A look at some of the difficulties introduced by a hardshell stance on the King James Bible.
By W. D. Penfield. Originally published on Substack, January 19, 2022.
Some Problems With King James Version Onlyism
King James Version Onlyists (KJVOers) are people who believe the King James Version is infallible and that other versions should never be consulted. Some believe that the Byzantine text (Textus Receptus) underlying the KJV should not be consulted either.
Obviously they are absolutists. And some among them are authoritarians, extremists, legalists, racists, and in some cases, cultists.
I said in the introduction that I’m not a King James only person. I’m a King James mainly person. I think KJVOers and KJVOism create difficulties for those of us who also want to defend the Byzantine text family and advocate for the KJV.
Before I discuss some of those difficulties, a word of caution. The realm of textual criticism and text arguments can lead one into some dark fringes of Christendom. If you want to delve deeper into the topic, I earnestly suggest you do so at arm’s length and keep your wits about you.
KJVOers contribute to the KJV’s unpopularity
“I believe what you’re saying about the Byzantine text and the King James Bible, but I don’t want to be associated with extremist hardline KJVO groups and people.”
Neither do I. It’s discouraging to be painted with the same broad brush for believing that the Byzantine text family—and the KJV translated from it—is superior to the Alexandrian family and Alexandrian text Bibles.
Whether it’s done deliberately or not, a time-tested propaganda tactic is to make the truth unpopular by stigmatizing it and those who believe it, commonly by associating it with unlikable people.
There’s an example in the Bible. Because of their bullying behavior, the sons of the priest Eli caused people to abhor the offering of the Lord—and the offering is a picture of Jesus and His atonement. (1 Samuel 2:12–17.)
But truth is still truth. We don’t have to be ashamed of it or be driven away from it because it’s become associated with some fringe or radical group or unlikable people.
Several precious Biblical truths have come to us through some unlikable characters in history.
Martin Luther was not a nice man. In some ways he was detestable. He was a notorious antisemite, and brutal toward children. Some of the doctrine and a poisonous pedagogy traceable to him (or which he did little to stop) likely plowed and fertilized the ground that sprouted the Third Reich.
But he also ignited the Protestant Reformation via bold proclamation of the truth of:
sola scriptura (that scripture is the sole source of Divine revelation to man),
sola fide (that salvation is by faith alone)
sola gratia (through grace alone)
sola Christus (by Christ alone),
soli Deo gloria (all to the glory of God alone).
John Calvin was an awful human being. He permitted a man to be burned at the stake for daring to disagree with him. And he was totally wrong on four out of the five points of his TULIP doctrine, the exception being that he was right about the eternal security of believers in this age. His teachings also helped set up the “total depravity of children” model that led to brutalization and trauma-based childrearing practices that produce submissive authoritarian footsoldiers for facist and Naziist groups, denominations, families, or national regimes, and even the American Christian fascism movement of late. But Calvin was right about the eternal security of believers in Jesus in this age, and we trace the widespread Protestant acceptance of that truth to him.
King James didn’t exactly live a saintly life. But his name is on the Bible we trust as the reliable English language translation of the Byzantine text family.
Even the most pious and devout Christians are still flawed human beings. That goes for all of us. We all stand in the grace of God and the gift of righteousness, not in personal perfection or righteousness. If someone brings a bit of truth, it’s still truth no matter what their character or behavior. Truth is truth no matter if it is delivered to us in a luxury car or on a scrapyard bicycle.
We should not reject a truth just because it is closely associated with a person or group we do not want to be associated with, and even if it does become tiresome to continually explain we are neither one of them nor like them.
Here are some other problems you may encounter with KJVOism:
- Some KJVOers selectively criminalize consulting the underlying Greek or Hebrew texts for clarification, even the Byzantine texts (The Textus Receptus).
I say selectively, because many reserve a place or two where they themselves cite the Greek or Hebrew when it supports their own doctrinal take or position. They just don’t want you doing it, particularly when the underlying Greek or Hebrew might challenge them.
- Some KJVOers claim the English King James Version is an inspired and infallible translation that can correct the Greek and Hebrew manuscripts from which it was translated.
There are several problems with that claim. Foremost is that it’s not scriptural.
The oracles of God were committed to the Jews. Our Bible was given to us through the Jews. It was written by Jews. Through the Jews all nations of the world have been blessed by the availability of the word of God. It’s not scriptural to think a group of Gentile scholars was appointed by God (1500 years after the last events recorded in it) to produce an inspired text, capable of correcting that given by God through the Jews.
The King James Version translators produced a tremendously good translation, and I don’t suggest for an instant that a new one should be produced. I’m saying that a rule that the underlying source texts cannot be consulted is unproductive—maybe even insidious, placing a hindrance to understanding, enlightenment, and joy and peace.
And the claim that the KJV can correct the underlying source text doesn’t hold up in application. In Genesis 2:23, when Adam calls Eve “woman,” in English it doesn’t even make sense. The context says he called her “woman” because she was taken out of man. The English word “woman” doesn’t mean “taken out of man.” It’s from an older word wyfman, and it means “wife man”—a man, but a wife, man. In other words, it means a female human.
But the underlying Hebrew word is “ishshah”, which means something like “mortal out of a mortal.” And that makes sense in the context: She shall be called man out of a man because she was taken out of man.
So if, as some KJVOers claim, the English can correct the Hebrew or Greek, someone needs to completely change the underlying Hebrew text of Genesis 2:23 to something like, “She shall be called wifeman, because she’s my wife, man.” Or they need to invent a new English word for woman to match the context, like “outtaman.” (I’m sure that will catch on.) But then you’d still have to change the English reading to use that new word, and KJVOnlyists say you can’t change any of the words of the KJV English reading—a rule, incidentally, which differing editions of the KJV violate to some degree, but KJVOers never seem to complain about that.
Another well-known example is the verse translated that the love of money is the root of all evil (1 Timothy 6:10). Taken literally, without referring to the underlying text, it doesn’t make a lot of sense and doesn’t hold up to logic. There is a lot of evil done in this world without regard for the love of money. However, if the underlying text is consulted (and all it takes is a concordance), we find the verse could be rendered “all manner of evil” instead of just all evil. And that makes a lot more sense.
Some hardline KJVOers—the ones who view the English as infallible and criminalize checking the underlying text—may argue that God put a hard verse like 1 Timothy 6:10 in the KJV to test our faith, to see if we would believe that the love of money is the root of ALL evil, just because that’s what God supposedly said—similar to 6K creationists who claim God hid fake dinosaur fossils in the earth to test our faith.
Do you really think God would do something like that? Isn’t that a bit like a man putting lipstick on his collar to test if his wife trusts him?—and maybe to sneakily condition her to be reluctant to distrust him if he shows up with lipstick on his collar that he didn’t put there himself? Do you really think God is “like to corruptible man” (Romans 1:23) and would play games like that?
Spoiler alert: He isn’t like that.
- KJVO rigidity can trouble believers and rattle their faith.
In this passage from Philippians (one of the four Prison Epistles of Paul, which are aimed at us in this current age), in the King James Bible English rendering, in verse 11 of chapter 3, Paul appears to be unsure he’s going to make it to the resurrection:
7 But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.
8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,
9 And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:
10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;
11 If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.
The King James translators opted to translate a word Paul used in verse 11 as simply “resurrection,” when the underlying source word was unique and used just that one time by Paul, and not by anyone else, a word that can be literally rendered as out-resurrection.
The underlying Greek word is exanastasis, which is different from word anastasis that is used for “resurrection” in every other place in the New Testament except for one in Matthew 27:53 where the word egersis is used.
The prefix ex means “out.” We get the word “extra” from that same prefix. Ex means “outside,” and tra, means “of.” So it means “outside of,” “out of,” “more,” or “more of.”
Look at a few words that use extra as a prefix to understand that ex means something “outside of” or “beyond” or “more of”: extraterrestrial, extraterritorial, extraordinary.
So Paul wrote ex-resurrection. Which is to say an exceptional resurrection, something unique and distinct and set apart from and outside of the group resurrection (although the general resurrection will still be glorious!)
The KJV’s translators’ choice, coupled with the “if” he started verse 11 with, left the opening to infer Paul feared and worried over his own eternal security. But the context and Paul’s other writings affirm that his resurrection was a settled issue.
What Paul said was he aspired to attain an exceptional resurrection, the best one he could.
And the context supports that. In the remainder of the context he’s talking about “apprehending” that for which he had been “apprehended.” He’s talking about taking hold of all the rewards and blessings for which God, out of love, had apprehended him in order to make available to him. And he was encouraging us to do the same.
And he exhorted believers to endeavor to live lives consistent with the righteousness we are already fully credited as having.
- Other examples of how KJVOism can rattle the faith and assurance of believers
In a few places (Ephesians 3:2, 4:21) the King James translators opted to translate the Greek word “eige” as “if,” when “seeing that” or “since surely” would be an appropriate rendering in the context.
Eige is a compound word. It consists of the particle “ei,” which means “if,” OR it can mean “forasmuch as,” or simply “since.”
Added to “ei” is the particle “ge,” which is a particle of emphasis, such as “indeed,” or “surely.” In 1 Corinthians 9:2, ge is translated “doubtless.” In Romans 8:32, the KJV translators dropped the particle rather than translate it “surely,” which would be appropriate in the context. The verse reads “He that spared not His own Son” but could have been translated “Surely He that spared not His own Son.”
So you could translate a Greek-and-English phrase containing eige, such as “eige you are saved,” as “seeing that you are saved.” Or, because the particle ge is an emphasis particle, you could go with “since surely you are saved,” or “seeing that doubtless you are saved.”
But if you were a translator who didn’t believe in the eternal security of believers in our current age, you could just go with “if you are saved.” And in a few places that’s more or less what the KJV translators did.
Charles M. Welch pointed out that in 2 Corinthians 5:3, the KJV translators rendered eige as an “if,” a phrase of doubt instead of certainty, when the context indicates certainty. Paul was speaking to believers about being “clothed upon” by their new resurrection bodies, and how they all earnestly looked forward to it and desired it. There’s no “if” in that.
But verse 3 reads, “If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked.” You can’t be clothed and naked at the same time. If we’re found not naked, we’re found clothed. So the verse might be clearer if it were rendered using “since surely” instead of “if” for eige: Since surely when we are clothed upon, we shall not be found naked. Or like this: Because when we are clothed upon, we will not be found naked. And that’s a reason to earnestly desire it, just as Paul wrote in the preceding verse.
Again, in Eph. 4: 21, we have the rendering, “if so be”: “If so be, that ye have heard Him . . . . . as the truth is in Jesus.” But we know from Eph. 1: 13 and 15 that the Ephesians had both heard and believed.
Again in Eph. 3: “If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward” (Eph. 3: 2). This passage could also be rendered, “Since indeed”, or “Since surely”.
– Charles M. Welch. Source.
So we can presume the KJV translators made such editorial choices in translation based on their own beliefs and biases.
It was quite common in the day to view everything starting with the four gospels right up until Jesus’ return in Revelation as one single New Testament dispensation with the same conditions of salvation throughout. Open, observable miracles and signs were no longer occurring, but people continued to believe they were. And they continued to believe that salvation was still conditional and people had to endure to the end and not fall away in order to be saved.
The result of translating eige as “if” such places is those verses in the KJV English do not support eternal security, even though in the underlying text they do. And everything else in the context points right to it.
I think such instances are proof enough that the King James translators did not believe in eternal security, even if there is no definitive historical record or evidence of their position on it. They opted for some choices that don’t support it.
So considering such readings in the KJV, if we have a rule or belief that the King James translation is inspired and can correct the underlying text from which it is translated, then such instances in the underlying Byzantine text should be—God forbid—“corrected” to agree with the King James reading and eliminate (or even just minimize) support for eternal security!
Now I know that some KJVO denominations do teach eternal security. But the KJVO position itself potentially undermines it, because several translation choices by the KJVO translators don’t favor it.
- KJVOism can result in fears of committing an unforgivable sin.
English-only literalism can conceal the dispensational application (and dispensational limits) of the warnings over the unforgivable sin. The Greek word translated “world” (as in “this world” and by extension “the world to come” (Matthew 12:32) is aion. We get our word “eon” from it. And it means, properly, an age (Strong’s).
Jesus was speaking of the age that was current in His day—the one where he was physically present and the miraculous was in open evidence—and He was speaking of the age to come, the restoration of Israel and His Millennial Kingdom, when He again will be physically present and He and the miraculous will be openly evident again.
The age we are currently in wasn’t even known at the time. It was still a secret, a mystery, hidden until revealed through Paul, the apostle to us Gentiles. When Jesus spoke of the age to come, He was speaking to Jews, He was offering the Kingdom to the Jews, and most everyone who knew their scriptures rightly assumed that when He spoke of that world which was to come He was speaking of the age of the Kingdom being restored to Israel, not our current age that had not even been revealed yet—and wouldn’t even have happened had the Jews received Jesus as their Messiah King.
The problems with absolutism
Accuracy is vital, but absolutism and rigidity over scripture isn’t even Biblical. If you want to grow in the faith, you have to be free to be flexible and change your mind as you learn more about God’s word and about God Himself.
Jesus demonstrated that the law—if one is even going to be under it—is to be interpreted and applied with flexibility according to the highest laws of love. He healed even on the Sabbath. His disciples harvested and ate grain on the Sabbath. These were things that infuriated the rigid Philistines, who felt they were in a scripturally supported position to judge them and a supposedly good excuse to reject Jesus.
And maybe they believed God smiled on them for their zeal. Pointing to himself as example, Paul characterized this kind of fervent belief as, ironically, unbelief and ignorance. 1 Timothy 1:12–13, Romans 10:1–4.
An iron-clad rigidity about telling the truth or submitting unquestioningly to authority isn’t Biblical. The Hebrew midwives lied and defied authority in Egypt. They weren’t punished by God for it. They were rewarded. Rahab the harlot lied to Jericho authority and was rewarded with salvation from the destruction, and she dwelled among the Israelites.
Jesus demonstrated the “gray area” of the law—that it’s not just all-or-nothing, cut-and-dried, all-good-or-all-bad, always total in all things. Jesus demonstrated one principle above all others: The principle of love, that it’s not all about condemnation and rejection, but forgiveness and acceptance. He hung out with sinners. The rigidly righteous were offended.
And instead of leaving sinners to die in their sins as if that’s what they deserved for being sinners, He paid for everyone’s sins, all of them, and rose again, so that whoever believes on Him is forgiven of all things and has eternal life.
We’re to rightly divide the scriptures, to sort them out (2 Timothy 2:15). God told Moses to stretch forth his own hand and divide the waters, the waters being a picture of the scriptures. Earlier Moses was told to to pick up the serpent by the tail, depicting taking hold of the New Testament first, and turn the scriptures into a rod of comfort and instruction instead of a fiery serpent. We’re to take charge and assertively do so—we’re doing it on God’s instructions, which is His authorization. We’re not to remain powerless and “bitten.”
But it’s difficult to do if you’re rigid and inflexible about rules and law.
And dividing scripture goes beyond dividing the New Testament from the Old Testament. Bibles already do that. We’re to rightly divide the New Testament too, to sort out what applies to us in this age and what does not.
In the book of Joshua, the children of Israel divided the land and took possession of their inheritance after, in a figure, being saved by the blood, washing away their sins, and putting away the law. They were, in a figure, already in New Testament standing, but still divided in order to possess—and enjoy—what God had given them.
And that’s what we’re to do—to divide, eat freely, and take possession of our inheritance, to take hold of what God has provided for us.
And we’re to enjoy the Bible He has given us.
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