altering translations too often?

Is altering and revising English Bibles wrong?

In their preface to the 1611, the KJV translators noted that the Roman Catholics criticized Protestants for "altering and amending our translations so often." Thomas Fuller observed that Catholics asked: "Was their translation good before? Why do they amend it?"
(CHURCH HISTORY OF BRITAIN, Vol. V, p. 407). In his 1582 book, Gregory Martin, a Roman Catholic, condemned the early English translations with this accusation: "How is it ... that in your later English bibles you change your former translation from better to worse?" (FULKE, A DEFENCE, p. 323). Martin claimed that "books which were so translated by Tyndale and the like, as being not indeed God's book ...or scripture, but the devil's word" (p. 228). Martin argued that present translations must be evaluated or judged by the ancient Latin Vulgate translation that had been used by the Roman Catholic Church for over 1,000 years.

On the other hand, the KJV translators argued that it was good to revise and to attempt to improve earlier translations of God's Word. They acknowledged that such attempts were often incorrectly viewed with suspicion and jealousy; and that they would be accused of changing and correcting sacred Scripture, but they nevertheless contended that revision was necessary. In their preface, they wrote: "If anything be halting, or superflous, or not so agreeable to the original, the same may be corrected, and the truth set in place."

 

Yes, I agree that the KJV-only view does seem a bit contradictory to the original purpose of the KJV translators.

In their preface, the KJV translators wrote: "No cause therefore why the word translated should be denied to be the word, or forbidden to be current, notwithstanding that some imperfections and blemishes may be noted in the setting forth of it. For what ever was perfect under the sun, where apostles or apostolike men, that is, men indued with an extraordinary measure of God's spirit, and priviledged with the priviledge of infallibility, had not their hand?"

 

In the 76 years from the 1535 Coverdale's Bible to the 1611 KJV, many changes and revisions were made in the English Bibles. There may be almost as many changes in those 76 years as there are in the 371 years from the 1611 KJV until the 1982 NKJV. It is even more likely that there may be as many changes in those 76 years than in the 383 years from the 1611 KJV until the 1994 KJ21.

Those who hold and promote a KJV-only view seem to ignore the large number of changes and revisions that the KJV made in the earlier English Bibles of which it was a revision.