The Bible says:

Psalm 33:13-14 (ESV) The LORD looks down from heaven; he sees all the children of man; 14 from where he sits enthroned he looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth,

God as a Spirit is immense. The Prophet wrote:

Isaiah 40:12 (ESV) Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?

As one commentary notes:

“He fills all things with His presence (Colossians 1:17) and upholds everything by the word of His power (Hebrews 1:3) – yet He is not necessarily everywhere to bless. … Just as God is sometimes separated from His children because of sin (Isaiah 52:9), and He is far from the wicked (Proverbs 15:29) and orders the godless subjects of darkness to depart at the end of time to a place of eternal punishment, God is still there in the midst. He knows what those souls suffer who are now in hell; He knows their anguish, their cries for respite, their tears and grief for the eternal state that they find themselves in. He is there in every way as a perpetual reminder to them of their sin which has created a chasm from every blessing that might be otherwise granted. He is there in every way, but He displays no attribute other than His wrath.”

It is God the Holy Spirit Who inhabits the Christian, guiding us in the Scripture, teaching us the deep things of God. God the Holy Spirit is not limited by the translation of Scripture you use. If we will diligently seek His truth through a decent translation of the Scripture, God will guide us into all truth.

What Bible Translation Should I Use?

Slide 25 Types Of Bibles Available

If you are comfortable with the King James text, I recommend you stay with it in studying your Bible. I’ve stayed with the King James text as my foundational study Bible because it has been around so long, and there are many original language helps that are keyed to the King James. However, I am not afraid of other Bible translations, and turn to some of them if I seek a deeper understanding of the text.

There are three types of Bibles available in English:

1 Word for Word Translations (Literal)

2 Thought for Thought Translations (Dynamic)

3 Idea for Idea PARAPHRASES

If a Bible is a PARAPHRASE, it is NOT a translation. Someone read a Bible Translation, then re-wrote that translation in the way they understood it. A Paraphrase may be easy to read, but I would not recommend doing any serious Bible study with it. Some of the Paraphrase Bibles are:

Slide 26 Paraphrases

The Living Bible: Kenneth N. Taylor used the American Standard Version of the Bible (1901), and re-wrote it in his own words and interpretations.

The Message: Written by Eugene H. Peterson. My commentary notes:

“The Message has engendered more criticism for its lack of serious scholarship and outright bizarre renderings than just about any other Bible version to date. One common complaint from many who read The Message or hear it read aloud is “I didn’t recognize it as the Bible.” Other critics declare The Message to be not a paraphrase of what the Bible says, but more of a rendering of what Eugene Peterson would like it to say. In an interview with Christianity Today, Peterson described the beginning of the creative process that produced The Message: “I just kind of let go and became playful. And that was when the Sermon on the Mount started. I remember I was down in my basement study, and I did the Beatitudes in about ten minutes. And all of a sudden I realized this could work.”

I wouldn’t recommend it – I don’t believe it is the Word of God, but the Word of Man. Be careful when dealing with Paraphrases. The Good News Bible or The Passion Translation may be easy reading. But what you’re reading may be man’s traditions and thoughts – not God’s Word!

Slide 27 Word For Word

Word for Word (or Literal) Translations attempt to be accurate to the original text, but for this reason are often harder to read than Thought to Thought Translations. Some of the more popular versions are:

KJV – King James Version
NKJV – New King James Version
NASB – New American Standard Bible
ESV – English Standard Version
NRSV – New Revised Standard Version
ASV – American Standard Version
AMP – Amplified Bible

Slide 28 Thought For Thought

Thought for Thought (or Dynamic) Translations respect the original language, but place a high emphasis on conveying the thought of what the text conveys. It is easier to read than the Literal Translations. Some of the more popular of these are:

CSB (used to be HCSB) – Christian Standard Bible
{A Southern Baptist Translation}
CJB – Complete Jewish Bible
CEV – Contemporary English Version
NCV – New Century Version
NLT – New Living Translation

Though this is not all the Translations and Paraphrases available today, this graphic shows where these versions rate on the Biblical Translation Spectrum:

Slide 29 Where The Versions Rate

I personally prefer focusing on the “Word for Word” (Literal) translations, though I will sometimes read the text in the “Thought for Thought” (Dynamic) versions to help get a better understanding of what God is trying to tell me. But as I said before – Bible Study is not MECHANICAL, but SPIRITUAL. As I read and study the texts, I pray and seek God’s direction. May God bless you as you study His precious Word!