The King James Bible, Or the “Authorized” version is just a politically correct, government approved knockoff of the Genevia Bible. The Geneva Bible,which was the most popular Bible with the common people, had marginal notes by Calvanists that King James I of England didn’t like.
I used to be a critic of the various version, but I realized that there are several reliable versions and it is more important to READ the Bible than analyze and compare the various versions.
I actually brought that up to my friend. I asked him “what about the Geneva Bible?” Apparently, it was OK, but it was surpassed in 1611. Why, he couldn’t say. And, of course, while the KJV surpassed all previous English bibles, it can never be surpassed itself...being perfect and all. It also didn’t matter to him just how evil King James was, nor did it matter that the sole purpose of his bible was to compete with, and eventually do away with the Geneva Bible (which it did). It also didn’t matter to him about the fraudulent “Trinity” passage in 1 John (the doctrine of the Trinity does not stand or fall based on this passage. Getting rid of it does NO harm to the doctrine) It was still “perfect”. Since he believed that there has to be a “perfect word” in all languages...particularly English, always, I wondered why the Geneva Bible wasn’t perfect, since it came before the KJV. And if it was “the perfect Word”, how could it be surpassed? It was all very illogical, and he knew it, but didn’t care. Very sad.
I use the KJV for normal reading. I like Young’s Literal Translation because it is, well, much more literal. I don’t have a huge problem with the New American Standard translation. Not crazy about the texts used, but I don’t find them so abhorrent. By all accounts, the translation itself is quite good. What I would like is a literal translation (as literal as possible, anyway) based on the “Majority Text”. I think there is one, but I haven’t seen it yet.