Improving the KJV

As I've said, I am for updating and even correcting the KJV as necessary but I wouldn't want the job of determining what those changes ought to be. I'm against the changes made in the 1881 Revision and in all subsequent English translations, even the New King James because it also went too far and also treated the W-H work as legitimate. The Revision the 1881 committee should have made didn't happen. I wish it could still be made. Perhaps there would now need to be some more changes than were needed then, but likely not many more.

I was very interested to read an interview with textual scholar Kirk DiVietro recently at KJV Only Debate blog, in which he says he uses the KJV pretty much for the same reason that I do, that although it still needs some revision he wouldn't trust today's scholars to do the job right and takes the position in the end that it really doesn't need an updating.

I would no more trust today’s textual scholars and translators to correct the King James Bible than I would trust the present politicians to rewrite the US Constitution. In my opinion, the scholarship, the knowledge, the dedication and the corporate effort do not exist in today’s academic community.

He also made a very interesting remark about the attitude of the publishers of the NKJV, that they considered it a step for people to take toward the modern versions. Enough reason right there to reject it.

Philip Mauro also discussed this issue. I don't know much about him but I much appreciate what he wrote about the Bible versions in 1924, in which he refers frequently to Burgon -- I've linked it in the margin -- and take seriously what he had to say about the possibility of improving the KJV:

It is not that the Old Version did not and does not admit of corrections and improvements. Nor is it that the Revisers did not make them; for it cannot be denied that the R.V. contains many improved readings. Yet for all that, as the experience of a whole generation has now conclusively demonstrated, the A.V. retains, and in all probability will continue to retain, its long undisputed place as the standard English Bible.

I would really like to see his list of what he considers to be improved readings in the RV. I would trust his choices and note them in my KJV.

About what the revisers of 1881 did instead of sticking to their agreement to make the most minimal revision of the KJV, he said:

...it is apparent from what has been said already that if the Revisers of the 19th century had used the same Greek Text, either as it stood, or with such corrections as might seem justified by discoveries made subsequently to 1624, they would have given us a Version having a comparatively small number of changed readings. In fact it is within bounds to say that, if the Revisers had given us simply a corrected translation of the Textus Receptus, instead of a translation of an entirely "New Greek Text," we should not have more than a small fraction, say less than ten percent, of the changes found in the R.V. And what is more, not one of those changes which are regarded as serious, and against which such a storm of protest has been raised (and that from men of the highest scholarship and deepest piety) would have been made. In that case it is likely also that the changes would have commended themselves to the majority of discriminating Bible users.

This describes the updated KJV I wish they had done. I also wish it weren't too late now to do this work. I appreciate Dr. DiVietro's stand, but I continue to wish a revision were still possible.

To this day we don't have a real Revision of the KJV, despite all the supposed "revisions" we do have. As I read the KJV I see many archaic words I would like to see changed, but, as usual, as soon as I have such a thought I am aware of the wolves lurking in the dark waiting to rip it to bits, so I hesitate, and decide once again that it has to be left as is for now. I can barely say that it needs updating, much less suggest it might even need correction because of the mentality that is only too happy to "correct" the KJV into oblivion, as Westcott and Hort were and most of the modern versions have already done.

So back to Burgon, whose work on this convinces me that he understood what Westcott and Hort did while no modern scholars on the side of the modern versions do.

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It occurred to me that I should give a reason why I don't support the newest KJV revisions that have been done, such as the King James 2000 and the Modernized version -- not sure that's the right name. There are others. It's because one thing I argue here is the importance of there being a STANDARD Bible that is shared by at least a majority of Christians. I consider it a problem that we each have our own chosen version, I consider it a disunifying influence in the churches, a disruptive force. Unless it were so clearly the perfect revision that I couldn't resist it I don't want to have just another version among versions to add to the confusion.

A second reason, however, is that when I've briefly looked over the different Bibles I have the impression that they all disagree with each other about what changes should have been made, so among themselves they also conflict, and I couldn't choose among them myself. As I've said, I would like a church-authorized committee to make those choices. They could run them by us all publicly, that's a good idea too, so it can all be hashed out in advance on blogs and forums, why not, especially since that's been going on for years now anyway, but then they are to make the decision. But of course the committee has to be equal in scholarship and spiritual status to the KJV translators. Not going to happen, I know, but I don't see any point in proliferating versions, even attempts at minimal revision, until there's a clear consensus, among people with the ability to judge, on what should be done.