Is The King James Version (KJV) The Most Literal Translation Of The Bible?

             Some well-meaning and sincere Christians claim that the KJV is the most literal translation of the Bible. However, Daniel B. Wallace,¹ an authority in the field of New Testament manuscripts, refutes this claim.

            If the KJV contains more words than any other translations of the Bible, then the claim that the KJV is the most literal version would be invalid. Dan Wallace writes:²

...the Greek New Testament has about 138,000–140,000 words, depending on which edition one is using. But no English translation has this few. Here are some examples:

RSV           173,293

NIV           175,037

ESV           175,599

NIV 2011   176,122

TNIV           176,267

NRSV          176,417

REB             176,705

NKJV           177,980

NET             178,929

RV                179,873

ASV             180,056

KJV              180,565

NASB 95      182,446

NASB           184,062

NLT, 2nd ed  186,596

TEV              192,784

It’s no surprise that the TEV and NLT have the most words, since these are both paraphrases. But the translations perceived to be more literal are often near the bottom of this list (that is, farther away from the Greek NT word-count). These include the KJV (#12), ASV (#11), NASB (#14), NASB 95 (#13), and RV (#10). Indeed, when the RV came out (1881), one of its stated goals was to be quite literal and the translators were consciously trying to be much more literal than the KJV.

In fact, Dan Wallace cites KJV’s preface, which claims that it is not exactly a literal translation, “The preface to the KJV actually claims otherwise. For example, they explicitly said that they did not translate the same word in the original the same way in the English but did attempt to capture the sense of the original each time...”

            So to conclude, the KJV’s preface and its word count lends credence to the fact that it is NOT the most literal translation of the Bible. But it is very important to note that the KJV does not impede man’s salvation in any possible manner. It is as trustworthy as the ESV, RSV, NASB, NIV et al.

Endnotes:

¹Dan Wallace is the Senior Research Professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary and Executive Director of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts [CSNTM].

²https://danielbwallace.com/2012/10/08/fifteen-myths-about-bible-translation/

Websites last accessed on 15^th January 2022.