On the 400th anniversary of the King James Version (KJV), Bible scholar Joel Hoffman is calling the celebrated Bible edition the “fool’s gold standard” of translation, saying “the King James Version is monumentally inaccurate.”
Although Hoffman says he likes the KJV, recognizing its value historically, politically and sentimentally, he also suggests two reasons that the KJV is now inaccurate: First, English has changed over the past 400 years. That, he says, minimizes the value of some of the translations in the KJV. Second, he argues that the science of translation has improved in the 400 years since the KJV was written, so modern translators are better able to understand and convey the ancient languages of the Bible.
In a blog posting, Hoffman compared the KJV to an ancient map, ending with the admonition that “those who would navigate the Bible solely with this 400-year-old translation journey in perils.”
Do you agree with Hoffman?
