Would King James (translator of the Bible) be burning in hell?

Question

At the end of Revelations it states that if anyone alters the words of the Bible, they will be in deep sh!t. Do you think that since King James' version is a close intreptation that he's "hot footin' " it right now?
(Serious question, I just can' t curb my sense of humor.)

Answer 1

Yes...he would

Answer 2

First, James had nothing to do with the translation. The translators affixed his name to it in an attempt to stay alive.

Second, there are many deliberate mistranslations in the text, most notably "easter" in Acts 12:4. The translators did not translate baptizo from the Greek, rather they translaierated the word so readers would not understand the original meaning in contrast with the church's current practice. The word means wash or dip, a drop of water on the forehead wasn't it. They were not the first to do this, but they had a good chance to improve people's understanding and refused to do it.

Third, they were denied access to the best manuscript available, the codex Vaticanus, which was in the Vatican. The best they had was Codex E, copied several hundred years later.

Answer 3

The catch is that the book of Revelations wasn't the last book originally. most of the letters (to the Corinthians, the Romans, etc.) were actually written after the book of Revelations. When James' crew put together the Bible, they pretty much decided that Revelations was just weird enough that it deserved to be last. it seems that the rest of the New Testament is organized according to length, not chronology. Have you ever noticed that the further into the New Testament you read, the shorter the books get? It's not 'cause the writers were running out of stuff to say, it's cause the books aren't in the order they were written originally.
How's that work? I hope it makes enough sense to answer your question.

Answer 4

You could put it that way. However, he could have been saving England from inaccuracy. If every ordinary Joe was left with only manuscripts in two dead languages (1500 year old Greek and and 3000 year old Hebrew) then one could expect the general population to be constantly misinterpreting the text.

By allowing a team of scholars to create a very close approximation in English (all translations are approximations) he gave the uneducated English speakers understand like they had a PhD.
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The warning in Revelation most probably is in reference to itself, being, like all the books of the Bible, a separate document.

Note: You missed the similar ones in Galatians 1:6-9. I think there's also one somewhere in the pentateuch, which formed the basis for the beliefs of the Sadducees that only the first 5 books of the Bible are canonical.

Answer 5

Far from it! (unless he died in his sins) The KJV was commissioned for transfer from the scrolls of the ancient languages into English in 1604. A panel of 50 Latin, Greek, and Hebrew scholars spent 7 years translating the Word into English from the original languages based on the Hebrew insistence of proofreading every single word and punctuation mark, then clarifying it for accuracy against the other language's interpretations. In other words, If one of the Hebrew scholars had a complete rendition that had a spelling error in Revelations 22:10 near the very end of the Bible, not only was the spelling error corrected, but the ENTIRE thing was proofread from Genesis 1:1! This helped ensure accuracy in passing the word on to each generation and making it a more "enduring" edition of the Bible. First published in 1611, it is still the biggest selling book on the planet. James was the one who commissioned the transfer, so I doubt seriously that God would hold him responsible for error since the Hebrew scholars were given a large say in what was grammatically correct. It was their charge, given from God to ensure the survival and passage of the Word to each successive generation and James realized that when he commissioned the transfer.

Answer 6

King James commissioned the TRANSLATION of the Scriptures, so that people could have the Word of God in English. The translators knew all too well about not adding to or taking from the Word of God. The italicized words are best-fits--and they were honest enough to indicate that.

For the record, King James was a Christian who loved his wife dearly. He wasn't gay. He advocated guys saving sex for marriage--he said to his son, how can you rightfully be expected to be joined to a virgin if you're not one yourself?

I read only the King James Bible. All other versions are perverted.

Answer 7

Consider this: the Old Testament (in general) was originally written in Hebrew. The New Testament was (in general) written in Greek & Aramaic. Jesus was in the country where Greek was spoken. How could He read the Bible in His own language if it hadn't been translated? Also, would you want to go to church & have to struggle to try to understand the Bible in Greek, Hebrew & Aramaic if those weren't your best languages? How could the Bible have spread throughout the whole world in the same language, unless the whole world spoke those three languages? Then wouldn't the incident at the Tower of Babel have caused God some trouble in this case? & by the way, you need to learn about the state of the dead (but that's another whole long paragraph...). :)

Answer 8

The King James Bible was translated by a group of scholars that he ordered to do so. Real "versions" of the Bible are usually done by committee.

To answer your question, I doubt that scholars with no real agenda other than the glory of God would be burning in hell.

By the way, King James was Catholic, but his Bible is the Protestant one. Go figure...

Answer 9

I don't think that he would be burning in Hell. I mean he translated the Bible so it would be accessable to more people. He also translated it in a poetry form. In comparison to other translations his is the most appealing. Usually in translations the reader loses the essense of the text because it's not in its original language. But through King James's translation, the reader actually gains something.

Answer 10

The KJV translators (not a single person, like many modern versions, but a committee of 120) translated the Bible as accurately and with as much reverence as possible.

Is it a perfect translation? No. Is it an accurate translation? Yes.

I usually preach from it, because of its accuracy and reverence. There isn't a translation in the last 100 years that I would consider using.

Answer 11

I wonder if translators count as alterations too... What about the person who wrote that passage - I mean the new testament (incl. revelations) was then stuck onto the back of the old testament. That's a pretty big alteration! I think that's a pretty impractical thing they wrote in there! And most theologians agree KJ did have his people put in political slants in his favor.