A Birthday Worth Celebrating

The King James Version at 400

Victor Knowles reflects on the 400th anniversary of the King James Version, its enduring influence, and its place among English Bible translations. He honors the beauty and legacy of the KJV while encouraging Christians not to divide over translation preferences.

• The King James Version shaped Scripture memory, worship, and Christian language for generations.
• The article places the KJV within the wider history of English Bible translations.
• Knowles argues that God’s Word is powerful across faithful translations, not limited to one version.

By Victor Knowles

The King James Version of the Holy Bible will be 400 years old on May 4, 2011. Happy Birthday, KJV!

Like many readers of Christian Standard who are 60 and older, I was raised on the King James Version. It was the only Bible we used in church, VBS, or Christian service camps.

Not that we were King James Version-only Christians. It just happened the King James Version was the only Bible used in the Midwest where I grew up in the 1950s and ’60s. There were very few translations available other than the American Standard Version (1901), the Revised Standard Version (1952), and the Amplified New Testament (1965).

Indeed, all of my memory work throughout grade school, junior high, senior high, and Bible college was based on the King James Version of the Bible. When I quote Scripture today it is almost always from the King James Version. To read Psalm 23 at a funeral from any other translation is almost like hearing “Holy, Holy, Holy” sung by Three Dog Night. It just doesn’t sound right.

Not the First

It may surprise some that the King James Version was not the first translation of the English Bible. Preceding the KJV were the Wycliffe Bible (1380), the Tyndale Bible (1525), the Coverdale Bible (1535), Matthew’s Bible (1537), the Great Bible (1539), the Geneva Bible (1560), the Bishop’s Bible (1568), and just one year before the KJV, the Douay Bible (1610). But the King James Bible would prove to be the people’s choice for 270 years until the English Revised Version appeared in 1881. Even then, the KJV continued to be the best-selling Bible for another hundred years until the New International Version finally replaced it in top sales in 1984.

Four hundred years since the KJV’s introduction, there are a growing number of English translations available, far too many to mention here. The decade of the 1970s started the new wave of translations such as the New English Bible (1970), the New American Standard Bible and The Living Bible [a paraphrase] (1971), Today’s English Version (1976), and the NIV (1978).

According to the Christian Booksellers Association, the best-selling Bible translations (based on dollars) in October 2010 were (1) the New International Version, (2) King James Version, (3) New King James Version, (4) New Living Translation, (5) English Standard Version, (6) New Revised Standard Version, (7) New International Reader’s Version, (8) New American Standard Bible [updated], (9) The Message [a paraphrase], and (10) the Holman Christian Standard Bible.

In unit sales, the New King James Version and the King James Version are still ranked Nos. 2 and 3, respectively, with the New International Version being No. 1.

An Enduring Link

Concerning the King James Version, Sir Winston Churchill said, “The scholars who produced this masterpiece are mostly unknown and unremembered. But they forged an enduring link, literary and religious, between the English-speaking people of the world.” In 1604, England’s King James I authorized a six-panel translation team. Seven years later the 54-man team of scholars and linguists finished their work and named it in honor of the king. The translation was to be read out loud at church services. Many Bibles were actually chained to the pulpits. The Pilgrims brought the KJV to America in 1620.

So why does the King James Version of the Bible, with its quaint Elizabethan language, continue to appeal to so many readers? One might as well ask why the works of William Shakespeare are still studied and discussed in universities the world over. There is beauty, cadence, rhythm—indeed, soaring majesty at times—in the lilt and sway of the words selected by the translators.

In their preface to the 1611 edition, the translators confessed that their purpose was not “to make a new translation . . . but to make a good one better.” This was in reference to William Tyndale’s translation, as well as to other early English translations.

The New King James Version, produced in 1982, achieved the same goal, as did its predecessor in 1611, in this writer’s opinion. One of the best improvements in the NKJV is the capitalization of pronouns referring to God and Christ (also found in the NASB and the HCSB). The majestic language and sometimes-musical arrangement are retained, even though “thee” and “thou” are replaced with “you” and “your” (unless deity is being referenced; then it is “You” or “Your”).

To the Masses

Is 17th-century English the best way to communicate God’s Word to the masses today? Probably not, and that is one reason those who are dedicated to the work of translating the Bible have produced so many new translations, versions, and even paraphrases.

I posed this question to Dale Simpson, head of the department of English and philosophy at Missouri Southern State University (and elder at Mount Hope Church of Christ, Joplin, Missouri). He said, “Despite its language being 400 years out of date, the King James Version of the Bible remains, with Shakespeare’s works (written during the same period), a towering monument of the English language. It has been supplanted by modern translations for improved reading comprehension (a necessity), but it will never be surpassed among the Bibles as a literary work of great dignity and beauty.”

Unfortunately, “battle lines” have been drawn by some to both defend the KJV and attack the newer versions and translations of the Bible, or to disparage the KJV and mock its obsolete language (although this has been rectified in the NKJV).

I don’t see where fighting over translations does any of us any good. There is no perfect translation of the Bible. Each one has strengths and weaknesses. (Exceptions would be Bible translations by cults such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, whose weaknesses make them unusable.) Some will appeal to one set of readers, while others will find favor with a different set. If I may paraphrase Romans 14:5, “One man considers one version more sacred than another; another esteems every version alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.”

The last thing we want is to destroy the work of God for the sake of version preferences. God can bless the teaching, preaching, and writing done from the KJV and he can bless similar efforts from the NIV. The transforming power is in the Word of God, not in just one translation or version. “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12, NKJV, but nearly identical in the NIV).

Having written all this, is it best to give a KJV to a young child for his first Bible, or to present a new convert with a copy of the KJV? I would not do so. But neither would I propose to read the Christmas story from Luke 2 to my children and grandchildren on Christmas Eve from any translation other than the KJV. Verily, I do believe my children would rise up and say, “We protesteth!”

And so I say, “Happy Birthday, King James Version! You have served the church well for 400 years. Your translation team, were they alive today, would no doubt encourage the new translators to “make a good one better.”

Victor Knowles is founder and president of Peace on Earth Ministries, Joplin, Missouri (www.poeministries.org).

Author: Victor Knowles

Victor Knowles is president of Peace On Earth Ministries, Joplin, Mo. This article is adapted from an address given to the Advanced Preaching class of St. Louis Christian College, Florissant, Mo., on Sept. 13, 2019, and to the Wabash Valley Christian Institute at New Hope Christian Church, Bridgeport, Ill., on Nov. 7, 2020.