Defending the King James Bible
Most Bibles printed today differ from the King James in thousands of places. Some are matters of wording; others leave out whole verses. The question is which text is right, and these pages answer it from the evidence.
The King James New Testament was translated in 1611 from the Textus Receptus, the Greek text printed by Erasmus, Stephanus, and Beza from the manuscripts the churches had copied and read for centuries. Nearly every modern Bible since the Revised Version of 1881 follows a different Greek text, today's Nestle-Aland, which leans on a handful of older manuscripts, chiefly Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, where they differ from the rest.
Older is not the same as original. A manuscript that survived because it went unused is no better a witness for that, and the King James readings are often older than they're said to be: they're found in early translations, and quoted by church fathers who wrote before Sinaiticus and Vaticanus were copied.
The words matter as much as the text. Where the King James says “only begotten” or “charity,” it's translating the Greek and Hebrew carefully, not quaintly. And where its passages seem to disagree, the text as printed answers itself, without correcting it.
Manuscript Evidence
“Aren't verses missing from modern Bibles for good reason?”
The printed Greek texts, manuscripts, early translations, and church fathers that have the King James reading, where modern Bibles change it.
The verses missing from modern Bibles · All 1,210 places the Greek differs · Manuscripts & Fathers, oldest first
Translation Notes
“Isn't the King James just old-fashioned English?”
Why the King James renders a word as it does, where modern Bibles translate the same Greek or Hebrew differently.
Difficult Passages
“Doesn't the Bible contradict itself?”
Answers to apparent contradictions. Each states the difficulty fairly, quoting the passages, and answers it from the King James text as it stands.
