In the scholarly and theological debates surrounding the King James Version (KJV) and its underlying source texts—such as the exchanges between critics and defenders published in the Far Eastern Bible College's The Burning Bush journal—several specific passages, textual variants, translation choices, and printing errors are routinely brought into question.
These passage-by-passage cases are grouped into four main categories:
1. Underlying Textual & Manuscript Variations
These involve readings in the KJV where critics argue the underlying Greek Textus Receptus (TR) or Hebrew Masoretic Text (MT) differs from the Majority Text or older extant Greek manuscripts:
- Revelation 16:5 ("and shalt be"): The KJV reads "O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be" (translating Greek ho esomenos), whereas critics note that the Majority Text and other TR editions read ho hosios ("holy one"). Theodore Beza inserted esomenos based on internal textual consistency and ancient manuscript evidence.
- Revelation 17:8 ("and yet is"): The KJV renders kaiper estin ("and yet is"), originating from Erasmus’s reliance on Codex 1r. Critics prefer kai parestai ("and shall come"), though defenders point out that Codex 1r and other variants (parestin, pareste) support the present-tense TR reading.
- Acts 9:6 ("And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?..."): Critics claim these words are absent in Greek NT manuscripts and were inserted from the Latin Vulgate or harmonized from Acts 26:14. KJV defenders counter that the phrasing appears in Greek Codices 221c and 629, Old Latin manuscripts, the Syriac version, and early Church Fathers.
- Romans 7:6 ("that being dead wherein we were held"): Uses Beza’s and Scrivener’s genitive singular apothanontos (modifying the law as having died), whereas Stephanus’s TR reads the nominative plural apothanontes ("we being dead").
- 1 John 5:7–8 (The Johannine Comma): The explicit Trinitarian formula ("in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one") is included in the TR underlying the KJV, but is absent in the Hodges-Farstad Majority Text (which differs from the TR in roughly 1,838 places).
- 2 Chronicles 22:2 vs. 2 Kings 8:26 (Ahaziah’s Age): A scribal numerical discrepancy in the Hebrew manuscript tradition where Ahaziah is listed as 42 years old in 2 Chronicles 22:2 in the Masoretic Text and KJV, but 22 years old in 2 Kings 8:26.
2. Alleged Translation Errors & Word Choices
These are places where critics argue the KJV translators rendered a Greek or Hebrew word loosely or inaccurately:
- Hebrews 10:23 ("profession of our faith"): The underlying Greek noun is elpis (literally "hope", which the KJV translates as "hope" in 53 other New Testament instances). Critics label this a translation slip, while defenders argue elpis was intentionally rendered "faith" because it modifies homologian ("profession/confession").
- Acts 19:37 ("robbers of churches"): The Greek term hierosulous literally means "temple robbers" or "desecrators of sacred sites". The KJV followed Tyndale's rendering of "robbers of churches" rather than "robbers of temples".
- Acts 12:4 ("Easter"): The Greek word pascha (Passover) is translated as "Easter", which critics view as an anachronistic cultural insertion. KJV defenders argue "Easter" in 17th-century usage was synonymous with the paschal season.
- Isaiah 13:15 ("joined unto them"): Critics claim the Hebrew verb saphah ("to sweep away" or "heap together") was mistranslated as "joined". Defenders note that saphah carries the sense of heaping together for judgment, making "joined" contextually valid.
- Acts 19:20 ("word of God"): The KJV translates the Greek kurios ("Lord") as "God" in this passage.
- Matthew 14:9 & Mark 6:26 ("for the oath's sake"): The Greek uses the plural horkous ("oaths"), but the KJV translates it as singular "oath's", which defenders explain as a plural of majesty reflecting King Herod's royal vow.
3. Historical Printing & Typesetting Errors Across Editions
Because printing was a manual process, early printings of the KJV contained typographical slips that required subsequent correction:
- Exodus 20:14 (1631 "Adulterer's Bible"): The word "not" was accidentally omitted, reading "Thou shalt commit adultery".
- Mark 7:27 (1795 "Murderer's Bible"): Printed "killed" instead of "filled", reading "Let the children first be killed".
- Galatians 4:29 (1805 Edition): A proofreader's note ("to remain") was mistakenly printed inside the scripture text ("him that was born after the Spirit to remain...").
- Psalm 69:32 (1611 1st Printing): Printed "good" instead of "God" (corrected in the 1617 printing).
- Galatians 4:23, 30, 31 (1998 Defined KJV 1st Printing): Erroneously printed "bondman" instead of "bondwoman".
- Jeremiah 34:16: Regional printing variation between Cambridge printings ("whom ye") and Oxford printings ("whom he").
- 2 Chronicles 33:19: Regional printing variation between Cambridge ("his sin") and Oxford ("his sins").
4. Archaic Terms & Passages Subject to Modern Misinterpretation
Certain KJV renderings are grammatically accurate to 17th-century English but are frequently misunderstood by modern readers due to language shift:
- James 2:3 ("gay clothing"): Uses the archaic sense of "gay" meaning fine, splendid, or ostentatious clothing rather than homosexual attire.
- Isaiah 37:36 ("when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses"): Critics mock this as dead corpses "waking up", though in context "they" refers to the living survivors who awoke to discover the slain Assyrian soldiers.
- 2 Corinthians 6:11–13 ("bowels" / "straitened"): Uses 17th-century idioms where "bowels" meant deep affections and "straitened" meant restricted or hemmed in.
- Luke 8:55 & Luke 14:10 ("meat"): Uses "meat" in its archaic English sense meaning solid food or edibles in general.
- 1 John 2:23 (Italicized Text): The clause "he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also" was printed in italics in early editions because translators noted its absence in some TR copies, though later manuscript evidence confirmed its inclusion.
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