Transmission of the Old & New Testament Translations

Problems with the King James Version: What Were the Translators Translating?

article link

by Bart Erhman

January 11, 2023

I’ve mentioned several problems with the King James Version in previous posts. Arguably the most significant set of problems has to do with the text that the translators were translating. The brief reality is that in the early 17th century, Greek editions of the New Testament were based on very few and highly inferior manuscripts. Only after the King James was translated did scholars begin to become aware of the existence of older, and far better, manuscripts.

The manuscripts of the New Testament (and of all books from antiquity) were copied — prior to the invention of printing — almost always by scribes who did their best to make faithful reproductions of the copies they were copying, and many of them did a remarkably good job. Others did a not-so-good job. Since mistakes can get replicated over time, and introduced over time, in general it is a good idea to consult the *earliest* manuscripts for determining what an author of a book wrote. The later manuscripts tend to be worse (that’s not an *absolute* rule, but a relatively good one).

As we saw in the previous post, the first edition of the Greek NT to be published after the invention of printing was by the Rotterdam humanist Erasmus, whose 1516 edition went through several revisions over the years. Other publishers based their own editions on Erasmus, rather than doing a careful study of the surviving manuscripts themselves. Eventually it became such a standard text that it came to be known as the Textus Receptus (the “received text” – that is, the text everyone used). Erasmus’s edition was based just on the few Greek manuscripts at his disposal, which were late medieval and that had the typical kinds of mistakes that one can find in late medieval manuscripts.

As a result, translations into English of the Greek New Testament, based on Erasmus’s editions and those that replicated, more or less, his text, include translations of passages that were almost certainly not originally in the New Testament, but that had come to be added later by scribes. The most famous of all is the so-called “Johannine Comma,” a reference to 1 John 5:7-8, the only passage in the New Testament that explicitly affirms the doctrine of the Trinity.

In the Latin Vulgate – the Bible of Western Christendom for centuries – 1 John 5:7-8 states that “there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit. And these three are one.” This then is the doctrine of the trinity: there are three divine beings in heaven and even though there are three of them, they are actually only one. One God, in three persons – the doctrine of the trinity. Nowhere else in the NT is the doctrine explicitly stated (although Father, Son, and Spirit are mentioned in the same breath elsewhere. But not the doctrine itself, which includes the idea that: “these three are one.”)

When Erasmus produced his first edition of the Greek NT, he left that verse out, since it was not in the Greek manuscript he was using. What happened next is a matter of debate. Some scholars have argued that the account of events widely known in the scholarly literature is apocryphal. But the way the story normally is told is as follows:

Church theologians were incensed that Erasmus had left the Trinity out of the Bible and attacked him for it. He explained that he could not find the verse in any of the Greek manuscripts he had consulted, and what he was producing was, after all, a Greek New Testament. He did agree, though, that if someone could show him a Greek manuscript that had the verse, he would include it in his next edition. And so, someone (literally) produced a manuscript – adding the verse by translating it in its proper place from the Latin.

And so Erasmus was true to his word, and included it in his next edition. It was this subsequent edition that was used by other publishers of other editions of the Greek NT, and these were the editions used by the translators of the King James. And so you will find the verse in the King James.

As more and more manuscripts were discovered, it became clear that in fact the verse was not part of the original text of 1 John, and so modern translations do not include it. When these translations started to appear at the end of the 19th century and into the 20th, there was considerable uproar when it was recognized that they did not include the leading proof text for the Trinity, and translators were roundly accused of being anti-Christian, liberal, untrustworthy, and even demonic tools of the Devil. But they were in fact simply translating the text as it had been handed down in the textual tradition. Sometimes readers don’t want the Bible as it was originally written, but only the Bible as they are familiar with it.

That is why those who insist on following the King James version insist that the story of Jesus and the Woman taken in Adultery (John 7:53-8:11) and the final twelve verses of Mark’s Gospel (Mark 16:9-21) were originally in the NT. They weren’t. They are *terrific* stories, but, well, they were added by later scribes.

The KJV has lots of other problems like this. Like the later additions to the text, it too is powerful and moving. But that doesn’t mean it is accurate, if what you want is to know what the authors themselves actually wrote.

* * * * * * * *

The History and Popularity of

English Bible Translations

article link

by Robert

March 2015

There was a time when no one could read the Bible in their own language. Now, Wycliffe Global Alliance statistics show that most of the world’s population has a complete Bible available in their native language. The English-speaking world can choose from dozens of translations. With so many out there, it makes me wonder: which ones do people choose?

There are several ways to answer this with data at varying levels of availability and reliability. The most accessible data comes from Wikipedia. Statistics from any online source will be skewed toward younger portions of the population, hampering the accuracy but useful all the same. The visualization below shows Bible translations through time using this list of English Bible translations and view statistics for each detail page.

click here to enlarge

The rise in the number of translations each decade since the 1950s is interesting. With each new version comes increased difficulty for one to stand out in the crowd. Those that have risen above the rest are the Wycliffe Bible, the King James Version (or Authorized Version), and the New International Version. The English Standard Version also deserves mention due to its rapid climb in popularity since its first publication in 2001.

John Wycliffe is famous for bringing the Bible to laypeople, an action which paved the way for the Protestant Reformation. Therefore, it remains a prominent interest when studying the history of the Bible. The King James Version stands out not only for its history and literary achievement but also for its continued popularity. We should expect that modern readers would gravitate to a version like the NIV with more familiar language, yet the KJV stays high up the charts while its language is from a bygone era.

It’s also important to explore how well this holds up compared to other data sources. One widely accessible source is Google Trends. The chart below examines search rankings for the five most popular versions.

Overall, the rankings match reasonably well with Wikipedia page views, with some interesting exceptions. While the NIV beats the KJV on a decade-long average, they have switched places since 2012 and the KJV continues to gain steam. The ESV continues climbing slowly and steadily. Other differences are likely accounted for in the methods used to track statistics and the time frame differences (90-day Wikipedia views vs. month-to-month search trends).

This only accounts for internet users at large who express some interest in each version through a page click or search term. It says nothing about what people actually buy or read on a regular basis. Bible websites and apps like YouVersion would have data on readership but would still be limited to tech-friendly demographics.

A better source would be the Barna Group, an organization which conducts scientific studies of religious interest. In a 2014 study comissioned by the American Bible Society, they found the same overall rankings for the top four versions based on survey responses. In this case, not only did the King James Version come out on top, it did so by a wide margin.

So, which English bible version is most popular? With three ways to answer that question, the King James Version is at or near the top of every list. Finding which one belongs in second, third, or fourth place will depend on where and when you look for data.

I gravitate towards sources which are easily accessible like Wikipedia. As we’ve seen, an easy answer won’t always be the right answer, but at least it’s something. Data concerning translation work worldwide is much harder to compile and analyze.

As the mission spreads throughout the globe, aided by the continued advancements in technology, I hope to see data that shows fewer and fewer people groups and languages without access to the scriptures.