Objectives:
1. To establish that there are sincere concerns about modern English translations.
2. To likewise establish that modern English translations are proving to be far more popular than the King James Version Bible.
3. To overview the broad concerns that some have about apparent discrepancies in modern translations.
 

THE TRADITIONAL PREDOMINANCE OF THE KING JAMES VERSION
 For almost the entire history of the English Bible, the King James Version has proven to be the most widely accepted and read version throughout the English speaking world. It has formed the basis of hymns, choruses, and poems, often being quoted verbatim. It has had a litany of other reference tools built around it, such as, the Strong’s Concordance, the New Englishmen’s Hebrew Concordance, the Wigram’s Greek Lexicon, and the Matthew Henry Bible Commentaries. It has been the undisputed standard of popular Bible translation for most of the past four centuries.

 We shall examine the development of the King James Version in proceeding chapters. Suffice to state that it was during a rather turbulent political and ecclesiastical period in the early 1600s, that King James I of England authorised the proposal of the translation of the Bible into the vernacular of the common people. He appointed 54 men, drawing on England’s two main centres of learning, Cambridge and Oxford. They were instructed to follow the Bishops’ Bible, a previous English translation. They also drew on other previous English translations for reference.

 The finished result was published in 1611, and dedicated to King James in his battle with the Roman Catholic Church. Most literary historians regard the King James Version as a high point in the history of translated Biblical literature. It has served the English speaking Christian community for nearly 400 years. One Bible commentator has said of the King James Version-
“It was finished after 7-8 years of diligent work. It has been the most popular and accepted version of the English speaking world from that day until now. There have been several revised versions since then, and a number of Bibles in the so-called modern English, but none have been as well accepted and as lasting as the King James Version and perhaps never will be.”
 The language of the King James Version is now regarded as classic English. Its poetic portions are ranked along side Shakespeare for its use of the English language.

THE POPULARITY OF RECENT TRANSLATIONS
 Without doubt, the King James Version of the Bible has been the most influential translation in the English speaking world. It is estimated that up to 160,000,000 English speaking Christians still use the King James Version as their primary source of Scripture reading.  But its popularity is now waning fast. The modern era has witnessed a vast array of fresh translations of the Bible into English. There are now translations that attempt to put the original language into modern language. There are other translations that seek to put the original meaning into modern meaning. While these two different approaches result in different translations, they both purport to be God’s Word.

 To add to the confusion, modern marketing has produced Bibles for children, youth, women, men, singles, and students. So prolific are the new Study Bibles that one scholar has said-

“Today there is a glut of Bible versions on the market. Just about everywhere you turn, there are all sorts of specialised Bibles. Not only are there a lot of translations, but each translation appears in several different forms. There are Bibles packaged as devotional aides for men, women, children, singles, and teens, and there are study Bibles for end-times enthusiasts, Lutherans, Orthodox Christians, Charismatics, and Catholics, and there are even bride’s Bibles that are intended to be used as wedding gifts. If someone told me there was a special devotional Bible for divorced charismatic Lithuanian plumbers with brown hair, I’d be inclined to believe it.”

 The Bible is still the best selling book around the world. No doubt, modern translations and marketing methods have helped to perpetuate this. Large sales of the Bible also shows us that there is a modern hunger for God’s Word (despite what mainline church attendance may indicate) and the fact that many of these Bible sales are “Study Bibles” of one kind or another, seems to confirm this. But do the prolific number of modern Bible translations hold to the original integrity of God’s message to man?

SINCERE QUESTIONS ABOUT THE INTEGRITY OF MODERN TRANSLATIONS
 Over the last few years serious allegations have been made against certain modern translations of the Bible. Most of these allegations have come from some parts of the Evangelical sector within the Christian community. The most common assumption made by those casting these allegations is that the King James Version is the only legitimate English Bible. They claim that the integrity and purity of the original manuscripts is only captured and preserved by the King James Version.

“The TEXTUS RECEPTUS, original Greek text from which the Authorised King James Bible was translated, has been the target of critics since 1611. Yet copies of it substantially exist today without error. This is the Bible you can trust. All this talk about older and more dependable manuscripts, like the theory of evolution, hangs upon an UNPROVEN HYPOTHESIS”

 According to the proponents of this argument, all modern translations are based on faulty and corrupted manuscripts. These manuscripts are faulty because they have deliberately omitted elements of the original text. They are corrupted because they have been deliberately altered in certain ways, especially in regard to essential Christian doctrine. One concerned critic of modern translations states that there is a simple litmus test to apply to modern translations-

“Any version of the Bible which omits Acts 8:37, or ‘Through His Blood,’ in Col. 1:14, evidently has for its foundation a corrupted manuscript. This corruption can be traced to 200 AD, when there lived one of the world’s foremost theologians whose name was Origen. Being a TEXTUAL CRITIC he is supposed to have corrected numerous portions of the sacred manuscripts. Evidence to the contrary shows that he changed them to agree with his own human philosophy of mystical and allegorical ideas. Thus certain original MSS became corrupt and it is evidently from this source the revised Bibles of this generation have come. Read pages 900-902, Vol. 16, 1936 edition Encyclopedia Britannica and you will see that Origen taught the “LOGUS” is “KTISMA”, meaning the Lord Jesus Christ is a created being. Thus, he could easily omit Acts 8:37 and other texts which testify to Christ’s deity.”

“Yet many today are troubled by the general acceptance given by their ministers and elders to modern versions of the Scriptures. They are troubled. Because they recognise that these new versions differ markedly from the Authorised Version which was the means of their conversion, and which has been reverenced as the Word of God by them and their forefathers for many generations. They are alarmed when they when they hear it said that their Bible contains mistakes and errors, or that textual experts are still looking for the pure Word among a multitude of manuscripts. They are grieved, when from their own pulpits, they hear their Bible subjected to criticism from self-appointed doctors of texts, who ought to be teaching them the Scriptures are the unchanging Word of God.”