Our Scriptural Confidence is that We have a Pure, More Sure Word of Prophecy.

[Logos1560]

The question is whether unfamiliar words should be explained or whether they should be removed.

The Church of England makers of the KJV removed many words found in the pre-1611 English Bibles.

Along with reducing the number of uses of several archaic words, the KJV completely removed some archaic, antiquated, rare, unusual, or difficult words or spellings found in one or more of the pre-1611 English Bibles. These words would be English Bible words or Biblical English found in the pre-1611 word of God translated into English. Should all the following words have been kept in the 1611 KJV and explained instead of being removed?

Some examples include the following: “abrech” (Gen. 41:43), “abrogate” (Heb. 8:13), “achat” (Exod. 39:12), “advoutry” (Mark 7:21), “affianced” (Luke 1:27), “afterbirth” (Deut. 28:57), “albs” (Lev. 8:13), “almery“ (Deut. 28:17), “almuggim” (1 Kings 10:11), “arb” (Lev. 11:22), “arede” (Mark 14:65), “assoyl” (Matt. 21:24), “banketed” (Job 1:4), “beer” (Isa. 24:9), “beweep“ (Deut. 21:13), “boldened” (1 Sam. 13:12), “brain pan” (Jud. 9:53), “breastlap” (Exod. 25:7), “bruterer” (Exod. 25:7), “buballs” (1 Kings 4:23), “buggers” (1 Tim. 1:10), “burgesship” (Acts 22:28), “byss” (Gen. 41:42), “calamite” (Exod. 30:23), “carrion” (Lev. 5:2), “cavillation” (Luke 19:8), “cavillations” (Lev. 19:13), “cherubs” (1 Kings 6:25), “chevisance” (Deut. 21:14), “childishness” (1 Cor. 13:11), “childship” (Rom. 9:4), “colled” (isa. 15:2), “commonalty” (Lev. 4:13, “conjurers” (Dan. 4:7), “consistory” (Ps. 107:32), “cowcasins” (Ezek. 4:15), “cratch” (Luke 2:7), “cressets” (Jer. 25:10), “culver” (Mark 1:10), “deadoffering” (Lev. 3:5), “debite” (Luke 20:20), “deedslayers” (2 Kings 14:6), “delectation” (2 Cor. 12:10), “despicions” (Acts 28:29), “discomforted” (Ezk. 13:22), “diseasest” (Mark 5:35), “dissembling” (Prov. 12:19), “door cheeks” (Exod. 12:23), “dukedoms” (Gen. 36:30), “effusion” (Heb. 11:28), “egalness” (2 Cor. 8:14), “emmet” (Prov. 6:6), “endote” (Exod. 22:16), and “equalness” (2 Cor. 8:14). Additional examples include “erewhile” (John 9:27), “fardels” (Acts 21:15), “field devils” (2 Chron. 11:15), “fiends” (Mark 1:34), “flickered” (Ezek. 10:19), “flacket” (1 Sam. 16:20), “flaggy” (1 Sam. 15:9), “flawnes” (1 Chron. 23:29), “felicity” (Gal. 4:15), “foreby” (Lam. 1:12), “fortuned” (Gen. 39:7), “frayles” (1 Sam. 25:18), “frumenty” (Lev. 23:14), “gaoler” (Acts 16:23), “gabis” (Job. 28:18), “gardes” (Deut. 22:12), “gelding” (Acts 8:34), “ghostly” (Rom. 8:5), “gnew” (Rev. 16:10), “gorgeousness” (Isa. 3:18), “grece” (Acts 21:35), “grennes” (Ps. 140:5), “hagab” (Lev. 11:22), “harborous” (1 Tim. 3:2), “harbourless” (Matt. 25:35), “hargol” (Lev. 11:22), “hawthorn” (2 Chron. 25:18), “healthful” (Tit. 2:11), “heavengazers” (Isa. 47:13), “hilchapels” (Amos 7:9), “hoared” (Josh. 9:4), “hucklebone” (Gen. 32:25), “huswiferie” (Prov. 31:18), “improve” (2 Tim. 4:2), “ixion” (Deut. 14:13), “jakes” (2 Kings 10:27), “Jewship” (Gal. 1:13), “knappeth” (Ps. 46:9), “lamia” (Isa. 34:14), “lamies” (Lam. 4:3), “latten” (Gen. 31:42), “ligurious” (Exod. 28:19), “lither” (Rom. 12:11), “loured” (Gen. 4:5), “maidenhead” (Jud. 11:38), “male stewes” (1 Kings 15:12), “manchet” (1 Kings 4:22), “mandragoras” (Gen. 30:14), “manward” (Titus 3:4), “marshal” (Gen. 39:1), “maund” (Exod. 29:3), “meinie” (Gen. 22:3), “meked” (James 3:7), “misdoers” (Isa. 53:12), “muzzling” (Deut. 32:2), “moon prophets” (Isa. 47:13), “mossell” (1 Cor. 9:9), “naught packs” (Ps. 86:14), “nebb” (Gen. 8:11), “neers” (Isa. 34:6), “neverthelater” (Lev. 7:24), “nigard” (Isa. 32:6), “ohim” (Isa. 13:21), “overbody” (1 Sam. 23:9), “overscaped” (Lev. 19:10), “overskipped” (Deut. 26:13), “overthwart” (Deut. 32:5), “overwinner” (1 Sam. 15:29), “panier” (Job 41:7), “parbreak” (Num. 11:20), “partlets” (Acts 19:12), “pensiveness” (Ps. 77:3), “perceavaunce” (Eph. 1:8), “perquellies” (2 Sam. 5:8), “pight” (Heb. 8:2), “pismire” (Prov. 6:6), “plage” (Deut. 17:8), “pleck” (Lev. 13:4), “porphyry” (Est. 1:6), “possessioner” (Micah 1:15), “pyght” (Heb. 8:2), “quadrin” (Mark 12:42), “queer” (1 Kings 6:5, 16, 19), “querne” (Isa. 47:2), “quier” (1 Kings 6:5), “raynes” (Rev. 19:8), “rebecks” (1 Sam. 18:6), “recreate” (Ps. 94:19), “redebush” (Isa. 9:16), “redshanke” (Deut. 14:16), “rickes” (Jud. 15:5), “roofed” (1 Kings 6:9), “roomth” (2 Sam. 22:20), “rowneth” (Isa. 5:9), “rugagates” (Jud. 12:4), “rythe” (Jer. 49:31), “sallets” (Jer. 46:4), “scrale” (Exod. 8:3), “salaam” (Lev. 11:22), “sethim” (Deut. 10:3), “shalms” or “shawms” (Ps. 98:6), “shope” (Gen. 2:7), “simnel” (Exod. 29:23), “slade” (1 Sam. 25:20), “slops” (Isa. 3:20), “Sodomward” (Gen. 13:22), “soleam” (Lev. 11:22), “spangles“ (Num. 31:50), “springalds” (Dan. 1:4, 10), “stickered” (Rom. 4:20), “stambered” (Mark 7:32), “stellio” (Lev. 11:30), “succourless” (Prov. 31:8), “taxus” (Exod. 25:4), “terebinth” (Isa. 6:13), “thievish” (Ps. 10:8), “toot-hill” (Gen. 31:48), “treacle” (Jer. 8:22), “unborn” (Ps. 78:6), “unghostly” (1 Tim. 4:7), “unhele” (Lev. 18:16), “unlust” (Isa. 43:22), “unquiet” (Deut. 28:65), “unshodhouse” (Deut. 25:10), “unthrifts” (1 Sam. 30:22), “uplandish” (Jud. 5:11), “wastels” (Lev. 24:5), “wenest” (Acts 8:20), “whale fish” (Job 7:12), “Whitsuntide” (1 Cor. 16:8), “whore keeper” (Deut. 23:17), “withoutforth” (1 Chron. 26:29), “witsafe” (Ps. 119:29), “wrutt” (Ps. 80:13), yonderward” (1 Sam. 20:37), and “zijm” (Isa. 13:21).

Perhaps many of the few places where the KJV may have simpler language or vocabulary than the Bishops’ Bible may be places where it followed Tyndale’s, Matthew’s, or the Geneva Bible. The Church of England makers of the KJV kept some or many renderings from the Bishops’ Bible where another pre-1611 English Bible already had simpler, clearer, more up-to-date, or possibly more accurate renderings. The first rule given for the making of the KJV may be in effect responsible for some of the words used with a now archaic, obscure, or uncommon meaning, some of the less clear or more difficult words, a couple possibly anachronistic words, and many of the archaic words found in the KJV.

All the places where the makers of the KJV borrowed Latin-based renderings from the 1582 Roman Catholic Rheims New Testament are not simpler words. A few example renderings that the makers of the KJV may have borrowed from the 1582 Rheims include “austere” (Luke 19:21), “malefactors” (Luke 23:19), “malefactor” (John 18:30), “vesture” (John 19:24), “clemency” (Acts 24:4), “principal” (Acts 25:23), “malignity” (Rom. 1:29), “emulation” (Rom. 11:14), “illuminated” (Heb. 10:32), “seduce” (1 John 2:26), and “incense” (Rev. 8:3). KJV defender Jonathan Wheatley referred to “the unique words that originated in the KJB text from the Rheims 1582 New Testament” (Unique Words of the KJB, p. 329). Jonathan Wheatley commented: “Whilst even the idea that the KJB should feature any trace of such a corrupt Catholic, Latin-based text may be incomprehensible to some Bible believers, it does need recognition here” (Ibid.).

In contrast to this KJV-only claim that asserts that archaic words should be kept, the KJV translators evidently believed that it is was all right to update, revise, change, or attempt to improve the earlier English Bibles and make the word of God in English easier to read and understand in many places. Would all the significant amount of updating in the KJV be considered “dumbing down” the language of the pre-1611 English Bibles? Did the KJV move or remove ancient landmarks by updating and revising many words in the pre-1611 word of God in English? In their preface to the 1611, the KJV translators had argued that it was good to attempt to revise and improve earlier translations of God's Word. Therefore, the KJV itself helps establish a clear precedent that the updating of archaic words is a valid, good, and edifying practice.

In addition, the KJV itself establishes a precedent against the inconsistent claim that archaic words should be left in the text instead of being updated.

 

[Baptist4life]

You never miss a chance to copy and paste your redundant material, do you? *sigh* You've been posting on this same topic for YEARS! Do you have a life other than the KJV topic? It just seems abnormal to me. I seriously wonder about you sometimes.

 

[Logos1560]

You never miss a chance to copy and paste your redundant material, do you?

My information related directly to the statement from the poster whom I quoted.

Would you claim that the subject of the Scriptures is unimportant? Would you claim that reading the Bible year after year is redundant and unnecessary?

 

[Baptist4life]

I claim that this unhealthy obsession you have with the topic is kind of scary and worrisome. I've been following this forum for many, many years and you have been on here all that time, and probably even before I came, and you've posted the same material time after time after time. It's just a little weird to me that it seems to occupy 99% of your time. I sometimes worry about your mental state to be honest. I find you a little odd, to put it mildly. Here's a suggestion.....why don't you get off here and spend more time READING your Bible instead of spending your whole day posting on forums about it?

 

[Logos1560]

I claim that this unhealthy obsession you have with the topic is kind of scary and worrisome.

Do you seem to have an unhealthy obsession with complaining about the posting of others at least mine? Is that odd on your part?

Your opinion is incorrect since my posting does not occupy 99% of my time, not even 50% of my time, nor even 25% of my time. It is not the same exact material since I have revised it and added to it many times. Concern with the doctrine of Scripture is not unhealthy.

 

[Baptist4life]

You keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel good.

 

[Logos1560]

I have personally seen people become confused when confronted with multiple competing renderings and told that one verse, one phrase, or one reading should be preferred over another. I have seen confidence weakened because the text appeared unstable to them.

In his prologue to the Christian reader in his 1535 English translation, Miles Coverdale wrote: "Whereas some men think now the many translations make division in the faith and in the people of God, it is not so." In their comments to the brethren of England, Scotland, Ireland, etc.

in the 1560 edition, the Geneva Bible translators acknowledged that “some translations read after one sort, and some after another, whereas all may serve to good purpose and edification.“

Jack Lewis quoted Matthew Parker and Edmund Grindal as writing: “For though one other special bible for the churches be meant by us to be set forth as convenient time and leisure hereafter will permit yet shall it nothing hinder but rather do much good to have diversity of translations and readings” (Day after Domesday, p. 10).

In their preface to the 1611 KJV, its translators themselves argued that "variety of translations is profitable for finding the sense of the Scriptures."