Superior Texts

The first reason why I believe the King James Bible is the best Bible translation is because of the superior texts from which it was translated.  The Hebrew and Greek texts used by the King James Bible translators are the best foundations of any English Bible that exists today. The Hebrew Scriptures were written by Moses and the prophets and other inspired men to whom God had given prophetic gifts. But the duty of preserving this written revelation was assigned not to the prophets but to the priests. (Hills, 1997)

And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished, That Moses commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD, saying, Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee. – DEU 31:24-26

The priests were the divinely appointed guardians and teachers of the law.

The Masoretic Text The Old Testament, in the King James Bible, is translated from what is called the Masoretic text.

The Masoretes, Jewish scribes and scholars, were responsible for creating copies, perfect copies, and handing them down from one generation to another

They followed strict rules to ensure accurate copies of the Old Testament were created.

1. Each column must have no less than 48 and no more than 60 lines.
2. The ink must be of no other color than black, and it must be prepared according to a special recipe.
3. No word nor letter could be written from memory; the scribe must have an authentic copy before him, and he must read and pronounce each word aloud before writing it.
4. He must reverently wipe his pen each time before writing the word for “God” and he must wash his whole body before writing the name “Jehovah” lest the Holy Name be contaminated.
5. One mistake on a sheet condemned the sheet; if three mistakes were found on any page, the entire manuscript was condemned.
6. Every word and every letter were counted, and if a letter were omitted, an extra letter inserted, or if one letter touched another, the manuscript was condemned and destroyed at once.

The Masoretic work enjoyed an absolute monopoly for 600 years, and experts have been astonished at the fidelity of the earliest printed version (late 15th century) to the earliest surviving codices (late 9th century). The Masoretic text is universally accepted as the authentic Hebrew Bible.

“Some of these rules may appear extreme and absurd, yet they show how sacred the Holy Word of the Old Testament was to its custodians, the Jews (Rom. 3:2), and they give us strong encouragement to believe that we have the real Old Testament, the same one which our Lord had and which was originally given by inspiration of God.” ~ Herbet Miller, General Bible Introduction: From God To Us

The Second Rabbinic Bible The Second Rabbinic Bible (also known as the Ben Hayyim Masoretic Text) was edited by Ben Chayyim or Hayyim (both pronounced HI-EEM), and published by Daniel Bomberg in 1524-1525 and is a classic printing of the Hebrew Bible, the Hebrew Masoretic text. (Bible Manuscript Society, 2020)

The Second Rabbinic Bible served as the standard text of the Hebrew Bible for nearly all later editions until modern times.

Biblia Hebraica Rudolf Kittel published the Biblia Hebraica, the Hebrew Bible, based on the Ben Chayyim Masoretic Text. The same text used by the King James Bible translators.

In the newer versions of Biblia Hebraica, Kittel included many footnotes suggesting changes or alternative readings to the Hebrew text based on other documents, such as, the Septuagint, Latin Vulgate and Dead Sea Scrolls.

Leningrad Codex In 1845, The Leningrad Codex was discovered in St. Petersburg, Russia and because it is the oldest complete edition of the Hebrew Bible in existence it is frequently used as the basis for modern editions of the Hebrew Bible.

The Septuagint is the Old Testament translated into Greek. There is a lot of haziness around the Septuagint. When it was written. How it was written. Who wrote it. The Septuagint is a collection of ancient translations of the Tanakh (TUH-KNOCK), another name for the Jewish Scriptures, along with other Jewish texts that are now commonly referred to as Apocrypha. (Wikipedia, 2023)

The Septuagint has been largely rejected by mainstream Judaism for the following reasons:

• It differs from the traditional Hebrew source texts in many cases (particularly in the Book of Job).
• The translations appear at times to demonstrate an ignorance of Hebrew idiomatic usage. (Gottheil & Toy, 2023)

The Latin Vulgate is the earliest Latin version of the Old Testament, translated from the Masoretic Text, completed by Jerome in 405. (Hills, 1997)

For over 1,000 years the Latin Vulgate was ignored, and rightfully so, as one Catholic scholar, Isidorus Clarius, disputed that the Latin Vulgate “was full of errors” and that “about eight thousand places” had to be “noted and corrected.” (Fuller, 1997). At the Council of Trent in 1546, the Catholic Church proclaimed the Latin Vulgate to be official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Dead Sea Scrolls The Dead Sea Scrolls, are a set of ancient Jewish manuscripts dated between 500 BC and 70 AD

Some of the first scrolls discovered were a complete copy of Isaiah in Hebrew and another copy of Isaiah reasonably complete for chapters 41-66 but containing only fragments from earlier chapters.

These scrolls agreed with the Masoretic Text to a remarkable degree. (Hills, 1997)

While some of the scrolls are nearly identical to the Masoretic Text of the Old Testament; some scrolls, especially the books of Exodus and Samuel, exhibit dramatic differences in both language and content. (Olson & Parry, 2013)

About 35% of the scrolls belong to the Masoretic Text tradition, 5% to the Septuagint family, and 5% to the Samaritan, with the remainder unaligned. The non-aligned manuscripts fall into two categories, those inconsistent in agreeing with the other known types, and those that diverge significantly from all other known readings. (Olson & Parry, 2013)

The King James translators chose the Masoretic Text for the Old Testament translation.

Which text did the King James translators choose for the Old Testament? They chose the Masoretic Text, specifically from the Second Rabbinic Bible.

• It was the traditionally accepted Hebrew text.
• Unlike later editions of the Biblia Hebraica, they were not influenced by footnotes with corrections from other texts.
• The Greek and Latin translations had numerous errors.
• Why choose a Greek or Latin translation when the Hebrew, the original language of the Old Testament, was available?

Most modern translations however use the later edition of Biblia Hebraica with the footnotes for corrections, the Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The New Testament Text

The Holy Spirit was critical to the preservation of the New Testament text.

• Many trustworthy copies of the original New Testament manuscripts were produced by faithful scribes.
• These trustworthy copies were read and recopied by true believers through the centuries.
• Untrustworthy copies were not so generally read or so frequently recopied.

Textus Receptus It is called the Received Text [Textus Receptus in Latin], because it was the text commonly passed down through the centuries. It is called the Majority Text, because it represents the vast majority of the more than 5,400 existing manuscripts. Roughly 90-95% of the Greek manuscripts are of this type. Of the 5-10% of texts that are left over, those not only disagree with the Textus Receptus, but disagree amongst themselves. (Ferrel, 2003)

Novum Testamentum Omne In 1516, Erasmus published the first New Testament Greek based on the Textus Receptus. Erasmus collated a collection of six to eight manuscripts and put them together in a book titled Novum Testamentum Omne. Though a Catholic, Erasmus expressed doubts on about almost every article of Catholic teaching, including the mass, confession, the primacy of the Pope, and priestly celibacy.

“I would wish all women to read the gospel and the epistles of St. Paul, and I wish that they were translated into all languages of all Christian people, that they might be read and known, not merely by the Scots and the Irish, but even by the Turks and the Saracens. I wish that the husbandman might sing parts of them at his plow, that the weaver may warble them at his shuttle, that the traveller may with their narratives beguile the weariness of the way” – Erasmus

Editio Regia Robert I Estienne, known as Robertus Stephanus, was a 16th-century printer in Paris. In 1550 he published the Editio Regia version of the Textus Receptus, which became the standard for many generations.

Beza’s Greek New Testament Theodore Beza was a French Calvinist Protestant theologian, reformer and scholar who played an important role in the Protestant Reformation. In 1565 he published an edition of the Greek New Testament, accompanied in parallel columns by the text of the Vulgate and a translation of his own.

Novum Testamentum Graece Also known as Nestle’s Greek New Testament was developed by Eberhard Nestle and first published in 1895.  It was based on the Greek New Testaments published by Tischendorf, Westcott and Hort, and D. Bernhard Weiss.  Tischendorf preferred the Sinaiticus and Westcott and Hort preferred the Vaticanus, the Nestle Text is found largely upon these two manuscripts.  These men rejected the Textus Receptus on the grounds it was dated and inadequate

Vaticanus B is claimed to be one of the oldest manuscripts of the Greek, both the Old and New Testament. It is named for the residence in the Vatican Library, of the Roman Catholic Church, where it has been stored since the 15th century. It originally contained a complete copy of the Septuagint except for most of Genesis, Psalm 105-137, and a few chapters in Kings. It is also missing some of the later books in the New Testament, such as the Book of Revelation. Though some of these books were added back later.

Like Sinaiticus, there are many verses missing from the Vaticanus, such as the resurrection narrative found at the end of Mark or 1 John 5:7, which reads, “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.” There are many others.

The Sinaiticus and Vaticanus disagree with each other

According to Herman C. Hoskier, there are, without counting errors of iotacism (pronunciation differences), 3,036 textual variations between Sinaiticus and Vaticanus in the text of the Gospels alone. (Hoskier, 1914).

The King James translators chose the Traditional Text for the New Testament translation.

Which text did the King James translators choose for the New Testament? They chose the Traditional Text, specifically from Beza’s Greek New Testament.  The manuscript evidence for the Traditional Text, of more than 5,000, of which 95% agree, far outweighs the single texts of the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, which disagree with each other in number spots.

Conclusion

The new versions of the New Testament are based on the Nestle/Aland Greek New Testament, whereas the King James Bible is based on the Received Text.

As for the Old Testament, the King James Bible is based on the Masoretic Text, while the modern versions rely somewhat on the Masoretic Text but also on the Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and various others, especially the Kittel’s Biblia Hebraica, and the footnotes.

I know that took a while, and hopefully I didn’t confuse you along the way, I hope you can see that the King James Bible is built on the best foundation.