In some places the text of the KJV can present doctrinal challenges, but those places are actually few and far between. The KJV remains an excellent English language translation of the Byzantine text, and there are some good reasons we should leave the text unchanged.
By W. D. Penfield. Originally published on Substack, January 21, 2022.
Why We Should Not Update the King James Bible or Change the Text
Should we update or change the KJV text?
We should not!
Yes, in some places the text of the KJV can present doctrinal challenges, but those places are actually few and far between. The KJV remains an excellent English language translation of the Byzantine text.
I do not believe the KJV should be updated or changed, not even for the most pious-seeming reasons or noble intentions. Those intentions and motives can be deceiving. And we would risk “clarifying” some truths hidden in the wording right out of existence.
And we would take the risk of “clarifying” things wrongly. What if the revisions were done by Mormons, or Jehovah’s Witnesses, or devout Catholics, devout Baptists, or Methodists, or extreme fundamentalists? Everyone would bring their own doctrinal and denominational bias into the “correcting” process. There’s the risk of mistake and error no matter whose template is used to “correct” things.
The KJV translators did a good job of remaining neutral, though in my opinion they didn’t always succeed, specifically when it came to some translation decisions in Paul’s prison epistles that I think should have more clearly supported eternal security (as the underlying text certainly does). I don’t fault their motives. I don’t think they understood or believed that believers in this age have eternal security, and they might have thought it irresponsible to suggest they do.
But if we update the text, we might endanger future believers. Let’s say we change a few verses in Ephesians and Philippians to better reflect the underlying text and unambiguously support eternal security for believers in our current age. And let’s say a copy of that “updated” edition finds its way into the hands of believers in the Tribulation who don’t understand the Prison Epistles aren’t aimed at them.
It’s much more dangerous to their souls for them to believe they have eternal security in an age when they don’t than it is for people in our current age to worry and fear they don’t have it when they actually do. A Tribulation believer who thinks he has absolute security might make a tragic decision to renounce Jesus as the Messiah and to pledge loyalty to the Antichrist, thinking that he or she will still be saved, and that’s not what other scripture says.
Leave the text as is. You can note the underlying reading in the margin, or make a mental note, or whatever you choose. But leave the text alone. We don’t know all things.
There can be reasons the text is seemingly ambiguous or even contradictory in places (when it’s actually not), and we aren’t smart enough to know them all. One is to prove men. Scripture reveals the thoughts and intents of the heart (Hebrews 4:12). Giving men “wiggle room” to make various choices of interpretation reveals their true selves. If you “correct” all those passages so that all people can believe only one way and conform to one denominational template, people won’t be proved—those who are approved won’t be made manifest (1 Corinthians 11:19), and neither will those who are not.
People are to assert their own wills in dividing and interpreting scripture. God told Moses to stretch out his own hand and divide the sea. God wants people to be assertive and in charge of their own lives. And it is an exercise in assertiveness to stretch forth your own hand and divide the scriptures in order to understand them. God didn’t do all the figuring out for us. That would remove personal choice from it. And it would deprive us of the process—and joy—of discovery.
Another reason to leave the text alone and not “correct” it is that God engages in wordplay. It’s one way He provides truth and joy in discovery for us.
Ambiguous pronoun references are one way He does it. In Genesis 22:8, Abraham told Isaac that “God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering.” As is, that verse can be read as God simply providing a lamb Himself (that is, He will provide it), or—viewing the pronoun “himself” as a reflexive pronoun or intensive pronoun referring back to God, the subject of the sentence—it’s a foreshadowing of God’s becoming a man and providing Himself as the Lamb of God and the atonement for all men’s sins. Updating the language of the verse, maybe deciding the pronoun is superfluous and deleting it, would delete the prophetic reference.
In 1 Kings 16:1, God says to Samuel, “fill thine horn with oil, and go, I will send thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite: for I have provided me a king among his sons.” If you “update” the language of that verse and “clarify” it, and remove “me” after the word “provided,” or substitute the word “Israel” for it, you obliterate the prophetic wordplay that foretells that God will provide Himself as Israel’s King in the Person of Jesus, the Son of God and God the Son, through the line of Jesse and David.
In another example of wordplay revealing truth, in Galatians 3:16, Paul pointed out the word “seed” was used in the singular in God’s promises to Abraham, and that it was not accidental. “Seed” can be a collective noun, plural as well as singular, like “deer.” Scripture using seed instead of seeds in such places (Genesis 3:15, 22:15–18) allows room for the promises to be interpreted either way. Viewing them as singular, as Paul did, points to one person: Jesus Christ.
And in yet another example, in John 11:6, when Jesus heard about Lazarus, “he abode two days still in the same place where he was” before returning to raise up Lazarus. Lazarus can be seen as a type of Israel. That word “still” can be viewed as wordplay that references our current age of “two days”—that is, two thousand-year days (Psalm 90:4, 2 Peter 3:8)—an age when open Divine activity is not in evidence, Jesus being “still” or inactive (in terms of open activity) for the duration, for the sake of the security of believers, ensuring they get full credit for believing on Him, and are therefore forgiven of all things and sealed to the day of redemption. Once this age closes, God will resume dealing with Israel and raise it up again, as He raised up Lazarus. Incidentally, the word translated “days” in that verse (hemera) can also mean an age. Strong’s Greek says it can mean a period “always defined more or less clearly by the context.” And in that context those two days foreshadow two millennia, or 2,000 years.
There are not many good reasons to update the text of the KJV and several bad ones. So leave the text alone. The KJV is a fine English language translation of the Byzantine text. Enjoy it while we have it!
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