James White of Alpha & Omega Ministries and author of The King James Only Controversy will be debating Dr. Jack Moorman, author of Forever Settled and other books defending the King James Bible. The debate will be live on British cable TV and online at www.revelation.tv. It is to be held at 9pm local UK time Feb. 2nd, which translates to 4pm Eastern time here in the US.

You can watch for free online. Click here for more details. I’ve been asked to encourage those interested to send in their email comments or text messages during the debate as a measure of knowing which side is the winner. If you watch the debate, consider chiming in here in the comments and let us know who you thought had the most convincing position and why.

Kevin Bauder, who is no friend of King James Onlyism, nevertheless explains why he thinks the King James Bible is the best available translation and the one he chooses to use. His thoughts on the King James Bible are shared in light of the 400th anniversary of the publishing of the King James Bible this year. I have excerpted his thoughts below, but encourage you to read the whole thing over at Sharper Iron. There are some interesting thoughts shared on the subject in the comments there too, which may be of interest to our readers.

The clarity of a translation is important—especially for Holy Scripture. Clarity, however, must not be reduced to mere “readability.” If the tradeoff for clarity is a significant loss of precision, then the price may well be too high. We should not feel obligated to make the Scriptures more clear than God Himself did.

The translator helps nothing when he attempts to resolve vagueness or ambiguity by making interpretive decisions for the reader. To assert that “God says” is miles away from humbly suggesting that, “I think this means….” Translators necessarily do the former, which means that they must resist the temptation to insert the latter.

The King James Version strikes a very good balance between accuracy and clarity. In spite of occasional failures (largely enforced by King James’s own dictates), the translation is remarkable both for its precision and for its intelligibility. Anyone who can understand Mortimer Adler’s How to Read a Book can understand the text of the King James Version.

The translators of the King James Version went beyond balance, however. What they produced is not merely a good translation. Their work is critically regarded as one of the great literary masterpieces of the English language. By translating at a high literary level, they have followed biblical writers such as Asaph and Isaiah, who were themselves masters of literary excellence. The glories of the Psalms and Prophets must not be lost to abecedarian translational technique. In the King James Version, they are not lost. Indeed, the cadences and locutions of the King James Version have seeped deeply into the heart of the English-speaking world.

Translations should reflect the literary level of the original text, and even the Greek of the New Testament was not really ordinary speech. It was not the Greek that one would hear in the shambles or even that one can read in the papyri. It was more formal, and at times it was crafted carefully according to literary considerations (the writer to the Hebrews is a master of literary technique).

Some are bothered by archaisms in the text of the King James Version. They need not be. Most of those archaisms are fairly easy to decipher. By performing that task, contemporary readers are imitating the original readers of many biblical documents. What is more, the archaisms serve a valuable purpose. They teach us that Scripture did not just come into being yesterday. They underline the truth that Scripture provides enduring answers to permanent questions. The Bible is not a book to be perused for momentary amusement, but one to be studied for life.

In the case of truly obsolete language, the King James Version can and should be updated. It has been before. It can be again. The work should be undertaken with reverence, not merely for the content of what is revealed, but for the locutions of the King James Version itself. No more should be changed than is really necessary. The people who would perform this task would place all readers of English in their debt.

It will never happen. The New King James Version fails by making changes that are unnecessary and sometimes banal. It is the worst of all possible worlds. No other translation, however, is likely to do better. The problem is that a version incorporating only necessary changes could never obtain an exclusive copyright. No publisher could hold exclusive rights to it. With no large sums to be made from a gentle revision, the printing houses will distribute and the pious will receive only a continuing stream of translations du jour.

Therein lies the real problem with the proliferation of modern translations. Few of them are objectionable in their own right. Most of them contribute something, and most are worthy of being consulted by readers who cannot understand the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. In the multiplication of translations, however, today’s Christians have lost significant intelligibility in sharing the Scriptures with one another.

…

Worse, the comparison of versions has made the Word of God into a consumer commodity. In order to attract the purchasing public, every new translation, paraphrase, and amplification has to have its own signature features. Its publisher must convince readers of the in-sufficiency of all previous versions. The purchase of a Bible becomes akin to the selection of a designer tie or perfume. One chooses a version like one chooses a flavor of soda. How can the transitory nature of modern versions not cast aspersion upon the enduring nature of God’s Word, and, consequently, of His character?

In sum, a good version of the Bible will be accurate, but it will not oversimplify. It will choose elevated language because it aims to shape feeling as well as thinking. It should be widely used and readily shared. It must leave the reader with the impression that the book wasn’t just written yesterday. It ought to be just a bit archaic.

In my opinion, the King James Version is the only translation of Holy Scripture into English that meets these criteria. It is not just a good version, it is a great one. It is both a great translation and a great work of literature. For me, the use of the King James Version is not simply a matter of nostalgia or sentimentality. It is unsurpassed for use in the corporate church setting, and it is as good as any for private devotional reading.

If others think differently, then they may use any faithful version without offending me. If I am preaching in their church, I will honor the church’s choice of Bible. At one level, it is a joy to have many good versions at our beck and call. All the same, I wonder how many of those versions will be celebrated four hundred years from now.

Don’t forget to read Bauder’s entire piece: “Four Hundred Years”.

Scott Oakland of Reformed Cast, a weekly podcast, will be interviewing Dr. Leland Ryken on the topic of the legacy of the King James Bible. The interview will be available for free download, but can be heard live tonight, Monday January 10, 2011 at 7pm Eastern. Here’s the official announcement from ReformedCast.

This week, we will have Leland Ryken on the program to discuss his book “The Legacy of the King James Bible: Celebrating 400 Years of the Most Influential English Translation.” Dr. Ryken is a professor of English at Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL, and has served as a member of the faculty there for 40 years. He has also served as literary stylist for The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Dr. Ryken is also the author of several books, including “Realms of Gold: The Classics in Christian Perspective”, “Translating Truth: The Case for Essentially Literal Bible Translation”, “The Word of God in English: Criteria for Excellence in Bible Translation”, “Wordly Saints – The Puritans as They Really Were”. Dr. Ryken also edited the “ESV Literary Study Bible”. Dr. Ryken received his PhD from the University of Oregon.

What does Jack the Ripper have to do with the King James Bible? Well, apparently he represents judgment on those of us who abandoned that old faithful translation of generations past. In 1881 the Revised Version came out and met with widespread approval. So seven years later, in 1888, 5 women faced a gruesome death at the heads of a maniac dubbed Jack the Ripper. Who’d have known this was retribution for abandoning the King James Bible?

Here’s the comment we received right here yesterday which alleges this very thing, that Jack the Ripper was judgment on Britain for abandoning the King James Bible.

I would think 1881 is a good year to note as a line of demarcation of overlap and underlap of the Church of the Laodiceans and the Church in Philadelphia because after all, that is when the Laodiceans started to accept the old/new Bible which after 7 years were rewarded for their deeds by being visited by Jack the Ripper (by their fruits ye shall know them). The Philadelphian Church Age will continue as long as the Rapture because there are going to be those who stand for the faith once delivered to the saints until that time. Revelation 3 says (well at least it does in my Bible) …

Re 3:10 Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.
11 Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.
12 Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.

Now of course, the 2001 ESV is to blame for America’s tragic terror incident of 911. But we could turn the tables on the KJB. In 1607 the translation work for the KJB was being done in earnest. That’s also the year that the England’s Bristol Channel flooded, killing over 2,000 people. (That’s a lot more than 5.) Then around the time the King James Bible was finally gaining or surpassing the place of the Geneva Bible as the most used English Bible, there was the Great Plague of London which killed over 100,000 people (1665-1666). Surely that was judgment on England for abandoning the old Geneva Bible.

This comment illustrates that sometimes, people will see connections where they want to see them. It’s hard reasoning with this mentality. For those on either side of the KJB debate, let us work toward a careful and calm interaction, not a conspiracy theory-driven mentality that frankly doesn’t edify anyone.

**Picture adapted from an 1880 Punch cartoon, “The Nemesis of Neglect”, accessed at Wikipedia, 12/27/2010.

It seems that one question that keeps cropping up over and over again is this:

..tell us where we can get a copy of this complete, inspired and 100% true Holy Bible you seem to want us to think you believe in. Tell us what it is called, or was called and if any copy of it exists in print.Do you have such a Book? Or is it just that you like the philosophical and hypothetical concept of an inspired and infallible Bible but don’t really have one?  (See here.)

One of my first posts on the King James Only issue was a commentary on the King James “Translators to The Reader”.  Here is what the translators said:

..we do not deny, nay, we affirm and avow, that the very meanest translation of the Bible in English, set forth by men of our profession, (for we have seen none of theirs of the whole Bible as yet) containeth the Word of God, nay, is the Word of God…

I expect to find the Word of God in every faithful translation of the Scriptures.  So, too, did the translators of our beloved Authorized Version.

These men also said:

..No cause therefore why the Word translated should be denied to be the Word, or forbidden to be current, notwithstanding that some imperfections and blemishes may be noted in the setting forth of it.
For whatever was perfect under the sun, where Apostles or apostolic men, that is, men endued with an extraordinary measure of God’s Spirit, and privileged with the privilege of infallibility, had not their hand?

Do you understand what they’re saying?  They ask why a translation should be denied to be the Word of God simply because there are some errors in translation.  In fact, they ask the question, “What perfect Bible is to be found except the one that was given under inspiration?”  These men believed in the inerrancy of the originals, yet recognized that every translation that would be made would have human errors in it due to the fact that God was not renewing the process of inspiration.

It would serve us well to understand, too, that these men didn’t embrace the KJVO concept of preservation.  They accepted that they/we have the Word of God, but they did not present a belief that God would preserve it without printing errors (such as the Wicked Bible) or translation errors.  They knew that God would preserve His  Word in spite of those things, and they expected God’s people to be reasonable enough to understand that.  In fact, should one read the whole of the “Translators to The Reader”, they would find that the ones from whom these men expected to receive opposition were the Roman Catholics.

Why, then, do these KJVO believers accept the translation work of these men, but reject their words concerning translations?  Why, then do they insist on tearing up churches, schools, fellowships, friendships, and spewing vitriolic words and ad hominem arguments?

Methinks the KJVO believers don’t truly embrace the work of the King James Version translators as much as they profess.

Where  is this perfect Bible, then?  Look at the one in your hand, or on your desk.  Is it a translation made by those who seek to be true to God’s Word?  It is the Word of God.