How pure is my King James Bible?
I have gotten a number of heartfelt letters
from brothers and sisters in Christ, each saying someone
has told them their King James is not as good as
the “Pure Cambridge Edition” King James.
Is this true?
Should we dump all our King James Bibles
and pick up the quote, Pure Cambridge Edition, end quote,
King James Bible?
Are all our King James Bibles but that one
actually IMPURE?
Let’s find out.
Hi, I’m David Daniels from Chick Publications
I have checked one site after another.
And from what I can gather, the “Pure Cambridge Edition”
King James Bible comes down to differences in …
…drumroll, please …
12 verses.
But those twelve could be VERY IMPORTANT.
Absolutely.
So let me break them down.
6 of those 12 verses, one half of all their big objections
are about whether “spirit” should be capitalized or not.
Job 33:4; Ezekiel 11:24; Matthew 4:1; Mark 1:12; Acts 11:28 and 1 John 5:8.
Capitalization, or upper case, lower case,, was utilized after
the invention of the printing press.
They had two cases to hold the metal type
for each letter and symbol.
The uncials were kept in the upper case.
The minuscules were kept in the lower case.
That’s it.
You need to know this: the original Greek and Hebrew
were only written as uncials, what we call upper case.
There were no minuscules, yet.
So making some letters different from others
was something people invented centuries later,
after the Bible was already written.
And different languages have completely different rules
about which words start with upper case and which words start with lower case.
Not even Mexico agrees with American English capitalization,
and our countries border each other!
High German capitalizes every single noun.
So that’s 6 of the 12, one half of the verses right there.
Now, whether you capitalize spirit in “spirit of God” or not,
it’s still God’s spirit.
#7 is whether you say in Nahum 3:16, “the cankerworm spoileth, and flieth away,”
or “fleeth away.”
Since I haven’t seen any cankerworms flying like insects,
I am guessing “flieth” and “fleeth” both mean the same thing.
#8 is whether you say Jesus “went a little further” or
“went a little farther” in Matthew 26:39.
Those mean the same thing.
If anyone tells you they are not the same, ask him or her to show you the difference
between going further and going farther, pretending to be Jesus for a minute.
And send me a video.
I’ve got to see this!
#9 is the statement to Peter, in Matthew 26:73,
“Surely thou also art one of them; for thy speech bewrayeth thee,”
versus “thy speech betrayeth thee.”
If you are talking with a strong accent from Galilee,
your speech bewrays you, reveals you.
But it also betrays you, because it doesn’t let you get away with
pretending not to know Jesus.
Both are true.
And the sense of betray is to “make it clear who you really are,”
which is the meaning of “bewray” in my Bible Companion:
“Reveal; give away a secret; betray.”
So we went over 9 out of the 12 and I still don’t see the problem.
Now we come to the 3 remaining.
Joshua 19:2.
Does it say, “And they had in their inheritance
Beer-sheba, or Sheba,” or does it say
“Beer-sheba and Sheba”?
It’s in a list of cities and villages.
And in verse 16 it adds them up as, “thirteen cities and their villages.”
If it says “or,” “Sheba” is another name for Beer-sheba,
and the total is 13.
If it says “and,” then at most we might think
the “and” is explanatory.
Still the same meaning in context.
Two to go.
Now we come to what I call the Oxford Mistakes.
It’s not because Oxford made them.
It’s because Oxford kept them in their editions.
And why?
Probably because both of them are technically true,
either way.
But only one of each is identical to the Hebrew
underlying the English.
Take a look at Jeremiah 34:16
“But ye turned and polluted my name, and caused every man his servant,
and every man his handmaid, whom ye had set at liberty at their pleasure…”
Note the uses of “ye,” “his,” and “their:”
“But ye turned and polluted my name, and [ye] caused
every man his servant, and every man his handmaid,
whom ye had set at liberty at their pleasure"
“Ye” is “all of you.”
And “his” refers to “every man” “every man his servant”
“All of you” and “every man” are the same thing.
So “every man his servant” means all the servants of every man.
And that means “his” refers to the “ye.”
“His servant” means “every man’s servant.”
We know it because the Hebrew and most King James Bibles correctly say,
“whom ye had set at liberty.”
That is exactly right.
But when it says in Oxford Bibles, “he had set at liberty,”
that is also right, because “he” still refers to every man.
This is one of the few places in the Bible where “he” and “ye” refer to everyone.
They both refer to the same thing.
So “ye” copies the Hebrew.
But “he” is not wrong.
That’s why Oxford Bibles have kept that error for 400 years.
I’d change it if I were they.
But it’s still true.
Got it?
Now there’s one more of the 12 supposedly egregious errors
to get you to dump your King James Bible for a “Pure Cambridge Edition” King James.
Brace yourselves.
In 2 Chronicles 33:19.
It is talking about King Manasseh.
“His prayer also, and how God was intreated of him,
and all his sin, and his trespass…”
“Sin” there is in the singular.
But it’s not like Manasseh only did only one sin.
It says, “all his sin.”
That’s a group noun.
It refers to all the sins he did as a group.
The Oxford mistake reads, “and all his sins.”
That means every one of them.
But “every one of them” also means a group!
All his sin, and all his sins,
are really talking about the same thing.
There.
I’m done.
That’s all 12.
Have you found a single reason to dump your King James Bible
and trust another King James that is called,
“the Pure Cambridge Edition”?
I haven’t.
If I understand Job and Revelation correctly,
Satan has to go to God and get permission to harass Christians.
I think the same must be true about the King James Bible.
Because no matter how hard Satan tries, He cannot change the meaning of the words,
Even with the cleverest of changes.
No one is led doctrinally astray, even when the Bible printings
in our modern editions, have actual differences,
in spelling, capitalization, or even these two Oxford mistakes.
So I use every King James Bible, with one exception.
I won’t use the Pure Cambridge Edition if I can help it,
because by its name it claims to be “pure,”
which implies that the other King James Bibles
are somehow impure.
It is God who promised to preserve and purify His words,
through inspired writers:
Psalm 12:6 The words of the LORD are pure words:
as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.
7 Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them
from this generation for ever.
God will keep and preserve them.
Psalm 119:140 Thy word is very pure:
therefore thy servant loveth it.
Proverbs 30:5-6, Every word of God is pure:
he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him.
6 Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee,
and thou be found a liar.
And Jesus said, recorded three times, “Heaven and earth shall pass away,
but my words shall not pass away.”
So next time somebody says to you, “You don’t have
the pure King James Bible,” you can say, “Sure I do.”
I have the King James Bible, not the “New”, King James “II,” “III,”
“Modern English,” “Restored Name,” Just the King James Bible,
God’s preserved words in English.
It’s the pure words of God.”
Now any English Bible that’s not the King James--
that’s another thing entirely.
God bless you, and have a wonderful day.