I often hear Christians who use and promote modern translations (and who are often critics of the King James Version), say something like this when talking about “missing” verses in the Bible: “What makes King James the standard?” As an example, Luke Wayne at CARM writes, “To just say that modern scholars ‘removed’ the verses simply because the verses are present in the KJV assumes from the beginning that the KJV is the ultimate standard.”
Fact is, the purveyors of modern Bibles themselves make the King James Bible the standard for “missing” verses. They keep using the “standard” verse numbers from the KJV, which in turn indicates they have material missing. No matter how you explain it, when you do this, people are going to notice something is missing! If Bible translators and publishers choose to do this, let them not complain at us who use the KJV translation of the traditional texts as our standard! Point the finger back at yourselves.
G. Gabriel Powell, in “The Mysterious Case of Missing Scripture” at John MacArthur’s Grace to You site, explains the background:
“The Bible was not written with chapter and verse numbers. In fact, the first English Bible to be printed with both chapter and verse numbers was the Geneva Bible in 1560. The 1611 edition of the King James Bible slightly altered the chapter and verse divisions, and all modern English translations followed suit.”
Here he is correct – all modern English translations (at least so far as I know) “follow suit.” That is, they also make the King James Version numbers the standard. After doing so, many complain because it is the standard. Then they scramble to cover their practice.
We are being nice.
Along the now common line that the modern Bible supporters are the “nice” guys, Luke Wayne says Modern Bible Versionists are being nice to KJV and NKJV readers or else they “would not be able to follow along when they cited a verse…It made more sense to keep the standard verse numbers that other Bibles used so that everyone could be on the same page, (both literally and figuratively).” How magnanimous! “They could create their own new numbering system that corresponded to the text they were translating” – but they do not because they are so nice. Instead they keep the “standard verse numbers” and then complain when someone notices a verse is missing, according to that standard.
The verses are not left out.
This is a common treatment. Bill Mounce, defending “missing” verses in his NIV, says, “The verses are not left out. The verses are in the footnotes.” He goes on to explain (correctly, I might add) that “this is not an NIV thing; this is a modern translation thing.” In the footnotes. That the words are removed from the verse text is not for no reason. These translators believe they should be “missing” and put them in the footnotes as a way of explaining why they should be missing and are removed, yet not missing completely. Their editorial comments are also in the footnotes, but they do not count that a “non-missing” text. Do they?
However you slice it, and however they explain it, even if these guys do not want the King James Bible translation to be the standard, it nevertheless is. That is why they keep the numbering. Ultimately the KJV, if only by default, is the standard. Look at Acts 8 in the CSB, ESV, LEB, NET, NIV, NLT, for example. These modern translations leave out verse 37. Do they change verses 38-40 to become verses 37-39? No, they follow “the standard.” There are many more varied English translations than there are KJVs. If those who are making new English Bibles do not want to make the King James Bible the standard, they could renumber the verses following the verse that is left out. Then there would be no skips in counting the numbers, and nothing obviously missing. They don’t.
Now. You did it. Stop complaining about it.
2 comments:
Personally, I don't denigrate the KJ, but I don't use it because the KJ-onlyism bands got on my nerves with this version.. plus you make an idol of it. moreover, English is not my language but I speak it and write it.
I prefer NKJV and NASB 1995 for their simple language which is not archaic like your kjb which also has translation errors. For my part I use the Ostervald Bible in French which uses the "TEXTUS RECEPTUS".
Anonymous, thanks for reading and commenting. Please note that this post is not about KJVO, but about modern English translations keeping the numbering of the KJV and then complaining about it. I would suspect the same is true of modern Bible translations in other languages continuing to following the numbering of their earlier translations. The numbering goes back to Stephanus. The verse divisions are based on the work of Robertus Stephanus in his 1551 Greek-Latin New Testament. I assume, but do not know for sure, that other Reformation era Bibles use his numbering.
If you notice this, I would ask you explain whom you mean when you write, “plus you make an idol of it [KJV].”
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