The King James Cult

“The Authorized Version” – the KJV cultists use this as their main base of claiming this to be “the” Word of God.
The truth is that it is called the Authorized Version because the translation was made on an authorization from King James to a group of people who wanted a standard Bible for usage at their time. It was a very good translation – no doubt the very best translation of its time. It is still a good translation. But it is not, all by itself, God’s Holy Word exclusively. Much of the language is obsolete, so that relatively few people can understand some parts of it. Also, there have been new discoveries of older manuscripts of parts of the Bible that were unavailable at the time this translation was made. As I understand it, because some parts of the Bible were not available in the original language to the translators of the KJV, they copied those portions from existing translations that they deemed reliable. Therefore, there is an indication that new translations or upgrades of the old translations are indicated. The New King James Version is one of those. It keeps most of the poetic language of the KJV, but changes some of the obsolete words to modern words with the same meaning. I understand, too, that it has corrected some minor errors by using old manuscripts that were not available to the translators in 1611. For this reason, it is rejected by the KJV cultists.

God will preserve His Word – the KJV cultists insist that this refers to the KJV and to the KJV only.
God will preserve His Word – through every honest and holy intended translation; despite possible small errors, the essential gospel and the Word of God is maintained. Even through multiple translations, He will still preserve His Word. The Douay-Rheims translation was made roughly at the same time as the KJV. It was translated from the Latin, which was translated from the original languages. There is truth in the saying “It loses something in the translation,” because most languages are not equal to one another in specific nuances and sometimes even deeper meanings. Based on this, all translations should be quite faulty, and especially a double translation, such as the Douay-Rheims. But put the KJV and the D-R side by side, and, except for the Latin influence on many of the words in the D-R, you will find them amazingly similar. God will preserve His Word!

All great revivals have occurred using the KJV
Aside from those recorded in the Bible, this may be true – but to attribute this solely to this version of the Bible is overlooking one very great occurrence that happened almost simultaneously with the KJV translation – people started reading the Bible on their own, and seeing for themselves what God’s Word says.

The KJV cultists disregard all Bible commentators of the past. They claim they were just “showing off their knowledge of the languages.” Well, it seems to me that if they know the languages so well, they must have a good idea of what they are commenting on. Furthermore, nobody writes a Bible commentary to “show off.” How many people read Bible commentaries? Precious few! If they wanted to “show off” their knowledge of the language, they would be translating what might be considered great secular works, not “wasting” their time with musty Bible commentaries that practically no one reads!

The KJV cultists do not even accept the “authenticity” of a Bible translated into another language. This is one of their greatest travesties, to deny God’s Word to people who do not speak English.

The KJV cultists spend their time trying to convince people that the KJV is the only true “God’s Word.” This breeds division and dissension. This is a Satanic influence, not a godly one. These people spend their time going around telling people, “you must accept this version of the Bible as the only true Word of God.” They have forgotten the great commission – “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” They are “preaching” their own gospel, not the gospel of Jesus Christ. If the disciples had asked Jesus if there would be any problem with translating the Bible into different languages so that the people they ministered to would have it available in their own language, or even to make changes when the language changes, I am sure He would have said, “Absolutely not! Do whatever it takes to bring the gospel to every person on the face of the earth.”

These people think they are doing God’s will, but instead, they are causing division and dissension. They need to have a Damascus Road experience. Saul thought he was doing God’s will, too, until his Damascus Road experience showed him otherwise.

Whether or not the following is true throughout the KJV cultists, I don’t know. But the one I know quite well believes that the book of James was written by the brother of John. It is generally accepted by scholars that it was written by the Lord’s brother James, who was the head of the church in Jerusalem. The above-mentioned person claimed that James wrote about works because he didn’t know about grace, implying that “grace” became known only through Paul’s ministry, and James (the brother of John) had died before that, thus “works” was all he knew. Of course, among experts on Biblical history, it is known that the gospel of Mark was the first book of the NT that was written, and it was written in AD 65 - long after the death of James, the brother of John.

Another issue of the KJV cult is that not all of the Bible is for everybody, that parts are for different peoples, most specifically, Jews or Christians. That is doing one of those things the KJV cultists are constantly harping on about people who consider other translations OK. They are taking from God’s Word.

The person I know who is involved in this cult has told his children that they don’t need to go to church – that he can tell them everything they need to know. The book he gave me (which I burned) I glanced at briefly, and saw that it had a great deal condemning the apocrypha – but the apocrypha is included in the (original) 1611 King James version.

A caveat: It appears to me that some of the modern translations, although very good, try too hard to put the Bible into modern language that they sometimes use words that lose the nuances of the original. However, I don’t believe that these necessarily distort the gospel. Also, beware of “paraphrases,” because some of them read the writers personal interpretation into what they write. Nevertheless, I don’t think they necessarily distort the gospel, either.

GOD WILL PRESERVE HIS WORD – NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES IT IS TRANSLATED, AND WHAT LANGUAGES IT IS TRANSLATED INTO.