KJV-onlyism Revisited: Thinking a bit more about KJV-onlyism, I find that I have some difficulty even describing where I presently stand. For most of my Christian life, I have used the King James Version almost exclusively. I still do. I have read many of the books defending it, embraced a good deal of the reasoning behind the KJV-only position, and even today I have virtually no interest in changing translations. The language of the KJV has become deeply woven into the way I read, remember, and think about Scripture. And yet I am not sure that “KJV-only” accurately describes me anymore.
Perhaps the difference is that I find myself increasingly committed to defending the authority of Scripture rather than defending a particular English translation at all costs. I have no desire to diminish the KJV. I love it. I expect to continue reading it. But those are not quite the same thing as believing that every translation decision made by its translators must necessarily have been correct, or that the authority of the Word of God somehow depends upon proving that they were.
That distinction has caused me to think more carefully about one of the great attractions of KJV-onlyism: certainty. There is something profoundly attractive about being told: Here is the Bible. One book. One translation. One voice. You never have to wonder which rendering is better. You never have to hear about competing manuscripts, textual variants, translation philosophy, or questions involving Greek and Hebrew. When translations disagree, you already know which one is right. The KJV is right. That is enormously reassuring, and I do not mean that dismissively.
Believers really do need certainty. For many of us it offers something we genuinely desire: a stable place to stand. But that raises a more difficult question: Is it certainty at the expense of truth? There is a difference between certainty that God has spoken and certainty that our own conclusions about how He has preserved and translated His Word must also be correct. Those two kinds of certainty can easily become fused together. And once they are, something begins to happen. The KJV no longer simply bears witness to the certainty of the Word of God. The KJV-only system itself becomes the mechanism through which that certainty is maintained.
At that point, questions concerning translation, manuscripts, or individual renderings can begin to feel threatening, not necessarily because they threaten Scripture, but because they threaten the structure that has given us our sense of security. Think about it: A believer looks around and sees one translation say this, another say something slightly different, while a footnote reads, “Some manuscripts say…” and another says, “The earliest manuscripts omit…” Then someone places a KJV in his hand and says: This is it. Do not worry about any of that. Every word is exactly where God intended it to be. If another translation differs from this one, the other translation is wrong. I understand the attraction of that argument because, for many years, I found much of my own certainty there.
But there is an irony here worth considering. We may become so determined to remove every question that we begin saying more than Scripture says. Scripture teaches inspiration. Scripture speaks with divine authority. And I believe we have every reason to trust the faithfulness of God in preserving His Word. But the additional proposition that God has preserved His inspired Word perfectly and exclusively in one particular English translation is another claim.
We want certainty, but sometimes we want a kind of certainty God has never promised us. We want to know precisely which manuscript reading is original in every disputed place. We want one English translation in which every word settles every question. But admitting such limitations does not mean that we are uncertain about Christ. It does not mean that we are uncertain about the gospel. It does not mean that we are uncertain that God has spoken.
That distinction seems increasingly important. We do not need perfect certainty concerning every question of textual transmission and translation in order to possess a perfectly trustworthy Word of God. In fact, perhaps this places our confidence on firmer ground. Our confidence does not finally rest upon our ability to demonstrate that one particular group of seventeenth-century translators made an infallible decision at every point. It rests upon the God who inspired Scripture and who has faithfully preserved His testimony through history.
I remain very much a King James Bible reader. I love its language. I trust it. I am not looking for another translation, and I am not embarrassed by my affection for it. Much of the historical and theological argument that drew me toward the KJV still matters. But I am no longer willing to make the authority of Scripture depend upon the infallibility of one English translation, or to defend every KJV rendering simply because it is in the KJV. So I’m still very KJV by conviction and preference, but Scripture, not the KJV as an English translation, is my final authority. MPJ
Postscript: A friend wrote after reading this and said the post had encouraged him to read other translations. I appreciated his note, but I realized I should clarify something. My intention was not to steer anyone away from the KJV or even particularly toward other translations. I still use the KJV exclusively myself, and I remain deeply thankful for it. What I was trying to question was some of the arguments that are sometimes built around KJV-onlyism, especially when we begin treating our conclusions about preservation, translation, or textual history as though they carry the same authority as Scripture itself. So this was never meant to say, “You need other translations.” It was simply an attempt to say that we should be careful not to claim more than we can actually establish, even when we are defending something we deeply value. We love the KJV. That is precisely why I think it deserves a fair and careful defense.