Is 'King James' Version the Actual Bible?

Question

Share your thoughts!

Laurie, Salafi is a great friend of mine..

We love to do things together, as Muslim brothers, NOT gays lol

Answer 1

Note: The word "Bible" comes from the Koine Greek word "biblios" and it simply means the same as the word "book" in English. Nowhere in the Bible do we find the word "Bible." However, it is interesting to note the word "kitab" (Bible in Arabic) appears many times in the Quran, referring to the Bible and the People of the Book (Jews and Christians).

Let me begin by saying that the King James "version" of the Bible is in English. There was no English language until the year 1066 AD when the Normans invaded the Saxxons. Therefore the English Bible cannot be anything like what any of the prophets spoke or understood, as it did not exist in their times.

Next, my grandfather, who was a devout and wonderful Christian man gave a gift of the Holy Bible to my sisters and I almost fifty years ago. It was an authorized version of the Bible, being The Revised Standard Version of the Bible which was a revised version of the American Standard Version, published in 1901, which was a version of the King James Version, published in 1611, which was revised and corrected for the first time in 1612, etc. I was very much impressed with the easier to read text and clarification of some of the wording which was presented in this version and began to read the Bible on a daily basis for hours at a time. The removal of the Elizabethton English terms, phrases and expressions made the Bible a more accessible and understandable and intimate Book for me. But that is not all the RSV did for me and many others, as well.

My love and respect for the Word of God increased the more that I spent time reading and understanding the message. The Bible became my most prized and respected book in my life. I often turned to it throughout the rest of my life in times of joy, happiness, sadness, troubles and pain. It was my compass, my road map, my weather vane and my friend. However, there were still some problems with this IMPROVED VERSION of the Holy Bible. It began to disturb and concern me to the extent that I made consultation with my father, who was also an ordained minister and student of the Bible since childhood. Based on his research and background in the origin and sources for modern day Christianity, I began to go deeper into the problems which had plagued my thinking and faith since childhood.

I prayed to Almighty God and then found the answers to some of the problems were spelled out very clearly in the very beginning of the exact same book. I have that book lying in front of me on my desk as I write this article and would like to quote to you from some of the PREFACE page iii and iv:

"The King James Version has with good reason been termed 'the noblest monument of English prose.' Its revisers in 1881 expressed admiration of 'its simplicity, its dignity, its power, its happy turns of express... the music of its cadences, and the felicities of its rhythm.' It entered, as no other book has, into the making of the personal character and the public institutions of the English-speaking peoples. We owe to it an incalculable debt."

"Yet the King James Version has grave defects. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the development of Biblical studies and the discovery of many manuscripts more ancient than those upon which the King James Version was based, made it manifest that these defects are so many and so serious as to call for a revision of the English translation. The task was undertaken, by authority of the Church of England, in 1870. The English Revised Version of the Bibles was published in 1881-1885; and the American Standard Version, its variant embodying the preferences of the American scholars associated in the work, was published in 1901."

"Because of the unhappy experience with unauthorized publications in the two decades between 1881 and 1901, which tampered with the text of the English Revised Version in the supposed interest of the American public, the American Standard Version was copyrighted, to protect the text from unauthorized changes. In 1928 this copyright was acquired by the International Council of Religious Education, and thus passed into the ownership of the churches of the United States and Canada which were associated in this Council through their boards of education and publication."

".... decision was reached that there is need for a thorough revision of the version of 1901..""In 1937 the revision was authorized by vote of the Council."

"Thirty-two scholars have served as members of the Committee charged with making the revision, and they have secured the review and counsel of an Advisory Board of fifty representatives of the co-operating denominations."

"Each section has submitted its work to the scrutiny of the members of the charter of the Committee requires that all changes be agreed upon by a two-thirds vote of the total membership of the Committee."

"The problem of establishing the correct Hebrew and Aramaic text of the Old testament is very different from the corresponding problem in the New Testament."

"For the New Testament we have a large number of Greek manuscripts, preserving many variant forms of the text. Some of them were made only two or three centuries later than the original composition of the books."

"For the Old Testament only late manuscripts survive, all (with the exception of the Dead Sea Texts of Isaiah and Habakkuk and some fragments of other books) based on a standardized form of the text established many centuries after the books were written."

"The present revision is based on the consonantal Hebrew and Aramaic text as fixed early in the Christian era and revised by Jewish scholars (the 'Masoretes') of the sixth to ninth centuries. The vowel signs, which were added by the Masoretes, are accepted also in the main, but where a more probable and convincing reading can be obtained by assuming different vowels, this has been done."

"... vowel points are less ancient and [less] reliable than the consonants."

"Departures from the consonantal text of the best manuscripts have been made only where it seems clear that errors in copying had been made before the text was standardized."

"Most of the corrections adopted are based on the ancient versions [translations into Greek Aramaic, Syriac, and Latin], which were made before the time of the Masoretic revision and therefore reflect earlier forms of the text."

"Sometimes it is evident that the text has suffered in transmission, but none of the versions provides a satisfactory restoration. Here we can only follow the best judgment of competent scholars as to the most probable reconstruction of the original text."

"Many difficulties and obscurities, of course, remain."

"Where the choice between two meanings is particularly difficult or doubtful, we have given an alternative rendering in a footnote."

"If in the judgment of the Committee the meaning of a passage is quite uncertain or obscure, either because of corruption in the text or because of the inadequacy of our present knowledge of the language, that fact is indicated by a note."

"It should not be assumed, however, that the Committee was entirely sure or unanimous concerning every rendering not so indicated."

"To record all minority views was obviously out of the question."

"The King James Version of the New Testament was based upon a Greek text that was marred by mistakes, containing the accumulated errors of fourteen centuries of manuscript copying."

"It was essentially the Greek text of the New Testament as edited by Beza, 1589, who closely followed that published by Erasmus, 1516-1535, which was based upon a few medieval manuscripts."

"The earliest and best of the eight manuscripts which Erasmus consulted was from the tenth century, and [yet] he made the least use of it because it differed most from the commonly received text; Beza had access to two manuscripts of great value, dating from the fifth and sixth centuries, but he made very little use of them because they differed from the text published by Erasmus."

"We now possess many more ancient manuscripts of the new Testament, and are far better equipped to seek to recover the original wording of the Greek text. The evidence for the text of the books of the New Testament is better that for any other ancient book, both in the number of extant manuscripts and in the nearness of the date of some of these manuscripts to the date when the book was originally written."


The words are in plain English. The second paragraph says it all, "Yet, the King James Version has grave defects.

Therefore, we must conclude the "King James Version" is NOT the Actual Bible sent by God to mankind.

Answer 2

I believe the King James Version of the Bible is the most accurate Bible. When you translate from language to language you loose some of what the author wanted you to get out of the writing. This is why The Quran is only considered to be The Quran if it is written in it's original language. Along the same lines when you translate the Bible into modern dilect you loose some of the intentions that the authors may have thought important for you to have. You may loose some of the meaning behind parables and stories that are in there. Since the King James Version is the oldest version, I think it is the most accurate. However there also comes into play the fact that the people who translated it into English could have tampered with the writings. Actually, it is a fact that they did. Therefore, there is even more flaws in the Bible. The more it is translated, the more flaws it has.

Answer 3

The Bible did not fall from Heaven into the hands of the people already bound and edited. By order of the Catholic Church the Bible was put together from scrolls used by Jews and early Christians in their religious ceremonies.

St. Jerome, a linguistic genius and priest, was commissioned by the Church to translate these scrolls (mostly written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek) into Latin, the common language of the people. Around 400 AD, the Catholic Church determined which books were divinely inspired and closed the canon of the Bible declaring that Jerome's translation, which came to be known as "The Latin Vulgate Bible," was "The Written Word of God." Nothing could be added or detracted from it without changing the meaning: "This is The Written Word of God."

It is noteworthy to remember that it was the Catholic Church who first said (declared, really) that the Bible was "the (written) Word of God." Interestingly enough, the Bible itself makes no such claim! The Prologue to the Gospel of St. John tells us that "Jesus is the Word of God," not the Bible. If you are not familiar with this beautiful prologue, it begins: "In the beginning was the Word; the Word was in the presence of God, and the Word was God."

The Latin Vulgate was finally translated into English. The word "vulgate" simply means 'common,' as in "the common language of the people." The English version of the Latin Vulgate is known as "The Douay Rheims Bible."

The King James Bible came later and lacks seven books from the Old Testament which the creators of the KJB detracted (having deemed the seven books: Not worthy of belief).


To this day, Catholic Bibles contain 73 books, and Protestant Bibles contain 66.

H

Answer 4

The books that make up the Bible were written over about a 2000 year period in Hebrew, a couple short sections of Aramic and in Greek. The portion called the Old Testament by Christians, or the Torah by Jewish, was completed around 500 BC. Around 250 BC, the Torah was translated into Greek, which had become the most common language of that time. While the original Hebrew was still used in all official services and ceremonies, the Greek version became the one that was most often read and quoted outside the synagogue. The portion called the New testament, which only the Christian accept, was written within in century of the resurrection of Jesus. It is entirely in Greek, and all of the quotes from the Old Testament are from the popular Greek translation.

Zoom ahead about 400 years, to when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. One of the issues they had was that very few people could read Greek anymore, and Hebrew was almost a forgotten language outside of orthodox Jews. So a church leader named Jerome made a translation of the scriptures, using the Greek translation of the Old Testament, into the most common language of that day, Latin. He also standardized the rituals (the mass) that was said in all the churches, again, in Latin.

The Latin Bible and mass remained the standard for the next thousand years. Although copies of the scriptures in the original Greek and Hebrew were common in monastary libraries and larger churches.

It would take the Protestant reformation, began by Martin Luther in the late 1400's, to spark a new round of Bible translations. By this time Latin had been a dead language, used only in church rituals. Few people knew it, and so being able to read the Bible in Latin was difficult. The Protestants began to translate the Bible into the languages of that day (beginning with German) so that everyone could read it and decide for themsleves what it taught.

Most Bibles of that time, including the Latin Bible, were printed with the text of scripture in one column and the intereptation of the scripture in a second column. Many of the tranlations were poorly done (often by people with no expertise in Greek or Hebrew). This was causing a lot of fighting and division amoung Christians. Every group had its own version of the Bible.

So King James of England, in the early 1600's, commissioned a group of scholars to put together an authorized version of the scriptures. It was to be as faithful as possible to the original Greek and Hebrew scriptures, and contain no notes or intepretation column. The version was released in 1611, and has come to be know as the King James Bible.

It has since undergone revisions to correct spelling and printing errors in the original release. It had an major revision in the 1780's to update some of the words and much of the spelling that had changed in English over almost 200 years. It is that 1780's version which is sold as the "King James" version today.

For about three centuries, the King James was "the" Bible used by English speaking people. Many came to mistaking believe that it was the original Bible.

By the 1900's, the language of the King James was become so old that it was causing problems. The meaning of words had changed in that 300 year period, make it difficult to understand some of the verses. So another round of Bible translations began to appear. At first, any version besides the King James was treated by many Christian as almost evil. But over time, as they realized that the modern language, spelling and punctuation (such as the King James as no quotation marks) made it easier to understand the Bible, the translations began to be accepted.

Since then, the number of translation has increased. There is money to be made in selling Bibles, and that has motivated some people to produce versions. Others were designed for special usage, such as the American Bible Society has a version called "Good News" that is designed for people who use English as their second language. It wording is very simple, with a more limited vocubulary to make it easy to read. Others like the Amplified Bible acknowledge that you will never be able to translate any book from one language to another with 100% accuracty, because words have different shades of meaning in English then they do in Greek or Hebrew. So the Amplified will give the most common translation, but then follow it with another word or two, or a short phrase, that helps to show some of the shade of meaning that might be lost in translating. While others, such as the Living Bible or the Message, rather than translate the scripture, paraphrase it. Meaning they do not attempt to make a word for word translation, but to retell the scripture in their words. They often give some new insight and ideas into the meaning of scripture, but are not good for in depth study. That isn't their purpose.

So, other than the original Hebrew and Greek manuscriptures, there is no "actual" Bible version. But there are many good ones on the market, and a comparision of the versions will show that while there may be some minor difference in the wording used to translate a version (When Jesus healed a man, one version may say the man "was cured" and another that he was "made well") the meaning remains the same between them all. The content remains the some. The books included remain the same.

It is recommended that you get two or three Bibles, and if you have a question on the meaning of a verse, to compare the versions. Sometimes the wording of one version may make the idea clearer to you. (While the wording of another version makes it clearer to someone else.)

Answer 5

fifty-4 men were nominated, in person-friendly words 40-seven were prevalent to have taken area contained in the artwork of translation The translators were prepared into six communities, and met respectively at Westminster, Cambridge, and Oxford. Ten at Westminster were assigned Genesis by 2 Kings; seven had Romans by Jude. At Cambridge, 8 worked on a million Chronicles by Ecclesiastes, even as seven others dealt with the Apocrypha. Oxford employed seven to translate Isaiah by Malachi; 8 occupied themselves with the Gospels, Acts, and Revelation.

Answer 6

The word VERSION should have told you.
There are hundreds of versions now in print. And the devil has seen to it that God's name is missing from most.
God's name (Jehovah) has been removed from nearly all 'Versions". God, Lord are just titles.
Even the Catholics have messed with the Bible to prove a lie. They added text to prove the 'trinity' (A falsehood perpetrated by the church)
Here is my favorite study link.

Answer 7

The KJV Bible is the true inspired word of God. It is true from the beginning, to the end. There are no lost books in this Bible. It comes complete. Jesus is the living word, and the Bible is the written word.

Answer 8

When it was printed in 1611 (and for years after), the KJV was the most accurate version of the Bible available

Answer 9

No, it is an edited version of the Catholic bible and has the same errors regarding the Trinity (Jesus is God).

Answer 10

I think "happy" (who asked this question) and "salafy" (who supposedly answered all this one minute later) are in cahoots. I think it's the same person and I think he's gaming for points.

See, they do the same thing here, just switch roles: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Apj3km68eg_FBDbjy7xOgRvzy6IX?qid=20060630044704AA9Qenf

Answer 11

Nope