Is The king James version losing influence?

Xeno.of.athens · Jul 21, 2025

I'm a baby boomer, and I recall all sorts of things that the younger generations today don't recall one of them is that The King James version used to be available in bookstores pretty much everywhere. You could buy it at Christian bookstores. You would see it in supermarkets. You'd even see it in some fuel stations.

But The presence of The king James version has been diminishing. You don't see it so much in the secular The. bookstores.
In Australia, I never see it in ordinary stores anymore.

Has The antiquated language of The king James version caused it to lose popularity? How many people reading what I'm writing here have lost interest in reading that Jacobean style English?

And what about the theology that lies behind The king James version?

Its history is forgotten. It's The product of a political movement as well as scholarly translation. It was mandated that it contain a number of catholic words. Catholic in The sense of The High Anglican Church. So you'll find words like baptism, church, and and Bishop. These are all big parts of king James theology. But it seems that now the people who like it most are evangelicals. How many of you are aware of the theological roots of The king James version? I've noticed that a number of people are espousing it. They like to speak about The king James only. But their own denomination is Baptist or something else that is inimical to The king James version theology. They don't have bishops. They like immersion or submersion rather than baptism in the traditional Anglican way.

And of course The king James version has elements of non catholic to anti catholic sentiment in the translation itself because of political and religious tensions around at the time when it was translated. This time I mean Catholic in The sense of The Catholic church with Rome as The seat of The Bishop Of Rome. It's an interesting thought to pursue. At any rate, I'd like to hear what any of you have to say about it.

Reluctant Theologian · Jul 21, 2025

You've answered your own question: the KJV is a product of its time (the knowledge available then), the church/political environment of its time, Shakespeare era English.

The KJV simply is hardly relevant anymore now apart from its historical function. We have a better reconstruction of the original manuscripts, English has evolved. The church and political constraints that limited translation are gone, but maybe now new modern society constraints have been added (e.g. political correctness in the 21st century).

If one really wants to keep using the Textus Receptus as manuscript source one can use the NKJV. Otherwise for English I'd pick the LSB - readable with minimum loss of semantics while it tries to keep the Name of God intact in the TNK/OT.

jacks · Jul 21, 2025

I have downloaded two free bibles to my iPhone. Both are KJV. My guess is because the copywrite is expired?

Lukaris · Jul 21, 2025

Actually in the USA, the KJV is widely available and easily affordable as it is sold in Dollar Tree stores. It is available in both Testaments and New Testament editions.

King James Version New Testament Bibles Same-Day Delivery | Dollar Tree

Get King James Version New Testament Bibles delivered to you in as fast as 1 hour with Dollar Tree same-day delivery.

sameday.dollartree.com

Reluctant Theologian · Jul 21, 2025

jacks said:
I have downloaded two free bibles to my iPhone. Both are KJV. My guess is because the copywrite is expired?

Yes, virtually all KJV editions available today don't use the original text from 1611, but the revised text from 1769 (by Benjamin Blayney in Oxford). Those copyrights are long gone ...

ozso · Jul 21, 2025

I'd much rather read the New King James Version. Because it's actually readable to someone born in the 20th century. Although I do like the Psalms written in Shakespearian English.

concretecamper · Jul 21, 2025

KJV of the bible, IMO, is a heretical book.

Bob Crowley · Jul 22, 2025

I think it's losing ground for a number of reasons.

It used to be pretty much the standard for most English-speaking Protestant Churches, since they generally originated in England or the USA, where English is the official language anyway.

Since I didn't become Catholic till the late 1990's I don't know what the Catholics used officially, but I presume it was the Douay Rheims version until "recently".

But with the loss of Christian faith in Western and English-speaking society as a whole, a lot of people would not read the Bible at all, so you're not going to see Bibles in a lof of secular bookshops, or not many of them anyway, regardless of version. You're just as likely to see Buddhist, Hindu or New Age stuff.

Secondly the language is antiquated. It may be poetic as my old pastor once said, but people don't speak like that anymore. Educated Englishmen in Shakespeare's time may have spoken in terms of KJV vocabulary, but not even Oxford dons these days would speak as Shakespeare wrote, unless they tread the theatre boards as a hobby.

At an official level churches have recommended more modern and accurate versions. The Catholic Church no longer uses the Vulgate or Douay-Rheims, although I don't think Catholics read their Bibles as much as Protestants.

There's a few reasons.

Xeno.of.athens · Jul 22, 2025

Bob Crowley said:
I think it's losing ground for a number of reasons.

It used to be pretty much the standard for most English-speaking Protestant Churches, since they generally originated in England or the USA, where English is the official language anyway.

Since I didn't become Catholic till the late 1990's I don't know what the Catholics used officially, but I presume it was the Douay Rheims version until "recently".

But with the loss of Christian faith in Western and English-speaking society as a whole, a lot of people would not read the Bible at all, so you're not going to see Bibles in a lof of secular bookshops, or not many of them anyway, regardless of version. You're just as likely to see Buddhist, Hindu or New Age stuff.

Secondly the language is antiquated. It may be poetic as my old pastor once said, but people don't speak like that anymore. Educated Englishmen in Shakespeare's time may have spoken in terms of KJV vocabulary, but not even Oxford dons these days would speak as Shakespeare wrote, unless they tread the theatre boards as a hobby.

At an official level churches have recommended more modern and accurate versions. The Catholic Church no longer uses the Vulgate or Douay-Rheims, although I don't think Catholics read their Bibles as much as Protestants.

There's a few reasons.

I like your post and agree with what you're saying. I wonder if The generation Zeds and maybe the new ones-the alphas or whatever they're calling those born after generation zed-Will be biblically illiterate?

Paidiske · Jul 22, 2025

When I recently went looking for a Bible in a secular bookstore, KJV was one of the (depressingly limited range of) options available.

I think the Gideons also still give out the KJV, but not exclusively.

But yes, I think it's losing influence. It's barely readable for the average person, and scholars have good reason to prefer versions with a better manuscript background. I'd certainly never pick it up by choice.

High Fidelity · Jul 22, 2025

It's beautiful to read but I think as others indicated, it was a product of its time.

It isn't the most accurate translation and people fall into the same silly trap of trying to prove it is by using the KJV as the basis for accuracy, not original manuscripts.

It's pleasant to read, but there are better translations out there both in terms of accessible readability and accuracy. That said, you won't go wrong by reading the KJV, it's largely down to preference amongst a handful of good translations, of which the KJV is one.

ozso · Jul 22, 2025

Those who did not use the KJV in the 17th, 18th, 19th century: The Spanish, the Germans, the French, the Italians, the Greeks, the Russians, the Norwegians, the Swedish, the Danish, the Portuguese, the Hungarians etc who did not speak/read English.

Xeno.of.athens · Jul 22, 2025

Reluctant Theologian said:
Otherwise for English I'd pick the LSB - readable with minimum loss of semantics while it tries to keep the Name of God intact in the TNK/OT.

I would not pick the LSB because I am a Catholic and LSB is intended for Protestants who accept only 66 books in their bibles.

Reluctant Theologian · Jul 22, 2025

Xeno.of.athens said:
I would not pick the LSB because I am a Catholic and LSB is intended for Protestants who accept only 66 books in their bibles.

Yes, I get that - I also would value to have the Apocrypha readily available - these are still very useful; and many ideas/quotes in the NT actually come from those books. Still I value the Hebrew ranking of authority: TNK - Torah, Prophets and Writings. Even Yeshua adhered to that. As far as I know even the collection what we now call OT was not fully crystallised yet in Yeshua's time (Song of Songs was still contested).

ozso · Jul 22, 2025

Xeno.of.athens said:
I would not pick the LSB because I am a Catholic and LSB is intended for Protestants who accept only 66 books in their bibles.

More specifically Protestants only accept 39 books of the Old Testament - Hebrew bible, whereas Catholics accept 46 books. However both Protestants and Catholics accept the 27 books of the New Testament - Christian Bible.

Bob Crowley · Jul 22, 2025

Xeno.of.athens said:
I like your post and agree with what you're saying. I wonder if The generation Zeds and maybe the new ones-the alphas or whatever they're calling those born after generation zed-Will be biblically illiterate?

I think it's more than likely Gen Z's and the Alphas (or whatever they're called - as a baby boomer I'm too old to care) will most likely be Bibically ignorant.

I'm Catholic so obviously I'm biased, but my Protestant pastor said to me once that if there was to be a revival in Australia he thought it would be Catholic. He was rather scathing about Protestant division, and said they were far too divided, viz in his own words "When it comes to theology, Protestants couldn't agree how far to spit!" And he was Protestant.

If a Catholic revival became the case, one evangelical advantage of the Bibical ignorance of modern Australians (and Westerners) is that they would not be so hamstrung by historical Protestant Catholic divisions. They would be a blank slate so to speak.

Anyway we'll see what God has in mind since spiritual renewal is His responsibility.

Bob Crowley · Jul 22, 2025

ozso said:
More specifically Protestants only accept 39 books of the Old Testament - Hebrew bible, whereas Catholics accept 46 books. However both Protestants and Catholics accept the 27 books of the New Testament - Christian Bible.

In the end, the bunfight about differences of the Biblical canon are all about Jewish Scriptures. All branches of genuine Trinitarian Christianity - Catholic, Orthodox and Protesant accept the same 27 books of the Christian Scriptures (New Testament), since they were written by Christians for Christians.

The Jewish books were written by Jews for Jews. So when we argue about the shorter Protestant Canon compared to Catholic and even longer Orthodox versions (with variations between them) we are basing our dispute on ancient Jewish literature. It is not even known if the Jews really had a fixed canon until the fact Christians were claiming the right to use their Scriptures more or less "forced" them to make a decision.

Even the alleged "Council of Jamnia" in the late First Century has its scholarly detractors.

Council of Jamnia - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The theory of a council of Jamnia that finalized the canon, first proposed by Heinrich Graetz in 1871,[4] was popular for much of the 20th century. However, it has been increasingly questioned since the 1960s onward, and the theory has now been largely discredited.[5]

Xeno.of.athens · Jul 22, 2025

Reluctant Theologian said:
Yes, I get that - I also would value to have the Apocrypha readily available - there is still very useful; and many ideas/quotes in the NT actually come from those books. Still I value the Hebrew ranking of authority: TNK - Torah, Prophets and Writings. Even Yeshua adhered to that. As far as I know even the collection what we now call OT was not fully crystallised yet in Yeshua's time (Song of Songs was still contested).

I think a a few more OT books were in question during Jesus' life time.

ozso · Jul 22, 2025

There's plenty of Protestants who don't have a problem with the 7 OT books. They just don't consider them quite as canonical as the other 39.

Xeno.of.athens · Jul 22, 2025

ozso said:
There's plenty of Protestants who don't have a problem with the 7 OT books. They just don't consider them quite as canonical as the other 39.

I say three cheers for any Protestant who is willing to consider all of the 73 books that Catholics regard as canonical. Even if they think of the 73 books as 66 fully canonical and 7 not quite so much. It is better than throwing the whole lot of the 7 away as well as pats of Daniel and Esther.

Is The king James version losing influence?

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