The King James Only Movement - A Fair & Balanced Review

Hello, thank you for listening to the Testing the Spirits podcast. In this episode, we're going to be talking about a highly controversial subject, and that is the King James Only movement. If you are my age or older, and if you were brought up in church, you probably were brought up in a church that used the KJV.

I mean, the KJV is the most popular, best-selling book of all time. Not just the Bible, but the King James Version in particular. It is the best-selling book of all time. Most churches, the majority, use the KJV.

So that was the way it was until things changed. Well, when did the movement start? KJV only? Well, it was like so many things in the 1960s, 1970s, with the social changes and the culture, the Jesus People movement, churches were going contemporary.

The hymns were phased out. And when a church went contemporary, almost always they got rid of the King James Version of the Bible in favor of the NIV or the New American Standard. And of course, now there's more and more translations coming out every year.

Now, some people thought this was a good thing. Others were very skeptical. There are a lot of Christians who are not comfortable with these new Bible translations because there were some verses that seemed to be at odds with what they were brought up with.

The King James says this, and the NIV says that. The King James says this, and the NASB says something totally different. That was the charge. So they said that they're changing the Bible. Now those who were the scholars for these new translations would say, well, we're not changing.

It's just that the King James was wrong. Then of course, you had a generation of people who said, well, wait, we were taught that the Bible's inerrant and fallible. How can it be wrong? And you can understand the confusion.

So a lot of Christians were skeptical of the new translations, but in the 1970s, Billy Graham did endorse the new translation. So that helped to make them acceptable for certainly American Christians.

So most churches, many churches at least, but I think at this point we can say most shifted away from the King James and they adopted either the NIV, ESV, and you know, there's about seven or eight, there's hundreds of versions of the Bible, but there are seven or eight that are the most popular.

So when that happened, starting in the 1970s, this movement started to develop. By the time the 1980s came around, it was going full strength and it's continued into the 1990s, still exists today. This is known as the King James only movement.

Now there are different variations of the King James only position. Let's go through five of them. Group number one would say, we like the King James the best, therefore it is the only translation that we will use.

Technically, this is considered to be King James only, but it's not really what most people are referring to when they talk about King James only. Number two, the second group would say that the King James is a superior translation.

It's not just what we prefer, it really is better than all the others. The third position would be to say that it is the only Bible supernaturally preserved by God himself. The fourth position agrees with that, but then takes it a step further, turning it into a salvation issue.

And they would say, if you don't use the King James Bible, at least for English speakers, if you don't use the KJV, you are not a true Christian. And then the fifth position would agree with all of that, but then they would take it even further, saying that the King James was re-inspired.

Basically, God was re-inspiring his word in 1611 through the translators, and that it may even correct the original Hebrew and Greek. So they would see the King James as, in a sense, new revelation. Just a little bit more information about the KJV.

It was first commissioned by King James I, King of England, in 1604, and then published in 1611. It went through major updates in 1769. And as far as I know, it is the only translation that is free from copyright laws.

So it's out in the public domain, free for use. Nearly all other translations, modern translations, come from a separate line of manuscripts. So generally speaking, there are two lines or two streams of biblical manuscripts.

You might hear about the Received Text, or the TR, Textus Receptus. That's where you get the KJV and the New King James Version. And then almost all the other Bible translations are from this different line.

And most modern scholars will say it's this different line of manuscripts that is more accurate, but not everyone agrees with that. So there's always two sides to the story. Okay, at this point, I'd like to play two video clips.

The first is of Kent Hovind. He is a King James only proponent. And the second clip is of Dr. James White. He wrote a book against the King James only movement. Why do you use the King James? Man, it's old English.

Nobody can understand it.

It's hard to read. I understand all that. And as a brand new Christian, saved out of the Methodist church, my mom gave me every kind of new Bible version there was. If a new one came out, hey son, you're going to love this one.

So I've got a huge collection of all the Bible versions. When I was 16, I had the Reviled Substandard Perversion of the Bible. It's here someplace, my original copy. But I was reading that, going to church, going to this little independent, temperamental, fundamental, right-wing, radical, chicken-eating Baptist church.

And the preacher was banging on the pulpit saying the Bible is the Word of God. And I was making notes in my Revised Standard Version. And after a couple of months, he said, Brother Hovind, you've been a Christian a few months now.

It's time you get a Bible. I said, I got a Bible. He said, no, you need a real Bible. I was offended. Okay, I thought, well, I got a Bible. I've been making notes. I've been reading an hour a day. What do you mean?

He said, no, there's real problems with that one. So why King James? It's been 33, 37 years now as a Christian of, you know, studying this topic. Why? Look at Psalms chapter 12. The words of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.

Thou shalt keep them, O Lord. Thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever. What does the word them refer back to in that verse? Thou shalt preserve them. Preserve what? His words. He's promising He's going to preserve His words, right?

How about NIV? The words of the Lord are flawless, like silver purified in a furnace of clay, purified seven times. O Lord, You will keep us safe and protect us from such people forever. Is that saying the same thing?

I mean, I was born at night, but it wasn't last night. It looks to me like somebody's wrong about this one, okay? What does this mean? Keep us from such people? What people is it talking about? There are very serious differences between these Bible versions.

We've got a book. I don't know if I have it here. It's in our library. The guy sent it to me. It took me six months to figure out what the title said. I read it. I said, what? Went on to something else.

Every time I look at the book, I said, what is this? The title was, Things That Are Different Are Not The Same. I thought, well, duh, why would you title a book like that? You know, things that are different are not the same.

And then I thought, wow, these Bible versions are definitely different. So you can't say they're the same. There are, as far as I understand it, 151 English translations of the Bible right now available.

The law is you cannot get a copyright and therefore protect your work and therefore get more money unless you have 10 different from the original. Are there 151 different ways to say each of the verses in the Bible?

At some point, you're going to have to stop saying it the right way and say it the wrong way just to make it different, just to get your copyright, just to get your money. Love of money, root of all evil.

King James onlyism cannot survive an examination based upon the standards that it places on everybody else. So when you turn the arguments that King James onlyists use against other translations around in the King James, it fails.

Therefore, it's a self-refuting argument and should not, therefore, be used. So did the inspired and fallible Word of God exist in 1610? If you say no, then stop arguing because you're being foolish.

Did it exist in 1610? The King James translators would say that it did. I would say that it did. Tyndale said that it did. Wycliffe said that it did. But none of their translations, none of the manuscripts they had access to, would read identical to the King James version today.

Therefore, if you make the King James a standard, then the answer to number two you would have to give is, yes, it is in our possession today, but only has been since 1611. Because there's nothing identical to it before then.

And, of course, you should be using the 1611 King James version, not the 1769 Blaney revision. Or you should know automatically the difference between the Cambridge and the Oxford editions because there are differences in the readings.

They don't say the same thing. I document this in the book. But there is a assumed meaning of inspired and infallible that the King James onlyist will use against everybody else, but they won't turn around and use it against themselves.

Okay, so there you go. You got to hear, at least to some degree, both sides of the argument. As we talked about earlier, there are different variations of the King James only position. There are some people that are very reasonable.

Then there are King James onlyists that are very radical. Just to mention two groups. There is one group, the New IFB. They will judge your salvation if you don't use the King James version. Okay, so that's one radical group.

Then there's another group, the Ruckmanites. But hopefully you get the point. Not everyone who is King James only is the same. So hopefully you found this helpful. Thanks for listening. And until next time, may the Lord be with you.

Have a great day.