The King James translators

The King James Translators Were Christians

We believe that the Translators of the Version of 1611 were Christians.
Since we agree that the KJV translators were Christians, the borders of the kingdom are broader than some have said. Salvation makes you a member of the Lord's Church. Acts 2:47. And the Lord kinows who His people are. We believe that now is the time for the Lord's People to aggressively advance the Gospel message that "He who believes in the Son has eternal life, and he who does not believe the Son will not see life..." John 3:36

A. Campbell also believed they were Christians. He accepted the KJV as the inspired word of God. His argument with them was based on the changes in the English language since their work. Campbell wrote: "We have, IN WRITING, all the Hebrew and Greek that is necessary to perpetuate to the end of time, all the ideas which the Spirit of God had communicated to the world; and these languages, being dead, have long since ceased to change. The meaning of the words used by the sacred penman is fixed and immutable; which it could not have been, had these languages continued to be spoken."

"But this constant mutation in a living language, will probably render new translations, or corrections of old translations, necessary every two or three hundred years. For although the English tongue may have changed less during the last two hundred years, than it ever did in the same lapse of time before: yet the changes which have taken place since the reign of James I., do now render a new translation necessary. For if the King's translators had given a translation every way faithful and correct, in the language then spoken in Britain; the changes in the English language which have since been introduced, would render that translation, in many instances, incorrect. The truth of this assumption will appear from a few specifications:--" Campbell goes on to specify such phrases as: "We do ye to wit" - understandable at the time as "We cause you to know." [This was the thinking behind the New King James Version and why some obsolete words were replaced.]

The KJV translators (or revisers) lived in a different time and a different culture. Their personal world-view was "gloomy" due to the world in which they lived. They wrote and spoke in the language of Tyndale, 16th Century. Tyndale's translation of 1526 inspired the great translations to follow, including the Great Bible of 1539, the Geneva Bible of 1560, the Bishop's Bible of 1568 (and others).

King James wanted a "standard" "official" Translation to be used by all the English churches. He instructed: "The ordinary Bible read in the Church, commonly called the Bishop's Bible, to be followed, and as little altered as the Truth of the original will permit."

The original KJV 1611 was published in Old English Black Letters, and included the Books of the Apocrypha. It also contained an introduction by the Translators, and a justification for their work. They said: "We are so far off from condemning any of their labors that travailed before us in this kind, either in this land or beyond sea, either in King Henry's time, or King Edward's...or Queen Elizabeth's of ever renowned memory, that we acknowledge them to have been raised up of God, for the building and furnishing of his Church, and that they deserve to be had of us and of posterity in everlasting remembrance." You can read about this online at: http://m2.aol.com/AVBibleTAB/av/KJVpre.htm and
http://m2.aol.com/avbibletab/av/dedicat.htm

Campbell's Living Oracles New Testament was widely used by churches of Christ in the years before the War Between The States. It was based on work done by George Campbell, Philip Doddridge,and James MacKnight and revised slightly by A. Campbell. The Living Oracles spoke the language of the educated Scotch-Irish in the early 1800s. You can read Campbell's Living Oracles New Testament: http://www.mun.ca/rels/restmov/oracles4th/oracles4th.html

Many Churches of Christ today use a variety of Versions. NKJV, NIV, RSV, GNB, etc. God speaks all languages.