Why has the KJV been so popular?

[Salty]

Good question from post #132 (The one Question....)

So exactly why has the KJV been so popular for over 400 years?

Is it for any one reason - or is it due to multiple reasons?

Open for discussion

 

[1689Dave]

Good question from post #132 (The one Question....)

So exactly why has the KJV been so popular for over 400 years?

Is it for any one reason - or is it due to multiple reasons?

Open for discussion

For starters I'd say “The king’s heart [James] is in the hand of the Lord like channels of water; he turns it wherever he wants.” (Proverbs 21:1) (NET)

 

[Logos1560]

Good question from post #132 (The one Question....)

So exactly why has the KJV been so popular for over 400 years?

Is it for any one reason - or is it due to multiple reasons?

There would be multiple reasons. Some historical background involving the 1600's may need to be considered.

David Norton indicated that William Laud played a “role in securing the dominance of the KJB” (History, p. 104). John Lee noted: “The total suppression of the Geneva Bible was not attempted for several years; and when it was at last effected, it was ascribed in a great measure to the rising influence of Laud” (Memorial, p. 92). Bradstreet maintained that “the popularity of the Geneva Bible so disturbed King Charles and Archbishop Laud that they did everything they could think of to discredit and get rid of it” (KJV in History, p. 103). John Southerden Burn pointed out that in 1632 a man named Blayreve was “imprisoned for having taken in his house many new Bibles of the Geneva print, with the notes” (High Commission, p. 45). Conant noted: "So pertinaciously, indeed, did the people cling to it [the Geneva Bible], and so injurious was its influence to the interests of Episcopacy and of the 'authorized version,' that in the reign of Charles I, Archbishop Laud made the vending, binding, or importation of it a high-commission crime" (English Bible, p. 367). Edmunds and Bell affirmed that “Laud made it a high commission crime to import, print, or sell the Geneva [Bible]“ (Discussion, p. 116). Anderson pointed out that “one of the first books most strictly prohibited to be printed, imported, or sold by this Archbishop was the English Geneva Bible” (Annals, II, p. 390). Norton pointed out that Laud gave “the Geneva Bible’s commercial success as one of his reasons for its suppression” (History, p. 91). Anderson quoted Laud as saying that the “Bibles, both with and without notes, from Amsterdam” . . . “were better print, better bound, better paper, and for all the charges of bringing, sold better cheap” (Annals, II, p. 390). Laud’s decree to prohibit the importing of the Geneva Bible was around 1637. Bradstreet noted that Laud’s “propaganda campaign suggested that it was near treason to purchase a Bible printed in a foreign land when Bibles printed in England could be had” (KJV in History, p. 103). From 1637, some foreign publishers were said to print Geneva Bibles with a false date of 1599 perhaps to try to keep those who obtained them from getting in trouble with Archbishop Laud and the High Commission Court. Jack Lewis maintained that Archbishop Laud even ordered copies of the Geneva Bible burned (English Bible, p. 32). Bobrick asserted that Laud "even inserted Catholic prints of the life of the Virgin into Scottish editions of the King James Version of the New Testament and burned every copy of the Geneva Bible he could find" (Wide as the Waters, p. 278). David Katz maintained that these pictures printed in this KJV N. T. edition “were purloined from a small devotional book put out by the Jesuits at Antwerp in 1622” (God’s Last Words, p. 46). Daniell also confirmed that in 1646 William Prynne wrote that “he [Laud] would suffer no English Bibles to be printed or sold with marginal notes [i. e. the Geneva version] to instruct the people, all such must be seized and burnt . . . but himself gives special approbation for the venting of Bibles [KJV’s] with Popish pictures taken out of the very Mass book, to seduce the people to Popery and idolatry” (Bible in English, p. 458). Peter Ruckman referred to “a Catholic king (Charles I)” and to “the Papist Charles I” (History of the N. T. Church, II, pp. 5, 32) although Charles I was still a member of the Church of England.

David Daniell confirmed that the Geneva Bible "was suppressed in the seventeenth century" (Tyndale's N. T., p. xii). John Nordstrom maintained that “the Genevan Bible was forced out of circulation in 1644 by the throne to give the Anglican-approved King James Bible an open field to flourish” (Stained with Blood, p. 123). Derek Wilson wrote: “It took the determined efforts of crown and mitre to kill off the Geneva Bible” (People’s Bible, p. 121). Wilson asserted: “The supremacy of the King James Version could ultimately only be ensured by state censorship” (Ibid.). David Norton indicated that “in fair competition” with the Geneva, the KJV “would probably have lost, but its supporters had foul means at their disposal” (History, p. 91). Norton observed: “Strangulation of the Geneva Bible in the press was the most diplomatic and effective long-term policy for the establishment of the KJB in England, Scotland and the American colonies that could have been hit on” (p. 94). Did the KJV ever face such extreme suppression and opposition from an ungodly king and state church as the Geneva Bible faced? McGrath pointed out that the Geneva Bible did not need any “endorsement by the political and religious establishment to gain enthusiastic and widespread acceptance” (In the Beginning, p. 127).

In spite of all the opposition and suppression, Paul Wegner noted that "the Geneva Bible gave it [the KJV] competition for about fifty years" (Journey from Texts, p. 311). J. R. Porter wrote: “The KJV took four decades to replace the Geneva Bible in popularity” (Illustrated Guide, p. 15). David Beale pointed out that the Geneva Bible "would remain the household English Bible until the 1650's" (Mayflower Pilgrims, p. 22). John Kerr maintained that “the Geneva Bible continued to be the most popular version of the Bible for a generation after the King James Version came out in 1611” (Ancient Texts, p. 92). James Baikie stated: "In England the popularity of the Geneva Bible, in spite of the efforts made to supersede it, lasted up to and through the Civil War" (English Bible, p. 243). Edwin Robertson asserted that the Geneva Bible “remained the most popular, particularly throughout the Civil War and Commonwealth period” (Makers, p. 111).

Robertson wrote: "It was not until the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 that the AV really became the Bible of England" (Ibid.). Charles Pastoor and Galen Johnson agreed that “it was not until the Restoration in 1660 that the King James Bible surpassed the Geneva Bible in popularity” (Historical Dictionary, p. 175). Alister McGrath asserted: “The Geneva Bible reigned supreme until the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II” (Christianity’s Dangerous Idea, p. 136). Kenneth Bradstreet also maintained that the Geneva Bible was the most popular English Bible “until the 1660’s” (KJV in History, p. 49). Thuesen also confirmed that with the Restoration the KJV “finally became the Bible for the English people” (In Discordance, p. 29). Bernard Levinson and Joshua Berman asserted: “Only after the English Civil War and the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 did the King James Bible finally achieve popularity. This belated popularity was driven by a sense of nostalgia for the pre-war monarchy, as the King James Version came to be regarded as a symbol of the nation’s united commitment to its king and its church” (KJV at 400, p. 5). “With the defeat of Puritanism and the Restoration of Charles II in 1660,“ James Hitchcok and Victor Lindsey noted: “the Authorized Version replaced the Geneva Bible as the most popular English Bible” (Taylor, The 17th Century, I, p. 167). Larry Stone asserted: “Eventually the King James Version’s prominence over the popular Geneva Bible had as much to do with its association with the monarchy and the Geneva Bible’s association with the Puritans as with the quality of translation or cost of the Bibles” (Story of the Bible, p. 76). Worth also maintained that the KJV finally won the battle for supremacy with the Geneva Bible by the 1660's (Church, Monarch, and Bible, p. 158). David Norton pointed out: “It was one thing for the KJB to defeat the Geneva, another for it to be the Bible” (History, pp. 106-107).

 

[Logos1560]

Factors in getting the KJV first established were the fact that England had a state church and that England had no freedom of the press and no true freedom of religion.

Publishers in that day did not have the freedom to publish any manuscript or book of their choice. No book was to be printed unless licensed. For a number of years, the state Church of England had the power or control over the licensing and thus over the printing of Bibles.

Concerning the 1500’s, Brian Moynahan wrote: “No new work could be published without the consent of a board of censors” (God’s Bestsellers, p. 50). The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature noted that "from 1586 licence to publish was granted by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London" (p. 141). The Dictionary of National Biography pointed out that Archbishop John Whitgift (1530?-1604) caused to be passed in the High Commission Court in 1586 the following decree: "No manuscript was to be set up in type until it had been perused and licensed by the archbishop or the bishop of London. The press of any printer who disobeyed the ordinance was to be at once destroyed; he was prohibited from following his trade thenceforth, and was to suffer six months' imprisonment" (Vol. XXI, p. 133). The Cambridge History of English Literature noted that Whitgift “appointed twelve persons to license books to be printed” (Vol. IV, p. 382). This same source also observed: “By their charter, the Stationers were empowered to search the premises of any printer or stationer to see that nothing was printed contrary to regulations” (IV, p. 383). David Daniell pointed out: “A licence to print official Bibles exclusively has always been extremely lucrative” (Bible in English, p. 513).

During a period of England’s history of around forty years (from 1536 until 1575 or 1576), “the printing of the Sacred Scriptures in England had been common to all printers--that is, to any printer who applied and secured a license for the edition” (Anderson, Annals of the English Bible, II, p. 345). In a complaint about a patent of privilege as “her printer of the English tongue” that was granted to Thomas Wilkes by Queen Elizabeth, the printers and members of the Stationers’ Company maintained that the printing of the Scriptures had not been regarded before “as in any sense or degree attached to the office or title of the King’s or Queen’s printer” (Ibid.). Christopher Barker, one of the printers who had complained about this patent, purchased with a great sum an exclusive patent from Thomas Wilkes in 1577 whose terms included printing rights to “all Bibles and Testaments, in the English language, of whatever translation, with notes, or without them” (pp. 346-348). After Wilkes got into trouble and ended up in prison around 1587, Christopher Barker obtained a patent directly from Queen Elizabeth in 1589: one that included a longer privilege and that included his son Robert (pp. 349-350). De Hamel affirmed that “in 1589, Queen Elizabeth had granted an exclusive patent for the publishing of Bibles in English to Christopher Barker” (The Book, p. 248).

Christopher Anderson contended that “no other nation in Europe had so treated its vernacular Bible. There never was any monopoly of the Sacred Scriptures, as to printing them, in Germany, similar to that in England; no patents from the beginning, to compare with British policy” (Annals of the English Bible, p. 572). Anderson asserted that “it should be found that all these Bible Patents have taken their rise from what was once distinctly understood and pronounced to be illegal” (p. 620). In 1841, William Savage wrote: “England is the only Protestant country in Europe where the printing of Bibles is a monopoly” (Dictionary on the Art of Printing, p. 49).

 

[Yeshua1]

Good question from post #132 (The one Question....)

So exactly why has the KJV been so popular for over 400 years?

Is it for any one reason - or is it due to multiple reasons?

Open for discussion

The people thought that was now the "approved" translation for use, authorized by the King Himself, and the King and others also made sure that the versions like the Geneva and Bishop were taken off the market place. The Kjv was and is a good translation, but there was much more to its success than just that!

 

[Alcott]

For starters I'd say “The king’s heart [James] is in the hand of the Lord like channels of water; he turns it wherever he wants.” (Proverbs 21:1) (NET)

Jimmy may have tried to turn it wherever he wanted, but his promiscuity gave him some detours.

 

[1689Dave]

Jimmy may have tried to turn it wherever he wanted, but his promiscuity gave him some detours.

That's OK. God still provided his word didn't he?

 

[TCassidy]

Jimmy may have tried to turn it wherever he wanted, but his promiscuity gave him some detours.

Gossip is a sin. James was madly in love with his wife, Queen Anne, with whom he fathered 9 children. When she died in 1619 he pined away, mourning her death, and died in 1625.

 

[SovereignGrace]

I have no idea why the KJV is as popular as it is now. I guess it has to do more with traditions than anything else, as that was the family bible for years, and their children and their children kept with it.

I think the NIV, ESV, NASB, are far superior. But that's entirely my opinion only.

 

[Rippon]

[QUOTE="TCassidy, post: 2423652, member: 2704] James was madly in love with his wife, Queen Anne, with whom he fathered 9 children. When she died in 1619 he pined away, mourning her death, and died in 1625.[/QUOTE]
King James was overly fond of men and embarrassed the court with his conduct.

 

[SovereignGrace]

King James was overly fond of men and embarrassed the court with his conduct.

I have heard this for many years, but it was word of mouth. Do you have any links for me to read about his sexual misconduct(s)? Thanks bunches.

 

[Martin Marprelate]

Good question from post #132 (The one Question....)

So exactly why has the KJV been so popular for over 400 years?

Is it for any one reason - or is it due to multiple reasons?

Open for discussion

Because it was, and in many respects still is, is a very good translation. It is accurate, and is elegantly rendered into English. Remember that for the first 200+ years of its existence, not everyone could read for themselves so the KJV would have been read aloud more than modern translations. It is very suitable for that.
My regret about the KJV is that it was not updated every 50 years or so to keep up with the changes in language. If it had been, we might have been spared some of the less good translations that are about today.

 

[robycop3]

Gossip is a sin. James was madly in love with his wife, Queen Anne, with whom he fathered 9 children. When she died in 1619 he pined away, mourning her death, and died in 1625.

I agree. And I'm ashamed of my fellow Freedom readers who try to use KJ's alleged homosexuality as an excuse to condemn the KJV.

I believe you know the "KJ was gay" rumor was started by Anthony Weldon in 1650, after KJ had been dead 25 years. Yes, he had a great love for the Earl of Buckingham, but it was a "brotherly' love, such as David & Jonathan had for each other. And we know for sure neither of them was gay! So I join you in dismissing the "KJ was gay" idea as false and meaningless to the anti-KJVO movement.

 

[robycop3]

The purpose of making the AV was to have one common English Bible translation to be used in every Anglican congregation. During QE1's reign, many English translations were in use throughout the Anglical denomination, with many lesser-known ones being used, as well as the well-known ones such as Tyndales, "Great Bible", Geneva, & Bishop's.

The British monarchy had much to do with boosting the AV's popularity by banning the printing or sale of other English versions, especially after the restoration of that monarchy. (I believe Cromwell & Co. used the Geneva.)

I have heard, but cannot verify, that sales of the AV to common people was at first held back due to its high selling price, but that price was lowered after the restoration. (Someone with better intel on this, please shed some light on this subject!)

And, as mentioned above in previous posts, Wm. Laud had a lot to do with hawking the AV throughout the British realm.

 

[1689Dave]

I have no idea why the KJV is as popular as it is now. I guess it has to do more with traditions than anything else, as that was the family bible for years, and their children and their children kept with it.

I think the NIV, ESV, NASB, are far superior. But that's entirely my opinion only.

I use it mainly because it became the text for my memory verse work for over 40 years. I normally search out a passage using it and then expand by viewing several different translations. But I'm using the NET this year for my daily bible read through and see things I missed in previous years using KJV only.

 

[Logos1560]

It could be noted that the wife of King James, Queen Anne, became a Roman Catholic although she had been a Lutheran in her native Denmark. MacCulloch confirmed that Anne “did indeed convert to Catholicism in the mid 1590’s (Reformation, p. 371). G. P. V. Akrigg referred to Anne's "conversion to Catholicism sometime around 1600" (Jacobean Pageant, p. 22). The Dictionary of National Biography also noted that Queen Anne was "secretly a Roman Catholic" (Vol. X, p. 606). Samuel Gardiner wrote: "Anne of Denmark, in fact, though she attended the Protestant services, was secretly a Catholic" (History of England, I, p. 142).

Queen Anne had refused to take the oath as queen in the Church of England, but she attended her crowning in silence (Paine, Men Behind the KJV, pp. 87, 160). Antonia Fraser stated that "the Catholics were gleeful when it became known that the Queen had declined to take the Protestant communion during the ceremony" (Faith and Treason, p. 63). Fraser also noted that the contents of a 1601 letter from the Queen to Rome which was almost certainly written with James' knowledge indicated "not only could the Pope be assured of the Queen's own devotion and her care to educate her children in the Catholic Faith, but Anne went further and hinted that King James might soon grant liberty of conscience to Catholics" (Ibid., p. 16). Fraser also pointed out that a Jesuit priest Robert Abercromby was Queen Anne's confessor, and this priest was permitted to be at the king's court by the king (Ibid., pp. 15-16).

If I recall my reading of biographies of King James I and histories of England correctly, Queen Anne was living in a different house and different location at the time of her death, and King James did not attend her funeral.

If King James was supposedly pining over Queen Anne's death, would it likely have taken six years for him to die?

 

[Logos1560]

Do you have any links for me to read about his sexual misconduct(s)?

I do not have any links. I have read several biographies about King James and histories of England during that time. Here is some information that I have read. Perhaps all these historical sources are filled with rumors.

In his book, Otto Scott, who is associated with a group that uses and defends the KJV, described James I as a man of no morals whatever, the drunken, homosexual King of England. Scott noted that Thomas Fowler, an English agent sent to observe the Scottish King, wrote this about James: "It is thought that this King is too much carried by young men that lie in his chamber and are his minions" (James I: The Fool as King, p. 194).

Making use of original sources, Caroline Bingham noted that "it was his indiscreet love of favorites which ultimately cost James the respect of most men" (Making of a King, p. 197). Glover pointed out: "Starved of loving companionship as a child, he began in his early teens that series of emotional attachments with specially favoured men which caused scandal till his old age" (Story of Scotland, p. 148). Winston Churchill stated: "James was much addicted to favourites, and his attention to handsome young men resulted in a noticeable loss of respect for the monarchy" (History of the English-speaking Peoples, Vol. 2, p. 160). David Willson wrote: "There is something in Osborne's remark that when James pawed his favourites so fondly in public he was not likely to restrain himself in private" (King James VI & I, p. 337). In his publication Olde Paths and Ancient Landmarks, Glenn Conjurske reprinted several pages of a 1772 book about King James drawn from original writers and state-papers where William Harris stated: "And from his known love of masculine beauty, his excessive favour to such as were possessed of it, and unseemly caresses of them, one would be tempted to think, that he was not wholly free of a vice most unnatural" (January, 1996, p. 12). Mathew presented the view of James found in the papers of one of the country gentry of the day--Sir John Oglander as follows: "he loved young men, his favourites, better than women, loving them beyond the love of men to women" (James I, p. 313; Bergerson, King James & Letters, p. 107). In a biography about Charles I, Charles Carlton wrote: "After his accession to the English throne, James's homosexuality became more blatant, particularly at court" (Charles I, p. 19). Kevin Sharpe observed that James "presided over evenings of drunken debauchery and was personally slovenly and unkempt" and that this lack of decorum was "compounded by James's own homosexual relations and the sexual scandals of his reign" (Oxford History of Tudor & Stuart Britain, p. 244).

The Encyclopedia of World Biography noted that James's "untoward fondness for a succession of worthless favorites annoyed Parliament" (p. 520). The Encyclopedia of the Renaissance observed that the "English mocked his [King James] personal habits and his liking for handsome young courtiers" (p. 224). British Authors Before 1800 reported that James "created scandal by his subservience to handsome masculine favorites" (p. 290). The Oxford Illustrated History of Tudor & Stuart Britain noted that King James's "capriciousness and sexual infatuations with attractive young men were forces for instability" (p. 247). The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain also referred to King James's "homosexuality" (p. 307) as do William Seymour's Sovereign Legacy: A Historical Guide to the British Monarchy (p. 192), C. P. Hill's Who's Who in History (p. 3), The New Cambridge Modern History (Vol. IV, p. 533), The Illustrated Dictionary of British History (p. 157), Gilbert's The Norton History of Modern Europe (p. 322), Fry's History of Scotland (pp. 166-167), MacCulloch’s The Reformation (p. 496), and Boyce's Shakespeare A to Z (p. 315). Historian Will Durant also wrote of this problem in the character of King James (The Age of Reason Begins, p. 136).

The reference work entitled Historic World Leaders noted that James referred to George Villiers, duke of Buckingham, as "his sweet child and wife" (Vol. 2, p. 673). Roger Lockyer pointed out that "Buckingham himself provides the evidence that at Farnham he at last gave in to the king's importunity" (Buckingham, p. 22). Lockyer cited that Buckingham later wrote to James about pondering the question "whether you loved me now . . . better than at the time which I shall never forget at Farnham, where the bed's head could not be found between the master and his dog" (Ibid.). Lockyer also cited where James wrote to Buckingham the following: "I desire only to live in this world for your sake, and that I had rather live banished in any part of the earth with you than live a sorrowful widow's life without you" (Ibid., p. 233). David Riggs also affirmed that Buckingham himself alluded to his questionable relationship to King James I in his letters (Ben Jonson, p. 270). Riggs noted that "Sir Henry Yelverton had stunned the House of Lords by comparing him [Buckingham] to Hugh Spencer, the homosexual favorite of Edward II (p. 270). In a biography about this king, Fraser also dealt with his problems with his homosexual favorites (King James, pp. 36-37, 123-126, 168).

Michael Young claimed that minister Thomas Scott in 1622 preached that James should "flee from Sodom" and eschew the company of "Sodomites" (King James, p. 53).

Rufus Cole stated: "Certainly his behavior was not usual and bordered on the abnormal, but how gross his perversions were it is impossible to determine after three hundred years" (Human History, Vol. 1, p. 319).

 

[Logos1560]

And I'm ashamed of my fellow Freedom readers who try to use KJ's alleged homosexuality as an excuse to condemn the KJV.

From what I have seen, this is usually brought up to counter KJV-only allegations against other Bible translations and to show KJV-only use of double standards, and not to condemn any reading of the KJV as what it actually is.

 

[Rob_BW]

I have no idea why the KJV is as popular as it is now. I guess it has to do more with traditions than anything else, as that was the family bible for years, and their children and their children kept with it.

I think the NIV, ESV, NASB, are far superior. But that's entirely my opinion only.

Once a "standard" is in place, change becomes difficult.

Look at America and the metric system as an example.

 

[TCassidy]

There are several reasons the KJV has been so popular.

#1. For a long period it was the only bible being printed by authorized printers due to Royal decree with no serious competition until the RV of 1881, thus giving it 270 years to be "the bible" in English translation.

#2. It was "the bible" for most of my generation, the exception being the ASV of 1901 which never really caught on with the reading public but was largely limited to use in academia. Many in academia, including my former pastor and mentor R.V. Clearwaters, Pastor of Fourth Baptist Church of Minneapolis and President of Central Baptist Seminary, would study and prepare his sermons using the ASV then preach them from the pulpit using the KJV. This may have been, at least in part, due to the majority of the congregation carrying their KJV to church.

#3. The KJV had what some called a "majesty of language" using "sonorous phrases" and having an "austere beauty" of language, being almost poetic even in the non-poetic passages. Some said when you read the KJV you know you are reading the bible and not a modern novel.

#4. The above "sonorous phrases" contained a rhythm or cadence that made memorization easier and the recall of memorized passages simpler.

#5. The KJV has stood the test of time. For over 400 years we have had the KJV to read, study, memorize, teach, and preach from. Over those 4 centuries we have ferreted out the translational anomalies, the scribal errors, the transmissional departures from accepted original language texts. In short. We are used to it. It is familiar to us and we tend to like what is familiar.

#6. And lastly, but for the most part not a consideration of the average bible reader in the pew on Sunday, it is mostly a translation using a formal and verbal translation philosophy, and was translated from (an admittedly flawed) representative of the Byzantine textform which is the most widely attested textform in existence. In short it is a good translation of a good underlying text.

Now, with all that said, I no longer use the venerable old KJV. I use the Byzantine Greek Text of Robinson and Pierpont for study in that language, and the WEB translation for my daily reading and study in English, and the NKJV for my teaching and preaching. But even then, when I quote a passage from memory it is usually the KJV that I quote. I do, consciously, update some of the more archaic language, changing "thee" "thou" "thy" and "thine" to the more generic pronouns in present use in early 21st century English, as well as updating the second and third person verbs to currant practice.

Although not as widely used as in former times, it is still a venerable and valuable old translation which should be given the respect it rightly deserves.