What Today’s Christian Needs to Know about the New King ...

1 TThere are Christiansandchurches today who are desiringto change the trans lation of theBible which they use. Some ar echa ng -ing fro m translationssuc h as the Re-vised Standard Version to the modernand popular easy-to read versions suchas the Good New s Bible or the NewIntern ational Versio n. Others are desir -ing to make achange from one of thesepop ular versions to what they considertobe amore accurate and con ser vativetran sl ation. In this latter category, someare cha ng ing to the New Kin g Jame sVersion .They believe that ifthey sw itchtothe New King James Version, they willhave the accuracy and fid elit yof theAu -thorised Version with the ben ef it of theupdated language: it bears the name Kin gJa mes Version ;therefore, itmustbe a revision of the Authorised (KingJames) Version.

2 They believ ethat in theNKJV they will ha ve the best of bot hworld sin one new Bible. They do no treal ise that theNew King Ja mes Ve rsionis not an update d Authorised(KingJames) Version. Inste ad, the NK JV is ahighly-edite d new translation which istheolog ically and philo soph ica lly incon -sistent with the AV. Th epur po se of thi sarticle is to show that the NKJV is not afait hful revision of the Authori sed Ver -sion bu tinste ad is just another attempttousurp the plac eof auth ority which theAVhas enjoyed for well over three cen -turies as the premier translation in Eng -lish from the Hebr ew Masoreti c OldTestament an dthe Greek Te xtus Recep -tus Ne wTest is generally ackno wledg ed tha ttheproblem swhich are associate dwit htheNKJV are not as numerou sor as se rio usasthos efound in ot her version ssu ch asthe New InternationalVersi on, the Re -vised En glis hBible or the Goo dNewsBible.

3 The NKJV does not omit hun -dreds of verses, phrases and wo rdsasisdone in these othe rve rsio ns. It is nota loose translation or a , the problems of the NKJV aresignificant in the light of the claim by itspubl ishers an dothers that it is an accu -rate improvementof the AV and thusshould replace the AV. In this articl einformation is given on the backgroundand problems of the New King JamesVers ion, parti cularly why it should not beviewed as anew edition of the Autho -rised Vers ion and thus areplacement SCHRISTIANNEEDSSCHRISTIANNEEDSTOKNOWABOU TTOKNOWABOUTTHENEWKINGJAMESVERSIONEdi tio ns of the NKJVEdit ion sof the NK JVThere have been severa ledit ions ofthe NKJV issued by the Thomas Ne New Testament wa scopyr ighted in 1979, with the entire Biblecopyrightedin 19 82 and 1990.

4 Th eUnited Kin gdom edition (at first na medthe Re vised Autho rised Ve rsi on) was is-su ed in 1982 and is now published bythe Br itish and Foreign Bible Societ y(also kno wn as the Bible Society ), whichis amember of the United Bible Soci -eties. There have been literally thou -sands ofchanges in thetext of the NKJV during the intervening years. The texthas been continually revised since 1982and thousands of changes have bee nmade. 1 The se changes were madeeven though there was not anew copy -right issue ddur ing the ye ar sfrom 1982 of these chan ges ar e: Th e 1979 American edition of theNew Te stament in Philippians has but emptied Himself , whils t the 1982 Amer ican edi tion of the Bible in Phi lippi -ans has but made Himself of norep uta tion.

5 Th e 1982 American edition of theBibl e in Romans has Paul, a se rvantof Jesus Chr ist , whilst the 1982 copy -right edition of The W ord In Life NewTestamentand 199 0 Ameri can edition sof the Bible in Romans ha ve Pa ul, abondservant of Jesus Chri st .2 Th e 1979 American edition of theNew Testament, the 1982 American edi -tio n of the Bible and the 1982 UnitedKin gdom edition of the Bible in Acts Men, brethren, and fathers ; the199 0 American edition of the Bi ble andthe 1982 A me rican edition text as usedin The Word In Life Stud y Bible(copy -rig ht 1993) in Acts have Brethrenand fa thers .Normally when ch anges are mad e tothe text of a translation, these changesare mad e when a new copyrighted edi -tion is issued.

6 An exa mple of this is theNew American Standard Bible. Therewere nine copyrighted editions issuedbetw ee n 19 60 an d 1977. This does notappear to be the case in the are nu merous differ ences be -twee n edition s with the same ma ny chan ges in the NKJV inwh at se em t o be the same copy rig htededitions have made research for this ar-ticle very difficu lt. Thu s it must b e un der -stood th at individual examples given inthis article mayor m ay no t b e f ound in acopy of the NKJV New Testament orBible whic h th e reade r of this a rticle m aypossess . These many changes maycause confusion when the NKJV is usedin public read ing as well a s in preachingand teaching.

7 One of the benefits of theAV is that only one edition , th e 1 769 Ox -ford Standard, is customarily used; thus,no matter where an AV user goes, heca n expect to have es sentially the sameBible as others who use the AV. On ewo uld h ave h oped that a version whichwa s design ed eventu ally t o replace theAV would h ave the same consistency ofread Tr anslat orsThe Tran slato rsInte restin gly e nough, t here were ninescho lars who worked on both th e NK JVand the New Inter national nce t hese t ranslations had two differ-ing methods o f translation principles and2used dif ferent texts, this sur e l y pr ovi dedan interesting dilemma f or thes e y ap parently did not have pro bl emsworking in a formal as opposed to a dy-namic equivalence3set ting, nor mustthey have had difficu lty using the Tex tusRecep tus versus the Critical Text.

8 Norusing the Hebrew text versus the He-brew pl us the exten sive use of any num-ber of ancient an d mod em oth er words, the translators wh oworked on both pro ject s apparentl y hadno pro blem with supporting opposingprinciples in translation work to day. Mostschola rs who are committed to the useand suppor t of the Te xtus Re ceptus areso com mitted beca use of strong convic -tions r eg ardi ng the true text of Script ur men who sup port the Textus Re -ceptus are persecuted, abused in printor rid icu led by scholars who supp or t theCritical Text. Thus, it is difficult to under -stand how these men could work onboth PolicyAdve rtising PolicyThe NKJV was originally ad vertisedas the fif th revision of the AV.

9 The firstKing James Ver sion of the Holy Bi blewas pub lished in 1611 after seven yearsof care ful and reverent la bor. Now, al -most 3 71 years later, that Authoris edVersion has been carefully updated sothat it will once again speak God s eter -nal truths with clarity. 4In a dv ertis ing, thetran sl ators are refer red to as revisers .5It i s stated in the 199 0 American edi tionthat ..the New King James Version isthe fifth revisi on of a historic docu ment .6 However, the 1990 American editionalso states that it was carefullycrafted ..to pro duce a new translationfor today s readers .7 This las t statement seems to im pl ythat this is not a revision, but a new,fresh translation.

10 This w as an advertise-ment on the back cover of an in expen -sive paperba ck edition. Meanwh ile, it i sstill ad v erti sed as the fifth revision (asone recent author has said, the Ne wKing Jame s Versio n is th e fifth revisi onof a hist ori c docu ment translated fromspe cific Gree k texts .. 8) even thou gh itis also advertised as being translat edfrom the origina l Hebrew and Greek .9 Itappe ars tha t th ey have adver tised it asbot h the fifth revision and as a newtran slat ion from t he o riginal lan guages. Nor a re C hristians accepting theNKJV as th e new AV . The NKJV h as yetto prove itself a vi able alternative to theAV. Af ter seven years [in 1992], salessta tist ics from Publ isher s Weekly(1990) rank the NIV and A Vone and twoin sa les with the NKJV (d es pite its im-pressive sa les re co rd) neve r more t hanthird.