400 Years of the KJV

This year is the 400th anniversary of the printing of the King James Version of the Bible. Like so many other things in like there are the good things and there are the sad things to say about that version of the Bible.

There are the good things to be said about the KJV. It was a universally accepted version of the Bible for a very long time. The language and the writing were of such high quality that it encouraged literacy among all classes of people. The KJV was such a well done piece that many of the phrases and cliches of today are phrases right out of the translation. It shaped the way we talk and think. So many of the passages of scripture have become absolute traditions. In one place I worked, I read the Christmas narrative from a new translation and I was told in no uncertain terms that on Christmas eve the story had to be read from the King James Virgin. They wanted to hear that Mary and Joseph and the Baby were lying in the manager. Even if it was a crowded manager that is the way they wanted to hear the story.

Of course, that is also part of the bad results of 400 years of reading the scriptures from the same version. It has been familiar. The stories have no impact because we have heard them so often in the same way. And we have been told that familiarity breeds contempt. We have heard the stories so often in the same words that we dismiss them as old hat and outdated. That too is part of the down side. The language is dated and there are claims that younger people do not understand and do not know what many of the words mean.

One of the down sides of 400 years is that many people have heard the exact same words that they begin to believe that those are the very words of Jesus. My mother taught Latin in High School in Johnson City, Tenn. The state was engaged in a big debate as to whether or not to have devotions in school. So my mother decided to have her classes read the devotions every day from the Vulgate Bible. The Latin translation of the Bible. She said if they made a fuss she could always say it was her subject matter. Well, somebody made a fuss, but it was because she was using the Latin, and this parent wanted her child to read the Bible the way that Jesus said it. The way it was in the King James Version.

There are lots of other translations and paraphrases of the Bible available now. It is a great discipline and blessing to a person to read the Bible in a different version every year. Read it in a foreign language if you know one. The constant variety of translations help us to remember that the message is the important thing. The fundamentalist claim to a Bible that contains the very words of Jesus or God is a myth.

The King James Version has been a great blessing. It is one of the versions I would encourage everyone to read, but there are a lot of other versions now that help one get closer to the message and hope in the Scriptures.