The elegance and beauty of the King James Version of the Scriptures is undeniable. The flow of the wording, and the power of the language make quite the impact. Consider, for example, the opening words of the Book of Hebrews from the 1611:
"God who at sundry times, and in diuers manners, spake in time past vnto the Fathers by the Prophets, Hath in these last dayes spoken vnto vs by his Sonne, whom he hath appointed heire of all things, by whom also he made the worlds,
Who being the brightnesse of his glory, and the expresse image of his person, and vpholding all things by the word of his power, when hee had by himselfe purged our sinnes, sate down on ye right hand of the Maiestie on high,
Being made so much better then the Angels, as hee hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent Name then they. For vnto which of the Angels said he at any time, Thou art my sonne, this day haue I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Sonne.[i]"
What beauty! What majesty! Yet, some other feature also makes itself known. The spelling of the 1611 is notably inconsistent, not only with today’s standards, but with itself. As can easily be noted by reading the above. There are several features foreign to modern readers. “Other features included “V = U (Example: vnto = unto | See John 1:11. As a variation of the same letter, 'V' was used at the beginning of a word and 'U' within. ) VV = W (Example: svvord = sword) [The V was called a 'U', this is why we still call a W a 'double U'] I = J (Example: Iesus = Jesus | See John 1:17) Long "s" letters look similar to "f" letters”[ii]
Even modern punctuation is different, most easily seen in the KJV’s total lack of modern quotation marks. (The history of such things is long and complicated, and usage was in flux long after the KJV was first printed.[iii])
However, thanks to the efforts of men like Dr. Paris on the 1762 edition, and Dr. Blayney and his incredible work on the 1769 edition of the KJV[iv], the punctuation and spelling were standardized to the usage of the time, which is far closer to today’s English than that of 1611. However, those revisions, in adjusting many things, did not adjust the vocabulary.
In fact, with around 80% of the KJV’s phrasing coming from Tyndale’s Bible[v] (editions date from 1525 to 1535.)[vi] most of the vocabulary and wording of the KJV is reaching 500 years old.
What does this mean for modern readers?
Much like the archaic spelling and punctuation, there’s an element of alienness, misunderstanding, and confusion that’s certainly present. However, unlike the other features, the vocabulary has not been revised, causing it to remain, at the same time, the most infamous, and the most recognizable feature of the KJV.
Many readers will, no doubt, think of words like “Thee” and “thou,” which, though unfamiliar in normal speech, as easily learned and understood. Others, however, are not so easy. “Importunity,” “Cockatrice”, “Beeves”, “Astonied”, “Habergeon”, and “Jacinth”, just to name a few, are wholly unknown to modern English speakers.
These words are frequently deemed “archaic” or “obsolete” or even simply “old-fashioned.” However, the first two of those descriptors have slightly different meanings, and bear defining.
Here’s the OED on “archaic”: “Belonging to an earlier period, no longer in common use, though still retained either by individuals, or generally, for special purposes, poetical, liturgical, etc. Thus the pronunciation obleege is archaic in the first case; the pronoun thou in the second.”[vii]
Obsolete, however, can be explained this way: “Archaic words and senses are dying, or they are living off a small sidestreet in Limbo frequented only by people who have some special business there. But obsolete words and senses are six feet under in the linguistic cemetery.[viii]”
Entire words, then, may be either archaic or obsolete, like “astonied” above, but, in some cases, one or more of the meanings of the words may be outdated, while other senses are not. Mark Ward’s “Fifty False Friends in the KJV” video series tackles a sample of those words.[ix] In those case, the word itself is familiar (a friend, in a sense) but the meaning used in the KJV is not one most readers know. (So, now, a false friend) The side effect of this is that readers will naturally define the word by the modern meaning they are familiar with, leading to severe misunderstanding, until the reader thinks to look it up.
While false friends are tricky, and often go unnoticed, (giving the wrong impression) the obsolete words themselves give no impression. Readers can use context or other clues to guess, but until they look it up, they can’t know for sure until, again, they look it up. Of course, looking up 500 year old words and phrases is not always easy, but certainly possible. Yet, this sounds like a lot of dictionary reading.
Paul, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, wrote this “So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? for ye shall speak into the air.”[x]
This presents a dilemma. For, if the older, no longer understood meaning, is closer to the original Greek word in meaning, is it better to use the old English word for more precision, or a new word for more immediate understanding?
An older word or two, say, “Collop” or “Besom” would give no meaning to modern readers. So, 0% meaning itself, requiring looking at context for even the slightest clue, and eventually a dictionary for the full meaning. Is that better, then, than replacing them with words that give, say, 80-90% of the precise meaning, and then require a dictionary to get the final 10%? Wouldn’t having something in the text that gives 90% of the meaning be better than 0%? If one is forced to a dictionary anyway for that 100% meaning mark, wouldn’t it be better to give readers a bit more to go on before hitting that last step?
This question gives rise to two other major questions. First, how bad is this problem? And second, at what point does the problem become so big that footnotes can’t deal with it? When would Christians need a revision, or new translation altogether?
How bad is the problem?
Getting hard numbers on this is rather more difficult than would be expected. For one, there’s not an agreed on standard for when a word or word meaning becomes archaic/obsolete, and at what point it should be replaced. Some words have obviously fallen out of common usage, yet are not marked as such in dictionaries. (For example, “importunity” is listed normally in Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, without any tags of being archaic or obsolete, or even rare[xi], yet I highly doubt any of us used that word anytime this week.) Other words, especially the False Friends, may have a modern definition just close enough that one could make a case for it, even if that definition goes against the meaning of the original language word it is translating. (For example, “Halt” didn’t mean stop, but rather, “limp” in 1611. However, “halting/stopping between two opinions” makes perfect sense in English, even if the underlying Hebrew phrase requires the “limp” translation in 1 Kings 18:21)
Even then, sometimes the archaic words carry slightly more specific meanings that some are loath to lose. “Thee” and “thou” are the singular forms of “you” and “ye,” so losing the three older ones and replacing them all with “you” loses the specificity of number in pronouns, something those advocating for formal equivalence must wrestle with.[xii] Others are dead set against any change, for that very reason: “Some ridicule the language of the King James Bible, calling it quaint, old-fashioned or inaccurate. However, complete conceptual accuracy is in the King James Bible, and the exactness of concepts is communicated by even the so-called “archaic” words. This makes the Biblical English far more exact than ordinary English, for in Biblical English there are distinctions made right down to the spelling and grammar which are absent elsewhere.” [xiii]
However, because those words are not in common use, this leads pastors and teachers to, in effect, “translate” the old word into modern English. Tim Mackie once exclaimed “Aren’t translations supposed to be translations? I shouldn’t have to translate the translation!”[xiv] This view is echoed by hosts of other pastors and teachers, with the older, oft misunderstood vocabulary and grammar of the KJV being cited as one main reason for a fresh translation. The many, many translations done into English over the last 150 years is testament to the fact that many believe translations should remain current, or in the words of the KJV translators themselves: “Indeed without translation into the vulgar tongue, the unlearned are but like children at Jacob's well (which was deep) [John 4:11] without a bucket or something to draw with; or as that person mentioned by Isaiah, to whom when a sealed book was delivered, with this motion, Read this, I pray thee, he was fain to make this answer, I cannot, for it is sealed. [Isa 29:11]” and later “But we desire that the Scripture may speak like itself, as in the language of Canaan, that it may be understood even of the very vulgar.[xv]”
However, the above is straying from the question at hand: How bad is the problem?
One source contains the following numbers: The Old Testament alone has 10,867 unique words, the NT alone has 6, 063 unique words, and the Apocrypha, (a part of the 1611 KJV) has 6,758 unique words. However, due to the overlap[xvi], the total unique words of the entire 1611 is given as only 14,564.[xvii]
Thanks to the difference in scholarly opinion, there is no set list of KJV words that are archic/obsolete/rare enough to need definition.
Also, an important consideration is that both testaments are full of Proper Nouns, which, while counting as unique words, are not part of the conversation when it comes to old/misunderstood words. Names are names, and besides some spelling update or standardization, are not “updated” by new names. One source claims there are 3,085 Proper Names in total, in the OT and NT.[xviii] (Sadly, we do not have the figures on the Apocrypha at this time, so those will already throw off the final counts a touch. Sorry!)
Subtracting the names, we end up with 11,479 unique words.
If we only take Mark Ward’s list of 50 False Friends, that’s only 0.44% of the words, about 1 out of every 250. But, again, False Friends are not the only problem, even if they are the sneakiest.
Others claim “only 300 or so could truly be considered ‘archaic’ or obscure in their meaning”[xix] Thus, 2.61% of the words. (However, that website claims “around 12,000” different words in the NT and OT, yet doesn’t specify if that includes proper names. If we remove the 3,085 Proper Names from their 12,000 count, the percentage leaps closer to 3%) this same website then provides a list of 750 “less commonly used” words, which means 6.53% of the total words are “less common.”
The Trinitarian Bible Society has a pamphlet with a “word list” that’s around 700 words which they feel the modern English reader will not understand correctly.[xx] This becomes 6.1%.
Vance has 712 examples of words/phrases in his Archaic Words and the Authorized Version[xxi] This is 6.2%.
One printed “King James Dictionary” provides “A collection of archaic, obscure and hard to understand words and phrases, with over a thousand definitions and examples,”[xxii] This is a figure of 8.71% of 1611 KJV words as, at least, “hard to understand.”
Another, the “The KJV Dictionary” lists over 2,000[xxiii] leading to about 17% of the words.
Ironically, the highest figure of defined words comes from a KJVO advocate. D. A Waite, the leader of the Dean Borgun Society, published the book titled “4,114 Definitions from the Defined King James Bible”[xxiv] This booklet contained the definitions he included in his “The Defined King James Bible”[xxv]
This massive number claims that 35.84% of the words of the KJV need definition. While I don’t own a copy to confirm, even if we assume that he defines every single proper name in both testaments, and remove that total number from this total, that still leaves 1, 029 words, which is still 8.96%, or easily rounded up to 9%.
Keep in mind, all of these percentages, unless specified, are using the 11,479 number, which includes unique words and proper names of the apocrypha, since I don’t have those hard numbers to remove. If we use the “about 12,000” estimate from one website for just the NT and OT, remove the 3,000 proper names, that leaves 9,000 unique words, boosting the above percentages up slightly. (That website’s figure of 750 “hard to understand” words jumps from 6.5% to 8.33%, while Waite’s raw number of 4,114 definitions leaps from 35% to an enormous 45%! However, again, I don’t know how many of Waite’s words are proper names and should be removed from the count, nor how many of the "definitions" belong to the same word.)
Either way, the common number seems to float around 6%-8% of the words/phrases are at least “hard to understand.” That averages to 1 in every 14 unique words/phrases, but the higher estimates can reach even higher to 1 in 6.
Now, context can sometimes help give the general sense of an unfamiliar phrase, but to really understand what one is reading requires stopping and examining a dictionary. Doing that once for every 14 unique words you encounter is not something many Bible students would relish.
As the vocabulary gap widens between the 1611 KJV, and today’s readers, that percentage will only climb higher. The 500-year-old phrasing of Tyndale’s Bible is rapidly becoming as foreign to modern men as the Greek and Hebrew he translated from.
John Wycliffe’s own English Bible, translated in 1382, reads in Hebrews 1:4 “and so myche is maad betere than aungels, bi hou myche he hath eneritid a more dyuerse name bifor hem.” While this is somewhat readable, perhaps to those already familiar to the KJV, it’s incredibly, undeniably strange to most modern readers. The written English of Wycliffe’s day was so very different than that of the modern era that it’s deemed “Middle-English” a completely different stage in the English language’s development. A little over 200 years separated Wycliffe’s Bible from the KJV, yet even the latter is already 400 years old and counting. Thankfully, the rate of change has slowed over the years, but it has certainly not stopped. Soon, the KJV English will be as foreign to readers as Wycliffe’s is to us today, and in time, it will become even more so.
At what point do we make changes?
So, how much is too much? An unknown word here and there are doubtless no problem, but at what percentage do we revise the vocabulary for the sake of modern readers? Does it need to reach 10%? 20%? 50%? At what point do we wake up? It may be too early now, but what's the cut off?
The KJV translators wrote the word “vulgar” (meaning common) 12 times in The Translators to the Readers, making it clear they wanted a Bible understood by all, not just linguistic/religious elites. Tyndale’s famous quote from years before reads “I defie the Pope and all his lawes. If God spare my life, ere many yeares I wyl cause a boy that driveth the plough to know more of the Scripture, than he doust.”[xxvi] This “plowboy” mentality was even set by the NT Greek being, not an elevated style, but “Koine” or “common” Greek. The working language of the everyday people. Yet, the KJV is no longer near that for English speakers.
Even KJVO advocates recognize this need for common-language Bibles to a point. Many sites have posted “KJV Words Lists”[xxvii],[xxviii] While several others have opted for adding footnotes to their Bibles for clarity.[xxix] One man, D. A. Waite claims his “Defined King James” is even “better[xxx]” than the original KJV as it provides those extra footnotes defining those unknown words. TBS wrote an article referencing the “…languages in which the Society is revising (or has revised) older editions of the Scriptures such as the Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian and French” and later, they make the difference by stating “In some of the languages in which the Society is working (or has been working), such as Chinese, Spanish, Maltese, Persian, Polish, Romanian and Bulgarian, the pace and extent of change far exceeds what we have seen in English.”[xxxi] While this statement was made to justify not revisiting the KJV, it also reveals their heart for common-language revisions, as well as their honestly noticing the changes in English, even if they don’t see them as demanding a new translation just yet.
While some do see the need for revision, however light, there are some severe obstacles in the way of that actually happening soon. The Trinitarian Bible Society, in the same article mentioned above, referenced the subject of revision in which they stated:
“Moreover, the extent of any revision and its parameters would be extremely difficult to define and to keep within bounds. The retention of ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ and ‘thy’, etc., is an essential and helpful feature of accuracy pertaining to the AV, coming as it does from the underlying Hebrew and Greek texts. Any right-thinking revision committee should surely retain this useful and distinctive feature. But thus far all revisions of the AV—heavy and light, large and small—have seen fit to jettison the second person singular forms. Even a Society-led revision that left them in would probably result in an edition that only satisfied a few, leading to fragmentation among our support base as a disaffected and disappointed majority would either move to other versions or cling to the old standard edition of the AV. A new revision of the AV by the Society would thus damage our work, and very likely damage the use of the AV itself.” [xxxii]
Others, however, sharply disagree. Rather that minimize the problem, or simply call for a host of footnotes, they call for extensive revisions, or even completely new translations. After all, as Glen Scorgie wrote: “If a translation is published, but fails to communicate, it is really a translation?”[xxxiii]
The preface of the RSV reads “A major reason for revision of the King James Version, which is valid for both the Old Testament and the New Testament, is the change since 1611 in English usage. Many forms of expression have become archaic, while still generally intelligible—the use of thou, thee, thy, thine and the verb endings -est and -edst, the verb endings -eth and -th, it came to pass that, whosoever, whatsoever, insomuch that, because that, for that, unto, howbeit, peradventure, holden, aforetime, must needs, would fain, behooved, to you-ward, etc.”[xxxiv]
This sentiment is echoed in the preface of the NKJV: “Yet it is also universally understood that our language, like all living languages, has undergone profound change since 1611. Subsequent revisions of the King James Bible have sought to keep abreast of changes in English speech. The present work is a further step toward this objective. Where obsolescence and other reading difficulties exist, present-day vocabulary, punctuation, and grammar have been carefully integrated. Words representing ancient objects, such as chariot and phylactery, have no modern substitutes and are therefore retained.[xxxv]”
Many other recent English translations echo the same sentiments, much to the chagrin of those loyal to the idea of KJVOnlyism.
But, even if one denies the current need for revision and/or retranslation, these statistics and admissions from KJVO sources should give food for thought. If not now, when? The common, everyday people need a Bible that’s accessible to them. It’s not just for Bible nerds and educated experts. In fact, I Corinthians 14:9 clearly states “So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? for ye shall speak into the air.” Paul seems incredibly concerned here with understanding. Christian edification requires understanding. The Bible demands it.
For those still clinging to the KJV, what’s the hard line that will need to be crossed? Is it ahead, behind, or right now? Are simple footnotes enough, and if they are so necessary, what’s so wrong with reversing it, and leaving the old word in the footnote, and the new in the text? Could we not do that with even the most egregiously archaic examples, or must we cling so tightly to an ever-aging vocabulary, not even to mention the grammar and style which provide yet another layer of complexity and alienness to modern readers?
It’s a subject worthy of deep thought, and the classic “just look it up in a dictionary” line is, day by day, becoming far more impractical and unsustainable. You shouldn’t need a dictionary to simply read the Bible. To study it in depth, absolutely. Simply to read it…I think not.
The statistics above clearly show the KJV is no longer in the vernacular. The average floats around 1 in 10 words in the KJV is considered in need of definition and explanation even by KJVOnlysts.
Mark Ward summed up the argument of his book, Authorized, dealing with the language change of the KJV, like this: “Don’t step in the way of your children or grandchildren inheriting what is their birthright as Protestants – no, as Christians: the unadulterated words of God translated in the vernacular.”[xxxvi]
Bibliography
“Archaic or Obscure King James Era Words Explained.” Archaic King James Era (Old English) Words Explained - WebBible Encyclopedia - ChristianAnswers.Net, Christiananswers.net, christiananswers.net/dictionary/kjvwords.html.
Bailey, Nicholas. (2007). Proper Names in the Bible: translation and transliteration issues. (Word & Deed 2007). 2007. (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324574446_Proper_Names_in_the_Bible_translation_and_transliteration_issues_Word_Deed_2007)
“Bible Concordance.” Bible Concordance - All Words in the King James Version, Art and the Bible, www.artbible.info/concordance/.
Carroll, Scott. PASSAGES 400th ANNIVERSARY OF THE KING JAMES BIBLE EXHIBITION CATALOG. Passages, 2011.
Foxe, John, and Charles Henry Hamilton Wright. Foxe's Book of Martyrs: a Complete and Accurate Account of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive and Protestant Martyrs in All Parts of the World. Morgan & Scott, 1929.
GUIDE TO THE PCE OF THE KING JAMES BIBLE, Matthew Verschuur https://www.bibleprotector.com/GUIDE_TO_PCE.pdf Page 385
Houston, Keith. Shady Characters: the Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols & Other Typographical Marks. W.W. Norton & Company, 2014.
“Importunity.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/importunity. Accessed 20 Dec. 2020.
Isaac, Jasper, et al. The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament and the New: Newly Translated out of the Originall Tongues. By Robert Barker, Printer to the Kings Most Excellent Maiestie, 1612.
Jon Nielson & Royal Skousen (1998) How Much of the King James Bible Is William Tyndale's?, Reformation, 3:1, 49-74, DOI: 10.1179/ref_1998_3_1_004
Kapusta, Philip P. A King James Dictionary: a Resource for Understanding the Language of the King James Bible. New Covenant Press, 2012.
“King James Bible English Spelling.” King James Bible Online, www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/King-James-Bible-English/.
“King James Bible Word List & Definitions.” King James Bible Wordlist & Definitions, PreservedWords.com, www.preservedwords.com/wordlist.html.
Lewthwaite, Michael Curtis., and Grant Wayne. McComb. The KJV Dictionary: Uncommon, Doctrinal, & Thematic Terms Defined by Noah Webster's 1828 Dictionary. KJV Dictionary, 2010.
The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament and the New: Newly Translated out of the Originall Tongues. By Robert Barker, Printer to the Kings Most Excellent Maiestie, 1611.
The New King James Bible. Thomas Nelson Inc, 1979.
Preaching Bible. Thomas Nelson, 2019.
“Quarterly Record No. 625.” Https://Www.tbsbibles.org/, 2018, www.tbsbibles.org/news/news.asp?id=426621.
Scorgie, Glen G., et al. The Challenge of Bible Translation: Communicating God's Word to the World: Zondervan, 2003.
Scrivener, Frederick Henry Ambrose. The Authorized Edition of the English Bible (1611): Its Subsequent Reprints and Modern Representatives. Bible For Today, 1994.
Scrivener, Frederick Henry Ambrose. The Authorized Edition of the English Bible (1611): Its Subsequent Reprints and Modern Representatives. University Press, 1884.
Standard, Bible english. revised. The Holy Bible: Revised Standard Version. 2nd ed., Collins, 1971.
“The Translators to the Reader: King James Only Preface.” One Bible Only?: Examining Exclusive Claims for the King James Bible, by Roy E. Beacham and Kevin T. Bauder, Kregel Publications, 2001, pp. 192–215.
Vance, Laurence M. Archaic Words and the Authorized Version. Vance Publications, 2011.
Waite, D. A. 4,114 Definitions from the Defined King James Bible: Extracted from the DKJB by Dr. Jung and His South Korean Helpers ; with Additions and Enhancements by the Original Author of the Definitions. Bible for Today, 2003.
Waite, D. A. The Defined King James Bible. Bible For Today, 1998.
Waite, D. A., et al. The Defined King James Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments Translated out of the Original Tongues and with the Former Translations Diligently Compared and Revised by His Majesty's Special Command. Bible For Today, 2005.
Ward, Mark L. Authorized: the Use & Misuse of the King James Bible. Lexham Press, 2018.
Ward, Mark. “False Friends #1-Series Introduction.” YouTube, YouTube, 9 Apr. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4WnlmubwFs.
Ward, Mark. “Review: Laurence M. Vance's Archaic Words and the Authorized Version.” By Faith We Understand, 23 June 2020, byfaithweunderstand.com/2020/06/23/kjvg01/.
Wayne, Luke. “Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry.” CARM.org, Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry, 26 Feb. 2019, carm.org/KJVO/kjv-list-of-archaic-words-and-modern-equivalents.
Weiner, E. S. C., and J. A. Simpson. The Oxford English Dictionary. Clarendon Press, 1989.
Endnotes
[i] The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament and the New: Newly Translated out of the Originall Tongues. By Robert Barker, Printer to the Kings Most Excellent Maiestie, 1611. [ii] “King James Bible English Spelling.” King James Bible Online, www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/King-James-Bible-English/. [iii] Houston, Keith. Shady Characters: the Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols & Other Typographical Marks. W.W. Norton & Company, 2014. [iv] Scrivener, Frederick Henry Ambrose. The Authorized Edition of the English Bible (1611): Its Subsequent Reprints and Modern Representatives. University Press, 1884. Page 28. [v] One study found 84% in the NT, and 76% in the OT. Jon Nielson & Royal Skousen (1998) How Much of the King James Bible Is William Tyndale's?, Reformation, 3:1, 49-74, DOI: 10.1179/ref_1998_3_1_004 [vi] Carroll, Scott. PASSAGES 400th ANNIVERSARY OF THE KING JAMES BIBLE EXHIBITION CATALOG. Passages, 2011. [vii] Weiner, E. S. C., and J. A. Simpson. The Oxford English Dictionary. Clarendon Press, 1989. [viii] Ward, Mark. “Review: Laurence M. Vance's Archaic Words and the Authorized Version.” By Faith We Understand, 23 June 2020, byfaithweunderstand.com/2020/06/23/kjvg01/. [ix] Ward, Mark. “False Friends #1-Series Introduction.” YouTube, YouTube, 9 Apr. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4WnlmubwFs. [x] I Corinthians 14:9, KJV. [xi] “Importunity.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/importunity. Accessed 20 Dec. 2020. [xii] In fact, the ASV committee made use of “thee” and “thou” for that very reason. However, the problem remains, English still loses the gender in those pronouns, and others, so any choice of pronoun will lose some specificity and preciseness in the translation. [xiii] GUIDE TO THE PCE OF THE KING JAMES BIBLE, Matthew Verschuur https://www.bibleprotector.com/GUIDE_TO_PCE.pdf Page 385 [xiv] Mackie, Tim. “God’s Global Family – Family of God E1.” https://thebibleproject.simplecast.com/, https://thebibleproject.simplecast.com/episodes/gods-global-family-family-of-god-e1 [xv] Spelling updated as reproduced in “The Translators to the Reader: King James Only Preface.” One Bible Only?: Examining Exclusive Claims for the King James Bible, by Roy E. Beacham and Kevin T. Bauder, Kregel Publications, 2001, pp. 192–215. [xvi] For example, the NT, the Apoc, and the OT all have the word “and” so it can only count once in the total count, not three times. This dramatically reduces the number of overall unique words. [xvii] “Bible Concordance.” Bible Concordance - All Words in the King James Version, Art and the Bible, www.artbible.info/concordance/. [xviii] Bailey, Nicholas. (2007). Proper Names in the Bible: translation and transliteration issues. (Word & Deed 2007). 2007. (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324574446_Proper_Names_in_the_Bible_translation_and_transliteration_issues_Word_Deed_2007) [xix] “King James Bible Word List & Definitions.” King James Bible Wordlist & Definitions, PreservedWords.com, www.preservedwords.com/wordlist.html. [xx] “Quarterly Record No. 625.” Https://Www.tbsbibles.org/, 2018, www.tbsbibles.org/news/news.asp?id=426621. [xxi] Vance, Laurence M. Archaic Words and the Authorized Version. Vance Publications, 2011. [xxii] Kapusta, Philip P. A King James Dictionary: a Resource for Understanding the Language of the King James Bible. New Covenant Press, 2012. [xxiii] Lewthwaite, Michael Curtis., and Grant Wayne. McComb. The KJV Dictionary: Uncommon, Doctrinal, & Thematic Terms Defined by Noah Webster's 1828 Dictionary. KJV Dictionary, 2010. [xxiv] Waite, D. A. 4,114 Definitions from the Defined King James Bible: Extracted from the DKJB by Dr. Jung and His South Korean Helpers ; with Additions and Enhancements by the Original Author of the Definitions. Bible for Today, 2003. [xxv] Waite, D. A., et al. The Defined King James Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments Translated out of the Original Tongues and with the Former Translations Diligently Compared and Revised by His Majesty's Special Command. Bible For Today, 2005. [xxvi]As quoted in the Actes and Monuments of these Latter and Perillous Days. Foxe, John, and Charles Henry Hamilton Wright. Foxe's Book of Martyrs: a Complete and Accurate Account of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive and Protestant Martyrs in All Parts of the World. Morgan & Scott, 1929. [xxvii] “Archaic or Obscure King James Era Words Explained.” Archaic King James Era (Old English) Words Explained - WebBible Encyclopedia - ChristianAnswers.Net, Christiananswers.net, christiananswers.net/dictionary/kjvwords.html. [xxviii] Wayne, Luke. “Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry.” CARM.org, Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry, 26 Feb. 2019, carm.org/KJVO/kjv-list-of-archaic-words-and-modern-equivalents. [xxix] Preaching Bible. Thomas Nelson, 2019. [xxx] Using the phrase “the Lord will use my feeble efforts "to make a good [version] better"” Waite, D. A. The Defined King James Bible. Bible For Today, 1998. [xxxi] “Quarterly Record No. 625.” https://www.tbsbibles.org/, 2018, www.tbsbibles.org/news/news.asp?id=426621. [xxxii] Ibid [xxxiii] Scorgie, Glen G., et al. The Challenge of Bible Translation: Communicating God's Word to the World: Zondervan, 2003. Page 20. [xxxiv] Standard, Bible english. revised. The Holy Bible: Revised Standard Version. 2nd ed., Collins, 1971. [xxxv] The New King James Bible. Thomas Nelson Inc, 1979. [xxxvi] Ward, Mark L. Authorized: the Use & Misuse of the King James Bible. Lexham Press, 2018
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