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Not since 1769 has the venerable King James Version of the Bible been revised. This year Nelson Publishers brought the King James Version into the twentieth century with care and reverence for its beloved cadences and familiar archaic language.
The King James Version of the Bible, originally published in 1611, eventually became the official Bible of Protestants and won praise from Catholics and non-Christians as well. It was accurate for its time; it was intelligible; and when read aloud, it was lyrical and majestic.
The translation has aged slowly, gracefully. Between 1611 and 1769, it underwent four major revisions (and hundreds of minor revisions). An anonymous editor at Cambridge University updated it in 1629. Cambridge produced two more versions: those of John Bois in 1638 and Thomas Paris in 1762. The edition currently being used is Benjamin Blainey’s revision of 1769, produced at Oxford University. Religious authorities in Great Britain designated the 1769 version “official” and although hundreds of other Bibles have since been produced, the King James Version has maintained its dominance through the centuries.
In 1975, the plethora of Bibles being generated by modern publishing houses prompted Nelson Publishers to undertake a revision of the King James Version. A team of more than 130 Bible scholars was assembled. All those selected were Christian and all were required to sign statements of faith declaring their belief that “the Scriptures were the uniquely inspired Word of God, free from error in the original autographs.” The Old Testament was under the general editorship first of William White, then of James Price, both of Dropsie University in Philadelphia. The New Testament was under the general editorship of Arthur Farstad of Dallas Theological Seminary.
Each scholar submitted his translation of a book of the Bible to the executive editor of his Testament. He in turn submitted it to Rev. William H. McDowell, professor of philosophy and religion at Florida Southern College, who checked for grammatical accuracy, literary beauty and effective communication. McDowell in turn passed it on to the oversight committees, which perused the translations afresh.
Meetings were held. Differences were debated. When consensus did not result, majority vote carried. Equivalence with the King James Version is what the scholars sought and their resulting changes are very much of the commonsense variety.
• The clutter of punctuation is reduced; there are fewer colons and semicolons.
• Archaic verbs and pronouns are modernized: “showeth” has become “show”; “thee” and “thou” now read “you.”
• Pronouns referring to God, uncapitalized in the original King James Version, are now capitalized.
• Twentieth century words replace 17th century words when the original meaning has changed; “naughtiness” in James 1:21 now reads “wickedness.”
• Very long sentences are broken up.
• Quotation marks are added to indicate more easily who is speaking and precisely what he or she is saying.
• Seventeenth century nouns that have acquired theological significance, like “atonement” and “righteousness,” have been retained.
• Footnotes have been added to indicate variant readings.
During the 19th and 20th centuries a significant number of ancient manuscripts of the Bible (among them the Dead Sea Scrolls) have been discovered. After critical study of these manuscripts recent revisers have removed words and phrases from the Scriptures. However, the Nelson scholars determined not to incorporate within the text any changes based on these manuscripts; instead, the publisher decided that “in those few places where the majority of the manuscripts did not support a word or phrase, that fact could best be indicated in a footnote … It was the editors’ conviction that the use of footnotes would encourage further inquiry by readers.”
“It was like keeping three balls in the air at the same time,” said Farstad, who was a member of the executive committees of both Testaments. “It was like juggling Biblical Hebrew and Greek, the English of the King James Version, and contemporary English.”
The result of Nelson’s seven years of exhaustive Biblical research and linguistic study is a Bible that is easy to read and one that preserves the rhythms, meaning and beauty of the original 1611 version.
One distracting aspect of the original King James Version has, unfortunately, been retained: Words for which there is no Hebrew equivalent are set in italics—as, for example, the verb “to be” which is not always used in Hebrew (although context conveys that it be understood). This unnecessary italicization tends to give these words an emphasis not intended by the original authors and confusing to the modern reader.
Buyers have a choice of three editions: a burgundy hardcover at $12.95; a black, burgundy or brown leather at $34.95; or a deluxe, burgundy-brown pigskin edition at $39.95; the latter two have gilded edges and ribbon markers.
BAR would like to thank Publishers Weekly for permission to use portions of William Griffin’s article (August 20, 1982) on the New King James Bible.
Not since 1769 has the venerable King James Version of the Bible been revised. This year Nelson Publishers brought the King James Version into the twentieth century with care and reverence for its beloved cadences and familiar archaic language.a
