A brief history of the KJV and Textus Receptus

November 10, 2024 • Series: Bible Preservation

The evidence shows that the KJV and its source texts were shaped by dedicated but imperfect translators and scholars who worked within the limitations of their resources.

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For most of my life, I believed that God had preserved his Word perfectly, without a single error. I assumed that every word of Scripture had been meticulously preserved through a line of perfect manuscripts, ultimately culminating in the King James Bible—a flawless, divinely-guarded translation. But when I finally began to study the issue instead of relying on my assumptions, I ran into challenges I could never have anticipated.

My plan was to start with the 1611 King James Bible and work backward through history, confirming what I had always believed. I expected that, as I dug deeper, I would find more proof of God’s hand preserving every word. But from the start, I was confronted with problems that forced me to rethink my understanding.

The first surprise came when I opened a 1611 edition of the King James Bible and compared it to the version I had grown up using. The two versions were different—not in spelling or grammar alone, but in meaningful ways that altered the text’s meaning. This raised a fundamental question: If the Bible was already perfect, why did it require revisions that changed the meaning of the text?

My next discovery was the translators’ extensive use of alternative readings. In the footnotes of the 1611 King James, I found many notes indicating that the translators considered alternative renderings. In some cases, these alternatives would significantly change the meaning of the passage. How could a perfect translation allow for variations in meaning?

Then, in the translators’ preface, I encountered another startling claim. They argued that even a flawed translation was still the Word of God. They wrote, “We do not deny—in fact, we affirm and assert—that the very poorest translation of the Bible … is the Word of God.” They did not say a flawed translation merely contained the Word of God or was mostly the Word of God. Instead, they held that even a translation with mistakes was still, in essence, God’s Word.

Not only did the translators express confidence in imperfect translations, but they also explicitly denied that their own translation was without fault. Here’s what they wrote:

“There is no reason why the Word, when translated, should be denied to be the Word, or be forbidden to be circulated, even though some imperfections and blemishes may be found in the expression of it.”

They compared their translation efforts to the rebuilding of the temple after the Jews returned from exile. The new temple, built by Zerubbabel, was not as glorious as Solomon’s original. But despite its imperfections, it was still accepted by God. In a similar way, the translators acknowledged that while their work was not perfect, it was still an acceptable means of conveying God’s truth.

This statement hit me hard. Not only did the translators assert that an imperfect translation could be considered God’s Word, but they also refused to claim perfection for their own work. I had always believed that the King James was without error, but here were its own translators acknowledging that their work had imperfections.

At this point, I felt uncomfortable but not defeated. Perhaps the translators were simply being modest, avoiding any bold claims of perfection. Determined to continue, I decided to dig deeper. If the King James translators did not see their work as flawless, perhaps the manuscripts they used were perfectly preserved. Maybe they were simply translating an already-perfect text.

Understanding the history behind the King James Bible

Before addressing the manuscripts, I needed to understand how the King James Bible came into existence. While I had once thought the King James was a brand-new translation, I discovered that it was, in fact, a revision of earlier English Bibles. This revelation helped me appreciate the translators’ approach and further challenged my assumption that the King James Bible represented a unique, divinely perfect work.

King James, the man behind the translation, was a practical and politically savvy leader. When he took the throne, England was Protestant but divided between two primary factions: the Anglicans and the Puritans. The disagreements between these groups were often minor but ran deep, fueled by years of tension and resentment. James sought to bridge this divide, hoping a new Bible translation would bring unity and reduce conflict.

At the time, two main Bibles were in use: the Anglicans favored the Bishops’ Bible, while the Puritans preferred the Geneva Bible. Though the two Bibles were quite similar, they had a few important differences. For example, the Bishops’ Bible used the term “church” while the Geneva Bible used “congregation” for the same Greek word. The Geneva Bible used “repent” where the Bishops’ Bible sometimes retained the older term “do penance.”

The biggest issue, however, was not in the translation itself but in the Geneva Bible’s commentary. Like today’s study Bibles, the Geneva Bible included notes and explanations for various passages. Some of this commentary was critical of monarchy and posed theological challenges to the Anglican hierarchy. Unsurprisingly, King James and the Anglican leadership were not keen on these notes, so creating a new Bible without divisive commentary seemed an ideal solution.

James commissioned a team of translators with a clear directive: to revise the Bishops’ Bible as little as possible unless the original Hebrew or Greek text demanded otherwise. In other words, he was not asking them to create a new translation from scratch. Rather, he wanted them to retain as much of the Bishops’ Bible as they could, making changes only where necessary. This meant the translators were essentially revising and refining an existing translation.

However, the translators did not limit themselves to the Bishops’ Bible. They consulted a range of other translations, including the Geneva Bible, the Coverdale Bible, and even the Rheims-Douay Bible used by English Catholics. One of their most significant influences was William Tyndale’s New Testament, which contributed much of the wording still beloved today. Scholars estimate that roughly 80% of the King James New Testament text comes directly from Tyndale’s work.

In hindsight, the translators’ approach makes perfect sense. The act of translation is never a simple, word-for-word process, and consulting multiple sources helps clarify difficult passages. The translators themselves acknowledged the benefits of this approach, writing, “Variety of translations is profitable for the finding out of the meaning of the Scriptures.” This principle is why they included so many footnotes and alternative readings in their work.

But for me, at the time, all this was troubling. The King James translators had based their work on a variety of sources, each with slight differences. It became clear that the King James Bible itself was not a unique, divinely perfect translation but a careful revision of multiple existing translations.

Revisiting the Textus Receptus

With a clearer understanding of the translation process, I turned my attention to the Greek manuscripts used for the New Testament. Central to the King James New Testament is a Greek text known as the Textus Receptus, or “received text.” Proponents of King James-only views often defend the Textus Receptus as the only pure, reliable text. Years ago, I believed this as well, assuming it was a perfectly preserved manuscript. But, as I found out, the history of the Textus Receptus is far more complicated.

The Textus Receptus did not exist as a complete, unified text until 1633, twenty-two years after the King James Bible was published. Its origins go back to a man named Erasmus, a 16th-century scholar who compiled the first printed Greek New Testament. Erasmus’s work laid the foundation for the Textus Receptus, but he faced significant limitations.

To create his text, Erasmus had access to only a handful of Greek manuscripts, all of which were relatively recent, dating from the 12th to 15th centuries. Some of his manuscripts were incomplete. In fact, he had only one copy of the Book of Revelation, and parts of it were missing. To fill in the gaps, Erasmus translated portions from the Latin Vulgate back into Greek, creating a patchwork text.

Erasmus’s text contained numerous variants—differences among the manuscripts he consulted. To reconcile these discrepancies, Erasmus employed a process known as textual criticism, which involves comparing the available manuscripts to make an educated guess about the original text. With limited resources and time, he produced several editions, revising his text with each edition. His third edition introduced the Comma Johanneum, a Trinitarian passage in 1 John 5:7, which had not been present in his earlier editions due to its absence in his Greek manuscripts.

Erasmus’s work was later revised by other scholars. Stephanus, in the 1540s, and Theodore Beza, a disciple of John Calvin, produced new editions of the Greek text, each introducing additional revisions. It wasn’t until 1633 that the Elzevir brothers published an edition with the claim that their text was the “received text,” thus coining the term Textus Receptus. Ironically, this so-called received text was influenced by the King James Bible itself.

This history contradicted everything I had assumed. Instead of discovering an unbroken chain of perfect manuscripts, I found evidence of numerous changes and revisions, even in the Greek texts underlying the King James New Testament. The Textus Receptus was not a line of preserved manuscripts handed down through the centuries. It was a compilation that evolved over time and was shaped by the choices and limitations of Erasmus, Stephanus, Beza, and the Elzevir brothers.

A crisis of understanding

Twelve years ago, I began this journey to prove my theory of a perfectly preserved Bible. Instead, I uncovered a complex history that seemed to dismantle my beliefs piece by piece. The King James translators had acknowledged their translation’s imperfections. They relied on multiple translations to create the best possible rendering. And the Greek text they used was not a flawless, divinely-preserved manuscript but a compilation of incomplete and variant copies.

These realizations left me feeling unsettled. For years, I had believed that God preserved every word in an unbroken chain of perfect manuscripts and translations. Now, I faced a history that showed a different story—a story of dedicated scholars working faithfully but within human limitations to convey the Scriptures.

But even as my understanding of preservation shifted, my faith in the Bible remained. I never doubted that God had inspired Scripture. I never questioned the Bible’s authority or relevance. What I had to come to terms with was how God preserved His Word—not through an unbroken chain of perfection, but through a history of faithful, imperfect people who worked with the texts they had.

This journey was far from over. In fact, the deeper I dug, the more I realized how rich and intricate the history of the Bible truly is. And what I discovered next only deepened my appreciation for the Scriptures and for God’s mysterious yet trustworthy process of preservation. I look forward to sharing that next step with you.

A brief history of the KJV and Textus Receptus

Understanding the history behind the King James Bible

Revisiting the Textus Receptus

A crisis of understanding

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