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Problems With KJV-Onlyism: (1) It is Not the First English Translation

Have you met a KJV-Onlyist?  The good news is that they are probably a genuine Christian and mostly hold to the same essential beliefs as you do.  The bad news is that because of one peculiar conviction, they can cause a lot of division among Christians.  KJV-Onlyists believe that the KJV is the only English Bible that is the word of God; all other English translations are corrupt.  If you use a more modern English translation, they may question your devotion to Christ, and perhaps even your.  They will not attend a church or listen to a preacher who uses anything but the KJV, and they will tell you that you shouldn't either.

There are many problems with KJV-Onlyism, which I will be dealing with in a series of blog posts over the next few days.  The first problem is that many KJV-Only advocates argue for the superiority of the KJV because they think it is the first English translation.  Even though it is illogical to assume that "first" means "best" (McDonald's came before Chick-fil-A, but we all know which is better), the KJV is nowhere close to the first English translation.  It comes after a long line of English translations, and is even based on these previous translations.

Let's briefly review a short history of the Bible.  First, to the shock of some KJV-Onlyists, the Bible was not originally written in English.  Jesus and the apostles did not know English.  It was originally written in Hebrew (Old Tesstament) and Greek (New Testament).  In AD 400, Jerome (a Catholic priest), translated the Bible into Latin (known as the Latin Vulgate).  This became the official Bible of the Christian church for the next 1,000 years.  

In AD 1382, a Catholic priest named John Wycliffe translated the first English Bible.  He based his translation on the Latin Vulgate and not on the original Hebrew and Greek.  Wycliffe is known as the "Morningstar of the Reformation" because of his stances against Roman Catholic teachings, and because of his tremendous influence on the later Reformers.  It is hard to express how courageous it was for Wycliffe to translate the Bible into English, since English translations were outlawed.  Many of his followers, called Lollards, were burned at the stake with their Bibles tied around their necks.  All of Wycliffe's copies were handwritten.  Even though a Bible could take up to a year to copy, thousands were produced.

In 1526, a Catholic priest named William Tyndale translated the first English New Testament from the Greek.  This was the first English Bible to be printed (rather than hand-copied).  Since the English Bible was still outlawed, Tyndale was arrested and burned at the stake.  

After Tyndale's New Testament, many English Bibles began to be produced in the sixteenth century.  The Coverdale Bible was published in 1535 by Tyndale's assistant, Myles Coverdale.  This was the first complete English Bible to be printed.  

In 1537, John Rogers published the Matthew's Bible.  It was called the Matthew's Bible to conceal Rogers' identity, since English Bibles were still outlawed.  It had 2,000 study notes.  Sometimes it is called the "Wife-Beater's Bible" because of the marginal note at 1 Peter 5:7, which read, "If [the wife] be not obedient and healpfull unto [her husband, he] endeavoureth to beate the feare of God into her…”!  Eventually Rogers was arrested and became the first martyr to be burned at the stake by the English Queen Mary Tudor (a.k.a. Bloody Mary).

In 1539 the Great Bible was published.  It was named not because of its superior quality, but because of its large size!  Under the direction of King Henry VIII, this was the first English Bible to be printed lawfully.  The king ordered that a Great Bible be placed in every church in England.

In 1557 the Geneva Bible was published.  During the reign of Bloody Mary, many protestant scholars from England fled to the city of Geneva, Switzerland, where the reformer John Calvin was living.  There they collaborated to produce a masterful English translation.  It was the first English Bible to be produced entirely from the original Hebrew and Greek.  It was also the first English translation done by committee, rather than by a single individual, as well as the first English translation to have verse divisions.  It had thousands of study notes, many by John Calvin himself.  This was the Bible the Pilgrims used; they brought it with them to America when they landed at Plymouth.  This was also the Bible that Shakespeare used.  The Geneva Bible quickly became the most popular English translation, and held its dominance for fifty years after the KJV was published.  The KJV was strongly influenced by the Geneva Bible.  In the original preface to the KJV, the Bible is quoted several times, and each time it is the Geneva version rather than the KJV!

In 1568 the Bishop's Bible was published.  The Anglican bishops did not like the Geneva Bible because of its many Calvinist-leaning study notes.  This new translation was called the Bishop's Bible because it was translated by the bishops.  However, it could not compete with the popularity of the Geneva Bible, and after a few years it was no longer in print.  Ironically, the translators of the KJV were instructed to base their translation on the Bishop's Bible.

In 1582 the Rheims Bible was published.  By this time the Roman Catholics decided they needed their own Bible to compete with the many protestant English Bibles.  The Rheims Bible, however, was not translated from the original languages, but from the Latin Vulgate.  In fact, at the Council of Trent it was decreed that all Catholic Bibles be translated from the Latin rather than the original languages.  This decree was not reversed until the 1960s.  

In 1603 King James I became the monarch in England.  Due to the many disagreements between the Anglicans and the Puritans, it was agreed that a new Bible should be produced that would unite the two.  The Geneva Bible was disliked by the Anglican Bishops and the King because its marginal notes were anti-monarchy, anti-Roman Catholic, and Calvinistic.  For example, the marginal notes challenged the divine right of kings, and taught that man should obey God rather than government when the two conflict.  As well, the Geneva Bible notes stated clearly that the Pope was the Antichrist.  As a result, the King ordered the printing of a new Bible.  The King James Version was work of a team of forty-nine translators from Oxford, Cambridge, and Westminster.  The Bible was to have no study notes.  The translators were instructed to consult the Hebrew and Greek, but to follow the example of the Bishop's Bible as much as possible.  The translators also relied heavily on other English versions, including Tyndale's New Testament, the Geneva Bible, and even the Catholic Rheims Bible.  Eventually the KJV became the most popular English translation, surpassing even the Geneva Bible.

There is nothing wrong with someone preferring the King James Bible (we all have our favorite Bible version).  But if someone believes the KJV is superior because it was the first English Bible, they are sadly mistaken.  It is not even an original English translation, but was heavily influenced by previous English Bibles.  

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