I consider myself a KJV preferred person. I own several KJV Bible's an ESV and an NIV. I preach and teach exclusively from the KJV, yet am not KJVO. My question pertains to languages other than English. More and more Spanish speakers are moving into my home town. If KJV is the only inspired word of God, what should non English speaking people use?
I'm not trying to be rude, just truly interested in learning your thoughts.
My view is that it is impossible to have a KJV in any other language but English. I think it shows profound ignorance of linguistics and translation to say otherwise.
Some have claimed that there is a "KJV" in Japanese. There is not even a "KJV equivalent" in Japanese. One KJVO missionary who came to Japan thought the Japanese Classical Bible was a "Japanese KJV," but my coworker proved him wrong. So he called his pastor in the States and asked what to do, since the typical fundamentalist in Japan must use a version done according to the NASB principles from those original language texts. The pastor told him to preach from that, but put his hand on the KJV when he preached, to get the power. Absolute nonsense.
The closest thing to a "KJV" type Bible in Japanese is the Nagai NT, done from the Stephanus Greek text in very hard to read classical Japanese. That is out of print and very hard to find. The OT was never done.
I lead an effort to produce a Scrivener TR based version, the Lifeline Japanese New Testament. Just today I finished looking at the final proofreading edits, and sent them off to our final editor. We hope to have the NT printed before the year is out. 86,000 or so John and Romans have already been passed out.
Greek, Japanese, and English are so very different languages, that there is no way a Japanese NT can be the "Japanese KJV." For example:
1. Japanese word order is different, with the verb coming last, though often followed by a particle.
2. Japanese has no infinitives or participles. (Some grammars call the "
te form" a participle, but it is used very differently.)
3. Japanese has two alphabets, and also uses 1000s of Chinese characters.
4. Japanese verbs can become adjectives, and vice versa.
And there are many other differences, so that there is no way that any Japanese version can be a "Japanese KJV."
I am not fluent in Spanish, but from what I do know as a linguist, there are enough differences in English, Greek, and Spanish so that technically there can be no "Spanish KJV." I recommend the Trinitarian Bible Society NT. (See Post # 10.)