To the Bible Believers, the King James Bible encompasses the perfect word of God. It is necessary to demand a perfect word of God because if we do not, we make the mistake of assuming God’s word has errors and will be unable to determine whether or not correct doctrine is taught.
A common criticism against the KJV as the perfect word of God is that it has been changed various times. A person can become scared and nervous when presented with this argument but fear not! Before we get to what those thousands and hundreds of changes are, let’s identify the difference between an edition and a revision.
A revision occurs when there is a dramatic change in an idea.
An edition is not the changing of ideas but typographical errors and sometimes of word spellings, as is in the case of the KJV.
See how the argument falls through once you know the difference between revisions and editions? Critics will try to convince you that editions = revisions, but now you know they are not.
There are many spelling changes because the words of 1611 English had different spellings as time progressed, hence the different editions. Another reason for these various editions, as stated before, are typographical errors. Even now, we can still see some typographical errors in our KJV, but can you imagine how many more were present in earlier times when printing machines were unavailable? Even with our advanced printing technology we still see some of these printing errors. This is, however, not a reason to throw your Bible away.
Let us now have a look at these so-called “erroneous changes” in the Bible (the more “serious” ones are the typographical ones).
Ruth 3:15 “Also he said, Bring the vail that thou hast upon thee, and hold it. And when she held it, he measured six measures of barley, and laid it on her: and she went into the city.”
Before the change, it read ‘he’. The difference of one letter did not change the idea of the verse.
Matthew 26:36 “Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder.”
Had Judas for Jesus
Exodus 20:14 “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”
Omitted ‘not’
Revelation 21:1 “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.”
Omitted ‘no’
1 Corinthians 6:9 “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,”
Omitted the word ‘not’
Psalms 119:161 “Princes have persecuted me without a cause: but my heart standeth in awe of thy word.”
‘Printers’
Isaiah 57:12 “I will declare thy righteousness, and thy works; for they shall not profit thee.”
Omitted ‘not’
John 5:14 “Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.”
‘no’ was ‘on’
Luke 20
Parable of the ‘vinegar’ instead of ‘vineyard’
Mark 7:35 “And straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain.”
‘Sting’
Luke 22:34 “And he said, I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day, before that thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me.”
Philip denied Jesus instead of Peter
Jude 1:16 ”These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage.”
‘Murderers’
1 Timothy 5:21 “I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality.”
‘Discharge’
1 King 8:19 “Nevertheless thou shalt not build the house; but thy son that shall come forth out of thy loins, he shall build the house unto my name.”
‘Lions”
Galatians 4:29 “But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.”
The phrase ‘to remain’ was inserted instead of a comma (,)
Ezekiel 47:10 “And it shall come to pass, that the fishers shall stand upon it from Engedi even unto Eneglaim; they shall be a place to spread forth nets; their fish shall be according to their kinds, as the fish of the great sea, exceeding many.”
‘Fishes’
Matthew 13:43 “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.”
‘Ear’
Luke 14:26 “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”
‘Wife’
Other instances include ‘camels’ instead of ‘damsels’, ‘not cause to bring to birth’ instead of ‘not to cause to bring forth’, ‘the fool has said in his heart there is a God’ instead of ‘there is no God’, and ‘yea further to yet he shall not find it’ instead of ‘yea farther’.
Now that we have seen examples of these typographical errors corrected throughout the editions, it is important to bring up another argument critics will try to use. Aside from the 6 or 7 editions since the 1800s, critics will bring up the Cambridge KJV versus the Oxford KJV edition of the 1900s. Critics will try to attack the Oxford version and say that the Cambridge version should be used instead because it had mistakes in it.
If we take a look at these ‘serious mistakes,’ they are nothing more than typographical errors that do not take away from the idea of the verse. These are some of the typographical mistakes found in the Oxford version that are a cause for debate. When looking through these ‘mistakes’ yourselves, you’ll come to see that the typographical and spelling errors are not as serious as one may have you think.
Joshua 19:2 “And they had in their inheritance Beersheba, and Sheba, and Moladah,”
‘or Sheba’
2 Chronicles 33:19 “His prayer also, and how God was intreated of him, and all his sins, and his trespass, and the places wherein he built high places, and set up groves and graven images, before he was humbled: behold, they are written among the sayings of the seers.”
‘Since’
Job 33:4 “The spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life.”
G in God lowercase
Jeremiah 34:16 “But ye turned and polluted my name, and caused every man his servant, and every man his handmaid, whom he had set at liberty at their pleasure, to return, and brought them into subjection, to be unto you for servants and for handmaids.”
‘whom ye’
Ezekiel 11:24 “Afterwards the spirit took me up, and brought me in a vision by the Spirit of God into Chaldea, to them of the captivity. So the vision that I had seen went up from me.”
G in God lowercase
Nahum 3:16 “Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven: the cankerworm spoileth, and fleeth away.”
‘flyeth’
Matthew 4:1 “Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.”
Spirit not capitalized
Matthew 26:39 “And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.”
‘further’
Matthew 26:73 “And after a while came unto him they that stood by, and said to Peter, Surely thou also art one of them; for thy speech bewrayeth thee.”
‘betrayeth’
Mark 112, Acts 11:28, 1 John 5:8
Spirit not capitalized