TheWinDork
New Member
A question that comes up frequently in the Bible Version debate is this: "If you believe that the KJV is the preserved Word of God in English, which edition do you use, seeing that it has been revised many times and in thousands of places?"
ANSWER:
I will answer this question under the following five headings:
1. There were corrections of printing errors, typographical changes,
and spelling updates.
These were done by the British publishers of the KJV and can be
grouped into two time periods.
There were updates made between 1613 and 1639 for the purpose of
correcting printing errors. The revisers included Samuel Ward and
John Bois, two of the original translators. "Some errors of the press
having crept into the first edition, and others into later reprints,
King Charles the First, in 1638, had another edition printed at
Cambridge, which was revised by Dr. Ward and Mr. Bois, two of the
original Translators who still survived, assisted by Dr. Thomas Goad,
Mr. Mede, and other learned men" (Alexander McClure, The Translators
Revived, 1855).
An update was made between 1762-69 to correct any lingering printing
errors and to update the spelling, enlarge and standardize the
italics, and increase the number of cross references and marginal
notes. The revision was begun in 1762 by Dr. F.S. Paris of Cambridge
University and completed in 1769 by Dr. Benjamin Blayney of Hertford
College, Oxford University. "The edition in folio and quarto, revised
and corrected with very great care by Benjamin Blayney, D.D., under
the direction of the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, and the Delegates of
The Clarendon Press, in 1769" (McClure, The Revision Revised). The
revision was made by collating the then current editions of Oxford
and Cambridge with those of 1611 and 1701.
2. All of the changes were of a minor nature, such as the following:
** Printing errors were corrected. This was almost exclusively the
nature of the corrections made in the 28 years following the first
printing. Consider some examples:
Psalm 69:32 -- "seek good" was a printing error in the 1611 that was
corrected to "seek God" in 1617
Ecclesiastes 1:5 -- "the place" was a printing error in the 1611 that
was corrected to "his place" in 1638.
Matthew 6:3 -- "thy right doeth" was a printing error in the 1611
that was corrected to "thy right hand doeth" in 1613.
Consider some famous printing errors that have appeared in printings
of the King James Bible:
The Wicked Bible (1631) omitted "not" in "Thou shalt not commit
adultery" in Exodus 20:14.
The Printer's Bible (1702) read "printers have persecuted me" instead
of "princes" in Psalm 119:161
The Vinegar Bible (1717) read "The Parable of the Vinegar" instead of Vineyard.
The Ears to Ear Bible (1810) read "who hath ears to ear let him hear"
in Mat. 14:43.
The Rebekah's Camel's Bible (1823) read "And Rebekah arose, and her
camels [should be damsels]" in Gen. 24:61.
** The use of italics was more standardized and its use was expanded.
Spelling and punctuation were updated. For example, old English had
an "e" after the verb (i.e., feare, blinde, sinne, borne), used an
"f" for the "s" except at the end of words (alfo instead of also) and
"u" for the "v" (euil instead of evil). Consider how 1 Corinthians
14:9 was written in 1611: "So likewise you, except ye vtter by the
tongue words easie to be vnderstood, how shall it be knowen what is
spoken? For ye shall speak into the aire." Or Genesis 1:1-2: "In the
beginning God created the Heauen, and the Earth. And the earth was
without forme, and voyd, and darkenesse was vpon the face of the
deepe: and the Spirit of God mooued vpon the face of the waters."
** A large number of new marginal notes and cross-references were added.
3. Donald Waite of Bible for Today compared every word of the 1611
KJV with a standard KJV in publication today (the 1917 Scofield which
uses an Oxford text).
Dr. Waite's study is entitled "KJB of 1611 Compared to the KJB of the
1917 Old Scofield" (BFT1294) and can be obtained from Bible for
Today, 900 Park Ave., Collingswood, NJ 08108,
http://www.biblefortoday.org/. He counted all of the changes that
could be heard. The largest number of changes were spelling (e.g.,
"blinde" to "blind"), but as these have no real significance he did
not count them.
He found only 421 changes that affect the sound throughout the entire
791,328 words in the King James Bible. Of these 421, the majority
(285) are minor changes of form, such as "towards" changed to
"toward" (14 times), "burnt" changed to "burned" (31 times),
"amongst" changed to "among" (36 times), "lift up" changed to "lifted
up" (51 times), and "you" changed to "ye" (82 times). Obviously these
are not real changes of any translational significance.
Dr. Waite found ONLY 136 SUBSTANTIAL CHANGES (out of 791,328 words)
between the original KJV of 1611 and the contemporary Oxford edition.
Most of these changes were made within 28 years after the original
publication of the KJV and were the simple correction of printer's
errors. Following are some of the 136 substantial changes:
1 Samuel 16:12 -- "requite good" changed to "requite me good"
Esther 1:8 -- "for the king" changed to "for so the king"
Isaiah 47:6 -- "the" changed to "thy"
Isaiah 49:13 -- "God" changed to "Lord"
Isaiah 57:8 "made a" changed to "made thee a"
Ezekiel 3:11 -- "the people" changed to "the children of thy people"
Naham 3:17 -- "the crowned" changed to "thy crowned"
Acts 8:32 -- "shearer" changed to "his shearer"
Acts 16:1 -- "which was a Jew" changed to "which was a Jewess"
1 Peter 2:5 -- "sacrifice" changed to "sacrifices"
Jude 25 -- "now and ever" changed to "both now and ever"
Further, there are a few differences between the Oxford and the
Cambridge corrected editions that can still be found in current
editions of the KJV. Following is one example:
Jeremiah 34:16 -- Cambridge has "whom YE had set at liberty" while
Oxford has "whom HE had set at liberty"
4. The most thorough study ever done on the various editions of the
King James Bible was by Frederick Scrivener in the late 19th century.
He was the author of the Cambridge Paragraph Bible, which was an
"elaborate attempt to publish a trustworthy text of King James'
version." It first appeared in 1873 and was republished in 1884
accompanied by Scrivener's valuable Introduction and Appendices as
The Authorized Edition of the English Bible (1611): Its Subsequent
Reprints and Modern Representatives (Cambridge: University Press,
1884). One of the Appendices is a "List of original readings of the
Bible of 1611 examined and arranged" and another is a "List of wrong
readings of the Bible of 1611 amended in later editions." Scrivener
also analyzed the KJV's underlying Greek text and tabulated the
number of times that it varied from the Stephens and the Beza
editions of the Received Text. A reprint of Scrivener's important
book is available from Bible for Today. It is also available on CD
from Sola Scriptura Publishing, 1118 SW Orleans St., Topeka, KS
66604. http://www.solascripturapublishing.com, mlangley1@cox.net.
5. What is the significance of these facts?
First, we see that the KJV has gone through such a strenuous
purification process that the reader can have complete confidence in
its accuracy.
Also, any idea that the KJV was "given by inspiration" is disproved.
If it were "given by inspiration" in 1611 it would not have needed
any sort of correction or refinement, because it would have been
infallible in every detail. Those who teach that the KJV is more than
an accurate translation, that it is given by inspiration and perfect
and inerrant in itself and advanced revelation and such must show us
exactly which edition they are referring to.
ANSWER:
I will answer this question under the following five headings:
1. There were corrections of printing errors, typographical changes,
and spelling updates.
These were done by the British publishers of the KJV and can be
grouped into two time periods.
There were updates made between 1613 and 1639 for the purpose of
correcting printing errors. The revisers included Samuel Ward and
John Bois, two of the original translators. "Some errors of the press
having crept into the first edition, and others into later reprints,
King Charles the First, in 1638, had another edition printed at
Cambridge, which was revised by Dr. Ward and Mr. Bois, two of the
original Translators who still survived, assisted by Dr. Thomas Goad,
Mr. Mede, and other learned men" (Alexander McClure, The Translators
Revived, 1855).
An update was made between 1762-69 to correct any lingering printing
errors and to update the spelling, enlarge and standardize the
italics, and increase the number of cross references and marginal
notes. The revision was begun in 1762 by Dr. F.S. Paris of Cambridge
University and completed in 1769 by Dr. Benjamin Blayney of Hertford
College, Oxford University. "The edition in folio and quarto, revised
and corrected with very great care by Benjamin Blayney, D.D., under
the direction of the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, and the Delegates of
The Clarendon Press, in 1769" (McClure, The Revision Revised). The
revision was made by collating the then current editions of Oxford
and Cambridge with those of 1611 and 1701.
2. All of the changes were of a minor nature, such as the following:
** Printing errors were corrected. This was almost exclusively the
nature of the corrections made in the 28 years following the first
printing. Consider some examples:
Psalm 69:32 -- "seek good" was a printing error in the 1611 that was
corrected to "seek God" in 1617
Ecclesiastes 1:5 -- "the place" was a printing error in the 1611 that
was corrected to "his place" in 1638.
Matthew 6:3 -- "thy right doeth" was a printing error in the 1611
that was corrected to "thy right hand doeth" in 1613.
Consider some famous printing errors that have appeared in printings
of the King James Bible:
The Wicked Bible (1631) omitted "not" in "Thou shalt not commit
adultery" in Exodus 20:14.
The Printer's Bible (1702) read "printers have persecuted me" instead
of "princes" in Psalm 119:161
The Vinegar Bible (1717) read "The Parable of the Vinegar" instead of Vineyard.
The Ears to Ear Bible (1810) read "who hath ears to ear let him hear"
in Mat. 14:43.
The Rebekah's Camel's Bible (1823) read "And Rebekah arose, and her
camels [should be damsels]" in Gen. 24:61.
** The use of italics was more standardized and its use was expanded.
Spelling and punctuation were updated. For example, old English had
an "e" after the verb (i.e., feare, blinde, sinne, borne), used an
"f" for the "s" except at the end of words (alfo instead of also) and
"u" for the "v" (euil instead of evil). Consider how 1 Corinthians
14:9 was written in 1611: "So likewise you, except ye vtter by the
tongue words easie to be vnderstood, how shall it be knowen what is
spoken? For ye shall speak into the aire." Or Genesis 1:1-2: "In the
beginning God created the Heauen, and the Earth. And the earth was
without forme, and voyd, and darkenesse was vpon the face of the
deepe: and the Spirit of God mooued vpon the face of the waters."
** A large number of new marginal notes and cross-references were added.
3. Donald Waite of Bible for Today compared every word of the 1611
KJV with a standard KJV in publication today (the 1917 Scofield which
uses an Oxford text).
Dr. Waite's study is entitled "KJB of 1611 Compared to the KJB of the
1917 Old Scofield" (BFT1294) and can be obtained from Bible for
Today, 900 Park Ave., Collingswood, NJ 08108,
http://www.biblefortoday.org/. He counted all of the changes that
could be heard. The largest number of changes were spelling (e.g.,
"blinde" to "blind"), but as these have no real significance he did
not count them.
He found only 421 changes that affect the sound throughout the entire
791,328 words in the King James Bible. Of these 421, the majority
(285) are minor changes of form, such as "towards" changed to
"toward" (14 times), "burnt" changed to "burned" (31 times),
"amongst" changed to "among" (36 times), "lift up" changed to "lifted
up" (51 times), and "you" changed to "ye" (82 times). Obviously these
are not real changes of any translational significance.
Dr. Waite found ONLY 136 SUBSTANTIAL CHANGES (out of 791,328 words)
between the original KJV of 1611 and the contemporary Oxford edition.
Most of these changes were made within 28 years after the original
publication of the KJV and were the simple correction of printer's
errors. Following are some of the 136 substantial changes:
1 Samuel 16:12 -- "requite good" changed to "requite me good"
Esther 1:8 -- "for the king" changed to "for so the king"
Isaiah 47:6 -- "the" changed to "thy"
Isaiah 49:13 -- "God" changed to "Lord"
Isaiah 57:8 "made a" changed to "made thee a"
Ezekiel 3:11 -- "the people" changed to "the children of thy people"
Naham 3:17 -- "the crowned" changed to "thy crowned"
Acts 8:32 -- "shearer" changed to "his shearer"
Acts 16:1 -- "which was a Jew" changed to "which was a Jewess"
1 Peter 2:5 -- "sacrifice" changed to "sacrifices"
Jude 25 -- "now and ever" changed to "both now and ever"
Further, there are a few differences between the Oxford and the
Cambridge corrected editions that can still be found in current
editions of the KJV. Following is one example:
Jeremiah 34:16 -- Cambridge has "whom YE had set at liberty" while
Oxford has "whom HE had set at liberty"
4. The most thorough study ever done on the various editions of the
King James Bible was by Frederick Scrivener in the late 19th century.
He was the author of the Cambridge Paragraph Bible, which was an
"elaborate attempt to publish a trustworthy text of King James'
version." It first appeared in 1873 and was republished in 1884
accompanied by Scrivener's valuable Introduction and Appendices as
The Authorized Edition of the English Bible (1611): Its Subsequent
Reprints and Modern Representatives (Cambridge: University Press,
1884). One of the Appendices is a "List of original readings of the
Bible of 1611 examined and arranged" and another is a "List of wrong
readings of the Bible of 1611 amended in later editions." Scrivener
also analyzed the KJV's underlying Greek text and tabulated the
number of times that it varied from the Stephens and the Beza
editions of the Received Text. A reprint of Scrivener's important
book is available from Bible for Today. It is also available on CD
from Sola Scriptura Publishing, 1118 SW Orleans St., Topeka, KS
66604. http://www.solascripturapublishing.com, mlangley1@cox.net.
5. What is the significance of these facts?
First, we see that the KJV has gone through such a strenuous
purification process that the reader can have complete confidence in
its accuracy.
Also, any idea that the KJV was "given by inspiration" is disproved.
If it were "given by inspiration" in 1611 it would not have needed
any sort of correction or refinement, because it would have been
infallible in every detail. Those who teach that the KJV is more than
an accurate translation, that it is given by inspiration and perfect
and inerrant in itself and advanced revelation and such must show us
exactly which edition they are referring to.