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| Title Page of the First Edition of the KJV credit: Wikipedia |
Over the years, there have been hundreds of translations of the records that we know to be the Old and New Testament. There are a few, however, that are commonly accepted by a large percentage of the Christian world. One of these translations is the KJV, or the King James Version of the Bible. Published in 1611, it was commissioned by (you guessed it) King James. He wanted a version of the Bible that supported the theology of the Church of England, and he wanted to widely produce it. While the KJV is a wonderful publication that has grown the faith of millions around the world, there is one problem. Simply put, it is the King James Version. When it was originally published, it definitely didn't go by any specific title, however, over the years we have come to refer to it as the King James Version. Here lies the heart of our problem. The original texts were translated from the Greek for the New Testament and from the Hebrew for the Old Testament. As these were translated, King James had ulterior motives: he wanted to establish the theology of the Church of England.
While we can see that the KJV can be used to support many different denominations, it is clear that this version of the Bible cannot possibly be the most pure. I realized this as I read a document entitled "Poetry of the King James Version" by Leland Ryken. In it, he makes an argument against newer translations of the Bible because they lose some of the authentic and majestic language from the KJV. However, I then realized that this same argument can be made against the KJV! The Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek Septuagint (New Testament) cannot be perfectly translated into English. Therefore, some of the true meaning of these passages is probably lost to us.
My question, then, is this: is it our responsibility as Christians to learn to read Hebrew and Greek so we can understand the true meaning of God's word? Or is secondhand information good enough to get the message across?
I think it's interesting to note the things lost in translation. We've grown up hearing that the KJV of the Bible is the most correct version, but like you pointed out, there were still things lost as well as specific agendas in creating it. I don't think we need to learn Hebrew & Greek to be a good Christian, but I do think that it is very worthwhile to look at the direct translation. I think there's a lot we can learn and probably a lot of questions that can be answered by going back to the original translation.
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