The talented Irish dramatist George Bernard Shaw was no friend to the religion of the Bible. In fact he was an avowed humanist. Nevertheless, as a successful author he felt compelled to admire the talents of the “learned men” of 1611 (as they are rightly called) who produced the Authorized Version. Shaw wrote:
The translation was extraordinarily well done because to the translators what they were translating was not merely a curious collection of ancient books written by different authors in different stages of culture, but the Word of God divinely revealed through His chosen and expressly inspired scribes. In this conviction they carried out their work with boundless reverence and care and achieved a beautifully artistic result (emphasis added).1
It is because of what even one who was unfriendly to the faith called “a beautifully artistic result” that we have left so many lovely passages in the KJV largely intact, merely updating the archaic and occasionally even obsolete vocabulary, syntax, and punctuation.
Of the many such passages to choose from, we here present eight of the most beloved of all, four from each Testament:
Old Testament Selections
The Creation narrative is not technically Hebrew poetry, but it borders on being such. Often biblical prose ascends to such rhythmic heights of expression that its effect is very much like the emotional power so characteristic of poetry. Even modern Western prose sometimes achieves this result. The captivating rhythm of repetitive phrases, like “Then God said…,” alternating with “And God called…,” “And God made…,” “And God set…” affect us with the grandeur of the events described. Thus it would seem monstrous to bury this rhythm in the prosy journalese of the morning newspaper! And the NKJV refrains from this mistake, as do other sensitive translations of the Scriptures.
The editors thought it valuable to capitalize personal and possessive pronouns of deity throughout the Bible, as with “He” in verse 5. This is a significant reader’s aid for clarifying references to deity in all cases.
One is hardly aware of having moved from an earlier to a later edition of the King James Version as he reads this passage in the New King James. And this is exactly the smooth transition, with significant updates of vocabulary, that the translators sought to achieve.
Voltaire, like Shaw, had an exalted opinion of his own writing style and was no lover of the Bible, yet he called this psalm the most beautiful thing ever written. High praise indeed from one who despised traditional religion! Can those to whom it is not only beautiful but also true as well disagree?
Most of us know this psalm by heart. Even the yea in v. 4 was retained, since the passage is poetry, and yea is still understood as an older alternative to the modern yes. Verse 6 illustrates a place where the reading of the Masoretic text, return, was not used in 1611: dwell is from four ancient versions and some Hebrew manuscripts (see NKJV footnotes and Chapter 9). The slight difference in meaning was not thought to be worth the change in such a celebrated psalm. NASB and NIV concur on this.
The tender invitation from “the beloved” to his Shulamite spouse to “rise up” and follow him into the springtime loveliness of their land will not bear much improvement for sheer beauty. Only a few words of vocabulary required substitution: The “turtle” (verse 12) of course is no longer the name of a bird today (“turtledove”), and “countenance” (verse 14) is rendered better as “face” to sustain cadence with the one-syllable word “voice” at the end of the next line.
It was passages such as this that made Augustine exclaim that Isaiah was not so much a prophet as an evangelist. Truly one of the most vividly Christ-centered passages in the Old Testament, and rightly treated as such by the apostles of our Lord in the New Testament.
The NKJV changes in Isaiah 53 are minimal, chiefly minor changes in usage since 1769, though some of these help clarify nicely. “The chastisement for [rather than of] our peace” makes the purpose of Christ’s death clearer. In verse 7 the word dumb was changed to silent because it is popularly used for stupid in North America.
The contrast with what the wicked planned for Christ’s body—a common grave with criminals—and what wealthy Joseph of Arimathea succeeded in supplying is brought out in verse 9.
The alternative reading of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint for verse 11 is interesting but not really superior in context to the Masoretic reading.2 Labor replaces travail since the latter is so little used, and labor today has the fitting meanings of “hard work” as well as “travailing in birth.”
New Testament Selections
Even many of those who use the NKJV in their congregations for preaching, teaching, memory work, and Sunday School still use the older language when saying the Lord’s Prayer.
Changing “which art” to “who are” would not be a happy rendering. Since the verb to be is not in the original, the correct solution was to translate simply, “Our Father in heaven.”
For some people the surprise change is in verse 13. The Greek is ambiguous since the genitive form can be neuter (evil) or masculine (evil one). There is a separate related abstract noun for evil.3 Thus the NKJV reading is probably a good one.
As a teenager I asked a brilliant Athenian scientist in our church in Washington D.C. if Greek people praying the Lord’s Prayer ever thought of the “evil one” rather than just “evil.” Dr. Panai was surprised. Being more versed in the nuances of French than of English, he had assumed we meant the “evil one”—Satan—when we said “deliver us from evil.” The word ponēros is translated “evil one” also in Matthew 5:37, John 17:15, and 2 Thessalonians 3:3.
As to the deletion of the ending of the Lord’s Prayer in some versions because it is missing in some ancient manuscripts, we believe this is a mistake. The unfounded theory that early Christians were dissatisfied with the prayer ending on a negative note—either “evil” or “the evil one”—and so “improved” our Lord’s model prayer by adapting a passage from Chronicles for liturgical purposes does not commend itself. See the discussion of this matter in Part Three: Completeness.
What is most noteworthy about King James prose, as well as its poetry, is the often uncanny combination of simplicity of language with exaltation of thought. The Virgin Mary’s song of thanksgiving, traditionally called the Magnificat, may be the chief example of this remarkable fusion of qualities throughout the Bible.
Notice of the few vocabulary improvements is in order: “Low estate” becomes “lowly state,” intended to emphasize her humble social status (verse 48); similarly, “them of low degree” becomes simply “lowly” (verse 52); “seats” is now translated “thrones,” as the Greek word denotes (verse 52); and “helped” updates “holpen,” a very strange word indeed to modern readers (verse 54). Note, however, that “seed” is retained from the older editions of the KJV (verse 55). Here poetic power overrides “descendants,” as the original word for “seed” is rendered elsewhere in NKJV prose sections.
Most readers of the KJV learn sooner or later that charity in this passage in 1611 did not mean what it does today. The KJV scholars chose charity partly under the influence of the Latin Vulgate, which has charitas here. They wanted a word without the carnal connotations that we now associate with the spelling “luv.” All modern versions part company with the KJV here, since giving to “charities” is only a small subdivision of Christian agapē, the well-known Greek word.
The change from tinkling to clanging is necessary since the former word now suggests a delicate, frosty sound, quite unlike a cymbal. The archaic “vaunteth not itself” is vividly updated to “love does not parade itself.”
In verse 5 “puffed up” is good poetry and still communicates pride very well. The word rudely is much more appropriate than unseemly today. Easily is deleted simply because it is not in any reading of the original text! Were the translators of 1611 attempting to make it “easier” for us by inserting it? We don’t know.
The interpretation of verse 10 is very much debated, so it is important to retain the literal translation. Let the reader, student, preacher, or teacher tell us what it means and let the text be what it says.
The glass in verse 12 is short for “looking glass,” but millions don’t know this. Actually the word is not quite accurate, since ancient mirrors were not glass but highly polished metal. The KJV glass was a seventeenth century “dynamic-equivalence” translation4 (like candle for lamp, and quite valid for 1611).
Dimly (KJV darkly) in verse 12 represents literally “in an enigma” (en ainigmati), but this expression is too obscure for most readers. A very refined reporter for the Manchester Guardian regretted the NKJV’s loss of “through a glass darkly,” indeed a great phrase. However, this is a place where communicating truth must overshadow literary beauty. The NKJV may not be quite as artistic in this phrase, but it is a much clearer mirror of Paul’s thought.
Perhaps the most elevating songs of the Bible are found in the triumphant Book of Revelation. In John’s throne-room vision, for example, we see Christ the Lamb about to receive the scroll (technically more accurate than KJV’s “book”) delivered from the hand of the Father. Just at this moment the twenty-four elders fall down before the Lamb and sing the incomparable lines of verses 9 and 10.
Following this song, the elders are joined by myriads of heavenly singers, along with every creature of creation, in the glad anthem, “Worthy is the Lamb,” that Handel set to such magnificent music.
Except for the necessary corrections of archaic vocabulary and grammar, the basic structure of this New Testament psalm is unchanged in the NKJV. The earlier translation’s beauty has been retouched only in that the lyrics have properly been recast as poetic lines.
If we had a much larger volume we could multiply examples of borrowed beauty in the NKJV, but these eight passages should suffice to demonstrate how carefully we have retained the noble phrasing of the Tyndale—King James tradition, all the while bringing the version into the soon-emerging turn of the century.
Notes
1. Introduction to The Holy Bible, The New King James Version (first edition 1982), p. iii.
2. They read “from the labor of His soul He shall see light.” (See NKJV note.) The NIV builds its interpretation on this variant reading.
3. The Greek tou ponērou here can be the genitive of ho ponēros (“the evil one”) or of to ponēron (“evil”). The unambiguous form for evil in the abstract would be the genitive of hē ponēria, a feminine noun.
4. See Chapter 11, “Complete Equivalence in Translation” for this term.