The KJV is not nearly as difficult to understand as many make it out to be.
While I have read the KJV for over 60 years, it may be harder to understand than many of its readers realize. Sometimes readers of the KJV are reading different meanings into its words than what was intended in its Early Modern English.
Even something as seeming simple as prepositions which present readers think that they know may have been used in an uncommon or archaic sense in the 1611 KJV.
Concerning prepositions, J. B. Lightfoot (1828-1889) wrote: “The misunderstandings which arise in the mind of an English readers are due in most passages rather to the archaisms than to the error of the translators. Where, in common language, we now say ‘by’ and ‘through’ (i.e., ‘by means of’) respectively, our translators, following the diction of their age, generally use ‘of’ and ‘by’ respectively—‘of’ denoting the agent, and ‘by’ the instrument or means” (
Fresh Revision, p. 107). J. B. Lightfoot asserted: “From these archaisms great ambiguity arises. When we hear ‘it was said
of him,’ we understand at once ‘
about or
concerning him,’ but this is not the meaning which this preposition bears in our New Testament. And again, when we read ‘it was sent
by me,’ we understand ‘I sent it,’ but neither again is this the meaning intended. In the modern language ‘by’ represents the
sender, whereas in the old it denotes the
bearer of the letter or parcel” (p. 108). J. B. Lightfoot claimed: “In all such passages the ambiguous ‘by’ is a serious obstacle to the understanding of the English reader” (p. 110).
Concerning English in the KJV, David Crystal wrote: “Several prepositions have different uses from today.
Of, in particular, is widespread:
the zeal of (‘for’)
thine house,
tempted of (‘by’)
Satan,
went forth of (‘from’)
the Arke. Other examples include
in (‘at’)
a good old age,
taken to (as a)
wife, and
like as (‘like’, ‘as’)
the sand of the sea” (
Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English, p. 65). Concerning the KJV, John Eadie asserted: “The prepositions are not in all cases justly distinguished” (
English Bible, Vol. II, p. 365). John Eadie noted: “‘By’ itself is equivocal, for it is sometimes connected with the original cause, and sometimes with the instrumental cause. It might be often rendered ‘through’ [1 Cor. 8:6] ‘Jesus Christ, through whom are all things’” (English Bible, Vol. II, p. 366). At its entry
by, the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary gives as its third definition the following: “Through, or with, denoting the agent, means, instrument or cause.”
