How We Got the KJV

General framework

New Testament is in Greek, Old in Hebrew

much of this happened before the printing press, invented around 1440

everything was copied by hand, either on papyrus or parchment/vellum

The preservation of scripture happened in an amazing way, dare one say a miraculous way!

King James Version Chapter 24

35 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

This lesson today is so that you can know the history of the KJV and so you can have answers to various questions if anyone were to ask you

look at this as a continuation from last week

We are going to work backwards from when we got the KJV back down through history to the Biblical times

The KJV was completed in 1604, and published by 1611

47 translators are known to have worked on it, broken down by smaller groups, the first group translated Genesis to 1 Kings, for instance

These were extremely educated men, educated in many different areas because higher education was different in those days

the students before they graduated had to be able to debate in greek, for instance

around 7 years worth of work went into it

First we will talk about the OT

as stated earlier, the OT is written in Hebrew originally

The source for the Hebrew that they used was a printed edition of the OT that was universally used by the Jews

this is called the “masoretic text”

the “masoretes” were a group of Jewish people who were dedicated to copying the OT with incredible accuracy

they had a whole culture of making sure they did a good job copying, and they succeeded

the Jewish language does not have vowels, so the masoretes invented a system of dots and symbols for the letters to ensure accuracy and so that all Jews were on the same page.

this form of the text can be traced back to around the time of Christ

there is a fragment of Leviticus that perfectly aligns with our OT that dates between 0 and 300 AD

Dead Sea scrolls

a little kid was messing around in a little cave in Israel when he found a bunch of jars filled with ancient OT manuscripts

there is one called the great Isaiah scroll, which is practically the entire book of Isaiah on one scroll

this lines up with the OT version of Isaiah we have today

THESE SCROLLS ARE FROM AROUND 200 bc AND POSSIBLY OLDER

the OT ended around around 500 BC

this shows that we have fragments of the OT that go almost all the way back to the days of Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi

we know that they’ve always had it, but I’m talking about proof we can see and hold

these lived right after Ezra

King James Version Chapter 8

8 And all the people gathered themselves together as one man into the street that was before the water gate; and they spake unto Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the LORD had commanded to Israel. 2 And Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation both of men and women, and all that could hear with understanding, upon the first day of the seventh month. 3 And he read therein before the street that was before the water gate from the morning until midday, before the men and the women, and those that could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the law. 4 And Ezra the scribe stood upon a pulpit of wood, which they had made for the purpose; and beside him stood Mattithiah, and Shema, and Anaiah, and Urijah, and Hilkiah, and Maaseiah, on his right hand; and on his left hand, Pedaiah, and Mishael, and Malchiah, and Hashum, and Hashbadana, Zechariah, and Meshullam. 5 And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people; (for he was above all the people;) and when he opened it, all the people stood up: 6 And Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God. And all the people answered, Amen, Amen, with lifting up their hands: and they bowed their heads, and worshipped the LORD with their faces to the ground.

What is a text family?

these are called “text types”

so we have the masoretic text type, which is the standard version that we use

let’s put ourselves in the shoes of those who copied the texts

if you were a masorete, one of the hebrew copiers, you would look at your original manuscript, and copy it

the vast majority of OT fragments we have today are from this standardized OT

but what if you were a rural jew, way out in the desert in the middle of nowhere

sometimes, someone would copy something wrongly for a variety of reasons

then later, someone copies that manuscript and maybe makes another error

eventually, once these aberrant copies were copied for a few hundred years, you would wind up with an aberrant “text type”, since not everyone copied as carefully as the masoretes

this leaves us with the “masoretic text type”, what was put into the KJV

illustration about white sheep and black sheep - come back to this later for NT

Now that we’ve traced the OT all the way back to the days of the OT prophets, lets look at the NT

When the NT in the KJV was translated, they looked at the standard greek text

there was a standard form of the NT copied throughout the roman empire

this standard greek text in those days was called the “received text” and you may have heard of a printed form called the “textus receptus”

the vast majority of manuscripts are of this type

fun facts: more manuscripts than any other work from antiquity, much faster attested

Jesus lived and died during the days of the Roman empire

The Roman empire was the America of those days, they were the ultimate super power and they were a large nation

Europe, Northern Africa, and the Middle East were connected like never before with elaborate road systems and a even a mail system

Jesus taught something revolutionary, that we should spread the word far and wide, even to gentiles, non-jews

The various writers of the NT wrote their books, and people all over the empire and wherever the word was preached was copying all of the gospels and letters as soon as they could

unlike the masoretes, who were super careful heberw copiers, the NT was copied by any and everyone

this caused a family of manuscripts with different wordings and some things misssing to appear called the alexandrian text

this family was around for a few hundred years early on, and eventually faded away, with people preferring the standardized “received text”

in this family, sometimes verses were missing, or things were worded differently

a small amount of this family of manuscripts were found in the late 1800-early 1900’s

most new versions of the Bible are based on this family

they say these are older, but the only reason we have older of these and not the received text is because the old ones were found in egypt where it’s dry

if it wasn’t so humid elsewhere we’d have more old manuscripts from the received text

this explains why new versions have different wordings or may be missing verses here and there

the vast majority of NT manuscripts we have discovered are from the “received text” which was essentially a standardized form of the NT

we can see that this standardized form of the text existed early on

because we don’t only have old manuscripts and fragments we’ve found

we also have quotes of the Bible that we see in the works of ancient authors

John Chrysostom quotes the standardized text, this would have been around 350-400

when you have so many manuscripts, from so many places across the roman empire, when you compare them, it’s easy to see what sticks out

black and white sheep illustration

this was a brilliant way for God to preserve the text, to spread copies far and wide

if one city had their scriptures burned, it was preserved in another city

if one person copied something wrong, the error sticks out and we can see it

this received text, the traditional text that was standardized and handed down over time is what we have in the KJV

REVIEW

so for the OT, the Jews were very meticulous about copying the OT precisely

when the KJV was translated, the translators went to this standard Jewish text

For the NT, the KJV used the “received text” a standardized form of the NT that can be proven all the way back to around 400 AD

again, we know that the text has always been preserved, but we are just talking about the proofs and history of the KJV

always be ready to have an answer for things!