What meaneth the title “The Strange Case of the New King James Version”? To me, its strangeness is this: (1) The New King James translation is a Bible translation supposedly doggedly based on the texts behind the “old” King James translation, and (2) the team of translators working on this translation did not favor the texts behind the old King James translation – particularly the Greek Textus Receptus.
History
“The New King James Version was conceived by Arthur Farstad, a conservative Baptist and a former editor at Thomas Nelson Publishers. The project was inaugurated in 1975…”[i] According to Farstad, Sam Moore, President of Thomas Nelson Publishers, desired to see a revision of the King James Bible.[ii] Thomas Nelson Company published the New Testament in 1979, the New Testament with Psalms in 1980, and the complete Bible in 1982.
Translators – Not TR/KJV Guys
Arthur Farstad, the executive editor of the NKJV and its New Testament chairman, was not a TR guy. In fact, at about the same time as the NKJV was created Farstad collaborated with Zane C. Hodges and others to produce The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text (Thomas Nelson, 1982). They posited that the majority readings are those most likely to represent the original readings.[iii]
James D. Price, chairman of the NKJV Old Testament committee, was not a TR guy. In an e-mail to David Cloud in 1996, Price wrote, “I am not a TR advocate. I happen to believe that God has preserved the autographic text in the whole body of evidence that He has preserved, not merely through the textual decisions of a committee of fallible men based on a handful of late manuscripts. The modern critical texts like NA26/27 and UBS provide a list of the variations that have entered the manuscript traditions, and they provide the evidence that supports the different variants. In the apparatus they have left nothing out, the evidence is there. The apparatus indicates where possible additions, omissions, and alterations have occurred.”[iv]
Of the bulk of the NKJV translation committee, Dan Wallace explains that none of them preferred the TR as the best text.[v]
“I worked on the NKJV as a proofreader (working directly for Art Farstad).[vi] The Greek text is the same as for the KJV, which is hardly a recommendation for it! None of the translators, as far as I know, thought that the Textus Receptus was the closest text to the original.”[vii]
Concluding thoughts
Is it just me? A group of scholars creates a translation from a Greek text that they think is second rate. This seems more like a business venture than a spiritual exercise. How does one make a defense of this? That is, how or why could one defend the choice of a base Greek (or Hebrew) text that the actual translators do not prefer? All this in order to create another new Bible? This question is completely aside from the question of whether the New King James Version is good, bad, or indifferent. Why did these translators choose to translate from a text that they think is second rate?[viii] What’s the point?
I have heard some folks charge Farstad with creating a bridge from the King James/TR to the Critical Text. That seems unlikely. If it were up to him, Farstad had much rather create a bridge to the Majority Text. I have heard others claim that Farstad wanted to create a new English translation from the Greek Majority Text but that Thomas Nelson Publishers did not think it would sell. That seems more likely, but is challenged by the fact that Farstad himself claimed the New King James Bible was the idea of Thomas Nelson’s President, Sam Moore. This might even seem to corroborate the story. However, I have searched and never found Arthur Farstad claim that this Bible was his idea (though I may have missed it).
Rather than look for some conspiracy, it is best to receive the standard text: “Mr. Sam Moore, President of Thomas Nelson Publishers, was deeply concerned that so many Christians, though they devoutly read the King James Bible, do not fully understanding it because of its archaic phraseology. This, along with his son Joe’s request for a comprehensible Bible, provided the incentive for beginning the work of revising the King James Version. After unsuccessfully approaching several foundations to sponsor the revision, Mr. Moore decided to underwrite the venture himself.”[ix]
Nevertheless, the TR text and CT/MT translators patchwork still seem a very strange case to me.
[ii] The New King James Version: In the Great Tradition, Arthur Leonard Farstad, Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc. 1989, p. 31.
[iii] Arthur Farstad was a teacher and professor at Dallas Theological Seminary. Before his death, “Farstad began work on a modern English translation that was first named Logos 21. A Bible organization named Absolutely Free sponsored Logos 21 in 1996. Much of this work was later adapted by Holman Publishers, which contracted with Dr. Farstad to make a new, optimal-equivalence Bible translation that became known as the Holman Christian Standard Bible. The first edition was completed in 2003. Farstad agreed to join with the SS Board of the SBC, in their own project, incorporating his work with theirs, and he would become the overseer. Dr. Farstad intended to use the MT, which he had co-edited, as the textual basis for the NT. However, he suddenly died, a short while into the project, and the SS Board decided to use the UBS text, instead.” [bold emphasis mine, rlv] See Arthur Farstad.
[iv] James Price, e-mail to David Cloud, April 30, 1996, What About the New King James Version?.
[v] The “NKJV Teams” (translators, reviewers, consultants, and editors) are listed in “Appendices A-D,” pages 141-159.
[vi] Wallace began his academic career teaching at Dallas Seminary from 1979 until 1981.
[vii] “What Bible Should I Own,” 2010-09-06, Dan Wallace, answering a question from Delwyn X. Campbell.
[viii] Notice how Price deprecates the TR as “the textual decisions of a committee of fallible men based on a handful of late manuscripts.”
[ix] The New King James Version, Farstad, p. 31. According to Farstad, Sam Moore’s son Joe asked, “Daddy, you make so many Bibles, why can’t you make a Bible I can understand?” He also says Moore “wanted to contribute a Bible that was understandable to young people like Joe and yet retained the great tradition of the Tyndale-King James Bible in text and style.” See page 1.
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