The highly imperfect KJV 1611 used Beza's 1598 Textus Receptus, but the improved 1769 edition revised according to the much earlier Stephanus 1550.
The makers of the KJV did not name or identify any specific edition of the Greek NT text that they followed and used.
According to those scholars that have compared to the text of the 1611 to the editions of the Textus Receptus available to them, it is thought that they mainly followed one of the last editions edited by Beza perhaps the 1598, but they did not follow it 100%.
KJV defender Edward Hills asserted that the KJV "agrees with Beza against Stephanus 113 times, with Stephanus against Beza 59 times, and 80 times with Erasmus, or the Complutensian, or the Latin Vulgate against Beza and Stephanus" (
KJV Defended, p. 220; see also Scrivener,
Authorized Edition, p. 60). KJV defender D. A. Waite pointed out that Scrivener found about 190 places where the KJV translators departed from the 1598 edition of Beza (
Central Seminary Refuted, p. 71).
According to historical records, it is true that Benjamin Blayney, the editor of the 1769 Oxford edition of the KJV, used the 1550 Stephanus edition as his basis for making changes to the earlier KJV editions.
Simon Wong wrote: “Blayney assumed wrongly that the translators of the 1611 New Testament had worked from the 1550 Robert Stephanus (or Estienne) edition of the
Textus Receptus tradition, whereas it was from the later editions of Beza (most likely that of 1598). Accordingly, the correct standard text
mistakenly ‘corrects’ about a dozen readings where Beza and Stephanus differ” (
Bible Translator, Vol. 62, January, 2011, p. 7). Concerning the italics in the 1769, Jack Countryman also reported or quoted from some source the following: “Unfortunately, Blayney assumed that the translators of the 1611 New Testament had worked from the 1550 Stephanus edition of the Textus Receptus, rather than from the later editions of Beza; accordingly
the current standard text mistakenly ‘corrects’ around a dozen readings where Beza and Stephanus differ” (
Treasure of God‘s Word, p. 75). For possible examples of textually-based changes in italics, see Mark 8:14, John 8:6, Acts 1:4, Acts 26:3, 1 Peter 5:13, 2 Peter 2:18, Revelation 19:14, and Revelation 19:18. Concerning one of those places, James D. Price noted: “The following is a place where the AV has words in italics that are actually in Scrivener’s TR: 2 Peter 2:18: the word ‘
through’ was erroneously italicized in 1769 as though the word is not in the Greek text” (
King James Onlyism, p. 544). Scrivener also indicated that the Greek word was in the text of Beza at this verse and that “through was not italicized before 1769” (
Authorized Version, p. 254). In 1833, Thomas Curtis asserted: “Dr. Blayney and his coadjutors also employ them [italics] to express their doubts of the authenticity of particular readings--see John 8:6 where they thus, in a sense, discard the whole clause, ‘as though he heard them not’” (
Existing Monopoly, p. 59). Edward F. Hills claimed: “At John 8:6, the King James translators followed the Bishops’ Bible in adding the clause,
as though He heard them not” (
KJV Defended, p. 221). Hills maintained that this clause is found “in the Complutensian, and in the first two editions of Stephanus. After 1769, it was placed in italics in the King James Version” (
Ibid.).