“The King James Version was born of the Reformation; the Revised Versions and some modern Bibles were born of Higher Criticism and Romanizing activities” (B.G. Wilkinson).
This a small excerpt from the opening paragraph of Chapter 1 of the book of the above title, written by Benjamin George Wilkinson in 1930. It is one of the best defences of the King James Bible that I’ve read – and I’ve read a lot of them. At the time it was written there was only a handful of revisions of the Bible, the most important being the Revised Version. Nowadays there are literally hundreds of versions; but it still boils down to the fact that, when all is said and done, there are still only two versions.
So, when Wilkinson names the Revised Version, the reader can substitute their own version and the sense will be the same. Sadly, the situation is far worse than in his time, with untold numbers of Bible versions flooding the market, with at least one new version or revision being published each year. Bibles are now a very lucrative cash cow for publishers and they each have their own versions copyrighted.
Fundamentally, Only Two Different Bibles
‘There is the idea in the minds of some people that scholarship demands the laying aside of the Authorized Version of the Bible and taking up the latest Revised Version. This is an idea, however, without any proper bases (sic). This Revised Version is in large part in line with what is known in modernism, and is peculiarly acceptable to those who think that any change, anywhere or in anything, is progress. Those who have really investigated the matter, and are in hearty sympathy with what is evangelical, realize that this Revised Version is a part of the movement to ‘modernize’ Christian thought and faith and do away with the established truth’. The Herald and Presbyter (Presbyterian), July 16, 1924, p. 10”. (Highlighting mine).
[In] One of our prominent publications, there appeared in the winter of 1928, an article entitled, “Who Killed Goliath?” and in the spring of 1929, an article named, “The Dispute About Goliath”. Attention was called to the fact that in the American Revised Version, 2 Samuel 21:19, we read that Elhanan killed Goliath. A special cablegram from the “most learned scholars” of the Church of England, said in substance, that the Revised Version was correct, that Elhanan and not David killed Goliath; that there were many other things in the Bible which were the product of exaggeration, such as the story of Noah and the ark, of Jonah and the whale, of the Garden of Eden, and of the longevity of Methuselah.
The first article says that these modern views have been held and taught in practically all American theological seminaries of standing, and that young ministers being graduated from them, have rejected the old beliefs about these events whether the public knew it or not. (Emphases mine). This publication aroused a national interest and its office was “inundated”, as the editor says, with letters as to whether the Revised Version is correct, or whether, as we have always believed, according to the Authorized Version, David killed Goliath.
Is the American Revised Version correct on this point, or is the Bible, which has led the Protestant world for three hundred years, correct? Is the Revised Version correct in thousands of other changes made, or is the King James Version correct?
Back of this and other changes lie the motives and events which, in 1870, brought into existence the Committees which produced the Revised Versions – both the English and the American. During the three hundred and fifty years following the Reformation, repeated attempts were made to set aside the Greek New Testament, called the Received Text, from which the New Testament of the King James in English and other Protestant Bibles in other languages were translated.
Many individual efforts produced different Greek New Testaments. Likewise furious attacks were made upon the Old Testament in Hebrew, from which the King James and other Bibles had been translated. None of these assaults, however, met with any marked success until the Revision Committee was appointed by the southern half of the Church of England under the Archbishop of Canterbury…….
…….This Revision Committee, besides the changes in the Old Testament, made over 5000 changes in the Received Text of the New Testament and so produced a new Greek New Testament. This permitted all the forces hostile to the Bible to gather themselves together and pour through the breach. Since then, the floodgates have been opened and we are now deluged with many different kinds of Greek New Testaments and with English Bibles translated from them, changed and mutilated in bewildering confusion.
Again, in the story of the dark hour when Jesus hung upon the cross, the King James Bible declares that the darkness which was over the whole land from the sixth hour to the ninth hour was produced because the sun was darkened. This reason offers the Christian believer a testimony of the miraculous interposition of the Father in behalf of His son, similar to the darkness which afflicted Egypt in the plagues upon that nation.
In the New Testament, as translated by Moffatt and certain other modern Bibles, we are told that the darkness was caused by an eclipse of the sun. Of course, a darkness caused by an eclipse of the sun is very ordinary; it is not a miracle. Moreover, Christ was crucified at the time of the Passover which always occurred when the moon was full. At the time of a full moon, no eclipse of the sun is possible. Now which of these two records in Greek did God write: the miraculous, as recorded in the King James Bible and which we have believed for three hundred years; or the unnatural and impossible, as recorded in Moffatt’s translation? Moffatt and the Revisers both used the same manuscript.
Some of those who had part in these Revised and Modern Bibles were higher critics [unbelieving scholars who deny the supernatural origin of the Bible and the deity of Jesus) of the most pronounced type. At least one man sat on the Revision Committee of 1881 who had openly and in writing denied the divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ….it is too late to beguile us with soothing words that all versions and all translations are of equal value; that nowhere is doctrine affected. Doctrine is seriously affected. So wrote Dr. G.V. Smith, a member of the English New Testament Revision Committee: “Since the publication of the revised New Testament, it has been frequently said that the changes of translation which the work contains are of little importance from a doctrinal point of view….” To the writer, any such statement appears to be in the most substantial sense contrary to the case……
…….Experience can throw some light also upon the relative value of Bible Versions. The King James Bible was translated when England was fighting her way out from Catholicism to Protestantism; whereas the Revised Version was born after fifty years (18833-1883) of terrific Romanizing campaigns, when one convulsion after another rocked the mental defenses of England and broke down the ascendancy of the Protestant mentality in that empire. The King James Version was born of the Reformation; the Revised Versions and some modern Bibles were born of Higher Criticism and Romanizing activities, as this treatise will show……
……Down through the centuries, the pure Bible, the living Word of God, has often faced the descendants of this corrupt [Revised] Version, robed in splendour and seated on the throne of power. It has been battle and a march, a battle and a march. God’s Holy Word has always won; to its victories we owe the very existence of Christian civilisation and all the happiness we now have and hope for in eternity. And now, once again, in these last days, the battle is being renewed; the affections and the control of the minds of men are being contended for by these two rival claimants.
Devotion to error can never produce true righteousness. Out of the present confusion of Bible, I propose to trace the situation back to its origin, that our hearts may be full of praise and gratitude to God for the marvelous manner in which He has given to us and preserved for us the Holy Scriptures.
“The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever” (Ps 12:6-7 [KJV] – this passage is omitted from modern versions).
Taken from “Our Authorized Bible Vindicated” by B.G. Wilkinson, 1930, Kindle edition, Teach Services, Inc.; 2nd edition (2 December 2014).