New King James Version

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English Bible Versions


New King James Version (1982)
New King James Version (1982)

The New King James Version is a modern version on the bible that claims to be based on the Textus Receptus Greek and the Masoretic Hebrew texts.

It is generally acknowledged that the problems which are associated with the NKJV are not as numerous or as serious as those found in other versions such as the New International Version, the Revised English Bible or the Good News Bible. The NKJV does not omit hundreds of verses, phrases and words as is done in these other versions. It is not a loose translation or a paraphrase. However, the problems of the NKJV are significant in the light of the claim by its publishers and others that it is an accurate improvement of the AV and thus should replace the AV. The version includes many doubt producing footnotes, which favor critical text readings.

The New King James Version (NKJV) is published by Thomas Nelson, Inc. [1]. The anglicized edition was originally known as the Revised Authorized Version, but the NKJV title is now used universally.

The NKJV was published in three stages:

New King James Bible, New Testament; 1979 New King James Bible, New Testament and Psalms; 1980 New King James Version of the Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments; 1982

Gideons International, an organization that places Bibles in hotels and hospitals, uses the NKJV translation.

Contents

Beginnings

The NKJV translation project, which was conceived by Arthur Farstad, was inaugurated in 1975 with two meetings (Nashville and Chicago) of 68 interested persons, most of them prominent Baptists but also including some conservative Presbyterians. The men who were invited to these meetings prepared the guidelines for the NKJV. The New Testament was published in 1979, the Book of Psalms in 1980, and the full NKJV Bible in 1982.

The aim of its translators was to update the vocabulary and grammar of the King James Version, while preserving the classic style and beauty of the 1611 version. Although it uses substantially the same Hebrew and Greek texts as the original KJV, it indicates where more commonly accepted manuscripts differ.

Update to King James Version

According to the preface of the New King James Version (p. v-vi), the NKJV uses the 1967/1977 Stuttgart edition of the Biblia Hebraica for the Old Testament, with frequent comparisons made to the Ben Hayyim edition of the Mikraot Gedolot published by Bomberg in 1524-25, which was used for the King James Version. Both the Old Testament text of the NKJV and that of the KJV come from the ben Asher text (known as the Masoretic Text). However, the 1967/1977 Stuttgart edition of the Biblia Hebraica used by the NKJV uses an earlier manuscript (the Leningrad Manuscript B19a) than that of the KJV.

The New King James Version also uses the Textus Receptus ("Received Text") for the New Testament, just as the King James Version had used. The translators have also sought to follow translation principles of translation used in the original King James Version, which the NKJV revisers call "complete equivalence" in contrast to "dynamic equivalence" used by many other modern translations.

The task of updating the English of the KJV involved significant changes in word order, grammar, vocabulary, and spelling. One of the most significant features of the NKJV was its abandonment of the second person pronouns “thou,” "thee," “ye,” “thy,” and “thine.” Verb forms were also modernized in the NKJV (for example, "speaks" rather than "speaketh").

Criticisms

Language style

One criticism of the NKJV is that it is rendered in a language format that has never been spoken. By maintaining much of the Elizabethan structure and syntax of the KJV (an intentional effect on the part of the revisers, who intended for a reader to be able to follow along in one version as the other version is read aloud), the NKJV at times has been criticized for putting modern words into archaic orders. Unlike the Revised Version of 1881-85 and American Standard Version of 1901, which sought to take advantage of modern scholarship but left the overall text worded in archaic Jacobean language, the NKJV sounds neither Jacobean nor particularly modern. Also many of the double meanings in many of the verses have now been lost.

Underlying texts

A second criticism involves the fact that it is based, as noted above, solely upon the ancient texts available during the time of King James and not on manuscripts and documents which have since been discovered or largly rejected by the church, i.e. Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. Since these manuscripts, most of which - for the New Testament - reflect an Alexandrian text-type, are argued by most of today's biblical scholars to be more reliable, the NKJV's adherence to the Majority Text (which has ties to the Textus Receptus) is accused of violating the spirit of open scholarship and open inquiry, and to ascribe a level of perfection to the documents available to the 17th century scholars that they would not have claimed for them.

However, not all textual critics agree that the earliest manuscripts are the most accurate. Alternative readings based on other texts do appear as footnotes in the New King James Version, and unlike other translations (such as the New International Version), the NKJV does not contain value comments like "the best manuscripts add, etc." Instead, the footnotes simply state which manuscript sets do not contain the passage (similar to the approach previously taken by the New World Translation) of the Jehovah's Witnesses. However, this is unlikely to placate those who feel that the "Johannine Comma" (at 1 John 5:7), for example, is not a legitimate portion of scripture and should not be treated as such. The NKJV holds to a loose stance for the Textus Receptus and Masoretic Text, but incorporates other corrupt manuscripts in its footnotes and follows corrupt definitions from other versions, which in doing so, reveals their belief that the KJV is in error in 1000’s of places.

King James Only belief

Proponents of the "King-James-Only Movement" see the New King James Version as something less than a true successor to the KJV. Proponents view the NKJV as making significant changes to the meaning of the KJV translators. For example, Acts 17:22, in which Paul in the KJV calls the men of Athens "too superstitious", is interpreted in the NKJV to have Paul call them "very religious".

At the same time, many churches and evangelical groups have embraced the NKJV as an acceptable compromise between the original KJV and a Bible that uses a more modern syntax.

See Also

External links

Will Kinney Articles on the NKJV

Trinitarian Bible Society articles on the NKJV

Other

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