Why KJV?

People often ask, "Why KJV? Why are you a King James onlyist?" In this post, I want to discuss some reasons why. Before I explain why I am a King James Bible believer, I want to make it clear what I do and do not believe.

There are three main positions on the KJV: Hyper-KJV-onlyism (denoted by H-KJVO(ist)), you have regular KJV-onlyism (KJVO(ist)), and KJV preferred (KJVP). The H-KJVOist is the Ruckmanite. They believe in "dual" or "double" inspiration—the idea that the King James translators themselves were inspired in the process of making their translation.

Next, we have the normal KJVOist. This person believes the KJV is a perfect in every word, much like the H-KJVO. However, in variance with the Ruckmanite, the normal KJVOist believes God helped guide the translators, but He did not inspire the translation. The normal KJVOist believes the KJV is perfect but allows the possibility of other perfect translations in other languages. Lastly, the KJVP. Such an one believes the KJV isn't perfect, but may believe it's underlying text is the correct Greek text, or just uses the KJV for other reasons.

Now that we have defined some of the different positions, it's appropriate for me to state mine. I would fall in the KJVO camp. I do not hold to the extreme of Ruckmanism, nor do I believe the opposite extreme that the KJV is fallible. Why do I hold to this position? I hope to answer that.

1. Textual Basis

If you're familiar at all with the different texts of the Bible, you know there are many manuscripts of both the Old and New Testaments—in many different languages. Manuscripts are categorized into "text-types." The main text-types for the New Testament are the Alexandrian, Byzantine (of which the Textus Receptus is a subtype*), and the Western. The biblical text debate happens between mostly the Alexandrian and Byzantine. The Alexandrian text consists of about 45 total manuscripts (mss). The modern printed editions of the Alexandrian texts include the Nestle-Aland (NA; the latest edition being the 28th, NA28) and the United Bible Society (UBS) text. These texts are essentially the same and are thus collectively abbreviated as NU.

The Textus Receptus (TR), also called the Traditional Text, is a line of printed Greek New Testaments originating with Erasmus in 1516. After Erasmus, you have different printers and editors making corrections to the text. These men include Colinaeus, Stephanus, and Beza**.

Now, why do I say all this? Well, the Textus Receptus was based upon the Byzantine text*. There are two approaches to the text of the Bible—faith and doubt. The Alexandrian position is based upon doubt, "We need to reconstruct the true text of the Bible; it's been lost."

As Christians, let's see what the Bible says about this. The TR is the text received by the church throughout the years. Jesus says this in the Scriptures:

"For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me." (John 17:8)

Christ, while praying to the Father, says that the church received His Words. Yet modern scholars want to throw this out. Are Jesus' Words important or not?! In Matthew 4:4 (and Luke 4:4), Christ tells us that man must live by every Word of God. How can man do this without every Word? Let's take a look at another passage:

"I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name." (Psalm 138:2)

God clearly puts His Word pretty high if it's higher than His very name! Why, then, do people believe God would allow it to get lost or be destroyed (despite Jesus saying the Scripture cannot be broken in John 10:35)? The Bible declares its own preservation in Psalm 12:6-7, Psalm 105:8, Psalm 119:89, Psalm 119:160, Isaiah 40:8, Matthew 5:18, and many other passages. If we believe the Bible, we must believe in preservation.

The Textus Receptus (Latin for "Received Text"), is a subtext of the Byzantine. The Byzantine is the text accepted by Christians every since the formation of the church. The church fathers quote from the Byzantine over any other text-type. And all throughout church history, the Alexandrian texts fell into obscurity while the Byzantine persisted.

Origen, an early "Christian" writer, was part of the school at Alexandria. He stated:

"Nowadays, as is evident, there is a great diversity between the various manuscripts, either through the negligence of certain copyists, or the perverse audacity shown by some in correcting the text, or through the fault of those, who, playing the part of correctors, lengthen or shorten it as they please."¹

We can see that the scribes in Alexandria are not reliable. This fact reflects in the text coming out of that city. The two "main" Alexandrian manuscripts, Aleph (Sinaiticus) and B (Vaticanus), disagree between themselves over 3,000 times in the Gospels alone.

"It is in fact, easier to find two consecutive verses in which these two MSS. [B and Aleph] differ the one from the other, than two consecutive verses in which they entirely agree."²

Are these seriously the manuscripts we want to trust with the biblical text? I trow not. We have 95-98% of all the manuscript evidence supporting the KJV while we have 45 manuscripts "supporting"*** the modern translations.

Interestingly enough, they claim Sinaiticus (Aleph) is old, but there is little support for that. In fact, the proof seems to show that the paper is much older than the text itself. The paper has holes in it, but the text goes around those holes. If the text was there from the beginning, such would never have happened.

A hole in Codex Sinaiticus.³

It is also worth noting that Aleph is the most corrected Greek manuscript we have. As Dr. Scot McKendrick states:

"On close inspection, the text of the Codex Sinaiticus is littered with revisions. It is history’s most altered Biblical manuscript and within those changes lie its real theological secrets. It has approximately 23,000 corrections in all that survives, which is an extraordinary rate of correction. It means that on average there are about 30 corrections on each page."⁴

Something tells me this isn't a reliable manuscript when even the date of the text is up for debate.

We have a similar story with Codex Vaticanus (B). In this Vatican manuscript, there is a marginal note at Hebrews 1:3 which reads "αμαθεστατε και κακε, αφες τον παλαιον, μη μεταποιει" or "Fool and knave, can't you leave the old reading alone and not alter it!"⁵

The marginal note at Hebrews 1:3 in B.⁵

Someone had been, apparently, messing with the text. We know someone was messing with Vaticanus and that Sinaiticus is the most corrected Greek manuscript, yet scholars want us to believe these are the most reliable manuscripts? It doesn't make any sense to reject the Traditional Text upon which the KJV is based for these two manuscripts.

*The Textus Receptus uses the Andreas text-type (another Byzantine subtype) in Revelation.

**The Elzevir brothers are not being included as their edition came out in 1633—after the KJV, thus irrelevant to this post.
***It is hard to say they support modern translations when all the Alexandrian mss. disagree with each other (to a great rate). May be better phrased as "used by modern translations."

2. Italics

This might make some people scratch their heads, but italics are important. It shows you what the translators "added" due to either English requiring it, or it being in the originals but not explicitly in word, rather what the obvious understanding is if you know the language. The KJV originally used the Gothic type for its letters. However, when there were supplied words, they used Roman type. When the KJV began to be edited—spelling standardized and printers' errors fixed—the Bible began to be printed in Roman type, so they were unable to continue using it for supplied words. What would they do? Add italics to the supplied words instead! This happened some point between 1611 and 1630. Most literal translations still continue to use this formatting in their translations.*

A picture of 1 Chronicles 9:20-22 1611 KJV

The RSV and ESV, however, do not do so. They do not use italics for supplied words. What does this result in? A less clear and open translating process. When a translator says "Hey, these are in italic because they needed supplied," it shows their character and integrity. Sadly, the ESV (a very prominent modern English translation) does not do this, and I believe it brings it's credibility down.

*The only exceptions are the italics: "as though he heard them not" in John 8:6, "he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also" in 1 John 2:23 (the word "but" is supplied), and "of God" in 1 John 3:16. More can be found in my article Why Italicized? John 8:6, 1 John 2:23, and 1 John 3:16 Answered.

3. Language

The language of the King James Bible is more accurate than that of modern translations. Now, at first glance one may not understand how I could make such a statement. However, if we look at the KJV, we see thees and thous. People want to update these, but this would result in a less accurate translation.

Thee, thou, thy, and thine are singular in the KJV while you, ye, your, and yours are plural. These reflect the originals which also have singular and plural for second person pronouns. However, modern translations do not contain this distinction.

"[31] ¶ And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: [32] But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren." (Luke 22:31-32)

If you're reading these verses in an ESV, NLT, NKJV, etc., you will get the idea that Peter has some sort of supremacy as Satan has a "special target" on him. However, the Greek (and subsequently the KJV,) has plurals in verse 31. Thus, one will understand that Jesus tells Peter that Satan wants all of them and that he (Peter) needs to strengthen the brethren.

"Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again." (John 3:7)

If you look at the New King James (and other translations), you will see that "thee" and "Ye" are both translated as "you." In the KJV, it's clear that Jesus tells Nicodemus that it's not just him that needs to be saved—instead, it is all men. These modern translations make this less clear.

"And the LORD said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws?" (Exodus 16:28)

If you don't have a second person pronoun distinction, and you translate it always as "you," you have no idea if God is mad at Moses or Israel. It is important to have this distinction. You can learn more about this subject in my post A Defense of Thee and You in the King James Bible.

4.  More Accurate

Do you remember the story of Elhanan fighting Goliath? No? Well, in 2 Samuel 21 ESV, we read this:

"And there was again war with the Philistines at Gob, and Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim, the Bethlehemite, struck down Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam." (2 Samuel 21:19)

Now, do you recall Goliath being killed by a man named Elhanan? According to the story in 1 Samuel 17 (and a reference in 1 Samuel 21:9), David killed Goliath. Elhanan was one of David's valiant men (1 Chronicles 11:26). In 1 Chronicles 20:5 (KJV), we read this:

"And there was war again with the Philistines; and Elhanan the son of Jair slew Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, whose spear staff was like a weaver's beam." (Ibid.)

We see that Elhanan slew Lahmi the brother of Goliath. This is why the KJV contains italics in 2 Samuel 21:19:

"And there was again a battle in Gob with the Philistines, where Elhanan the son of Jaareoregim, a Bethlehemite, slew the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam." (Ibid.)

John Gill states the following:

"the word "brother" is rightly supplied from (1 Chronicles 20:5); where his name is said to be Lahmi, for not Goliath himself was slain..."⁶

Do you want a Bible that contains fake stories or an accurate translation which contains no errors? You can learn more about this subject in my post Contradictions in Modern Bible Versions.

5.  Received by the Church

As we read earlier:

"For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me." (John 17:8)

Christ stated that the church received His Words. As such, I think it is important to mention that the church received the King James the its underlying Texts. They continue to. Back in 2014, Christianity Today published an article titled "The Most Popular and Fastest Growing Bible Translation Isn’t What You Think It Is."⁷ In this post, they report that 55% of American Christians read the KJV.

Clearly, the Spirit who "will guide you into all truth" (John 16:13) has led Christians towards the King James Bible. In fact, 40% of congregations in the US used the KJV in 2014.⁸ If this doesn't show us which translation God's people have been led to use, I don't know what else will.

Conclusion:

These are the reasons I am a KJVOist. I pray this post has convince you to (or at the very least exposed you to why we) trust exclusively the King James Bible in English.

Sources:

1. Origen. Commentary on Matthew, Tome XV, 14. Patrologia Graeca, vol. XIII, p. 1293. Cited in "Tetragrammaton," accessed March 17, 2025, https://tetragrammaton.org/tetra2.html.

2. Burgon, John William. The Revision Revised. 1883. Reprint ed., Dean Burgon Society Press, 2000, p. 12.

3. "The Codex Sinaiticus…the World's Oldest Surviving Bible." BBC, 7 Feb. 2011, www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00dy1gc.

4. Codex Sinaiticus. BBC, 2011.

5. Willker, Wieland. "A Critical Note." Codex Vaticanus Graece 1209, B/03, University of Bremen, 15 Sept. 2008, archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20080915143328/http://www.user.uni-bremen.de/~wie/Vaticanus/note1512.html. Originally posted at http://www.user.uni-bremen.de/~wie/Vaticanus/note1512.html. Retrieved 17 Dec. 2024.

6. Gill, John. Gill's Exposition of the Bible. Commentary on 2 Samuel 21:19. Bible Study Tools. https://www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/gills-exposition-of-the-bible/2-samuel-21-19.html. Accessed 17 Dec. 2024.

7. "The Most Popular and Fastest Growing Bible Translation Isn’t What You Think It Is." Christianity Today, 13 Mar. 2014, www.christianitytoday.com/2014/03/most-popular-and-fastest-growing-bible-translation-niv-kjv/. Accessed 16 Dec. 2024.

8. "Majority of American Bible Readers Still Prefer King James Version." LifeWay, 17 Mar. 2014, research.lifeway.com/2014/03/17/majority-of-americans-still-prefer-king-james/. Accessed 17 Dec. 2024.