As many of you who will be reading this blog are aware this year marks the 400th year since the King James Version, or Authorised Version of the bible was released. This was a watershed moment for the church and any number of churches you may care to visit today will still be using the King James Version.
In it's this version was a literary masterpiece and many of the phrases contained within it are still in widespread use today. "A fly in the ointment" "By the skin of your teeth" being just two examples but many more can be found here.
But what i want to consider in this post is the very emotive question does the King James Version actually break one of the fundamental rules of protestantism today? The King James version was a child of the reformation, born at a time when religion and the way we did "church" was changing forever. The protestant reformers had 3 main points that differentiated them from their Catholic opponents.
The first of these was "Sola Fida" by faith alone, that the only way we could come to know God was through faith in his son Jesus Christ, that faith in Jesus was the only way to have right relationship with God, not through performing acts or supporting the church well enough but only through faith.
Secondly there was the idea of the priesthood of all believers. For the catholics only ordained ministers where suitable to read the scriptures, only they could understand them, only the ordained could hold office within a church. The protestants believed that all men should be able to read the scriptures that all men should be eligible to hold office within the church.
Finally then there was the idea of "Sola Scriptura". That the bible alone is the Word of God revealed to us. The reformers believed that the bible should be available to all men to read in a language that they understood. For the catholics the bible could only be read in Latin, which the uneducated man in the pew had no access to and couldn't understand. But the reformers wanted to change this and made the bible accessible to all men.
This is the point where i feel that the King James Version really falls down today, a wonderful translation...yes. Used by God...undoubtedly but how many of us really understand what the King James is saying today? Most of us today do not speak in the language of thee's and thou's we speak in modern English and in my opinion the bible should be read both privately and corporately in a translation that makes it as easy as possible for the people reading it to understand, which is essentially what the reformers proposed in not having the bible read in Latin.
Perhaps the final word belongs to the preface to the King James Version itself, where it claims not to be a new translation but rather to build on the work of William Tyndale in translating the bible. Many modern translations today build upon the fine work of the translators of the King James Version, especially the English Standard Version. Is it now on the translations 400th birthday time to be thankful for the translation but also a time to switch to those who have picked up the baton and carried it forward?
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