The King James Version has shaped the church, our worship, and our mother tongue for over 400 years. But what should we do with it today?

The KJV beautifully rendered the Scriptures into the language of turn-of-the-seventeenth-century England. Even today the King James is the most widely read Bible in the United States. The rich cadence of its Elizabethan English is recognized even by non-Christians. But English has changed a great deal over the last 400 years, and in subtle ways that very few modern readers will recognize. In Authorized Mark L. Ward, Jr. shows what exclusive readers of the KJV are missing as they read God’s word.

In their introduction to the King James Bible, the translators tell us that Christians must “heare CHRIST speaking unto them in their mother tongue.” In Authorized Mark Ward builds a case for the KJV translators’ view that English Bible translations should be readable by what they called “the very vulgar,” and what we would call “the man on the street.” – Amazon.com

I am just over half-way through this book and it’s hard to even put down! I already have James White’s excellent book, The King James Only Controversy. and while it is also an excellent book, this book isn’t quite as challenging as White’s,(and other articles and books I have read), It really digs into both the use and misuse of the KJV, as the title suggests. Here’s short sample from Chapter 6, Ten Objections to Reading Vernacular Bible Translations:

BIBLES AND INTERSTATES

Think of the Bible as a road down which you are driving. When I drive from work to home, I have to weave through some tight turns while going through the mountains. There are a few places where the driving is difficult, especially if it’s rainy or dark. The Bible contains rainy, dark, twisty passages. Peter saw Paul’s writings as difficult (2 Pet 3:16). I think I could safely add that certain minor prophets are, shall we say, obscure. Certain sayings of Jesus are hard to understand too (“Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you”). Jesus says in Matthew 13 that he purposefully used parables to hide truth from some of his hearers. Some of the Bible is difficult driving, and God intended it that way.

But part of my drive home, a part that wends through beautiful conifer-covered hills, has been recently paved. I noticed this the other day because the ambient noise dropped drastically, and the car all of the sudden felt like it was sailing smoothly over glass.

That’s what a recent vernacular English translation does. The difficult driving around tight turns is still there, because God put some demanding passages in the Bible. But the going is smooth. The actual English at the word and sentence level is not bumpy or awkward but natural.

Ward, Mark. Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible . Lexham Press. Kindle Edition.

Here’s link to the Kindle version at Amazon Books, where I purchased it for $5.99:

Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible: Ward, Mark: 9781683590552: Amazon.com: Books

Be Blessed!