King James Onlyism

 

"ONLYISM"?

       As a Christian, you’ve probably wondered at some point about which Bible translation is the “best” one.  There’s also a chance you’ve met at least one person who insists that the Authorized Version, also called the King James Version, is not just the best but the only translation an English-speaking Christian should use.

      “King James Onlyism” – I promise, I didn’t make that term up – is a small but vocal subset of fundamentalist evangelicalism.  Its adherents are often members of independent Baptist churches, although they can also be found among Oneness Pentecostals, Holiness congregations, and, occasionally, more conversative Mormons.

      As the word “Onlyism” suggests, adherents don’t simply prefer the KJV text because of its beautiful Elizabethan prose.  Their view is that the 1611 Authorized Version of Scripture is the only sacred text inspired by God, based on the only legitimate ancient manuscripts.  Other English translations, they believe, are based on corrupt manuscripts.  Some KJV Onlyists believe that there’s a conspiracy among ungodly Bible translators to pull people away from the true God by altering Scriptural truths and pushing corrupt translations on the unsuspecting masses.

      There’s more.  Extreme King James Onlyists sometimes claim that the King James Version can be used to correct the ancient manuscripts from which it was created.  If a New Testament verse in KJV English doesn’t match the Greek of the Textus Receptus (that’s “received text” for us civilians), then it’s the ancient manuscript that’s wrong.  The inspired English of the 1611 KJV corrects mistakes in ancient versions.

 

CAN ANYTHING BE TRANSLATED PERFECTLY?

      Let's take a step back, though.  Is KJV the best?  In fact, is any English translation “best”?

      “Traduttore, traditore,” is an old Italian proverb.  It means, “The translator is a traitor.”  The proverb isn’t claiming that translators are dodgy tricksters.  It means that it’s impossible for any translation to be absolutely true to the original language on which it’s based.

      If you’re of a literalist mindset, you may reason that if you use a Bible version that’s a literal translation, you’ll be accessing the best version of sacred text.  Not so.  Consider a simple example from a modern language, Spanish:

¡Buenos días!  ¿Qué pasa?

      A literal translation of these words to English would be “Good[s] days!  What passes?”  That misses the mark.  The actual meaning of the utterance is, “Good morning!  What’s up?”  No one cares what’s passing, and no one instinctively knows that days are usually used for mornings in Spanish.  ¿Qué pasa? causes further issues when you alter its context or tone.  Among friends, it’s a casual “Wassup?”  But if it’s said by a police officer approaching your fender bender, ¿Qué pasa? is better rendered, “What’s wrong?”

      That’s a tiny phrase ported between two modern languages.  Consider the added challenges of translating the Bible, a tome of more than 700,000 ancient words written over a thousand-year period in various cultures and languages.  Calling such a task “monumental” is an understatement.

      That’s part of the reason we see such variety among translations of the same Bible verse.  Consider, for example, 1 Corinthians 15:30 below:

“I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.” (King James Version)

“I affirm, brethren, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.” (New American Standard Bible)

“Every day do I die, by the glorying of you that I have in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Young’s Literal Translation)

“For I swear, dear brothers and sisters, that I face death daily. This is as certain as my pride in what Christ Jesus our Lord has done in you.” (New Living Translation)

 

      The New Living Translation above is the least literal rendering of that text.  Arguably, it may be the most accurate if what you’re looking for is meaning rather than near-literal rendering.

 

THE APPEAL OF KING JAMES ONLYISM

      So why are some believers so attracted to King James Onlyism?  I’m no sociologist, but I suspect it has a great deal to do with taking refuge against the constant change and upheaval of modern living.  When the world seems tossed about in chaos, and when even the Bible can appear in such varied renderings as the four samples above, there’s an understandable impulse to cling to something surer and more solid.  The Apostle Paul’s assurance that we now only know things partially, "seeing through a glass darkly," does little to comfort some of us.  We want surety.  We want exactitude.  Forget the glass darkly and give us the microscope precisely.

      It’s become a common quip to joke that you want the words of Jesus in the exact King James English He spoke them.  But consider, more seriously, the tenets required to believe the KJV to be the only authoritative Word of God available in His kingdom on Earth.  You need:

• A belief in the divine inspiration of the original authors of each distinct text in Scripture
• A belief in the divine inspiration of those who gathered the texts into collections
• A belief in the divine inspiration of those who over the centuries inserted and removed different sections of that collected bundle as canon lists shifted and evolved
• A belief in the divine inspiration of the Holy Roman Catholic Church theologians who declared the “final” canon based on the Septuagint manuscripts used by Jesus and the Apostles
• A belief in the divine inspiration of the Protestant Reformers who further finalized the final version, booting Hebrew Scripture selections found only in the Septuagint but not in the Hebrew Masoretic texts
• A belief that the English-language Geneva Version of 1599 was semi-inspired divinely, since the KJV translators report using it extensively to guide their own translations; and, finally,
• A belief that 47 Church of England scholars and theologians were divinely inspired over seven years to produce the 1611 Authorized Version as an English translation that corrected problems with earlier mistakes in ancient manuscripts.

 

      If that sounds tedious, it’s because I meant it to be.

      But I’m not done.

      KJV-Onlyists you encounter online do extensive deep-dives into details of original manuscripts.  I’ll oversimplify the discussion for you: they accept the Masoretic Hebrew and the Textus Receptus Greek texts used to create the King James Version.  They reject the Septuagint text regularly quoted (without doubt and without controversy) by Jesus and His Apostles.

      So the next required leap of faith is believing that God got over His acceptance of the Scripture version used by Jesus and implemented better versions of the Hebrew Scriptures for definitive use a millennium and a half later.

      Frankly, that’s a lot of revision work on God’s part.  Why was the Septuagint good enough for Jesus but not good enough for James?  (Yes, in my head I sang that last line to the tune of “Gimme that Ol’ Time Religion.”)  Don’t get me wrong – God has all the power, and He certainly could have crafted a winding, seventeen century-long path of Bible-tweaking inspiration complex enough to make even Rube Goldberg envious.  My question is, would He?  That question is particularly pressing for the biblical literalists among us: Would God leave Christians without a perfect text for that long a time, using a pathway of that much confusion?  Is that the kind of Author he is?

 

SO WHAT’S THE BEST BIBLE TRANSLATION?

      I can’t give an answer to that question.  I’ll be bold, though, and turn to a source I trust: the very scholars and theologians who spent their time translating the 1611 Authorized Version.  They make their opinions of Bible translations very clear in their introduction to that celebrated text.  I’ll quote them with their original spelling, since I wish to be true to their words (and because, hey, it looks so darn cool):

 

Therfore as S. Augustine saith, that varietie of Translations is profitable for the finding out of the sense of the Scriptures: so diversitie of signification and sense in the margine, where the text is not so cleare, must needes doe good, yea is necessary, as we are perswaded.

 

      There you have it.  A variety of translations helps you make sense of Scripture.  Footnotes and margin notes help you out even more.  When the text isn’t clear, look to another translation and see if the ideas come across better in that one.

      For you see, the 1611 translators felt that the Word of God was retained, still preserved, even in less-than-perfect translations.  Of the Septuagint itself – the text they chose not to use – they have many good things to say, assuring readers that it contained the Word of God, since the Apostles and the Lord themselves saw fit to use it.

      That’s the final hurdle for the followers of the King James Onlyist movement.  To hold to their convictions, they must reject the guidance of the very translators they say were divinely inspired to create the one true version of the Bible.  They must look these 1611 scholars right in the eyes, right in the Introduction, and tell them, “You’re wrong, divinely inspired translators.  We know more about the inspiration of your work than you do.  Consult other versions, you say?  Clearly, you’re trying to corrupt the unsuspecting masses.”

 

It’s good to be back writing, and …

Marana Tha!

YoYo Rez, a.k.a. Cosmic Parx