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The Talmud/Mishnah states that the Masoretic Text (a medieval text used by the KJV, NIV, NASB, etc) was corrupted as the Talmud/Mishnah described conflicting texts, contradictions, and multiple, competing rabbis intentionally altering scriptures and thus they ultimately corrupted it). The Septuagint (translated in the mid 3rd century BC) is far older than the Masoretic Text (MT) and the MT isn't original scripture and not a BC text anyway. Paleo Hebrew, used after Moses' time and used from the 12th to 6th century BC (around 2,000 years older than the MT), gave way to Square Hebrew (around 1,300 years older than...

A message calling for church unity and resilience in the face of false prophets and those who would diminish and dilute the Word.

Okay, so there is more than just one problem with the KJV Only movement. I know that. But having grown up in a KJV only church, there is one major problem that sticks out to me above the rest. It is not just a major problem; it is an insurmountable problem. And it drives me crazy. If the King James Version, which is a 1611 English translation of the Bible, is truly the only infallible, inerrant, and inspired Word of God, then what about the billions of people who have lived and died and never understood a word of English?...

The House Committee on Municipal, Parochial and Cultural Affairs voted 8 to 5 to pass the legislation, entitled House Bill 503. The bill's sponsor, Rep. Thomas Carmody (R-Shreveport), argues that the purpose of the bill is not to establish an official religion in the state, but rather to reflect America's history and founding principles as outlined by the country's Founding Fathers. "It's not to the exclusion of anyone else's sacred literature," he told the House committee, according to The Associated Press. Carmody added later: "This is not about establishing an official religion of the state of Louisiana." When one lawmaker...

When Americans reach for their Bibles, more than half of them pick up a King James Version (KJV), according to a new study advised by respected historian Mark Noll. The 55 percent who read the KJV easily outnumber the 19 percent who read the New International Version (NIV). And the percentages drop into the single digits for competitors such as the New Revised Standard Version, New America Bible, and the Living Bible. So concludes "The Bible in American Life," a lengthy report by the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). Funded...

For centuries, people of all walks of life have carried around with them echoes of the King James Version. So to throw it out as the church hierarchy has done amounts to a savage act of deprivation and, as this deprivation is of the Word of God in English, it is vicious iconoclasm. Sidelining the King James Version especially deprives our children and is therefore a notable case of child abuse. There is no such thing as noble truth expressed in ignoble words. The choice of words determines what is being said. Therefore, we should choose the best. “Strips of...

Queen Elizabeth II attended a ceremony at London's Westminster Abbey Wednesday to mark the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, often considered the most influential book ever printed in the English language. It came about when King James I summoned a conference at Hampton Court Palace near London in 1604, hoping to thrash out differences between Church of England bishops and Puritans. Failing to make progress on other issues, Puritan leader John Reynolds proposed a new translation which emerged in 1611

The Church in Wales says it is investigating after a Gwynedd rector burnt some pages from the Bible. The Reverend Geraint ap Iorwerth of St Peter ad Vincula Church, Pennal, also cut up pages from the King James Bible to create an artwork. Unveiling it at a church event, he said it revealed a "cruel and vile God". The Bishop of Bangor said: "Destroying parts of the Bible we don't like is disrespectful and will offend many people." Mr ap Iorwerth told BBC Wales he had burnt scraps of cut up the passages at the public event because he had...

If every committee did such impressive work, committees wouldn’t have a bad name. Four hundred years ago, King James of England commissioned several dozen scholars to update and improve on prior translations of the Bible into English. Their handiwork — known as the King James Version — put an indelible stamp on the English language and on the Anglo-American mind. The prodigious task took roughly six years. Just printing it was an undertaking. Initially, a typo appeared on average once every ten pages of text. One edition was called the “Wicked Bible” when the word “not” was accidentally left out...

This year, the most influential book you may never have read is celebrating a major birthday. The King James Version of the Bible was published 400 years ago. It's no longer the top-selling Bible, but in those four centuries, it has woven itself deeply into our speech and culture. Let's travel back to 1603: King James I, who had ruled Scotland, ascended to the throne of England. What he found was a country suspicious of the new king. "He was regarded as a foreigner," says Gordon Campbell, a historian at the University of Leicester in England. "He spoke with a...

Haven't there been several revisions of the KJV? When modern critics wish to change "God was manifest in the flesh" to "He appeared in a body" (1Ti 3:16, NIV) or change "only begotten Son" to "only begotten God" (Joh 1:18, NASB), they want to point to the KJV as say "they did it too!"The problem here is that editions are being confused with revisions. There have been several editions of the KJV, most recently the 1769 edition, which is in common use today. Such editions corrected pinter errors or updated grammar. These editions were not to introduce "new" textual evidence...

A little English village church has just made a remarkable discovery. The ornate old Bible that had been sitting in plain view on a table near the last row of pews for longer than anyone could remember is an original King James Bible - one of perhaps 200 surviving 400-year-old original editions of arguably the most important book ever printed in English. In fact, the Bible at St. Laurence Church in Hilmarton, England, was sitting right under a hand-lettered sign saying it was an original. The sign said it had been found in "the parish chest" in 1857, that the...

Lesson Eleven: Translational Considerations LESSON INDEX As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction. (2 Peter 3:16) The majority of objections to the King James Bible can be placed in one of two categories. The first deals with the text. In regard to this, we have not only considered the underlining Greek text of the Authorized Version, but also the Greek text which underlines the vast majority of...

I can’t be the only English-speaker who suspects, deep down, that the Almighty expressed Himself in the language of the Authorised Version. Even now, I do a double-take when I listen to a biblical passage in another tongue. I struggled to repress a chuckle the other day when I heard Matthew 5:5 rendered as “Bienheureux sont les débonnaires; car ils hériteront la terre.” Yesterday, the Queen reminded us that her ninth-great-grandfather, James VI & I, had commissioned the translation in the hope of impressing a measure of unity on the various theological currents then swirling about Britain. And, in a...

LESSON 1 Preservation And Reconstruction [Footnotes are in red and placed in brackets] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." (Romans 10:17) As Bible-believing Christians we begin our search for truth with the Word of God. By faith, we accept what God has said and allow Him to prove it to be true. For example, we believe in special creation and oppose the theory of evolution because Scripture teaches man was created and did not evolve from a common primate. There are many convincing proofs in the realm of science that support Biblical...

A340-year-old Bible was discovered in a Wisconsin church last week, according to local reports. At the St. Paul Lutheran Church in Bonduel, Wisc., the Bible was discovered after being tucked away in a kitchen pantry that was rarely used and had stored away old books and texts for decades, WSAW Channel 7 reported. The book was stashed away in a safe in the pantry. "We don't know how we got it. We don't know how it got into the safe. We've been asking some of our elderly folks and people in the nursing home and nobody seems to remember," Rev....

The definitive translation of the Bible in English by the scholars of the English College in Douai was completed 400 years ago, in 1610, with the publication of the final volume of the Old Testament, 28 years after the publication of the New Testament (when the College was temporarily in Rheims). Our sincere gratitude to the holy men, from all nations of the British Isles, who, through several decades, accomplished this work for the Church. (And one question: is any celebration, seminar, or event taking place this year in commemoration of this anniversary?)

The impact of the King James Bible, which was published 400 years ago, is still being felt in the way we speak and write, says Stephen Tomkins.No other book, or indeed any piece of culture, seems to have influenced the English language as much as the King James Bible. Its turns of phrase have permeated the everyday language of English speakers, whether or not they've ever opened a copy. The Sun says Aston Villa "refused to give up the ghost". Wendy Richard calls her EastEnders character Pauline Fowler "the salt of the earth". The England cricket coach tells reporters, "You...

Sitting as a boy through long, boring sermons, I was surprised to find these words at the front of my Bible: “To the most high and mighty Prince James, by the grace of God, king of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, defender of the faith. The translators of the Bible with Grace, Mercy, and Peace, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Huh? For years I had no idea what these words were all about. They are, of course, the opening words to the preface of the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible. (We call it that; however, the Bible itself...

King James VI of Scotland was raised as a Presbyterian. Even though his mother, Mary Queen of Scots, had been a Catholic, he was baptized by a Calvinist figure no less prominent than John Knox, sent by John Calvin to Scotland. You would think that when James ascended to the English throne in 1603 that he would have been sympathetic to the English Puritans, for their beliefs also derived from Calvin and his teachings. Instead, within a year of becoming King James I of England, he initiated a project that would attack the Puritans. This project was a new Bible...