Response to a question about the New King James Version (NKJV)

With apologies to Ivan M. Paton

An unexpected change of subjects

I had thought I was done with the KJV for a while, and my original intention for this week was to attempt a response to some substantive criticisms from Ivan M. Payton on the truthfulness of the New Testament, the adequacy of biblical concepts of God, and other related subjects. However, I started working on another response from Michael Carter [https://substack.com/@pastormike] about the New King James Version, and became so involved with it that I really could not do justice to the other subject. So, with apologies to Mr. Payton, I will defer posting my comments until next Monday.

A response to a question about problems with the NKJV

Thanks for spending the time and writing out your thoughts. Not an area I consider myself knowledgeable on, so I have always stuck close to KJV and NKJV for my study. I have seen quite a few errors or "on-purpose" mistranslations in the NIV, so this is really an important thing to be at least passingly familiar with.

Would love to hear your input on the NKJV and what are some of its problems so I can be better informed.

Hope this finds you well!

There is no need to thank me for the time spent on writing on this and other subjects. It is something I am glad to do, and I get real satisfaction from adding my widow’s mite to this and to other important issues. Too few Christians realize the importance of an accurate and authoritative version of God’s word – or, they accept the importance of it in theory, but unknowingly accept critical and translational practices that are detrimental to that end.

Thanks to you rather for your comment, and for the opportunity to comment further on this subject.

Since you are already aware of serious problems with the NIV, I won’t go into that, except to add that a Reformed pastor, Kevin DeYoung, wrote a book on that subject. He was not writing in defense of the King James Version, as can be seen from the title, Why Our Church Switched to the ESV. For reasons having nothing to do with the KJY Only controversy, he said he found the NIV too problematic for regular use in preaching and gave a lot of specific details.

About the NKJV, I have never used it or taken an interest in it. I have read some negative comments about it here and there, which were confirmed by the brief research I did relating to your question. Please note, by saying “brief research,” I am confessing that I am not a “scholar,” only an interested layman – and I do not think that this is an area in which we have to “follow the experts.”

I looking into your question, I did find some information that would prevent me from using the NKJV, or from recommending it to anyone else. Recognizing, of course, that I am not the pope (and have no aspirations in that direction), anyone can disagree with me and use whatever version they like. But, the NKJV has, according to my understanding at any rate, some serious and fundamental problems, sufficient to make it unfit for use.

It is not that the NKJV has a few changes in wording. I don’t object IN THEORY to a version in modern English. Possibly the King James 2000 version is usable https://www.kingjames2000.com/ but I have not studied it and so don’t recommend it. If it consistently avoids any and all influence of modern text criticism, and confines itself solely to some linguistic modernization, as advertised, I don’t see that as any different from what was done to the KJV in the 18th century, when grammatical and spelling archaisms were ironed out, and the font changed (while the text itself was retained whole and entire).

Unfortunately, this modern and postmodern age is so insidiously corrupt in many ways, due especially to the inferiorities of modern education and culture, that I am afraid any and all modern efforts at change will automatically fall under suspicion – and I myself have no need of any modern version.

My objection to the NKJV is that it makes serious concessions to modern New Testament textual criticism. These concessions manifest themselves in two ways: (1) in the use of critical notes in the text, and (2) in the use of modern word changes found also in other modern versions, including the NIV.

1. The use of critical notes in the text

In order to explain why I think the slightest concession should not be made to the theories, methods, and conclusions of the New Bible-ists, a brief overview of the subject is in order. So, hoping you will overlook it if this material is already familiar to you, I would like to give some historical background.

When Eastern and Western Europe were culturally separated during the Middle Ages, following the fall of the Roman Empire, the knowledge of Greek was lost in the West. The language of the Bible was Latin, and the Greek New Testament was unknown.

A significant aspect of the Renaissance was renewed interest in the original Greek. This was heightened by the availability of Greek manuscripts (MSS) from the Byzantine Empire. As the impending collapse of the Empire became increasingly evident, there was also a greater influx of Greek speaking scholars and MSS into Western Europe (especially Italy). This included of course not only biblical texts, but also works of ancient philosophy and literature.

At the time of the Protestant Reformation, therefore, all of the available Greek MSS of the Bible were from the Byzantine Empire. This was, of course, the area where the originals of Paul’s letters would have first been received, and where authentic copies would be most likely to be found.

Thus, the first published Greek manuscript of the Bible, brought out by Erasmus in 1516, was based on a few Greek MSS from what is referred to as the Byzantine family of Greek texts (also called the Majority Text, the Antiochian Text, the Syrian Text, and some other names).

It has been said that Erasmus brought this first version out in haste, but he made four more editions in his lifetime, and in the rest of that century, much more scholarly work was done as greater numbers of Byzantine texts came to light. By the time the KJV was begun in the early 1600s, there was a coherent body of texts, perhaps a dozen or more different versions of the basic Greek text, available for the KJV translators to work with. Thus, in making the KJV in 1604-1611, the translators had to choose between different readings in different manuscripts. The final text they used was therefore an eclectic version drawn from the various texts available to them at that time.

It has been said by defenders of the modern versions that modern critics are merely doing the same thing the KJV translators did – choosing the best readings from different MSS. That sounds plausible, but is not completely accurate, for it omits one very significant difference. All of the MSS available in the early 17th century were from the same family of texts – and, again, they came from the same area where the originals of Paul’s and other apostolic New Testament writings would have been most readily available. Thus the KJV translators were not led astray by corrupt and inferior manuscripts that had been laid aside and left unused for centuries - possibly because of the manifest problems with them.

The MSS available in the 16th century were writings were provided by the providence of God (if we believe in God’s activity the world), and were sufficient for the compilation of a certain, sure and reliable Greek text such as what underlies the KJV. We do not have to search for the original texts – we have them. We do not have to try and guess what the first versions might have been like – they are accessible to us in the Greek family of manuscripts which God made available at the time of the Reformation, and in accurate translations based on those manuscripts.

This being so, the later discovery of manifestly corrupt and unreliable manuscripts in the 19th century – MSS with whole lines missing, whole lines copied twice, full of editorial corrections, deletions and additions because of their many errors – such discoveries constitute nothing more than a gigantic irrelevancy which has contributed exactly nothing to a better understanding of the original text. Worse, such discoveries and the elaborate weaving of cobwebs of unsubstantiated speculation around them, have done a great deal of damage to the church. They have brought what was once thought of as the Word of God into serious disrepute – and how could it be otherwise, when unbelievers (or believers weak in the faith) hear critics and scholars saying they are still trying to determine what the originals might or might not have been; that this reading is more authentic than that reading?

I believe such speculations quench the Spirit, and are an offense to God. They undermine the faith of believers, and drag the Bible into disrepute. They subordinate the Word of God not merely to human reason, but to foolish, empty, idle and vain human reason – so much so that I will venture to make the assertion that the entire edifice of modern textual criticism erected in the 19th and 20th centuries is nothing but a complete waste of time at best. At worst, it is vanity, emptiness, and delusion and has done great damage to the cause of biblical Christianity.

Thus, when I see the editors of the NKJV bowing the knee to these what to me are modern deceptions, I have no interest in their version whatsoever. 

I mentioned above that such concessions manifest themselves in the NKJV in two ways: (1) in the use of critical notes in the text, and (2) in the use of modern word changes found also in other modern versions, including the NIV.

As to the first of these, the “Preface to the New King James Version” in a Thomas Nelson publication of the NKJV states:

It is now widely held that the Byzantine Text that largely supports the Textus Receptus has as much right as the Alexandrian or any other tradition to be weighed in determining the text of the New Testament.[https://archive.org/details/nkjvstudybible/page/n14/mode/1up?view=theater]:

This accords the new textual criticism a legitimacy it does not deserve. That it is in fact a capitulation is evident in the following quote from the same preface:

The textual notes reflect the scholarship of the past 150 years and will assist the reader to observe the variations between the different manuscript traditions of the New Testament. Such information is generally not available in English translations of the New Testament.

This fails to recognize that just about all of that scholarship of the past 150 years is worthless. I say “just about all” instead of “all” because there were some workers in this field who argued against the new methods. But, like Dean Burgon I fear, they fell into the trap of trying to debate the new critics on their terms, and so were at a disadvantage from the outset.

Thus, in including readings from the Nestle-Aland and the United Bible Society’s Greek New Testament texts in their footnotes, the NKJV editors have given legitimacy to what should not be recognized as anything other than emptiness and “oppositions of science falsely so called.”

As only one example, I post here the NKJV’s editorial comments on the ending of Mark:

16:9-20 The authenticity of these last 12 verses has been disputed. Those who doubt Mark’s authorship of this passage point to two fourth-century manuscripts that omit these verses. Others believe that they should be included because even these two manuscripts leave space for all or some of these verses, indicating that their copyists knew of their existence. The difficulty is in knowing whether the space is for this longer version of Mark’s ending or for one of the alternate endings found in the manuscripts. Practically all other manuscripts contain vv. 9-20, and this passage is endorsed by such early church fathers as Justin Martyr (a.d. 155), Tatian (a.d. 170), and Irenaeus (a.d. 180). It does not seem likely that Mark would end his story on a note of fear (v. 8).

There is no difficulty in saying that the full ending is the authentic one, and that the testimony of a few odd and eccentric MSS to the contrary is irrelevant. Other speculations against this passage, such as author’s style, or a shorter ending being more effective, are nothing but cobwebs.

They say in the last sentence “It does not seem likely that Mark would end” etc. It does not seem likely that the entire church in the Greek-speaking world should have been led astray, while the “real” Bible (in the forms of Codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) should have been concealed and forgotten in a Vatican library or an isolated monastery in the Sinai. There is no valid or even remotely plausible historical explanation of how such an absurd state of affairs could have come about.

To put it another way, the entire belief that sloppily and carelessly made MSS from the 4th century are automatically more valid than carefully and reverently copied MS from the 7th, 8th or 9th centuries is very simple minded. It even reflects a deep conformity to the world, in assuming that the Word of God was not delivered and preserved in its entirety, but somehow evolved from simpler beginnings. Does this belief that the text of the Bible evolved over time reflect Hort’s expressed belief in Darwin’s theory of evolution?

About “oldest being most reliable,” we read in II Thessalonians 2:2 that Paul says “That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.”

Paul was concerned about the possibility of false letters being sent out in his name, or in the name of other apostles. This means that even an ancient manuscript letter from Paul’s own lifetime would not necessarily be valid, if one such could ever be found.

2. The use of modern word changes found in other versions

Concerning problems with specific words in the NKJV, I have come across and saved a tract called “New King James Version: Counterfeit,” by Dr. Terry Watkins, Th.D. (Bible Believer’s Press, P.O. Box 7135, Pensacola, FL 32534).

In the interests of brevity I will focus on only one passage (some examples he gave were more significant than others). In I Corinthians 15:55, where Paul is speaking about the immortality of the human soul and the resurrection from the dead, the AV reads:

O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

The NKJV reads:

O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?

Now, if someone changes “thy” to “your” this does not bother me, (although the older forms do usefully distinguish between the singular and plural forms of “you” in a way modern English does not). But the change of “grave” to “Hades” is significant, and reflects a common problem that often appears in modern versions in many other contexts.

Parenthetically, about the use of archaic forms like “thee . . . thy . . . thine . . . thou hast . . . thou art” and so on, I have now visited two different Baptist churches in the Philippines, where I am currently residing (one in Manila, one in nearby Antipolo). Both of these churches use the KJV. It is used in sermon quotations and congregational Bible readings, and by individuals in conversation - and people whose native language is not even English have no problem with it. They have an authentic spiritual interest which easily overcomes such shallow obstacles.

But, getting back to the question of “grave” vs. “Hades,” the original Greek does read “Hades.”

ποῦ σου, ᾅδη, τὸ νῖκος; 

Meaning, ποῦ (where) σου (your), ᾅδη (O hades – form of direct address for ᾅδης), τὸ (the) νῖκος; (victory ?)

So, we can see that the word Hades is in the Greek (which does not use a capital letter here). From this it might appear that the NKJV is being more literally accurate than the AV here. However, there is more to translating than just taking words out of a dictionary, as is too often done in modern versions.  

The word “Hades” is a word taken from Greek mythology. It refers, according to the Liddell Scott Greek Lexicon, to: (1) a pagan deity named Hades, the brother of Zeus and ruler of the underworld, the land of the dead; (2) the world below the earth, a mythological place where souls would be ferried across the river Styx by the boatman Charon, to the entrance which was guarded by Cerberus, a three-headed dog (these first two would start with a capital letter, being proper names); and (3) a general term for the grave, or death.

Thus, we have two problems with the using the word Hades. (a) Paul was not speaking about Greek mythology; and (b) a mythological reference does not have the force, the immediacy, and the impact of the word “grave,” which is a legitimate synonym.

We can expect modern speakers of English to adapt to some older forms of verbs and pronouns, and learn some new words, but there is no reason they should have to be familiar with Greek mythology. So, in trying to be more literal, the NKJV translators have made the Bible less clear and robbed a powerful teaching of its force and clarity.

This is an example of the modern tendency to just paste in a dictionary definition without being mindful of context and nuance. The KJV translators often made better word choices because they were more skilled in the use of foreign languages. They also had intellectual qualities unknown to may people today, because of their much more rigorous and demanding. education, and their broader familiarity with the whole range of Greek literature and language.

The tract by Dr. Watkins gives other examples where the NKJV makes word changes like those of the NIV, RSV, and others, meaning that the modernist mentality is reflected in various ways not always immediately apparent.

So, I would have no interest in using the NKJV. In the places where the KJV is obscure, I would prefer to think about them for a while and see what I can come up with by reflection and mental effort, instead of running straightway to another version or commentary. And, I find more than I can possibly assimilate in the many passages that are perfectly clear to the mind instructed by faith. These are passages that refer not merely to essential doctrines of salvation, but to deeper aspects of the living the Christian life - an endeavor for which we do not need more textual questions and speculations interjected into a complete and finished Word.