Which edition of the KJB is the right one?

[bibleprotector]

Now, I know people have been trying to disprove the King James Bible by asking this question for a long time. Elements of this issue have been answered by David Reagan, Nic Kizziah and others. However, as there is study into this important area, it should be clear that there is in fact a fuller answer which can be given.

It is not sufficient to just say “all editions” or “any edition”.

1. Some editions are wrong, e.g. where they have been deliberately corrupted or altered against the tradition of the King James Bible. Examples include:
a. Webster’s edition (circa 1828) which changed various words and concepts.
b. The American Revision (circa 1850) which changed all kinds of words, concepts and doctrines.
c. Scrivener’s Edition (1873) which overtly rejected the 1769 Edition, and introduced a radical revisionary principle to follow the Second Edition of 1611 as the first edition, and to selectively modernise words, and alter some words against the translators in several places, and to place doubt upon 1 John 5:7
d. Various modernised forms of the King James Bible which supposedly update the so-called archaic language, but are actually modern versions, and may follow the margins rather than the text, and make as many drastic changes as can be allowed without actually claiming to have altered the underlying texts
e. David Norton’s edit of the Cambridge Paragraph Edition, which purports to present the translators’ real intentions by following the incomplete and partial drafts of the translators, some of which is objectionably so, but is evidence that has survived from earlier years perhaps 1611. This is besides his modernisations of the language, so that words like “uttermost” become “outermost”, and so on, making big meaning changes.

2. The lineage from 1611 of correct editions means that while each and any of such editions are commendable, and editions based upon them, which were used by Christians, and were accepted as according to the tradition, nevertheless, improvement may be found in successive of such editions, so that while the First 1611 Edition may be acceptable, the second from that year purified it, and the 1613 edition obviously further so, and the concerted revision of 1629 better still, and 1638 giving a stable form, to that grand work of 1769, from which present editions are based upon, and finally the tradition through Cambridge University Press, which yielded the fruit of the Pure Cambridge Edition circa 1900, which since has been printed in vast numbers, by many witnesses, and now being taken as the definitive King James Bible edition.

3. That while some small differences may be found since 1769 in different editions, even in the editions of one publishing house, the typical Oxford versus Cambridge differences (like at Joshua 19:2, where the Cambridge rendering of “or Sheba” is correct, as opposed to the Oxford presentation of “and Sheba”, and other such examples), we find that in recent years publishing houses in America have been introducing many new, silent and unauthorised alterations into their editions, so that such editions are literally without “honour”, and that Peter’s speech betrayed him (rather than “bewrayeth”), or that one should be thoroughly furnished unto good works, rather than “throughly”, and so on. The list gets worse in this evolution of one kind (KJB) into another (called KJB but not a KJB).

Clearly, we must turn back to the old paths, and preserve and maintain that good tradition which has been providentially bequeathed to us, namely, the pure text from Cambridge, which sadly they no longer seem to publish.

To say, any old edition, or to say the 1769 Edition, or the Cambridge Edition without realising that there are differences between different Cambridge Editions dating between 1769 and the present, is not exactly the most clear answer. I believe that the exact proper presentation is the Pure Cambridge Edition of the King James Bible, see www.bibleprotector.com

It is important to understand that there has been a purification within the King James Bible. That is why the typography errors of 1611 needed to be corrected. That is why the spelling and grammar were standardised. That is why the italics and other issues were regularised. This is the purification of the presentation, and not anything that was changing the underlying version or the translation, but just ensuring that the jots and tittles were exact and correct in the presenting of the King James Bible.