Easy Reading

Why I use the Authorised Version, Reason .8

Easy Reading

A Couple of years ago I had a Russelite (so called Jehovah’s Witness) at my front door trying to peddle his lies. I challenged him about his cults belief that the Lord Jesus Christ is not the 2nd person of the Godhead, on his admission of his cults low view of Christ I asked him to turn to John chapter 1 as I wanted to show him the following verse that clearly show the Deity of Christ.

‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’ John 1 v1

As he read I heard a word that I knew was not in the verse, he read ‘the word was a god’. His New World Translation had added the little word ‘a’ to the text to make the Lord Jesus a god among many and had given the word god a small ‘g’ rather than the capital ‘G’ we are all familiar with. At this point I said to him, ‘your Bible has added a word to alter the meaning of the verse, there are serious warnings in scripture to those who would do this’, to which he replied ‘I suppose your one of those King James readers?’ ‘I am’ I replied.

At this point Mr Russelite thought he had me and produced a question, which must have come from his ‘dealing with difficult people manual’. ‘Tell me’ he said with a wry smile ‘what is a Shambles?’ ‘It’s a meat market I replied.’ Disappointed he turned and left. He though he could shake my confidence in the KJV by highlighting a word which is not part of 21st Century Common Parlance.

‘It’s Archaic’ is a charge often laid at the door of the King James Version and grant it there are some words in the KJV that are not in common usage, but should we ‘throw the baby out with the bath water’ because it has a few old words? I have never found a word in the KJV yet (apart from proper nouns) which are not in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Maybe you have heard people say I prefer the New Versions, they are easier to read and easier to understand. I just can’t get my head around this archaic language of the KJV. Maybe you have uttered these very arguments your self. It all sounds very plausible, the only problem is if you really examine the language of the KJV and the language of the New Versions you will find that this argument does not stack up.

As I have already stated there are a number of words in the KJV that the average person will not be familiar with, words like Superfluity and Concupiscence. I am not going to tell you what these words mean go and look them up in a dictionary. As I was growing up and broadening my vocabulary I often had to look up the meaning of words in the dictionary, I did not throw away the book I was reading when I came to a word that I was unfamiliar with. Likewise if we are reading the Bible and come across a word we are unsure of do we throw it to the side and say I can’t read this? That would be lazy and laziness should never be an attitude of heart when we are studying God’s word.

‘Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.’ 2 Timothy 2 v15

So, are the modern versions really ‘easy reading’? Let’s consider the following.


Number 21v14, The Red Sea AV, Wahed in Suphah NIV, NASB, NCV, NLT, ESV & NKJV, I’m sure you remember the children’s chorus ‘How did Moses cross Wahed in Suphah.’

Leviticus 11 v30, Snail AV, Skink NIV, My garden’s full of skinks

2 Chronicles 2 v2, Told AV, Conscripted NIV, One syllable verses three

Ezra 8 v36, Lieutenants AV, Satraps NIV, NASB & NKJV, A familiar word of military rank replaced with an unknown word.

Isaiah 28 v 1, Fat AV, Verdant NKJV, Don’t be eating too many sweets Jonny you’ll get verdant

Amos 5 v21, Smell AV, Savour NKJV, Mmmm What’s that…savour, I mean smell?

Matthew 20 v2, For a penny a day AV, For a Denarius a day NIV, NASV, ESV & NKJV, There can be at times a place for transliteration; this is not one of those times. You’re supposed to be making it easier to understand guys!

Luke 10 v35, Repay AV, Reimburse NIV, Two syllables verses three

Luke 19 v13, Pound AV, Mina NIV, NASB, ESV & NKJV, There can be at times a place for transliteration; this is not one of those times. Your supposed to be making it easier…

Ephesians 4 V 16, Joint AV, Supporting Ligament NIV, It’s the Bible not Grey’s Anatomy

Hebrews 5 v10, Called AV, Designated NIV, NASB, 2 syllable verses 4.


These examples above are merely a scratch on the surface. The people behind the new versions are an academic elite and they have allowed their heady high-minded vocabulary to creep into the simple Word of God.

Not only does the AV use simpler language but it has a smaller vocabulary as well. The AV contains 790,685 words with a total vocabulary of 12784 words. The NIV on the other hand contains 726,109 words (64,576 less that the AV) with a total vocabulary of 14500 words. That means that to be able to read and understand the NIV you need to have a larger working vocabulary of some 1716 words.

Not only should we consider the size of the vocabulary but also we should consider the nature of the vocabulary. The AV uses for the most part one or two syllable words while the new versions substitute complex multi-syllable words and phrases. When different Bible versions were tested using the Flesch-Kincaid research company’s Grade level indicator the AV came out tops for readability. Also, because the modern Bibles are copyrighted they each have to be significantly different than the others. In order to achieve the copyright the new translators have to get their thesaurus out and find more and more alternative words to say the same thing. The plain fact is this, the AV translators used all the simple common words like ‘repay’ so to be different the NIV had to use ‘reimburse’.

The message about the AV being obscure, confusing and incomprehensible as nothing more than advertising propaganda from publishing houses who want you to buy their ‘New Bibles’. Don’t believe their propaganda.