Is the "New King James Version" of the Bible an accurate, consistent and reliable Bible translation?

Comments

• I know you hold the KJV dear, but, to many people it is incomprehensible these days. In the original preface to the KJV, the translators wrote:
  "Truly (good Christian Reader) we never thought from the beginning, that we should need to make a new Translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one....but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principal good one, not justly to be excepted against; that hath been our endeavor, that our mark. "
  They did what they did for the time they lived in, but they never expected that it would still be used 400 years later. They wanted the Bible in the up to date language of the time, and would have been thrilled to see contemporary versions being used. We have to think of the unsaved all the time. As Philip asked the Ethiopian "Do you understand what you read?" The unsaved need the word of God in a language they can understand.

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  by singwell-is off researching a lot on October 20th, 2007

• Thank you, singwell. The KJV language really isn't too hard to understand. I'm sure that the KJV translators would not promote the (per)versions being used today. Speaking of which, you just quoted from Acts Ch.8. Are you aware that the NIV omits verse 37 that teaches that one cannot be baptized without first believing with all their heart in Jesus Christ(to understand better, compare the KJV verse and chapter to the NIV verse and chapter)? This is pretty much one of the only few verses(if not the only verse) in the Bible that clearly speaks against infant baptism. Yet, the NIV takes it out.

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  by ...trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. on October 20th, 2007

• Did you know that the KJV omits the name of Jesus 300 times from the Bible? Does this make the KJV all evil and corrupt? Of course not! That's a dumb argument! Just because they differ from one another doesn't mean one is COMPLETELY right, and the other wrong. I know this is absolute heresy to the ears of KJVonlies, but such things are irrelevant! What matters is the author's intended meaning. Another point to make is that modern versions don't "take away" from verses in the King James. The modern versions weren't being translated from the King James! In fact, by definition, that wouldn't be a translation at all! These translations are base on older manuscripts, closer to the autographs, such as the septuigant(yes, it exists, we KNOW it existed, get over it), vaticanus(not originally catholic), and other alexandrian text types(there was NO such thing as the alexandrian cult, there's just absolutely no evidence for such a thing). And yes, in fact, the KJV is hard to read.

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  by The Wade on December 26th, 2008

• For example, take this verse in the KJV:
  2Corinthians 6:11-13 O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged. Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own bowels. Now for a recompence in the same, (I speak as unto my children,) be ye also enlarged.
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  No modern english speaker is going to understand that. Only by reading the NIV did I understand that in the KJV. No one talks or writes like that anymore! At least not commonly... at all.
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  And in fact, I believe the KJV translators would definitely support a new translation in our time! They supported a new translation in their time, for updating the language of the Bible in the english language.

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  by The Wade on December 26th, 2008

• trust in the Lord Jesus Christ: being multilingual and able to read Shakesperean and Chaucerian English, I have no trouble with the KJV, but many people do, and the continued use of it only reinforces a false idea in peoples' minds that Christianity has no relevance for the present day. The KJV was produced by contemporary scholars, so that even a ploughboy could read the scriptures. The thought that that same ploughboy today would not be able to read the Bible because its English translation was so outdated as to be as useless as the Latin Bible was to the people of England during the Reformation would horrify the translators of the KJV. Their own words in the preface to the original translation (omitted in many KJV editions these days) reinforces the FACt that they wanted continued work done on the text so that people could CONTINUE to understand God's word clearly.
  They WOULD have loved many of the present day translations becuase they would have loved to have had access to the

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  by singwell-is off researching a lot on December 29th, 2008

• thousands of early Koine manuscripts of the New Testament that were not available to them in the 1600s, and to the Masada and Dead Sea Scrolls for the Old Testament, all of which made it possible to translate even more accurately, the texts of the two testaments.

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  by singwell-is off researching a lot on December 29th, 2008

• Today there is a much sounder body of manuscripts to work from than was available in 1600.

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  by canoeguide on February 8th, 2011