KJV pro and con

Every version of the Bible has pros and cons, unfortunately. The King James or Authorized Version (KJV/AV) is no different:

Pro:

1. The best English translation: Most translations, of any book, have to strike a balance between being literal and being easy to read. The KJV got away with being literal, shaping the English language to itself instead of the other way round. So much so that since the 1800s it has been widely considered a masterpiece of English literature! Literal and literary at the same time. What other English translation can match that?
2. Good textual basis for the New Testament: The Greek text that it translates is very close to what most Christians have known through most of time. Since 1881 most new English translations translate a Greek text that is being ever “updated” by Western scholars who remove thousands of words.
3. Fixed, stable text: It has not changed since 1769, and then only to modernize the spelling and punctuation and fix some typos in the original 1611 version. That shields it from new fashions in scholarship, from modern ideas, like about homosexuality, and so on. It also gives you a text to study and memorize that is not constantly changing and which is always in print. (The first two modern mainstream translations of the Bible I read are no longer in print.)
4. No paragraphs: Most King James Bibles start each verse on a new line, which makes it way easier to look up verses to better understand the Bible. There were no paragraphs in the original Hebrew and Greek. Ancient writers did not organize their thoughts into neat little paragraphs with topic sentences. Strunk & White did not come out till 1959.
5. Most printed: It is the most printed (or copied) Bible in any language in all of history. If the god of the Bible acts in history, as the Bible claims he does, then this has to count for something. Some say that it is no accident that English has since has become a world language. When the KJV first came out in 1611, English had fewer speakers than Swiss German has now.

Con:

1. Archaic language: This is feature not a bug: even in 1611 the language was archaic. I find it curious that the people who complain the loudest about it are the ones with university degrees. The language is not that hard to get used to. Translations that make the Bible easy to read often mask its depths. The Bible is not a comic book.
2. Missing books: The Apocrypha is in fact part of the KJV, though rarely printed since the early 1800s.
3. Bad textual basis for the Old Testament: It translates the Hebrew Masoretic text, not the Greek Septuagint that Jesus and Paul, you know, mainly quote. This makes it seem like the Bible is constantly misquoting itself. Why? It is completely unnecessary.
4. Heretical: There seem to be few if any outright mistranslations but there is a general watering down of how the Bible had long been understood. Because the translators – Anglican and Puritan Protestants all – had rebelled against that understanding. “Christ” in the Psalms becomes “annointed”, “priest” becomes “elder”, etc.

– Abagond, 2023.

See also:

• Bible
  • Why the Septuagint matters
  • English Bible translations
    • Authorized Version
      • KJV Onlyism
    • ESV – one of its main rivals these days
• Bloom on translating Plato – most modern translators dumb down and modernize the thought of what they are translating.
• How to translate the Bible – or how the KJV was translated

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