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Before I begin please understand this article is not against someone who prefers to read the KJV. It is not against anyone who believes the KJV is the best translation available. This article is against people who declare the KJV is the only Holy Bible in English and in turn – viciously attack the modern translations as Bible of the Devil and so forth. These people do so in ignorance of the facts, and they are often hateful and hurtful in their words.

Expressing Opinions as Facts by the KJV Onlyists:

This is something I have seen posted repeatedly on the internet against people who are not KJ Onlyists…

“Internationally renowned for its accuracy, the Authorized Version of the Holy Bible (KJV) preserves the Holy Scriptures in exemplary English, which were translated flawlessly into our common language in its Golden Age

For the English-speaking peoples, the King James Bible is the final authority in all matters because it is the Holy Scriptures, divinely inspired, inerrant, infallible, and preserved in? English, which is the lingua franca (bridge language) of our contemporary world.”

The truth? The KJV translation was written almost 400 years ago from a very small and questionable collection of manuscripts that had been merged into a volume known as the Textus Receptus (the Received Text) using a form of English that is no longer spoken. While in was once Internationally renowned for its accuracy, the vast majority of serious and educated Bible scholars understand that there are several problems with this claim. It is still considered a good and solid translation by most (including myself), but with with thousands of manuscripts discovered since 1611, problems within the Received Text, a better understanding of the original languages, and the archaic form of English used, it cannot be considered as accurate as a modern translation like the NASB.

What about the idea that its contemporary? Everyone deserves the Bible in their own language. This is the very principal that led to Christians fighting and dying to have the Bible in English in the first place! Despite the KJ Onlyist claims, the KJV is not written in the common English of today. People need modern translations that actually use the English they speak. No matter how many times a KJV Onlyist claims it is the lingua franca for our contemporary world, they cannot change the reality of the matter. The KJ Onlyists are wrong, and should be ashamed of the damage they do to others with their vile attacks on modern translations and the people who read them.

Consider these questions – did God inspire the KJV, or was it King James’ idea in an attempt to unite the Church of England with a translation that did not include the footnotes of the Geneva Bible (which was the common English translation before KJV)? Those footnotes made Church officials very uncomfortable.

Is it inerrant? Inerrant means without error of any kind… Is it infallible? Infallible means it is incapable of error… the Word of God is inerrant and infallible… but the translations are not and in the case of the KJV, thats a fact proven through the numerous errors in the KJV. KJ Onlyists will claim – but there are no errors! They are wrong. In order to satisfy the inquiries concerning such errors – I will now provide you with such one example that PROVES the KJV is not what they claim – though there are many many errors I will not cover in this article…

Consider 1 Samuel 13:21 The KJV uses the word “file” in this passage while the modern versions use “two-thirds of a shekel.” Why is this?

Here is a quick comparison of a few versions:
KJV: Yet they had a file for the mattocks, and for the coulters, and for the forks, and for the axes, and to sharpen the goads.
NIV: The price was two thirds of a shekel for sharpening plowshares and mattocks, and a third of a shekel for sharpening forks and axes and for repointing goads.
NKJV: …and the charge for a sharpening was a pim for the plowshares, the mattocks, the forks, and the axes, and to set the points of the goads.

The KJV translates this Hebrew passage as “…they had a file…” The reason is that before the 1900s, a “PiM” was unknown. Even Hebrew scribes centuries ago were unfamiliar with this weight. “Best guesses” were made as to the meaning of the term.

YES, you read that right, the translators of the KJV GUESSED at what a PiM was. This is a blatant example of how God was NOT leading the KJV translators in the way that a KJ Onlyist would have you believe… because if He had been leading them and inspiring them… they would not have guessed incorrectly, now would they have?

In the early 1900s where the Philistines once lived, many stones were found with the word “PiM” written on them. This is was stone that was used on scales to determine the value of objects. This weight was two-thirds the weight of a full shekel. Until the beginning of the 1900s, the Pim was obscure and no one knew what it really meant. This doesn’t mean we should throw away the KJV but it does mean that we ought not be ignorant of the truth, falsely holding this translation up as the end all of English translations of the Holy Scriptures.

if you want more information on the errors of the KJV – just do a little research on it. While you’re at it – read up on the answers the KJV Onlyist crowd offer in response. You will find they are nothing but rationalizations and double talk – usually ignoring the facts in blind obedience to the tradition of the KJV. It’s actually kind of scary and reminiscent of the way Muslims treat their Quran.

Has it been preserved in English? Not exactly. The KJV of today is not the same as the KJV 1611 and there have been revisions… so it has been refined… not preserved.

Idolizing the KJV: “God will preserve his words forever. (Psalm 12:6-7) That means they can’t keep changing. My AV1611 is the final authority.”

If anything, Psalms was not speaking of a translation, but of the scriptures in their original language. And although we do not have the originals, we do have His word preserved in the original languages. A translation is still a translation and it can never be an exact and perfect duplication of the original. Could God make it a perfect translation? Of course! He can do anything, but did He do this with the KJV? The evidence is overwhelming that He did not. If one REALLY wants to read the Word of God as He has preserved it one has to read the scriptures in the original languages. Is it too hard to do? Not if God is truly with you and you commit yourself to learning. Some will claim that they use the Strong’s Concordance and that is sufficiant. Unfortunately, the Strong’s Concordance is not enough. Truly, I’ve seen more people twist the scriptures using concordances than truly getting a better understanding of the translations.

The fact that KJ Onlyists don’t typically read the original languages illustrates how they are foolishly putting their faith in the traditions and teachings of men. It seems that they don’t realize that it was a man – not God – that decreed everyone should have the Bible in their own language. Don’t get me wrong – I am eternally grateful for all the translations I read in English… I believe that God is cool with us having scriptures in our own languages – and I also believe His word, in Spirit and principal IS perfectly preserved in the vast majority of translations – I am not forsaking translations… but the KJV Onlyists that claim the KJV is divinely inspired, inerrant, infallible, and preserved in? English are sorely mistaken and their attacks against modern translations are tantamount to spitting on the very Word of God they claim to love! It doesn’t matter which version you use, without the Spirit’s leading, none of the versions do any good. With the Spirit’s leading, they all can be used of God. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with someone having a preferred or favorite translation, but when a person puts that translation on a pedestal despite the facts of the matter, they are in terrible error.

Fabrications of Imaginations: The KJV is the only English translation authorized by God and inspired by God

Where is it that God pronounced such things? No where. It never happened. It is literally a creation of the zeal and imagination from people who have closed their hearts and minds to anyone outside of their own dellusion. The translators of the KJV themselves, in their original preface to the KJV, entitled “The Translators to the Reader,” had this to say:

“We do not deny, nay we affirm and avow, that the very meanest translation (meaning humble, common, or mediocre – remember this was written in that old English style) of the Bible in English…containeth the word of God, nay, is the word of God. As the King’s speech, which he uttereth in Parliament, being translated into French, Dutch, Italian, and Latin, is still the King’s speech, though it be not interpreted by every Translator with the like grace, nor peradventure so fitly for phrase, nor so expressly for sense, everywhere.”

The translators did not believe that the King James Version was the only, last, and final Word of God for the English language. They were humble and unassuming. They understood that the translations that came before them, such as the Geneva Bible, were the Word of God and they certainly understood future translations should also be considered the Word of God… just as the King’s words were still the king’s words regardless of the language they were translated into. Its just a fact.

As for the ‘authorization’ – I really hope no one out there believes the KJV is authorized by God simply because it is called the ‘authorized version’… this authorization did not come from God – it came from King James – who authorized the translation for use in the Church of England!

That brings up an interesting angle most don’t seem to realize and that is that most KJ Onlyists are real hardliners. If I was to ask them to read a Bible translation authorized by a church that was founded by a man who formed his own church because the church he was in would not grant him a divorce… they would tell me NO Way! They would say something like, “That church was started in rebellion against the Word of God! It is corrupt!” Yet that is exactly how the Church of England got started! No lie – its a fact!

Complete Ignorance: The KJV is the perfect translation in English.

Beyond all the errors in the KJV, the translators of the KJV had this to say in the preface ‘The Translators to the Reader’, “A man may be counted a virtuous man, though he have made many slips in his life, (else, there were none virtuous, for in many things we offend all) also a comely man and lovely, though he have some warts upon his hand, yea, not only freckles upon his face, but also scars. No cause therefore why the word translated should be denied to be the word, or forbidden to be current, notwithstanding that some imperfections and blemishes may be noted in the setting forth of it. For whatever was perfect under the Sun, where Apostles or Apostolic men, that is, men endued with an extraordinary measure of God’s spirit, and privileged with the privilege of infallibility, had not their hand?”

So you see – the translators of the KJV didn’t even claim or believe the same things the KJV Onlyists declare today. KJ Onlyists and their denial will never change that.

Blatant Dishonesty: “Modern translations are Roman Catholic-influenced perversions.”

I guess we should just throw all the Bible away – because without the Catholics there would be no canonized Bible at all… at least not as we know it today. Still, there are other factors involved here as well. KJ Onlyists seem to ignore the fact that Erasmus, the gentleman that assembled the Textus Receptus was a Roman Catholic. Additionally, there are passages in the King James Version that come from the Roman-Catholic Latin Vulgate, and not the Greek texts at all because Eramus didn’t have them in the Greek. The conclusion is FACT – the KJV contains Roman Catholic influences as well – some of which are legitimately perversion of the original Greek, such as 1 John 5:7-8, which I’ll discuss in a minute, or the baseless use of the word ‘Easter’ in Acts 12:4 when the Greek clearly says Passover. Also consider the fact that the Apocrypha, which most non-Catholics consider to be Catholic books – was actually IN the KJV 1611! (Guess what? The Apocrypha isn’t in most KJV bibles today! They took it out – so was the Apocrypha divine as well? If so – why remove it? If not – then why was it even included in the first place?) KJ Onlyists simply do not realize or refuse to acknowledge just how deeply Roman-Catholicism has influenced all translations including the KJV.

Baseless Attacks Against the Other Manuscripts: The Alexandrian text type was tampered to put Gnostic and other heresies into the scriptures.

Ask a KJ Onlyist to demonstrate where in the texts this occurs. Ask them to show you examples of this. I will bet they can’t do it… because theologically there is no difference between the Textus Receptus and the Alexandrian Manuscripts. Oh – they will try to make a case but ultimately, if you do the research – you’ll find they are spewing nothing but speculation and rationalization in the face of reality. KJ Onlyists are either deceived or lying. They are slandering the lifelong work of many godly Christian scholars. The fact is, the Alexandrian text could be considered more orthodox than the Textus Receptus.  For example, John 1:18 in the Textus Receptus and the KJV says “the only begotten son,” whereas the Alexandrian text says, “God the Only Son.” KJ Onlyist will say – but the Bible declares God has many sons! So – are those sons equal to Christ? No. It is a different kind of son… Jesus is God’s only Son – unless they are saying that the ‘sons of God’ mentioned in elsewhere in the Bible are the same as Jesus… in which case – we have bigger issues than arguments over manuscripts.

Deceitful Tactics: The Modern Translations Remove Verses From the Bible

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a KJV Onlyist challenge a modern translation by comparing Bibles… some will say – look at 1 John 5:7-8! Let’s look at it now… I’ll use the NIV and the KJV this time for our comparison.

(NIV) – 7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.
(kjv) 7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. 8 And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.

Wow – Its absolutely true! There are words missing from the passage found in the modern translations when compared to the KJV! The NIV must be corrupt! End of story, right? Not by a long shot. This passage is well known as the Comma Johanneum – and it was added to the Greek text in the 16th century ad!

It never should have been in the KJV! So how did it get there? While there are different versions concerning the details of the story, Eramus, who created the Textus Receptus which the KJV was translated from added it to the text. The Comma doesn’t appear in his first two editions of the Greek New Testament. It is said he added it due to pressure over the fact that it was missing. How was it so well known that anyone knew it was missing? It had been added to the Latin manuscripts of the New Testament sometime in the fourth century! When Eramus defended himself he explained that the Comma didn’t appear in any of his Greek manuscripts, they created Greek manuscripts that did contain it. The low-down on this is it came from the Catholic Church… it was part of marginal notes… and then added… there are full explanations on this elsewhere on the web.

For Eramus to leave it out would be like if the modern translations actually left out verses not found in their manuscripts (typically the verses are bracketed or footnoted, and not actually removed). Never the less, the KJV Onlyist will not explain this to the person they are trying to convince… they simply claim its because the modern translation is corrupt… even though it is the KJV that is carrying the corruption.

So there you have it – seven real problems with the KJV Only groups. Surely they will argue and accuse and attack me for all of this, but you know what? I am not afraid of them. I would rather face their wrath then the wrath of God for being so deceitful about the truth of the matter concerning the translations.

The very nature of translating one language to another makes it impossible to create a word for word translation without greatly affecting the readability of the text. This is why I believe if someone is serious about the desire to read a perfect, unadulterated copy of the Holy Scriptures they need to read them in the original languages… of course those who are so caught up in the argument would then have to argue over which manuscripts to read. Sadly, it seems to be the nature of many KJV Onlyists. I would like to close with the following piece of scripture for your consideration… I believe it explains both the KJV Onlyists as well as people like myself who are trying to reason with them concerning their false teachings concerning the King James Bible and modern translations.

1 Timothy 1
3 As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer
4 nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. These promote controversies rather than God’s work—which is by faith.
5 The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.
6 Some have wandered away from these and turned to meaningless talk.
7 They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm.