Some folks who attack the King James Bible claim to do so on historical grounds. For example, they might say that various translations were made in the Reformation, that the Westminster Confession of Faith spoke about the importance of Hebrew and Greek, or that the KJB translators were not infallible.
But this is a deception if the person arguing against the KJB is taking a modernistic position, in favour of modern versions like the ESV, etc. This is for two reasons:
1. The historical position would at least be friendly toward the KJB, and at least connect to the Textus Receptus or Traditional Text positions, or, at worst, the Majority Text position.
2. The historical position could not embrace the thoughts and processes from the Higher Critics or men like Westcott and Hort.
The most consistent and best historical position, as is highlighted by both internal and external (providential) factors, is to be King James Bible only.
However, a genuine believer should not be a modern versionist, supporting or using the likes of the NASV, the ESV, NIV or anything else like them, let alone the NLT, the Message and so on.
Kent Brandenburg rightly shows the error of someone like James White: “White doesn’t believe a biblical or historical position on the preservation of scripture. He instead takes a post-enlightenment, rationalistic, and evidentialist view, albeit claiming to be presuppositional. According to him, because of the existence of textual variants, even true churches lost the words of God and today men must restore them according to modern rules of literary criticism. Taking his approach, no one will ever know what the exact, specific words of scripture were in the originals until he gets to heaven.”
Source: http://www.kentbrandenburg.blogspot.com.au/2014/09/commentary-on-steven-anderson-james.html
The modernist approach is circular reasoning. They begin by limited human knowledge, carnal reasonings and sight based judgment. And they end with no perfect Bible. Of course, by their view, a perfect Bible is impossible, so of course the modernist can never recognise the perfection of the KJB.
Notice that they do not use Scripture, but wrong philosophy for their modern version view (and rejection of the perfection of the KJB).
1. NATURALISTIC. There is nothing supernatural about the transmission of Scripture copies, but corruption, mistakes, uncertainties and differences exist.
2. DEISTIC. That while God inspired, He has allowed natural processes to occur in the transmission of copies of Scripture.
3. FATALISTIC. The corpus of extant disparate manuscripts must have been God’s will. The variety of texts and translations today is therefore good.
4. SIGHT-BASED. That Scripture is identified by what is observed, that analysis is done on copies, and that what is seen is the only certain information to aid in reconstructing the originals by textual critical methods.
5. EMPIRICAL. That human knowledge is limited by what it has analysised and discovered.
6. CRITICAL. That human judgment must be employed to decided what is God’s Word.
7. RATIONALISTIC. That since it is known that man is imperfect, that differences have arisen in manuscripts due to errors and corruptions, and that translation and copies in time remove from the source, to aim back as close to the source is necessary.
8. PENSIVE. The perfect Word of God cannot be known, but as more information comes to light, more certain conclusions can be made.
9. MODERNISTIC. That the Church through history has been in a languished state for not having had as full knowledge as the present concerning the actual content of Scripture.
10. HUMAN-BASED. That man has decided how to approach this problem and what course to take, and what conclusions can be reached, because God gave man the mind and ability to do so.
11. CARNAL. Man’s exercise of his mind and pursuit of modern textual criticism is a developed science and art.
12. SELF-WILLED. The modern textual critic does not regard any doctrine on this matter, since the Bible is said not to speak about it.
13. SUBJECTIVE. There is no perfect modern version, no universal agreement among scholars, and individuals can take a passage and use methods (textual and translational) to suit themselves and match their a priori beliefs.
Romans 1:28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
It is much better to take a believing approach, that God has outworked through Providential Preservation, that according to His promises, we actually have a perfect English Bible.