WHY DON’T WE USE THE KJV? - A series of articles on English translations of the Bible
By Ronald Nugent
IV. WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS?
This series of articles arose from a question asked by one of the young people in our church. He has some Christian friends who told him that the modern translations of the Bible are not to be trusted and that he should be using the King James Version (KJV) of 1611. He wanted to know if they were right, and why we don’t use the KJV at All Nations Presbyterian Church. (Note: Before reading this article, you will find it helpful to read the earlier articles in the Messenger , Issues 129, 130 and 131, or online at the ANPC website.
Advocates of the KJV may be divided into three groups. (1) The first group are those who prefer the KJV because they have used it all their lives and so they are more familiar with it and have come to love its language (the “Just-Like-the-KJV” group). (2) The second group are those who believe that it is a better translation and is based on better texts than the modern versions (the “KJV-Is-Best” group). (3) The third group are those who believe that it is the only reliable version in the English language, having been preserved by God from all errors of copyists down through the ages (the “KJV-Only” group). With the first group, I have no argument. Their choice of the KJV is a simple matter of personal preference and they don’t attempt to force their choice on the rest of us. With the second and third groups, however, I take issue. Their choice of the KJV is based on fallacious, even silly, arguments and their insistence that the rest of us are using inferior and unreliable Bibles can undermine the faith of God’s people in His word and cause division in His church. Hence this series of articles.
In the first article, we noted how the English language has changed since the KJV was first published in 1611. These changes have meant that the KJV is no longer in the language of the people and it is difficult for many people today to understand. In the second article, we began looking at how the New Testament (NT) has come down to us, that is, its journey from original text to today’s translations. We saw that we do not have the original text for any book of the NT but that we do have thousands of later copies. In the third article, we looked at the next stage in the journey of the Bible from text to translations: the selection of the best manuscripts from the thousands of extant copies. We saw that most modern translations are based on a selection of manuscripts called the Eclectic Text (ET), while the KJV is based on a much older selection called the Textus Receptus (TR). ( Textus Receptus is Latin for “Received Text”).
If you compare the KJV with a modern translation of the Bible, such as the NIV and the ESV, you will find many differences. Some of these differences are because the English language has changed over the years and some are because the translators use different methods of translation, but many are because the KJV is a translation of the TR while modern translations are based on the ET. Advocates of the KJV claim that the TR is more reliable than the ET and some even claim that the TR contains the original text of the NT, which has been wonderfully preserved by God down the centuries. What are we to say in answer to these claims of the KJV-Is-Best and the KJV-Only advocates?
In this article and the next I will examine some of the arguments which the champions of the TR use to support their claims. Their arguments are legion and it is not possible to examine them all in a brief series of articles such as this or to reply at length. Those who wish to study the subject further will find a list of recommended reading at the end of this article. For now, we will look at two of the principal arguments advanced by the KJV-Is-Best and KJV-Only advocates and in the next article we will look at four or five more of their arguments. What, then, are the main arguments used by the KJV advocates to support the TR and how do we answer them?
Argument 1. The TR is based on the Byzantine text-type, to which the overwhelming majority of Greek manuscripts belong.
Answer. This is the principal argument used by advocates of the TR and the KJV. Now, I readily acknowledge that both of the statements above are quite true. The TR is based on the Byzantine text-type, and the majority of Greek manuscripts do belong to the Byzantine text-type. But for this argument to carry any weight, two other things must also be true. First, it must be true that the majority text is the always closest to the original, and, secondly, it must be true that the TR always uses the majority text. Sadly, for our KJV-Is-Best and KJV-Only friends, neither of these things is true.
First, the majority text is not always the closest to the original. It is true that about ninety-five percent of the extant Greek manuscripts belong to the Byzantine text-type. However, ninety-five percent of the extant Greek manuscripts were copied after AD 700, more than six centuries after the NT was written. Furthermore, we have over seventy manuscripts from before AD 400, but not one belongs to the Byzantine text-type. Although there are thousands of manuscripts belonging to the Byzantine text-type, all of them date from after AD 400 and most of them date from after AD 700. The earliest extant manuscripts belong, not to the Byzantine, but to the Alexandrian, Western and Caesarean text-types. Now, as a general rule, the older the manuscript, the more reliable it is likely to be. While it is important for Bible scholars to study all available manuscripts, it must be remembered that the majority is often wrong. In the case of the extant manuscripts of the Greek NT, the majority has been through several generations of copying and, obviously, the more times a manuscript is copied, the more likely it is that errors will creep in.
The reason for the later Byzantine manuscripts outnumbering the earlier Alexandrian, Western and Caesarean manuscripts is easy to explain. First, the earlier the manuscripts are less likely to survive the ravages of time. Over the years, manuscripts were thrown out and burnt or buried, or simply rotted and disintegrated. Secondly, the rise of Islam in north Africa and the Middle East in the sixth and seventh centuries meant the decline of Christianity in those regions and even its demise in places. Not only was there less demand for the Christian Scriptures but the Scriptures that already existed were often destroyed by the victorious Muslims. At the same time in Western Europe , Latin rather than Greek became the lingua franca, and Latin manuscripts replaced Greek ones. After AD 700, it was only in the Byzantine Empire that the Greek language was widely used and only in the Byzantine Empire that the Scriptures were widely read and copied in Greek. It is for this reason that the Byzantine text-type contains the majority of Greek manuscripts from the eighth century onwards.
Furthermore, while the TR uses manuscripts from the Byzantine text-type, it does not always follow the majority text. The majority text is found in several thousand witnesses, while the TR is based on less than one percent of those witnesses. For example, the words in 1 John 5:7, “For there are three that bear record in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one”, which are found in the TR and the KJV, occur in only four (out of over 5,000) Greek manuscripts. (We will look more closely at his verse when we answer the second argument). Again, the words in Revelation 22:19, “the Book of Life”, which are also found in the TR and the KJV, do not occur in any extant Greek manuscript. In summary, the principle that the majority text is the most reliable is a false principle, and, even if it were true, the TR and the KJV do not use the majority text.
Argument 2. The TR contains several passages, including some doctrinally important ones, which are omitted by modern versions.
Answer. In a short article such as this, it is not possible to examine all the passages included in the TR and the KJV but missing from the ET and the modern translations. For the present we will look at only one such passage and we will look at another in the next article. These examples will demonstrate that there are good reasons for modern versions to exclude some passages that are found in the KJV.
One such passage that is often mentioned by KJV-Only advocates is 1 John 5:7. It is called the “Johannine Comma” (or, in Latin, the Comma Johanneum ) and it reads: “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.” The words are included in the New King James Version, but I am not aware of any other modern version that contains them, except as a footnote. Indeed, some modern versions, don’t even include these words as a footnote. (I believe that in this they are absolutely correct). Our KJV-Only friends tell us that these words are a clear statement of the doctrine of the Trinity and that their exclusion from most modern versions proves that these versions are not to be trusted.
Have these words been excluded from most modern versions because the scholars who translated them did not agree with the doctrine of the Trinity? Not at all. The doctrine of the Trinity is based on the teaching of the whole of the Scriptures, not on one questionable verse. The truth is that the disputed words do not occur in any Greek manuscript of any text-type or in any quotation from the Greek NT before the sixteenth century and are found in only four Greek manuscripts, all late and all unreliable.
The story of how the Johannine Comma came to be included in the TR is interesting and instructive. When Erasmus first published his Greek NT in 1516, the Johannine Comma was not included. Its exclusion was for a very good reason: it was not in any Greek manuscript that Erasmus had examined. It was, however, to be found in the Vulgate, the Latin Bible prepared by Jerome, which was the authorized version of the Roman Catholic Church. (We note in passing that the disputed words were not included by Jerome. Jerome lived in the fourth century but the words in dispute first appear in the Vulgate in the ninth century). Now Erasmus had enemies and they took the opportunity to attack him for excluding the words in question and accused him of encouraging heresy. He protested that he was simply being faithful to the Greek texts and challenged his critics to produce a Greek text that contained the missing words. He promised, rather foolishly, that he would insert the Johannine Comma in future editions if a single Greek manuscript could be found that contained the passage. His opponents then found an obscure manuscript in Ireland which contained the disputed words and Erasmus reluctantly included them in the third edition of his Greek NT. The manuscript is highly suspect and is believed to be the work of the Grey Friars, who were enemies of Erasmus. With the newly included text, Erasmus added the note: “have restored the text . . . so as not to give anyone an occasion for slander.” That is, he included the disputed words, not because the textual evidence warranted their inclusion, but to protect his own reputation from the false accusations of his enemies.
The fact is that the Johannine Comma is not found in any manuscripts of the Greek NT until after the Middle Ages. Since the time of Erasmus, thousands of Greek manuscripts of 1 John have been discovered, but only three others contain the disputed text: one from the twelfth century with the disputed words written in the margin in a seventeenth century hand, one from the sixteenth century, and one from the seventeenth century. Not one Greek text of this verse has ever been discovered anywhere that is earlier than the sixteenth century. There is no evidence at all that the Johannine Comma was written by the author of 1 John.
How then did this text get into the Latin Vulgate? The most likely explanation is that it was first added as a gloss. (A “gloss” is a brief comment written in the margin or between the lines of a text, rather like the comments in our study Bibles today or the notes that some Christians jot in the margins of their Bibles). Next, a later scribe, who copied the manuscript, thought the gloss was a part of the original text and so inserted it into the text itself. Future scribes, not aware of what had happened, then copied the error, so that it became an integral and accepted verse in the Latin Vulgate. Initially there was no dishonesty involved, simply an error of judgment. Later, some over-zealous scribes translated the Latin into Greek and inserted the words in question into a handful of copies of the Greek NT. Thus, the Johannine Comma did not find its way into the Latin Vulgate from the Greek NT; rather, it found its way into a few late copies of the Greek NT from the Latin Vulgate. It should not be included in our English Bibles.
TO BE CONTINUED
FOR FURTHER READING
1. On the History of the Bible
Wegner, Paul D., The Journey from Texts to Translations: The Origin and Development of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1999)
Metzger, Bruce M., The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration ( Oxford : Oxford University Press).
2. On the History of the King James Version
Nicolson, Adam, Power and Glory: Jacobean England and the Making of the King James Bible ( London : Harper Collins, 2003).
McGrath, Alister, In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible ( London : Hodder and Stoughton , 2001)
3. On the Debate over the King James Version
Carson , Donald A., The King James Version Debate: A Plea for Realism (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1979).
White, James R., The King James Only Controversy: Can You Trust the Modern Translations? (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1995).
4. On the Translation of the Scriptures
Martin, Robert P., Accuracy of Translation: The Primary Criterion in Evaluating Bible Versions with Special Reference to the New International Version (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1989).
Barker, Kenneth (Editor), The Making of a Contemporary Translation: The Purpose and Method of the New International Version (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1987).
Copyright © 2006 Ronald Nugent