The New King James Version |
The New King James Version: A Critique
Written By Mr Malcolm H. Watts
IntroductionWhen this new translation of the Bible was published in the USA in 1982, the publishers, Thomas Nelson, stated that their aim was ‘to produce an updated English Version that follows the sentence structure of the 1611 Authorized Version (AV) as closely as possible...to transfer the Elizabethan word forms into twentieth century English’.1 The ‘Preface’ to the New King James Version (hereinafter NKJV) stated that the Old Testament would be a translation of the Hebrew Masoretic Text and the New Testament would be a translation of the Greek Received Text, the same Texts used by the AV translators in 1611.2 This appeared to be a major improvement on many previous translations such as the New International Version, which is not based on the Received Text but is widely used in Evangelical circles. However, there are serious problems with the NKJV.3 The Old TestamentIt is made clear in the ‘Preface’4 that in translating the Old Testament of the NKJV reference was made to the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament, c. 200 BC), the Latin Vulgate (a Latin translation undertaken by Jerome in AD 383), various ancient versions (presumably including such as the Aramaic Targums, dating from the Persian period, and the Syriac Version, approximately AD 60), and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Hebrew texts from pre-Christian and early Christian times, discovered in 1947). There is evidence for use of these sources in the margins of the Old Testament. For example, Genesis 4.8 has this note in the margin: ‘Samaritan Pentateuch, Septuagint, Syriac, and Vulgate add “Let us go out to the field”’; Deuteronomy 32.8 has as a note on ‘the children of Israel’ the following: ‘Septuagint, Dead Sea Scrolls angels of God; Symmachus [a revision of the Septuagint, approximately AD 180], Old Latin [exhibiting a pre-Vulgate text] sons of God’; Job 22.25 has ‘The ancient versions suggest defense; Hebrew reads gold as in verse 24’. Furthermore, there are cases where such readings have become part of the text itself. For example:
Although accuracy is claimed for the NKJV, there are numerous Old Testament renderings which are simply erroneous or, at the very least, most misleading. We note the following:
These comprise only a sample of the erroneous and defective translations in the NKJV as far as the Old Testament is concerned, but they are surely enough to warn – and indeed to alarm – sincere believers who desire to read and study a true and accurate version of the Holy Scriptures. The New TestamentIn further reading of the NKJV’s ‘Preface’, written by its principal Editor, Dr A. L. Farstad, it becomes clear that he himself is not happy with the Received Text and actually endorses the so-called Majority Text. He writes elsewhere, ‘Today, scholars agree that the New Testament textual criticism is in a state of flux. Very few scholars favor the Received Text as such, and then often for its historical prestige as the text used by Luther, Calvin, Tyndale and the AV. For about a century most have followed a Critical Text...which depends heavily upon the Alexandrian type of text. More recently many have abandoned this Critical Text...for one that is more eclectic. Finally a small number of scholars prefer the Majority Text which is close to the Received Text except in the Revelation’.5 The so-called Majority Text, edited by Zane Hodges and (the same) Arthur Farstad of Dallas Theological Seminary, was published in 1982. In the ‘Preface’ it is stated that this text is only of a provisional nature, implying that no-one can be sure yet that we actually have the entire Word of God, and also that the Word we do have may need to be amended in the future when more of the extant manuscripts have been collated and examined. To quote the exact words of Hodges and Farstad: ‘It should therefore be kept in mind that the present work, The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text, is both preliminary and provisional. It represents a first step...’.6 Yet even as it is, this Majority Text contains nearly 1,900 changes to the Received Text, including the omission of such Scriptures as Matthew 27.35; Acts 8.37; 9.5,6; 10.6b; and 1 John 5.7. It is no surprise therefore to find that in the marginal references of the NKJV New Testament there are approximately five hundred references to variant readings from the Majority Text, and a far higher number from the Critical Text. By their very existence these variant readings cast doubt on the very words of Holy Scripture and upon the doctrine of Divine Inspiration and Preservation. Furthermore, the integrity and accuracy of the Received Text, and by implication the Authorised Version itself, is hereby very seriously undermined. Dr James Price, the executive editor of the Old Testament section of the NKJV, admitted in an e-mail in April 1996, ‘I am not a TR advocate. I happen to believe that God has preserved the autographic text in the whole body of evidence that He has preserved, not merely through the textual decisions of a committee of fallible men based on a handful of late manuscripts. The modern Critical Texts like NA26/27 [Nestles] and UBS [United Bible Societies] provide a list of the variations that have entered the manuscript traditions, and they provide the evidence that supports the different variants. In the apparatus they have left nothing out, the evidence is there. The apparatus indicates where possible additions, omissions, and alterations have occurred... I am not at war with the conservative modern versions [such as the New International Version and the New American Standard Version (sic)]’.7 Dr Price is suggesting here that the Received Text depends ‘on a handful of late Greek manuscripts’. This is misleading, to say the very least. Frederick Nolan, in his Inquiry into the Integrity of the Greek Vulgate or Received Text, comments as follows: ‘With respect to Manuscripts, it is indisputable that he [Erasmus] was acquainted with every variety which is known to us; having distributed them into two principal classes, one which corresponds with the Complutensian edition, the other with the Vatican manuscript [see Erasmus’s Preface to the New Testament, 1546]. And he has specified the positive grounds on which he received the one and rejected the other’.8 It is known that Erasmus collated and studied many manuscripts, observing thousands of variant readings including such as were found in Vaticanus (Codex B); and a friend called Bombasius, we are told, researched that for him. Certainly in his various editions of the Greek New Testament, his notes reveal that he was familiar with practically all the important variant readings known to modern scholars including Mark 16.9–20, Luke 22.43,44 and John 7.53–8.11. Some Textual Critics, after B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort, refer to ‘families’ of New Testament manuscripts. This again is misleading, as it is impossible to ascertain with any certainty the ancestors of manuscripts or to prove the exact relationship which one manuscript has to another. But the particular device of referring to ‘families’ enabled Westcott and Hort to dismiss the Traditional or Received Text, supported by 90% of the Greek manuscripts, as a mere descendant of an exceedingly corrupt ancestor! It is therefore much better to refer to ‘text-types’. The major text-types are: the Traditional (Byzantine) text-type emanating from the Asia Minor/Greece area where Paul founded a number of churches (and called Byzantine because it was the recognised Greek text throughout the Byzantine period, AD 312–1453), and the Alexandrian text-type, associated with Alexandria and proceeding from Egypt. The Byzantine text-type has the overwhelming support of the Greek manuscripts (over 95% of the more than five thousand Greek manuscripts in existence); and naturally these have most impressive agreement among themselves. It is in this text-type that the Traditional Text has survived, which was published in the 16th and 17th centuries by Erasmus, Stephanus, Beza and the Elzevirs (Bonaventure and Abraham). In the ‘Preface’ to the Elzevirs’ second edition (1633) reference is made to the ‘text...now received by all’ (textum...nuncab omnibus receptum), from whence arose the designation ‘Textus Receptus’ or ‘Received Text’. It is a text of this type which underlies the Authorised Version. All of the existing New Testament Greek manuscripts are copies (apographs). None of the original writings of the Apostles (autographs) have survived. The Byzantine group of manuscripts are mostly, but by no means entirely, later copies. But some 4th-century manuscripts of the Alexandrian group have come to public notice since the publication of the Received Text in the 16th and 17th centuries. These are Codex Vaticanus (from the Vatican library) and Codex Sinaiticus (discovered in St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai in 1859). These manuscripts differ radically from the Traditional or Received Text. It is estimated that there are about six thousand differences. These include numerous omissions, sometimes of entire verses (e.g., Matthew 12.47,18.11; Luke 17.36; Acts 28.29; Romans 15.24), and often even more than this (e.g., Matthew 16.2,3; Mark 9.44,46; John 5.3,4; Acts 24.6–8). Notorious among these, of course, are the last twelve verses of the Gospel of Mark and John 8.1–11. Even between themselves, these Alexandrian manuscripts show no agreement or consistency. H. C. Hoskier, after meticulously careful research, noted that in the four Gospels alone there were no less than three thousand differences between Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus. But since 1881 when, under the baleful influence of Westcott and Hort, the Revised Version of the Bible was published, the Alexandrian have been preferred to the Byzantine manuscripts chiefly because of their date, the view being that the oldest manuscripts are likely to be the most accurate. But this is a complete misconception, since accurate and approved copies would have been much in use and therefore would soon have become worn out – a damp climate not helping top reserve them as the arid climate of Egypt did with respect to the Alexandrian manuscripts. The good copies needed themselves to be copied and the evidence is that a great many copies were made in later centuries, a large number of which still exist today. It follows that, contrary to the footnotes in most modern versions, the ‘oldest’ are not at all likely to be the ‘best’ but could well be the ‘worst’. Why? Because, recognised as defective, they were rejected and therefore little used. Versions of the Bible since 1881 have been mainly based on these few early manuscripts. At first sight the NKJV appears to be an exception; yet while using the Received Text, it contains in its marginal references variant readings from these defective Alexandrian manuscripts. When examined, these marginal readings are seen to cast doubt on such fundamental doctrines as the Eternal Generation of the Son, the Union of Christ’s Deity and Humanity, the Incarnation, the Blood Atonement, and the Eternal Conscious Punishment of the Wicked in Hell (e.g., John 1.18 –‘the only begotten Son’ becomes ‘the only begotten God’; 1 Corinthians 15.47 – omission of ‘the Lord’; 1 Timothy 3.16 – ‘God’ changed to ‘Who’; Colossians 1.14 – ‘through his blood’ is left out; Mark 9.46 – omission of ‘Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched’). Here is a clear case of what the Scripture refers to in Ecclesiastes: ‘Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour’(10.1). Even more serious is the fact that in the actual text of the NKJV New Testament there are a great many departures from the Received Text, where Critical Text readings have apparently been preferred and followed or other unwarranted changes have been made. This is a matter of gravest concern. Here are some examples:
In addition, there are some serious faults in the translation:
It is therefore simply not true to say that the NKJV is faithful to the Received Text, nor is it true to say that it is a more accurate translation. HeadingsMention could be made – and perhaps should be made – of the chapter and section headings in the NKJV, which are really very inferior to those found in our Authorised Version. Take the Song of Solomon, for example. The text is arbitrarily divided. To cite just one instance of this, half of 1.4 is said to have been spoken by ‘the Shulamite’ (identified in a marginal note as ‘a Palestinian young woman’) and the other half by ‘the Daughters of Jerusalem’. Furthermore, the apportioning of the words to particular characters is novel and, we believe, highly questionable. Is it really the Shulamite who says, ‘I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys’ in 2.1? It is not, according to the almost unanimous view of Reformed commentators who give a spiritual interpretation to this Song. We believe that these headings can only serve to mislead. PronounsAnother aspect of the NKJV is the abandonment of the use of the singular second person pronouns ‘thee’, ‘thou’ and ‘thine’ in preference for the more modern ambiguous ‘you’ and ‘your’. The fact is that the former were not in common use in 1611, at the time of the translation of the Authorised Version. As early as the end of the 13th century, ‘you’ and ‘your’ had replaced them. But the AV translators were classical scholars and accuracy was uppermost in their minds; thus they retained the use of the singular pronouns when the original language texts required it. The use of ‘you’ and ‘your’ in the NKJV conceals the difference between the singular and plural in the second person pronouns of the classical languages. This is seen in the following verses:
There are in fact 14,500 uses of such pronouns in 10,500 verses of the Authorised Version. It cannot be said too strongly that ‘thee’, ‘thou’ and ‘thine’ are actually according to Biblical usage, based on the style of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, and have been used in the English-speaking world as a means of expressing reverence to God, particularly in prayer and praise. In this age of familiarity and lack of respect, the use of ‘you’ and ‘your’ in relation to the Most High God can indicate a lack of reverence. To a spiritually discerning ear, there is a vast difference between ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,’ and ‘You are the Christ...’ (Matthew 16.16) – and this is not just a preference for the older word. Greek TextsThe question must be asked, ‘Has the Lord permitted His church to have an inaccurate Bible over all these centuries until the fairly recent discoveries of certain early Codices?’ As already observed, it would appear that these early manuscripts have survived because they have not been much used. It is likely that they were judged inaccurate and defective, probably because they had been tampered with to suit the tenets of some heretical sect. Thus it is clear that God, in His special and mysterious Providence, has preserved the Holy Scriptures through the vast majority of manuscripts (mostly of the Byzantine school), copied and recopied carefully over many centuries, yet bearing a solid agreement and consistency one with another. That there are considerable and important differences between the few early Alexandrian Codices and the great majority of the Byzantine school of manuscripts is not in question, nor would anyone disagree that these differences have been incorporated into the printed Greek texts from which they are taken. Indeed, the Alexandrian-based Critical Texts and the Byzantine-based Textus Receptus differ in a number of significant passages. The translators of the NKJV, while assuring their readers that they have translated from the Received Text, at the same time give in their marginal references and sometimes in the text itself equal credence to a Greek text which is wholly different from it. Once the position of the editors of this NKJV translation is known, it would appear that they have used the Received Text only as a means of paving the way for a substitution of the Authorised Version which would involve the introduction of their marginal variants into the main text of Scripture. This translation, with its credence given to the marginal references, has the appearance of a most subtle attempt to discredit both the Received Text and the Authorised Version. The AV has been made such a blessing for many centuries, not only in our own country but throughout the English-speaking world. In many ways the NKJV is far more dangerous than the modern translations which have openly abandoned the Received Text in favour of texts built on the corrupt Alexandrian manuscripts. Young PeopleWe believe it is exceedingly simplistic and dangerous to put this new version into the hands of young people on the grounds that it is easier to understand. In reading it, they will not have an accurate translation of God’s Word and the marginal notes will tend only to raise doubts in their minds regarding the variant readings. The plea some make, that they are only trying to make the Bible easier to read, is altogether in admissible. It is essential that we pass on to others – especially to our young people – the pure Word of God, without any unfaithful and spurious additions. If we do not, suggesting that they might use the NKJV, those young people on reaching adulthood will almost certainly retain the use of this new version with which they have become familiar. The pressure will then be on our churches to adopt the Bible which many in the congregation seem to prefer. The Authorised Version could then, quite easily, be replaced. Before such a time, any endorsement among us of the NKJV will bring various other problems and evils. For example, once people begin to use a version which uses ‘you’ and ‘your’ in addressing God, it is only a matter of time before they lapse into this practice in public prayer, and then dissatisfaction will be found with the praise book because it retains the Scriptural and traditional usage. If, in naivety, we tolerate this new version, it is not difficult to foresee the time when the character of the testimony in our churches will radically change – and change for the worse. May our gracious God prevent this from ever happening. ConclusionFor our part, we reject the New King James Version and we do not believe it should be used in our churches. The Authorised Version is far superior, and while not perfect it remains the best and most accurate English translation of God’s Holy Word. Our prayer and hope is that those who have been deceived into thinking that the New King James Version represents a decided improvement and who have therefore introduced it into public worship, will realise that they have made a dreadful mistake and so restore to their churches the Authorised Version. As for the churches which continue to use the Authorised Version, we trust that it will remain in the hearts of their people and in their homes. We also trust that it will remain in the pulpits and pews of our churches. May the Lord be pleased to bless and own our precious and beloved Authorised Version, to the good of our souls, the souls of our children, and the souls of our children’s children. Endnotes1 Arthur L. Farstad, The New King James Version: in the Great Tradition (Nashville, TN, USA: Thomas Nelson, 1989), p. 34. 2 Holy Bible: New King James Version (Nashville, TN, USA: Thomas Nelson, 1982), pp. vi–vii. 3 It should be noted that editions of the New King James Version differ without note depending upon the year and country in which they were published. For example, the British editions, normally called the Revised Authorised Version (which are no longer published), do not capitalise pronouns referring to Deity. 4 NKJV, p. vi. 5 Ibid., p. vii. 6 Zane C. Hodges and Arthur L.Farstad, The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text (Nashville, TN, USA: ThomasNelson Publishers, 1982), p. x. 7 James Price, e-mail to David Cloud, April 30, 1996 in The Bible Version Question/Answer Database (Port Huron, MI, USA: Way of Life Literature, 2005), pp. 369–70. 8 Frederick Nolan, An Inquiry into the Integrity of the Greek Vulgate, or Received Text of the New Testament (London, England: F. C. and J. Rivington, 1815), pp. 413–414. |
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