King James Only?

Blogging our way through the King James Only debate

Reading Between the Lines: The KJV's Marginal Notes on Hard Readings

The 1611 King James Version contains thousands of small annotations tucked alongside the main text. These marginal notes record alternative readings, manuscript variants, and brief translator notes about passages that puzzled the translation team. For readers used to modern Bibles printed without apparatus, the notes can feel unfamiliar, even intrusive. Yet they represent one of the most valuable windows we have into the scholarly work behind the translation.

Within the King James Only movement, the marginal notes occupy an awkward position. Defenders of the KJV often praise the translation's accuracy while simultaneously downplaying the marginal apparatus, sometimes treating it as a concession to "corrupt" manuscripts. Critics of the movement point to the notes as evidence that the translators themselves acknowledged textual difficulties and variant readings. Studying the notes verse by verse reveals how much information about Hebrew and Greek sources the original translators included, deliberately, for readers who wanted to see it.

This article walks through several of the most contested passages where the margins say something different from the main text. Along the way, it considers what the notes tell us about the translation philosophy, how modern editions handle the same material, and why Australian readers who rely on the KJV in church and personal study ought to take a careful look at what those little crosses and italics actually mean.

The Origin and Purpose of the Marginal Notes

When King James I authorised the new translation in 1604, the translators were instructed to follow the Bishop's Bible as their base while consulting the best available Greek and Hebrew texts. They were also told to indicate, in the margins, any readings that departed from the Bishop's Bible because the underlying languages supported something different. That instruction produced hundreds of marginal notes that flagged readings where the new translation consciously diverged from the older English text.

The notes were not seen as undermining the translation. They were understood as scholarly transparency. A reader who wondered why a verse read a certain way could glance to the margin and see whether an older English version had said something different, and what the original wording supported. In an era when many Christians still encountered the Bible primarily through public reading, this visual signalling helped preachers and teachers explain textual choices without lengthy footnotes.

Australians who pick up an original 1611 facsimile, or even a mid-twentieth century Cambridge edition, will find the margins dense with information. Compared with most modern Australian study Bibles from publishers based in Melbourne and Sydney, the KJV's margins are far more regularly populated with variant indications and cross-references. The Bible Society Australia editions of modern translations are typically printed with thin margins and almost no apparatus at all, which is one reason many readers never encounter the older style.

How the Translators Decided Which Readings to Flag

The translators met in six companies, two at Westminster, two at Cambridge, and two at Oxford, each reviewing the work of the others. Decisions about marginal readings were made collectively, sometimes after substantial debate. A reading might appear in the margin if it was supported by a major Greek manuscript, an ancient version, or by the Vulgate, even when the textus receptus said otherwise.

This is an important point for evaluating the King James Only claim that the KJV's text is exactly equivalent to the majority of Greek manuscripts. In many verses the marginal note actually represents what major manuscripts such as Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus say, while the main text reflects the later Byzantine text the translators had before them. The notes thus preserve evidence of a wider textual tradition than the printed text alone does.

The categories of entries that appear in the margins include:

A reader who works through these categories will notice that the translators rarely introduced marginal notes for theological reasons. They appear where the textual evidence genuinely diverged, not where doctrine was being emphasised.

Mark and John: The Two Most Discussed Pericopes

Two passages dominate every discussion of KJV textual variants: the longer ending of Mark (16:9-20) and the pericope of the woman caught in adultery (John 7:53–8:11). The 1769 standard edition prints both passages in the main text, but careful editions include a bracketed marking or italics at John 7:53, and many Cambridge editions flag the textual question in the margin.

In Mark 16, the marginal apparatus indicates that some manuscripts end the Gospel at verse 8, and that the longer passage is absent from the earliest uncial copies. The notes do not hide this. They acknowledge it directly. Readers in Australian charismatic and Pentecostal churches, where these verses are often preached as foundational, sometimes assume the questions were resolved centuries ago. The marginal notes show that the questions have always been alive in serious scholarship.

A useful exercise is to compare a 1611 facsimile with the Cambridge edition held in the Moore College collection in Newtown, or the library at Melbourne Bible College in Lilydale. The differences in how the margins are set, the size of the type, and the placement of asterisks reveal how editorial decisions have shifted, even when the underlying textual judgments have remained broadly consistent across the centuries.

The Comma Johanneum and 1 John 5:7-8

The Comma Johanneum, the Trinitarian gloss appearing in some manuscripts of 1 John 5:7-8 as "in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost," is treated in KJV margins with an unusual form of annotation. The words appear in italics in many editions, signalling that they were not in the standard Greek text, and the margin notes indicate that they are absent from older manuscripts.

This passage is central to many King James Only arguments, particularly those that treat the Comma as a necessary part of the apostolic deposit. Reading the margin in the KJV itself, however, reveals that the translators were aware of the textual problem and chose to retain the words with markers rather than silently drop them. The notes do not endorse the Comma as original. They signal its presence in certain Latin manuscripts while noting its absence from the Greek, leaving the reader to weigh the evidence.

For Australian readers engaging with online debates about manuscript reliability, the marginal handling of 1 John 5:7-8 offers a useful case study in how a translation can preserve contested readings without claiming them to be original. The KJV itself models the kind of nuanced position that the more rigid forms of KJV Only advocacy tend to erase.

Old Testament Passages in the Margins

The Old Testament marginal notes are often overlooked, partly because readers assume they contain nothing of consequence. Yet they include substantial entries at passages like 1 Samuel 13:1, where the Hebrew text gives Saul's age as a typographically corrupted number that older English translations rendered differently. The margin notes that the Hebrew is uncertain, and offers the figure of "thirty" from the Vulgate as one alternative.

Similar entries appear at 2 Samuel 21:19, where the main text attributes the killing of Goliath to Elhanan rather than David, with a margin referring the reader to 1 Chronicles 20:5 for clarification. At Job's final verses, and at several passages in the Prophets, the margins preserve readings the translators considered but did not adopt into the main text, including a number of places where the Septuagint offered a smoother sense than the Hebrew consonants.

Australian Hebrew scholars, including some of those listed on the contributors page maintained by this site, have pointed out that these Old Testament marginal notes often reflect real engagement with the Masoretic Text, the Septuagint, and the Vulgate. They are not throwaway lines. They represent decisions made by people who could read the sources.

What the Notes Reveal About the Translators' Method

Taken together, the marginal notes establish that the KJV translators were careful, conservative, and transparent. They preserved the received text where it stood, even when manuscript evidence was older and arguably stronger, while allowing readers to see the variants and parallels the scholars had considered.

They did not present the translation as though every word was the only possible reading. They signalled, in a consistent visual language, where the underlying languages were uncertain and where parallel passages clarified the meaning. This is the opposite of the textual dogmatism often attributed to the King James Only position. The translation itself models a humble approach to textual criticism.

Readers in Australian Bible study groups often discover this only after years of using the KJV without consulting the margins. Walking slowly through a passage with the margins open, marking the alternative readings, then comparing them with what modern translations print produces a richer picture than relying on the main text alone. The apparatus slows the reader down in a way that encourages the kind of attention the translators hoped their readers would bring.

Putting the Notes to Work in Modern Study

For practical Bible study, the marginal notes can be used like a small textual commentary. When a verse seems strange, the margin often offers an alternative reading that clarifies it. When a verse is missing from modern translations, the margin sometimes explains the omission. When a passage is challenged by critics, the margin frequently pre-empts the criticism with an alternative already noted in 1611.

A few practical habits help Australian readers get more out of the apparatus:

Churches in Australia that still rely on the KJV in preaching, particularly in Baptist, Pentecostal, and some independent evangelical settings, would benefit from teaching their congregations how to read the apparatus. Adding a short note in a Bible study leaflet about how to interpret the marginal symbols, italics, and bracketed verses helps close the gap between pastoral use of the text and scholarly awareness of the underlying manuscripts. In a country where Bible literacy varies widely and where many churches hold to the KJV out of tradition rather than textual conviction, that kind of catechesis serves the text better than silence.

The marginal notes were never meant to be hidden. They are an invitation to read carefully, weigh evidence, and engage with the sources the translators themselves consulted. Subscribe to the site, leave a comment with a passage you would like to see examined in this format, or send in a question from your own Bible study group to keep the conversation moving forward.