Why the King James Version of 1611..??

[Caroleem]

Why do most Christians think the King James Version of 1611 is the ultimate one to study God's word with?
And what did Christians do before 1611? Guess they were out of luck..eh?
So no bibles existed before 1611?

I just don't get the hoopla about the KJV 1611. Some even say that every other bible that came after the KJV 1611 is demonic. Well what about before 1611? No bibles were around? And if they were, they were all satanic?

If anyone here knows the history, let me in on it please, i would appreciate it.

[Sherman]

Frankly, KJV Only-ism is based on ignorance, fear, and tradition, imo.

[Michael Thompson]

KJV, is was good enough for Jesus, and Paul, so it is good enough for me!
Really, I think there is some biblioidolatry going on. I know some people that are into the KJV only and they need to have a perfect book to believe in. I guess having a perfect Christ isn't enough?

[SLJ]

Here's a good history page: http://www.greatsite.com/timeline-engli ... e-history/

As I understand it, the KJV-only thing is based on the idea that God would preserve his word for his people. Since the KJV is "authorized" it is the definitive, word of God, Bible for the English language. The later versions are "wrong" because they correct errors in the KJV. For instance, "hell" appears 54 times in the KJV, but only 14 in the ESV.

Sonia

[Melchizedek]

IIRC, the original King James version of 1611 was the only one to include footnotes by the translators indicating different readings from different manuscripts, and translators notes when there was some doubt over the translation. If the other King James versions had carried out this scheme, there would have perhaps been far less confusion and dogmatism with regard to certain doctrines...

Aside from that, there seems to be this sense of "Well, the King James was the original English translation, and so must be the best" mentality.

[Paidion]

No one, to my knowledge, uses the 1611 King James Bible. Indeed, few have ever seen images of pages from the 1611 edition. The King James Bible has undergone many revisions. Even the most adamant King James users would probably have some difficulties with the English from 1611.

You can examine pages from the 1611 edition by clicking on the link below:

1611 King James

You can zoom in, and you can turn pages.

[Cindy Skillman]

I have the 1611 on my e-sword software because, well, it was free, you know. I hadn't noticed it was particularly different from the KJV, but I haven't exactly examined it closely. I should take off a few like that that I hardly ever look at. Maybe then I could find the ones I do want to use.

[URPilgrim]

KJV was not the first English Bible:

...1535: The Coverdale Bible
....1537: The Matthew’s Bible
....1539: The Great Bible (The first “Authorized Version”)
....1560: The Geneva Bible
....1568: The Bishops Bible (The second “Authorized Version”)

What many do not realize is that the King James Version is actually an ecclesiastical, governmental Bible. When you learn the true history of the King James Version– what surrounded its translation, who authorized it, who translated it, etc. – you will recognize that what is commonly known as the “Authorized Version”(AV), could easily be referred to as the Anglican Version(AV) – or the Anglo-Catholic Version (AV).

King James was the ecclesiastical head of the Church of England – the Anglican Church – and he was the governmental head of Britain – King of England. With England’s marriage of church and state, we have a prime example of Babylon the Great – with James being the religious monarch, the Royal “Defender of the Faith.” Probably the only thing the average “King James Bible believer” knows about King James is that their Bible is named after him.

History would seem to tell us that far from rushing out to buy or make use of this new translation, people preferred to use an English translation from fifty years earlier – the Geneva Bible. The King James Bible of 1611, that monument of dignity and reverence, has not always been as beloved as some people would like to think … In fact, it was so objectionable to many people of its time they would have nothing to do with it. The Pilgrims, for example, would not even allow it onboard the Mayflower, preferring instead the Geneva Bible of 1560.

[Lefein]

I find it interesting that the original KJV 1611 contains almost the full apocrypha, including Enoch. Some Protestants, when made aware of the history and original canon of the "precious, infallible word of God" (I daresay Christ alone is The Word) I can half imagine they'd be inclined to swear unto their very graves that the historical account was demonically inspired; "a most damnable history, as false as that most damnable theory of evolution".

I have a hypothesis, that when the Protestants expressed their iconophobia and rejected the Catholic artistry, and visual aids - they only replaced what they feared was idolatry towards images of saints and wooden crucifixes, with the even worse idolatry of replacing God with canon, a problem which continues to this very day in much of Protestantism.

"Worship thee, thy Bible, for it is perfect, and it alone is thy way to God; it is The Way, The Truth, The Life. By Bible alone thou shalt liveth, bow ye down O' brethren before the infallible Word...Keep ye silent thou sisters, best be seen and obey, not be heard, it is an abomination before the Lord thy Bible, and its most incomprehensible trinity; Bible the Canon, Bible the Word, and Bible the Interpretation, blessed be the pages."

[Caroleem]

Thanks guys for the interesting info.

This link here is also a bit interesting..

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-N ... d-by-Queen

[Sherman]

It's interesting that Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, told the congregation that the translators would have been "baffled and embarrassed" by the idea of a perfect translation but had sought instead to convey the "almost unbearable weight of divine intelligence and love" into the English language.

[Caroleem]

Yeah, like what's that supposed to mean?

[Caroleem]

Were there any bibles before the KJV that are translated the ages of the ages instead of forever and ever?

[snitzelhoff]

Caroleem,

Sherman means that the translators did not believe they were creating a "perfect" translation, but only striving to create the best one that they could. In the Preface, they wrote that they were not aiming for a "new translation" or to make "of a bad one a good one," but rather, "to make a good one better." They also said that the "very meanest" translation of Scripture into English by "men of their profession" (that is, by men that had actually be trained in Hebrew and Greek) contained and was the Word of God. In other words, they saw nothing terribly special about the KJV that should make it the one-and-only translation choice of the people, nothing that should make it the "perfect" Bible of the English language, and they absolutely understood their limitations as human translators. I think the translators of the KJV would have lauded with extreme enthusiasm the continued efforts to refine and improve translations in the modern day.

As for your question about aionios in earlier English translations, unfortunately, as far as I know, no. From about the end of the third century (when Koine fell out of usage), most translation work treated New Testament Greek as though it were, more or less, a variation of classical Greek. Koine was largely lost as a dialect until the collection of the papyri in the nineteenth century (documents in Koine from various authors, including everything from works of literature to grocery lists). In classical Greek, aionios becomes inundated with the idea of "eternity," so when these translators saw this word in Greek, they immediately thought "eternal," and with relatively few exceptions, that was how it was translated, and has continued to be translated even till today. The tide of scholarship is slowly changing, but 1700 years' worth of linguistic tradition is not easily shaken, especially when linguistic tradition is so bound up with theological tradition.