As I am sure you have heard already, it is now the 400th anniversary of the King James Version of the English Bible. For some reading this site that will be nothing more than a quaint historical monument. For others it will be a celebration because they and their church still use the KJV/AV (although probably not the 1611 version, I suspect!) For many of us, we’re in a mixed setting. That is, most have moved away from it to a more modern version, either in the RSV years, or the NIV publicity-fest, or to the NKJV in the early 80’s, or the NLT or ESV in more recent years. But there may be one or two in our churches that still hold on to their KJV’s with a resolute commitment.
So do we ignore the anniversary in order to avoid any disputes over the “inspired” nature of the KJV (a claim never made by the original translators who acknowledge the inspired text was the original language, and they were reviewing earlier English Bibles for content and style). Or do we take the opportunity to educate our churches on textual criticism, text families, translation philosophies and communication theory? Or do we thank God for what the KJV did in its time, and for the example it set for modern translations to follow in later years?
Arguments over Bible translations tend to include a lot of opinion, but often not very informed opinion. Perhaps we have an opportunity to inject grace into these disputes, as well as some carefully measured information. Let’s be careful not to throw petrol on a smoldering fire. Yet at the same time let’s not miss an opportunity to be thankful for all that God has given us in terms of the Scriptures in our own language. There are still hundreds of millions of people without any portion of the Bible in their heart-language. Surely we should be thankful for the plethora of Bibles available in English!
Tomorrow I’ll follow up this post with some thoughts on Bible Versions and preaching.
(NB The Cor Deo podcast, latest edition, focuses entirely on the issue of relational Bible reading.)
Biblical Preaching 
I think more so than the translation itself, its the affect it has had on civilization to put the biblical text into the “language of the plowman,” as Tyndale would have said.
If you are an Indp. Fundamental Baptist, you will have a KJV bible. So may or misinformed about translation. So many misunderstand the content of the Word of God. But you have to admit, Bible versions are more to get sells than help people know the Bible better. We seem to have less Christian living today with all the translations on the market. But thank the Lord there are still faithful preachers and teachers of the Word no matter what the translation.