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Q:
How do we know that the
1611 King James Bible is the divinely inspired one, and not
an earlier English translation?
A
: I
do not teach a divinely inspired translation per se. I believe that the
inspired words of God were perfectly preserved in the translation that
we know as the King James Bible of 1611. The difference is that I do
not teach a new inspiration for the translation. Rather, I believe that
God preserved the inspiration of scripture as He transferred it from
one language to another. Specifically, I believe that the King James
Bible of 1611 is God's perfectly preserved Bible for the English-speaking
people of today.
The evidence that God preserved His words in the King James Bible would
take and has taken books to explain. Briefly, it is the one He blessed
more than any since the founding of Christianity. The Bible says that
we know a tree by its fruit (Luke 6:44). The King James Bible has been
present for more revivals, more souls being saved, more missionary work,
more Bible colleges, and much more, than any other copy of the Bible
ever was--including the original Hebrew and Greek. God obviously did
something special with it.
And, since God promised to preserve His words (Psalm 12:6-7), I do not
need to question whether or not He did it. That would be to question
the veracity of God. My responsibility is to find where He did it. I
conclude that He did it with the King James Bible. Note: I also have a sermon
series on the issue called the Twenty-Four Proofs of Preservation. Unfortunately,
I
do not have this written out anywhere. But there are many proofs--not
just one or two.
As to earlier English versions, the King James Bible was built on them.
They were good, but I could not call them perfectly preserved. They provided
the foundation on which the King James Bible was built. The differences
between the earlier versions and the King James are not of the same sort
as the differences between the King James and the modern
versions. The new ones attack the text and the mode of translation. This
was not true with the old ones.
I will make more comments later. God bless.
Till He comes,
Pastor David Reagan