The King James Version
Separating Fact from Fiction
By Ian Thomason
Introduction
The King James Version (KJV) of the English Bible remains the translation of choice within all three of the major Revivalist groups: RCI, RF and CAI. No doubt this is primarily due to their shared Pentecostal history and 'culture', however, it might be reasonable to suggest that an underlying sense of reverence bordering almost on superstition may be a telling factor for retaining this version, most noticeably for those within the CAI.
From the outset let me clearly state that the KJV certainly deserves the title 'the Word of God'. This version has made a considerable contribution to Western culture and spirituality during its nearly four hundred years existence. In fact, until the publication of the Revised Standard Version (RSV) in 1952, the KJV was, in many respects, the standard for English-speaking Protestant Christians for approaching 350 years. However, as this essay will clearly demonstrate, the KJV is not the most accurate English-language version of Scripture available today. My thesis concern is predicated on the belief that any vernacular Bible version must keep pace with the culture of the people it seeks to influence, in order to be useful. In this, as in many other respects, the KJV proves itself to be less than suitable.
Though the facts that are presented in this essay may, at times, seem less than flattering to the King James Version of the Bible, it should be stressed that my aim is not so much to devalue the contribution the version has made, as it is to highlight the functional inadequacies that would hamper its continued utility. In short, as will be demonstrated, when compared to many more recent versions, the KJV is shown to be lacking. Importantly, this essay will not attempt to compare the KJV with any particular, recent English version. The reason for avoiding such a forced comparison is simple: to do so would be to incorrectly imply that one or the other version should be considered the standard by which all other translations are judged.
The Issues at Hand
The principle consideration that should be borne in mind by every Christian when selecting a Bible version is to ensure that it accurately represents (as closely as currently can be determined) the undiluted, original meaning penned by the biblical author. Given the multiplied technical issues that bear on this becoming a reality, it proves necessary for the average person to heed the advice of trusted, experienced and learned believing scholars. Not surprisingly, a very clear consensus exists among the 'experts', a consensus that transcends both denominational and philosophical boundaries. This essay, then, will seek to represent this scholarly agreement, as it pertains specifically to the subject of the KJV.
Due to the conscientious endeavors of archaeologists, textual critics, and researchers in a variety of disciplines, it has gradually become increasingly possible to verify, or to accurately reconstruct, Jesus' words as they were reported in the first Greek editions of what are now the texts of the New Testament. At the same time, Jesus' message, as reflected in both his words and his actions, continues to make its demands on each one of us. For this reason, the Bible must be approached as more than simply an anthology of one man's wisdom. It remains for us, as those within the believing community, the authoritative Word of God.
Preliminary Historical Considerations
Perhaps the primary technical issue that strikes most readers who seek to compare the King James Version to other English translations, centers less on language as it does on several glaring differences - generally omissions - in certain verses in the Gospels of Mark and John. The distinctions occur due to the application of divergent critical Greek texts, which underpin the various translations. The KJV, for example, was based on what is commonly referred to as the Textus-Receptus, the so-called 'Received Text', a critical Greek edition hastily prepared and published in 1516 by the humanist, Dutch Roman Catholic priest and scholar, Desiderius Erasmus. Erasmus' first edition was haphazardly prepared over the extremely short period of five months, and was based mostly on two inferior, twelfth century Greek manuscripts, the only such manuscripts that were available to him on the spur of the moment. The modern, critical Greek texts, by example, were compiled by directly comparing over 5,400 available Greek manuscripts, and a myriad of early vernacular editions (Latin, Coptic, Aramaic, etc).
The reason that Erasmus' first edition was so quickly produced centred on little more than a judicious commercial opportunity that was seized upon by a forward thinking printer. Johann Froben expeditiously negotiated with Erasmus, who had intended to produce a Greek-Latin parallel text New Testament for the purpose of enabling Latin readers to become better acquainted with the original New Testament text; to prepare a Greek edition for printing as quickly as he was able. Froben then published and released this Greek text in an attempt to surpass the much more methodically prepared Complutensian Polyglot Bible (produced by Cardinal Ximenes), which was also pending publication at the time. When contrasted to the five months that Erasmus used to hurriedly put his text together, the Complutensian text required eighteen years of careful preparation before its first edition appeared. Erasmus himself acknowledged the deficiencies of his labours in a letter he sent in 1516, whereupon he reflected that his first edition had been "praecipitatum verius quam editum," - more precipitated than edited.
Interestingly, up to his fifth and final edition of the Greek text prepared in 1535, Erasmus continually succumbed to pressure from Roman Catholic authorities to add phrases and entire verses that he strongly, and rightly, suspected were not part of the original text. One notable example involves the inclusion of the passage: "...in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth..." (1 John 5:7-8) Conservative biblical scholar F.F. Bruce explains the history of how these words were added to Erasmus' text:
The words omitted in the R.V. [1881 Revised Version] were no part of the original Greek text, nor yet of the Latin Vulgate in its earliest form. They first appear in the writings of a Spanish Christian leader named Priscillian, who was executed for heresy in AD 385. Later they made their way into copies of the Latin text of the Bible. When Erasmus prepared his printed edition of the Greek New Testament, he rightly left those words out, but was attacked for this by people who felt that the passage was a valuable proof-text for the doctrine of the Trinity. He replied (rather incautiously) that if he could be shown any Greek manuscript, which contained the words, he would include them in his next edition. Unfortunately, a Greek manuscript not more than some twenty years old was produced in which the words appeared: they had been translated into Greek from Latin. Of course, the fact that the only Greek manuscript exhibiting the words belonged to the sixteenth century was in itself an argument against their authenticity, but Erasmus had given his promise, and so in his 1522 edition he included the passage. (Today one or two other very late Greek manuscripts are known to contain these passages; all others omit it.[1])
Erasmus' final edition still relied upon no more than six Greek manuscripts, the oldest (but the least used in any case) dating from the tenth century. Though Erasmus did, in later editions of his, work consult the Complutensian version of the Greek New Testament, Metzger is able to truthfully state:
Thus the text of Erasmus' Greek New Testament rests upon a half-dozen minuscule manuscripts. The oldest and best of these manuscripts (codex I, a minuscule of the tenth century, which agree agrees often with the earlier uncial text) he used least, because he was afraid of its supposedly erratic text![2]
It is noteworthy that the first complete Greek New Testament to be printed was the Complutensian Polyglot New Testament, which was to later become the New Testament portion of the Complutensian Polyglot Bible. Printed in 1514, fully two years earlier than Erasmus' first edition, it was not, however, published until 1520 the year the Complutensian Polyglot Bible was completed.
Though his text was not nearly as consistent with the earliest manuscripts as was the Complutensian text, Erasmus' edition was marketed earlier; much more effectively, and thereby achieved a remarkable degree of preeminence. In 1550, a Frenchman named Robert Stephanus published his third edition of an Erasmus-based Greek text (Stephanus, the name by which he is best known, is the Latin equivalent of Estienne, properly his French surname). Stephanus' 1550 Greek text was very close to Erasmus' fourth and fifth editions. It also formed the basis for Beza's 1565 version, itself virtually identical to the Elzevirs' 1633 edition, and which, by a quirk of fate, later became known as the Textus-Receptus.
The actual term "Textus-Receptus", derived from a self-proclaimed statement made by the Elzevir brothers, in the preface to their 1633 edition. It stated: "Textum ergo habes nunc ab omnibus receptum, in quo nihil immutatum aut corruptum damus." Translated, this reads: "Consequently you now have the text received by everyone, in which we present nothing that has been changed or that is corrupted." Rather than pronouncing divine sanction, as many modern fundamentalists are prone to believe, the Elzevirs were simply offering that they had made no textual changes in their 1633 edition of the popularly accepted 1624 text. This text, by the way, was that received from the work of various scholars and publishers of New Testament Greek editions, and that had been received by the scholarly community as the standard text representing the Greek New Testament. Erasmus' 1514 text, and the continuously evolving editions that appeared over the following 119 years, were to most European Bible scholars of the time what the United Bible Society's Greek New Testament, Fourth Revised Edition (UBS4) is to most Bible scholars of today.
The Accuracy of the KJV
The Textus-Receptus, as has been stated, formed the textual basis for the KJV New Testament, and for all the principal Protestant translations in the languages of Europe until 1881. The KJV translators most directly relied upon the 1598 Greek text by the Theodore de Beze ('Beza') of Geneva, but it was also virtually identical to Stephanus' 1550 and 1551 Greek texts, themselves virtually identical to Erasmus' 1535 edition. Whilst noble in the attempt to reconstruct the original Greek text, the editors of these versions did not have access to the current wealth of ancient documents enjoyed today, and to today's more complete understanding as to how those documents were transmitted and altered over many centuries of copying.
Due to errors in the Hebrew and Greek texts from which the KJV were translated, the KJV contains several passages that are not consistent with Jesus' genuine teachings, and with other genuine New Testament teachings as represented in the earliest Greek texts of the New Testament. I have included a few examples:
(1) In Matthew 19:29 and Mark 10:29, the earliest available Greek manuscripts conclusively show that the words "...or wife..." (Greek: he gunaika) did not form a part of the original text, and are contrary to Jesus' consistent, accepted teachings concerning marriage.
(2) In Matthew 5:22, "...without a cause..." (Greek: eike) did not form a part of the original Greek text of Matthew.
(3) In some cases entire verses, or large parts of verses, such as the 1 John 5:7-8 example already discussed, were added at the behest of church authorities who presented to Erasmus forged manuscripts in order to include texts that justified their teachings.
In addition to interpolations that affect doctrinal positions, several other, simpler errors are to be found in the KJV.
Revisions of the KJV
Unknown to a large percentage of modern Christians is the fact that the KJV was revised many times between the date of its first publication in 1611, and the date of the publication of the Revised Version between 1881-1885. Of course, these editions of the KJV were published without being anyway labelled as a 'revision'.
The "Translators to the Reader" section of the 1611 edition defends the appropriateness of having included marginal notes that suggested other possible renderings or translations. Unfortunately these marginal notes also eventually were removed. On this point F.F. Bruce observes:
They mention that some readers have misgivings about the alternative renderings suggested in the margin, on the ground that they may appear to shake the authority of Scripture in deciding points of controversy. This obscurantist objection has been urged against other Bible versions, of much more recent date; some would prefer a false appearance of certainty to an honest admission of doubt[3].
In another reference to the inclusion of alternative renderings, as noted in the margins of the KJV, the "Translators to the Reader" section of the 1611 edition highlights and well illustrates the inadequacy of the translators' in the use and application of ancient biblical languages:
This is an important point; our understanding of the Hebrew vocabulary, especially in regard to such terms as are indicated by the AV (Authorized Version, i.e. the KJV) translators, has been gradually increasing over the generations, and has received much welcome illumination in fairly recent times. The RV (Revised Version, 1885) reflects fuller knowledge in this field than the AV; the RSV [Revised Standard Version, 1952] represents an advance on the RV; and the New English Bible will be found to have profited greatly by recent advances in Semitic philology, but even the New English Bible makes no pretence of having attained finality. Where, then, there is doubt about the meaning of a word or phrase, is it not better to warn the reader that this is so? And what is true of uncertainties in translation applies with equal force to variant readings in the manuscripts and other authorities for the text. This too the AV translators point out when they criticize Pope Sixtus V for his ruling that no variant readings should be put in the margins of his edition of the Latin Vulgate. "They that are wise had rather have their judgments at liberty in differences of readings, than to be captivated to one, when it might be the other[4]."
Without altering its name or in any way advising that it had been revised, the KJV was altered a number of times between 1611 and 1769. Changes included forms of spelling, punctuation, the alteration of wording, the complete removal of the Old Testament Apocryphal books, and the removal of marginal notes that provided alternative renderings. It was in 1769 that Dr. Benjamin Blayney of Oxford completed what Bruce Metzger describes as "...the most careful and comprehensive revision..." of what came to be known, by popular use, as the 'Authorized Version'. Blayney's revision produced the standard text that is used by the majority of publishers today[5]. Metzger noted that in the 1614 edition alone, changes were made in over four hundred places.
Even the great many changes that were wrought did not satisfy a good number of the KJV's early critics, notable among them being Dr Hugh Broughton. This distinguished biblical scholar and translator was described by Dr John Lightfoot as "...the Great Albionean Divine, renowned in many nations for rare skill in Salem's [Jerusalem's; i.e. Hebrew] and Athens' [i.e., Greek] tongues, and familiar acquaintance with all Rabbinical learning." After the KJV was introduced, Broughton described it as follows:
The late Bible...was sent to me to censure: which bred in me a sadness that will grieve me while I breathe, it is so ill done. Tell His Majesty that I had rather be rent in pieces with wild horses, than any such translation by my consent should be urged upon poor churches...The New edition crosseth me. I require it to be burnt[6].
It took a further two generations for the KJV to supplant the Geneva Bible in the hearts of the people of England and her dominions.
Once again, the "Translators to the Reader" section contains information provided by the translators themselves, that justifies the process of improvement, revision and update for any vernacular translation:
...How shall men meditate in that, which they cannot understand? How shall they understand that which is kept close in an unknown tongue? As it is written, Except I know the power of the voice, I shall be to him that speaketh, a Barbarian, and he that speaketh, shall be a Barbarian to me... Therefore as one complaineth, that always in the Senate of Rome, there was one or other that called for an interpreter: so lest the Church be driven to the like exigent, it is necessary to have translations in a readiness. Translation it is that openeth the window, to let in the light; that breaketh the shell, that we may eat the kernel; that putteth aside the curtain, that we may look into the most Holy place; that removeth the cover of the well, that we may come by the water, even as Jacob rolled away the stone from the mouth of the well, by which means the flocks of Laban were watered. Indeed without translation into the vulgar tongue, the unlearned are but like children at Jacobs well (which was deep) without a bucket or some thing to draw with: or as that person mentioned by Isaiah, to whom when a sealed book was delivered, with this motion, Read this, I pray thee, he was fain to make this answer, I cannot, for it is sealed.
...Blessed be they, and most honoured be their name, that break the ice, and glueth onset upon that which helpeth forward to the saving of souls. Now what can be more available thereto, then to deliver God's book unto God's people in a tongue, which they understand? Since of a hidden treasure, and of a fountain that is sealed, there is no profit...Yet for all that, as nothing is begun and perfected at the same time, and the latter thoughts are thought to be the wiser: so, if we building upon their foundation that went before us, and being helped by their labours, do endeavour to make that better which they left so good; no man, we are sure, hath cause to mislike us; they, we persuade ourselves, if they were alive, would thank us.
After quoting some of the passages above, Sakae Kubo and Walter Specht comment:
Unfortunately, the very version prefaced by these noble words is no longer speaking the language of the common man. To the average man of today the language of the KJV seems strange and foreign. There is therefore a danger that the Bible may seem to modern man to be something out of date and irrelevant. This has been recognised now for nearly a century. Hence, towards the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries a movement arose calling for translations of the Bible into modern English.
This movement was strengthened by the discoveries of large quantities of papyri in Egypt particularly at about the turn of the century and later. These papyri have illuminated every aspect of the life of the Greek-speaking people of the ancient world in which the NT was written. They have revolutionized the study of NT Greek, for they have shown that in the main the NT was written in the vernacular Greek of common people. The NT documents are written in a plain, simple style to meet the needs of ordinary men and women. Should it not then be translated in the same kind of English? This is the argument of the translators of the modern-speech versions[7].
Which Version? The Original or a Translation?
In 1881, the Revised Version of the New Testament was published, and, by 1885 the Revised Version of the Bible (including both Old and New Testaments) was readily available. This was the first major English translation of the Bible in over three hundred years, which did not base its New Testament exclusively on the Textus-Receptus. This fact alone resulted in a serious campaign of opposition to the RV from some of the most articulate, influential, and outspoken Christian theologians of the times. Many church leaders considered it to be a scandalous, if not a heretical sacrilege, for anyone to use any version except their time-honored KJV. Obviously, this same line of thinking exists in some quarters to this day.
That the RV did not remain - or become - the standard Bible version used in Protestant church services is hardly surprising, given the extremely severe criticism of the version during the years immediately following its publication. However, in the intervening years, the RV has been largely vindicated, in that it has ushered in a new era of English-language versions of the Bible. However, some of the original criticisms levelled against this version are still viewed as valid when levelled against the more modern versions produced today. Among those vigorously articulating the shortcomings of the RV was an outspoken nineteenth-century English biblical scholar named Dr. John William Burgon. He wrote:
How it happened that, with so many splendid scholars sitting round their table, they should have produced a Translation which, for the most part, reads like a first-rate school-boy's crib, tasteless, unlovely, harsh, unidiomatic; - servile without being really faithful, - pedantic without being really learned; - an unreadable Translation, in short; the result of a vast amount of labour indeed, but of wondrous little skill: - how all this has come about it were utterly useless at this time of day to enquire[8].
Dr Bruce summed up the RV's impact as follows:
Although the RV has been widely used in schools, colleges and universities, as well as by private students who realize its superiority in accuracy over the AV [KJV], it never began to replace the AV in popular esteem[9].
American biblical scholarship had been part of the RV translation effort since 1870. In the original 1881 edition of the Revised Version of the New Testament, the English scholars agreed to publish the American Committee's preferred readings and rendering in an Appendix for a fourteen year period, and the American Committee agreed not to publish an American edition of the Revised Version (which was to include textual changes reflecting the American Committee's preferences) for the same fourteen year period. The "Preface to the American Version", Dr P. Schaff stated:
In the course of the joint labors of the English and American Revisers it was agreed that, respecting all points of ultimate difference, the English Companies, who had the initiative in the work of revision, should have the decisive vote. But as an offset to this, it was proposed on the British side that the American preferences should be published as an Appendix in every copy of the Revised Bible during a term of fourteen years. The American Committee on their part pledged themselves to give, for the same limited period, no sanction to the publication of any other editions of the Revised Version than those issued by the University Presses of England[10].
In 1901 the American Committee published what was to become known as the American Standard Version (ASV). The title page actually describes it as follows:
The Holy Bible containing the Old and New Testaments, translated out of the original tongues, being the version set forth A.D. 1611, compared with the most ancient authorities and revised A.D. 1881-1885, newly edited by the American Revision Committee A.D. 1901.
For reasons similar to the criticisms of the RV, the ASV did not gain much popular support. Even C.I. Scofield, in the original 1909 edition of his very popular Scofield Reference Bible, wrote in the "Introduction":
After mature reflection it was determined to use the Authorized Version [KJV]. None of the many Revisions have commended themselves to the people at large. The Revised Version [including both the 1885 English version and the 1901 American version], which has now been before the public for twenty-seven years, gives no indication of becoming in any general sense the people's Bible of the English-speaking world.
Though Scofield personally had great respect for the RV, he knew that it was not widely enough accepted to be used as the basis for the Scofield Reference Bible. "After mature reflection" Scofield decided not to challenge the then virtually uncontested supremacy of the King James Version in English-speaking Protestant churches.
Roman Catholic biblical scholar Dr John McKenzie provides this insightful observation:
Latin did not become the language of the Roman rite until the 6th century; the language of imperial Rome was Greek. As a sacred language Latin really has no parallel. Jews have always made a genuine effort to learn some Hebrew, and other sacred languages are archaic forms of the vernacular; the English of the Authorized Version [King James Version] of the Bible became the language of prayer in many Protestant churches. The effect of Latin was to make the liturgy the preserve of the clergy, and the laity became purely passive. This was countered by the efforts to use sound and spectacle in the performance of the liturgy. The Canon of the mass, the central Eucharistic formula, for centuries was recited by the celebrant inaudibly; this was a kind of verbal "sanctuary" that the laity were not even supposed to hear. The abandonment of Latin as a result of the second Vatican Council excited deep antagonism; one sees in the Latin liturgy an image, cherished by many, of the timeless and changeless Roman Catholic Church. Yet, the restoration of the vernacular should restore to the liturgy two functions that it had in the early centuries: to instruct converts and to confirm members in their faith[11].
It should be noted that although Scofield would have preferred to use the Revised Version for his Reference Bible, his true preference was not publicly articulated in the "Introduction" to his work. In his following statement of support for the KJV, he is really publicly justifying his private resignation to the fact that the KJV public would not endorse a challenger to the KJV at that time. He continued his above-quoted statement as follows:
The discovery of the Sinaitic MS, and the labours in the field of textual criticism of such scholars as Griesbach, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Winer, Alford, and Westcott and Hort, have cleared the Greek textus receptus of minor inaccuracies, while confirming in a remarkable degree the general accuracy of the Authorized Version of that text. Such emendations of the text as scholarship demands have been placed in the margins of this editions, which therefore combines the dignity, the high religious value, the tender associations of the past, the literary beauty and remarkable general accuracy of the Authorized Version, with the results of the best textual scholarship.
In actuality Scofield included in his margins only a very few of the many textual corrections that were made by the scholars he mentions above, that were included in the Revised Version, and virtually all subsequent modern translations. His above statement about the KJV was rather generous, given that he knew the Protestant clergy and public would not endorse his use of another translation. Scofield's "mature reflection"/pragmatism enabled his Reference Bible to become the leading study Bible for the next half century. In recent years the Scofield Reference Bible has become available in the following versions: NIV, NASV, and NKJV. There is also a New Scofield Reference Bible, first published in 1968, which substitutes into the text itself corrections for what textual scholars' consider the KJV's most unwarranted textual errors.
It was until 1952 that there continued to be no serious competitor to the KJV in mainline Protestant churches. It was during that year, however, that the complete Revised Standard Version [RSV] was published as an authorized revision of the ASV, which itself was an authorized revision of the KJV.
Even the RSV met with considerable hostility when first introduced. F.F. Bruce graphically describes the intense animosity toward the Revised Standard Version as follows:
When the whole Bible was published in 1952, the criticism, which greeted it from some quarters, was remarkably reminiscent of criticism voiced in earlier days against the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate, against the versions of Luther and Tyndale, against the A.V. and R.V. One American preacher was reported to have burned a copy of the R.S.V. with a blowlamp in his pulpit, remarking that it was like the devil because it was hard to burn...Pamphlets appeared bearing such titles as The Bible of Antichrist (an echo, hinting no doubt, of More's description of Tyndale's New Testament), The New Blasphemous Bible, and Whose Unclean Fingers Have Been Tampering With The Holy Bible, God's Pure, Infallible, Verbally Inspired Word? (The last-named opens with the sentence: "Every informed and intelligent person knows that our government is crawling with communists, or those who sanction and encourage communism" -- which indicates another line along which the version was attacked.)[12]
For a remarkably fair and balanced (but disturbing) account of some groups' continuing, hateful resistance to any use of any Bible version other than the KJV, one might consult "The King James Only Controversy: Can You Trust the Modern Translations?" by James R. White, published by Bethany House Publishers in 1995. The back cover includes the following quote from Dr. Metzger:
The King James Only Controversy is scholarly and accurate, and its evaluation of opposing viewpoints fair. Anyone troubled by criticism of English translations will find White trustworthy. I hope his book will be widely circulated. It will do much good.
Now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, we discover that the situation has changed remarkably. In most English-speaking churches, the KJV has been largely replaced, except in the most 'conservative' of denominations. Many churches had switched to the Revised Standard Version Bible after its initial publication in 1952. Then, later still, many churches switched to the New American Standard Version (1971), the New International Version (1978), the New Revised Standard Version (1989), or one of the other more recent versions such as the New Living Translation.
Conclusion
In this essay we have briefly considered which are the most viable ancient texts to be used from which to translate the Bible into English. It is the Hebrew (Old Testament), Aramaic (verses in Genesis and Daniel), and Greek (New Testament) texts which properly constitute the Bible; with all other versions and vernacular editions, whether produced in AD 384, 1611 or in 2002, are merely translations indirectly derived from those original Hebrew and Greek texts.
Objectively viewed, those Hebrew and Greek texts that most accurately represent the original texts should be used by translators and should serve as the final standard for biblical interpretation. In this context the words of Protestant Christian historian Ernst Wilhelm Benz provides an appropriate perspective:
The translation of Holy Scripture into a vernacular language generally has been based upon the form of the language that was spoken at the time of the translation. Hence, the sacred language and the vernacular language initially correspond to one another, and the translations of the Bible thus represented a linguistically creative enrichment of the living popular tongue. Use of the Scriptures in worship services, however, generally led to the development of a "sacred" church language that no longer was able to keep up with linguistic development. It rather has remained fixated upon the ancient substratum of the language from the period of the translation of the Scriptures (e.g., Old Church Slavonic in the liturgy of some Eastern Orthodox churches, or the King James Version of the Bible in early 17th-century English). Translation of the Scriptures into popular languages thus is a never-ending task...[13]
[1] F.F. Bruce, History of the English Bible, 3rd ed., New York: Oxford University Press, 1978, pp. 141-142.
[2] B.M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary of the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed., p. 102.
[3] F.F. Bruce, pp. 102-103
[4] Ibid., p. 103
[5] B.M. Metzger and D. Coogan (eds.), "Translations", The Oxford Companion to the Bible, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993, pp. 759-760.
[6] P.D. Wegner, The Journey from Texts to Translations, Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1999, p. 311
[7] S. Kubo and W. Sprecht, So Many Versions? Twentieth Century English Versions of the Bible, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1975, pp. 22-23
[8] F.F. Bruce, p. 150
[9] Ibid, p. 152
[10] ASV, p. iii.
[11] J. MacKenzie, Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol 15, p. 996
[12] F.F. Bruce, p. 196
[13] E.W. Benz, Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol 4, p. 464
