In many KJVO churches you will hear the claim that through God’s power and providence He has preserved His word in the English language in the Authorized Version, also known as the King James Version, and it is therefore their final authority. In many of those churches they will have signs with the words “KJV 1611” either on the front of their church or somewhere inside. In a lot of these churches, they will claim that either the KJV is inspired or the translators were inspired such that the KJV has no errors.
A phrase that gets tossed around in those circles is “things that are different are not the same.” Interesting, because the King James Version used today is not the 1611, but rather the Blayney edition from 1769. While there were quite a number of spelling and punctuation changes, that was not all. I was looking for a good parallel Bible to show these differences and I finally found it at https://blackletterkingjamesbible.com/Parallel/. I have previously looked at the textual varients indicated in the footnotes in the 1611. Here I want to show some of the major differences between the 1611 and 1769. I will show these in the screenshots below.
2 Kings 11:10…the Temple or the temple of the LORD?
Isaiah 49:13… God or the LORD?
Jeremiah 51:30.…their dwelling places or her dwelling places?
Ezekiel 24:5 … him seethe or them seethe?
Ezekiel 24:7… did she pour it upon the ground or not?
Jeremiah 31:14….goodness or my goodness?
Daniel 3:15…a fiery furnace or a burning fiery furnace?
1 Corinthians 12:28…Is it helps in governments, or helps, governments?
1 Corinthians 15:6…And that or After that?
1 John 5:12….the Son or the Son of God?
Perhaps there are others I missed. Comment below if there are.
Bottom line is this, first of all neither you (the reader) nor the church you attend uses the KJV 1611. Stop making that claim. It’s not honest. The KJV 1611 is not the same as the 1769. And secondly, while the KJV is a good translation, the translators were neither infallible nor inspired. Even they admitted it. Finally, after hundreds of years of church history, if the KJV is indeed the standard by which all other Bible versions are to be judged, which KJV is it and why? There is no Biblical answer to that question. The reality is there are way too many holes in the KJVO position.