No, Rob, it's not a bit stupid to wish for something righteous and noble such as complete harmony among the brethren, but the sad fact is that the devil is constantly inventing false doctrines and finding people to introduce them. One of them is the KJVO myth, first introduced by the devil through a SEVENTH DAY ADVENTIST, Dr. Benjamin Wilkinson, in 1930. Until that time, there were several English BVs which "peacefully co-existed", with very little static between the users of each one of them, although the KJV was predominant.
With the introduction of newer versions, & the introduction of electronic mass media, the KJVO myth began to grow. Among the pack of later KJVO authors, there are two who deserve special mention. The first one is Dr. Peter Ruckman. He claims that the KJV is "advanced revelation" that's able to correct the sources from which it was made. This same Dr. Ruckman also claims that the Antichrist will be a ten-foot-tall alien with black lips with which he will impart the "mark of the beast" with a kiss...and that he will arrive in a mile-wide spaceship he'll land on the Mount of Olives. I tend to lump Ruckman's writings with those such as Erik Von Daniken's Chariots Of the Gods or Aesop's fables.
The other is Gail Riplinger. Her first book, New Age Bible Versions, is rife with misquotes, misinformation, and OUTRIGHT FABRICATIONS. But she isn't too bad a writer, and many simply took her word for it w/o sitting down and CHECKING OUT THE VERACITY of her assertions. Be it sufficient to say I did so before the Net was so widespread, but now there are hundreds of sites with articles exposing her bunk. So then my next step was to measure the veracity of the assertions made against Riplinger's work. What did I find? I found that most of the claims against her work were TRUE...that indeed she has sought to fool the public. Therefore, you're safe to believe the allegations against her work as found by using a search engine with the keywords being "gail riplinger wrong".
Most other KJVO authors stick to the old "party line" invented by Wilkinson(Our Authorized Bible Vindicated, 1930) and promoted by J.J.Ray(God Wrote Only One Bible, 1955)& Dr.D.O.Fuller(Which Bible, 1970). Almost every item of the KJVO myth can be found in the works of those three men, with Riplinger's rips being added in the 1990s.
Rob, you & several others have presented a very good point...We shouldn't blame the KJV or its translators for the KJVO myth! Those translators never intended to start any controversy within any church...they were simply making an up-to date English Bible version at the behest of the top officials of the Anglican church, under the auspices and approval of the King of England and Scotland. They knew their work was NOT the be-all and end-all Bible version for the English language. The problems first began when the British govt. outlawed the printing or distribution of any other English version within the realm, thus giving the KJV(and the royal printer) a monopoly. Even this wasn't so bad, as long as the language hadn't changed that much, but inevitably the language left the version behind, making modern versions necessary. Now, while KJVO stayed on the back burner for quite awhile after it was invented, the creation and widespread acceptance of several MVs provided grist for the KJVO mill to enlarge. However, KJVO retained its cardinal problems: COMPLETE FALSEHOODS & NO SCRIPTURAL SUPPORT! Nothing that contains LIES is of GOD, and no doctrine about Scripture is valid without any Scriptural support. Thus, KJVO was stillborn, and has been floating around long enough to have become putrid.
This is NOT to encourage anyone to throw his/her KJV away...This is to remind everyone that an insidious and devilish FALSE DOCTRINE has grown up around an excellent English Bible version, a doctrine which is NOT the fault of this version nor of the men who made it. Those of you who PREFER to use the KJV only, no problem...but if you insist that the KJV is the ONLY valid English Bible version, then you DO have a problem.
Rob, we, as Christians, have a D-U-T-Y to fight every false doctrine about our worship and about God's word...and the KJVO myth is as false as they get. While I go after any and all such false doctrines, the KJVO myth is the one I go after HERE.