King James Only-ism: Is the KJV King?

Thanks to NordPass for sponsoring this video.

0:00 Introduction
3:14 History of the KJV
7:11 Origins of KJV Onlyism
11:00 Sponsorship break
12:01 KJV Translation: Is it good?
20:15 Analysis: Fundamentalism

Bibliography:
David Anderson, “The Perfection of English and the Making of the KJB,” PBS Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, September 20, 2011.
J.K. Elliott, “Patristic Evidence in the Apparatus Criticus of a Greek New Testament,” in Studies on the Text of the New Testament and Early Christianity, 55-70.
Mark Heuer, “An Evaluation of John W. Burgon’s Use of Patristic Evidence,” JETS 38/4 (December 1995), 519-530.
Margaret Bendroth, “Christian Fundamentalism in America,” 2017.
David Norton, The King James Bible: A Short History from Tyndale to Today, 2011.
Brenda Brasher, Encyclopedia of Fundamentalism, (New York: Routledge, 2001).
Jon Nielson and Royal Skousen, “How Much of the King James Bible is William Tyndale’s?: An Estimation Based on Sampling,” Reformation, Volume 3, 1998.

[TheEsotericaChannel]

Still has my favorite Biblical phrase - those that "pisseth against the wall."

[RockandrollNegro]

I once heard a preacher say of the KJV, "If it was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me." He said that unironically.

[yiannisroubos]

I’m Greek Orthodox and I’ve had an interesting experience with a Protestant. He was telling me only the kjv should be read because it’s the original version. I said, well, I’m Greek, I read the Bible in Greek, it’s the language the apostles spoke. The Protestant said, well the kjv is based on the original manuscripts, I said, I read the original manuscripts! His brain literally didn’t compute and he said to me again, the kjv is the original bible based on the original manuscripts.

I just said, ok, no point arguing with him. I guess he didn’t know the original language was Greek

[rodrogers]

For years I was involved in prison ministry.

The average prisoner probably had a seventh or eighth grade reading level.

I gave out a variety of scriptures, the living Bible, good news for modern Man, etc.

I cannot tell you the number of men who came up to me with tears in their eyes thanking me for giving them the scriptures in a easy to read format. All of them had growing up on the king James version and found it impossible to read and understand,

People can argue all they want about the “correct “Bible version. All I know is that thousands of men have come to know the Lord without ever having read the KJV.

[jessmstephens]

The KJV-only debate is my go-to example if I want to explain to someone with a different background how intense the fights in fundamental Christianity can be. A professor at my Bible college was fired mid-semester because he taught that it's possible for other English translations to be God's word. To be clear, he wasn't teaching that any other particular English translation was appropriate for Christians to study; he was teaching that it's POSSIBLE for another God-ordained English translation to exist.

[Kathrynh]

My mom still laughs bc when I was young, one of our elders told mom and her friends to be careful. We might try to read other versions of the Bible if they didn’t watch us closely. My mom was like ummm yeah we can HOPE our kids are trying to sneak and read their bibles 😂

[kaitlinshort]

Once heard a saying "If the KJV is the only word of God, then I sure feel bad for the Chinese"

[JacksonG.F.]

The old fashioned language in the kjv is what makes it a powerful text. It adds a layer of separation from contemporary life which in turn lends a sense of mystery to it. Joseph Campbell said something along these lines in reference to the Latin mass in Catholicism. The inaccessibility of the language was what made it feel divine because it took you out of your day-to-day experience. I think the kjv does something similar for Baptists.

[BertLaverman]

As a non-English non-American, I've always had a difficult time listening to people claiming that the KJV was _the_ God-inspired literal truth, if only because it hinged on a language that is not my native tongue. Thank you for an interesting explanation about the background of this movement.

[panqueque]

I keep hearing "the KGB bible" and I can't stop laughing.

[danielharris]

What I find interesting about this being a Baptist phenomenon as a Baptist myself is that at the time of the publication of the KJV, Baptists were being persecuted by the Church of England. At the time, both Puritans and Baptists saw the KJV as propaganda. This is one of the reasons Baptists fought for religious liberty.

[eoz]

I’m an atheist, I didn’t grow up in any religion, and I know basically nothing about religion. A couple months ago I became curious about religion/Christianity/the bible and found your channel. I am ‘wowed’ by every one of your videos, it’s a whole new fascinating world to me. I think because of my upbringing, my reaction to anything religious or supernatural was to roll my eyes but as I’ve found your videos i have found so much wonder and fascination from the way that religion & Christianity in particular has influenced our modern culture, how Christianity has evolved over time and the anthropological/historical study of the Bible. It’s absolutely amazing that scholars have been able to preserve, and piece together this ancient story. Amazing! Thank you for your incredible research and hard work. :)

[Palmieres]

Watching this from an old European country with a Latin/Greek-based language and a Catholic history. It's... weird, to say the least, that a religious text commissioned by a monarch, and translated to a language with barely any similarly to the original texts, is considered "perfect".

[friedkeenan]

I took two years of college-level ancient Greek classes in high school, and every so often we'd translate stuff from the New Testament, and sometimes my teacher would have the corresponding Greek text aside a few translations. My classes always preferred translating as literally as possible, as opposed to translating into more fluid English, so we'd translate the Greek as literally as possible (with help from our teacher (who also happened to be really into religion as a scholarly endeavor)) and then we'd look at all the different translations. The NIV, RSV, some others were generally pretty close to our literal translations, just in more fluid English, but the KJV was always markedly different from the literal translation and sometimes just wrong, at least in terms of modern English.

[cuckoophendula]

Fun fact that one of the very early KJV printings, they made a few errors including omitting the word "Not" in one of the 10 commandments. "Thou shalt commit adultery."

[voodoosnakebite]

it was really bizarre to me when I first met kjv only Baptists when I went to college, growing up german Lutheran. many of them flat out didn't believe me that king james was a man, that kjv wasn't the first readable ( non Latin) translation ( extra wierd to hear as a Lutheran lol), and that we've discovered older texts since 1600.
I quickly arrived at the conclusion they're uninterested In any type of reality and are just too indoctrinated p.s. im only speaking of my experience with a few members.

they also seemed very culty to me so that was also odd.

[dragonmaster]

Ironic, Americans celebrate dunking on the British Monarchy yet read the version written for a Monarch's propaganda!

[traildude]

We had a hilarious classroom moment once when a professor got tongue-tied when quoting from the King James said, "Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of the loom".
Word of that got around the campus enough that when the school president was speaking at a special event some time later he made mention of "a variant reading regarding holy underwear". Most of the audience was visitors so they didn't get it, but the part of the audience resident on the campus totally lost it and the president had to pause for half a minute.

[happytofu]

And here I am, raised as a german christian with a german bible translated by Luther, shaking my head over all the fuzz.
Also, in bible school, we visited a bible printing museum in which we were shown old bibles with translation errors. Apparently, the people who drew the illustrations did not question the text and thus, illustrated Moses coming down from mount Sinai with 12 horns on his head. (Which was the translation error.)

[markcabangon]

Thanks for this.
A year ago, I left a strict KJVO church and movement. While being in it, I focused my energy in learning the Bible with the KJVO lenses. It led me to become very hostile toward non-KJV.
Now that I’m out, Church and Bible history has become so much better! And I’m probably a better person now.
I appreciate this video and your research. Thanks for sharing. Really helpful in my new journey for truth.