The Grassroots Ablaze: An Interview with Mark Ward about His Book, Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible

Image credit: © Tavis Bohlinger

Dr. Mark Ward has written a fantastic book recently addressing numerous issues around the use of the King James Version of the Bible in the church today. Mark’s work is thorough, gracious, and scholarly, and I welcomed the chance to sit down with him recently to talk about Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible. As you’ll see, his answers are robust. Check it out, and leave comments below.


TB: Why did you write Authorized? Isn’t the King James Bible a relic of pre-Internet days?

MW: I wrote because William Tyndale’s work, like laundry, is never done. I was William Tyndale in the annual school play at a KJV-Only Christian high school in 1997. Little did I know that his famous words (that I still have memorized)—“Ere many years, I shall cause that the boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the Scriptures than thou dost”—would ring in my own heart for the next two decades. I wrote because I want today’s plow boys to have the Bible in their English.

I came to see by my study of linguistics that the KJV isn’t difficult because it’s higher or better English but simply because it’s different and older English. All languages change over time. Even the man-made language of Esperanto has changed since its birth. As our English has pulled apart from the King’s, little misunderstandings have inevitably developed between the two. I began catching more and more of these misunderstandings in the KJV as I got deeper into Greek and Hebrew—and English—during grad school.

When I read a Mark Noll/Pew Research Center survey showing that 55 percent of American Bible readers are still reading the KJV, I knew I had to do something. I had to alert people to the ways in which language change was (often unbeknownst to them) affecting their Bible reading.

TB: What do you mean by “alert them”? What’s the danger here? And who needs to be warned?

MW: The “danger” contemporary English-speakers face in reading the KJV at first seems obvious: they might just have to get off the couch and pull down a dictionary. We all know that the KJV contains obsolete and archaic lexemes: besom, chambering, emerod. Defenders of the KJV love to point out that American 1) laziness and 2) stupidity are at record highs—and that updating or revising the KJV will be big concessions to the evil forces of 1) and 2), respectively.

Those dead words, as I call them, are a danger (as are laziness and stupidity). And the dictionary will help readers get past this danger. Now, how many KJV readers have actually looked up firmament (which actually might be called a literary lexeme, not an obsolete one)? And do they know which dictionary to use and how to use it? Only the Oxford English Dictionary can really do the job. Did William Tyndale die to hand the plowboy a Bible—and a twenty-volume copy of the OED?

But the real “danger” of the KJV actually isn’t obvious. It isn’t the dead words, the words we know we don’t know. It’s the words—and syntax and punctuation and spelling and other dimensions of written language—we don’t know we don’t know. It’s what I call “false friends.” Four centuries of language change have created many of them.

I have borrowed and adapted the term “false friends” to make a point. Generally, the term is used to describe words from different languages that “look or sound similar, but differ significantly in meaning” (NOAD). But then I think Elizabethan English and contemporary English can be usefully regarded as different languages. They overlap significantly, of course: the KJV is not entirely unintelligible—like, say, Beowulf.

But it isn’t just words that drop out of a language or get added in; it’s also senses. This continual process is what creates false friends. And when senses change, people may read right past a word without realizing they’ve missed something. They often won’t and can’t know to look it up in a dictionary.

The most academically responsible institution promoting the continued use of the KJV, the Trinitarian Bible Society, puts out a free booklet listing 779 words in the KJV that may trip up contemporary readers. I chose four examples at random (using random.org) from their list, all four of which ended up being false friends of various sorts:

  • cankered – eaten away with rust: Ja. 5.3
  • stay – support: Ps. 18.18; Is. 3.1 – stop, hold back: Le. 13.5; 2Sa. 24.16
  • usury – interest on money lent: Ex. 22.25
  • halt – lame, crippled: Mat. 18.8; Mar. 9.45

Cankered is still hanging on in contemporary English. We still have the word, but not in the sense used by the KJV translators (“Your gold and silver is cankered”). Someone who knows the contemporary senses—which are actually metaphorical extensions of the original “corroded” meaning—will probably realize that the modern senses don’t work, but they still may not know what the KJV translators meant by the word (see OED).

Stay is surely still used, too, but not often in the senses appearing in Psalm 18:18 (“The Lord was my stay”) and 2 Samuel 24:16 (“Stay now thine hand”). Context will likely be a sufficient guide for good readers to get the gist in these places (this is weak/easy false friend); but “the Lord was my support” and “Withdraw your hand” will obviously be clearer, less musty, and more accessible to plowboys (see OED).

Usury is also a false friend, because it now means “excessive interest,” whereas in 1611 it meant any interest (see OED). This could create real misunderstanding: “Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury; but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury” (Deut 23:20). So it’s okay to be a payday loan shark to a hard-up foreigner, but not to a brother?

It is highly interesting to me that the fourth word I found—at random—on their list is a key example in my book and in my own life with the KJV. It’s halt.

Growing up hearing and even memorizing this verse, I always assumed that “halt” here meant “stop.” I’ve checked with dozens of educated people, and they all tell me it meant either “stop” or “vacillate/hesitate.” But the KJV translators clearly meant “limp.” The Hebrew word means “limp” (see HALOT), and the OED reveals what a search of the KJV will also show: that in 1611, halt could mean limp (after Jacob’s wrestling match in Genesis 32, he “halted upon his thigh”). The OED actually mentions that this word has become a false friend, observing that people typically take “halt” in 1 Kings 18:21 to mean “stop” rather than “limp.”

False friends is nerdy stuff. I revel in it all. But I don’t think plowboys should have to be into nerdy linguistic revelry to understand their Bibles when “corroded,” “withdraw,” “interest,” and “limp” are readily available.

TB: What are some of the other readability problems you mention in your book?

MW: Dead words and false friends are the main problems I mention because they’re the easiest to understand. But language is such a complex and amazing gift of God: there are other dimensions of language, and they are subject to the same forces of change over time that have given us dead words and false friends.

Take these verses from Colossians:

Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, (Touch not; taste not; handle not; Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men? Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.

Colossians 2:20–23 KJV

I’m an academic editor; if someone handed this to me as part of a book, there’s so much I would mark up as deviating from contemporary norms.

  • The punctuation is off. I’d either place “Touch not; taste not; handle not” in quotes or italicize it. I’d use em dashes instead of parentheses, too.
  • Individual word choice is just odd by our standards, even if it makes sense. “After the commandments . . . of men”—we just wouldn’t say it that way (Billy Collins has a fantastic poem on the multivalence of after). We would say “which are all going to” instead of “which all are to.”
  • Words get put together in odd ways, even if we “know” the words: what is “will worship”? What is “with the using”? What is “not in any honour to”?
  • I have concluded after much study that that last one is actually Greeklish. We have to remember this additional level of language, the fact that we’re reading a translation.
  • Spelling differences pop up, of course: shew, honour. Not a huge deal, but a factor in readability. I’ve heard people mispronounce shew as shoo; were they still understanding the word? I don’t know.

I think even typographical layout is an underappreciated source of meaning in Bibles, and a lot of KJV editions commit classic errors here—though they are far from the only offenders. They commonly make every verse a paragraph, which inhibits contextually sensitive reading. I’ve thought this for many years, and I’ve been glad to see Bible publishers addressing this problem. Even the nerdy NET Bible has its own custom font now, and it comes out in a carefully wrought edition. (There are also KJV editions with great typography.)

In my book, I had a lot of fun dissecting the Flesch-Kincaid readability analysis, showing that it is almost completely irrelevant to establishing the readability of the KJV. It “reads” only two dimensions of language: sentence length and word length. It doesn’t read at all, then; it counts. It doesn’t even know if it’s reading language at all; it will keep on counting even if you provide it with nonsense syllables. And in some places, that’s what the KJV has become because of language change. “Fret not thyself in any wise to do evil”—my contemporary English brain simply can’t make full sense of that clause.

I conclude in Authorized that the best measure of readability is readers, and skillful readers who feel free to give an honest opinion without the pressure of appearing cultured or intelligent (or, in some circles, doctrinally sound) by insisting that they can read the KJV just fine will, I think, come to the conclusion I have. That is, the KJV is not entirely unintelligible, but four-plus centuries of language change have made it sufficiently unintelligible that the KJV should not be the default Bible of the English-speaking church or academy. David J. A. Clines’ advice to academics regarding the KJV was accurate: “As with Shakespeare, a commentator should look up the OED for every word.” But this is impracticable and unnecessary. We have good contemporary translations.

TB: How has your book been received so far, both from church leaders and the academy? Have you had any critical academic review of the book so far?

MW: I got to go on John McWhorter’s Lexicon Valley podcast to talk about my book, which was a great thrill for me—McWhorter is a hero of mine. And one of the questions he asked me helped me realize why it is so hard to write a book like Authorized. I found myself telling McWhorter, whose own work has led him to call for minor updates of Shakespeare (gasp!), something he already knew: it is a rather delicate matter to try to persuade people that they’re probably not understanding as much as they assume in their revered texts. When he calls for updates to Shakespeare and I to the KJV, people think we are calling them dumb or (worse, far worse) that we’re pandering to the hoi polloi who are in fact, in their view, dumb.

I try to disarm this objection by presenting a lot of examples of false friends in the book and by admitting that I myself was tripped up by them. I love what McWhorter says—and I’ve seen Moisés Silva say the same: people just can’t and shouldn’t be expected to keep up with all the subtle changes that have happened in English in the last multiple centuries. We think Shakespeare wanted to be understood; I know God did (1 Cor 14:9).

I’ve heard from a lot of younger pastors who have seen that it is time to lead their churches away from the KJV as a default text for preaching and devotion. They have often been confused by the wholly separate issue of textual criticism, a subject they feel unsuited to adjudicate, much less to explain to laypeople. They have found it refreshing to read a book that purposely avoids those intricacies by focusing on something accessible to all: English. Authorized is a slim book they feel they can hand to people in their church.

Robert Alter has a famous love for the KJV (though he’s not above criticizing it), but the academy hasn’t needed much persuading of my thesis. Academic reviews have all been positive, save one. The one critical academic review I’ve received was from Jeff Riddle, who holds a PhD from Union Presbyterian Seminary. I eagerly read his review, which he kindly sent to me, hoping that his critical eyes would see problems I didn’t see in my argument. Instead, I came away more convinced that I’m onto something. Dr. Riddle was what I can only call dismissive:

Yes, there are difficult words and even ones that have fallen out of contemporary usage (so-called “dead words”), but these can be easily found in a dictionary and learned. Who does not have ready at hand a smartphone or other device to look up such words? In fact, never has it been easier to read the KJV than now.

Bible League Quarterly no. 479, Oct–Dec 2019

But I rather think Riddle proved my point. If a Bible translation requires me to pull out my smartphone dictionary when it could just say broom, and if I won’t even know to look up false friends, then we’ve got a Bible that is no longer accessible to Tyndale’s plowboy.

TB: Thanks for sitting down with me, Mark, and talking about Authorized. Is there anything else our readers should know before they go out and purchase your book?

MW: Two quick things:

First, I have just put out a new audio edition of the book with a special bonus appendix in which I respond to that one critical academic review. It was great fun. I even do a William Tyndale impression. Listen on double speed, and in two hours you’ll get all the talking points you need for my second point . . . 

Second, there are plenty of Bible and theology professors out there who encounter KJV-Onlyism in students and need to 1) disabuse them 2) graciously 3) without shaking their spiritual and personal foundations any more than necessary. I’d humbly encourage them to use my book (or the related infotainment documentary)—and to avoid textual criticism like a canker. KJV-Onlyism is a conspiracy theory—They’ve changed the Bible!— and you don’t catch the Brer Rabbit of conspiracy theories by jumping into the briar patch of complicated technical discussions. Is it really a big deal if a student has been told to prefer the Textus Receptus? It’s not really that different from the critical text (and I’ve proved this for English readers). You handle the sensitive conscience of a young student best by pointing them to the Bible, specifically the Pauline principle in 1 Corinthians 14 that edification requires intelligibility. If someone wants the TR, give them the NKJV or MEV. It isn’t right—according to 1 Corinthians 14—to insist on the exclusive use of a translation that, because of language change, is no longer fully intelligible to the plowboy.


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Written by
Tavis Bohlinger

Dr. Tavis Bohlinger is Editor-in-Chief of the Logos Academic Blog and Creative Director at Reformation Heritage Books. He holds a PhD from Durham University and writes across multiple genres, including academia, poetry, and screenwriting. He lives in Grand Rapids with his wife and three children.

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15 comments
  • Will buy this – it sounds extremely interesting.
    Only comment – lots of people say ‘the hoi polloi’ when ‘hoi’ means ‘the’.
    So – ‘we’re pandering to hoi polloi’ is the correct way to use these words.
    All the best – and thank you for all your hard work – much appreciated.
    Barry

    • Barry, thanks for reading! I was going to reply to your comment on hoi polloi, but I found that the New Oxford American Dictionary already said what I was going to say!

      I do most certainly commit errors that copy-editors and proofers help me fix, but I’m unwilling to admit fault on this one! =)

  • Yeah, Mark Ward can’t understand that since the Bible is truth itself, that the Bible defines its own words in the text and accounts for language shifts. Yet another scholar who is too smart for his own good.

    • Sam,

      I don’t know you, but based on your comment here, I would suggest that you have understood neither the article here nor Mark Ward’s intent. Mark gives great evidence of using his intelligence responsibly for God. Most evangelicals rarely care enough to delve. Perhaps you are not one of those. In any case, it’s not becoming to accuse another believer of being “too smart for his own good.”

      Have you considered that you may be operating under a *theory of* inspiration? By that I mean that the idea that words were dictated is but one theory. Nowhere does the Bible claim that it “is” truth itself.

      Overall, I would suggest that you consider language and communication more broadly — not in the realm of scripture and/or faith — so that you could ultimately more aptly assess the nature and place of such elements as translation, interpretation, the manuscript fragments, the King James, and other translations of what we know and respect as “scripture.”

      Each generation ought to have at least one good, new translation of the scriptures. We are blessed to have many translations now; some are better than others, and not one is “perfect.” Nor *could* any translation be perfect. Comparing translations is frequently a good endeavor, as is going to the original language. I wish you peace in your pursuit of God through the writings.

      https://blcasey.wordpress.com/2015/02/13/jamesian-stew-4-kjv-avb-mold/

    • Sam,
      I’m sorry but, in this case, it is you who do not understand. The KJV is not the Bible. It is a translation, or, better, an interpretation, of the Bible. The Bible was written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. So, your point about the Bible’s use of language might be appropriate if the discussion here were about the meanings of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek words. However, Dr. Ward’s argument is about how outdated English words in the KJV no longer convey the proper meaning or sense of the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek words found in the Bible. So, he is right on to discuss whether the church should continue to use an English translation of the Bible, when that translation no longer accurately reflects the meaning of the Bible. The KJV may be misleading people because the meanings of English words have changed. That is not a comment of the truthfulness or veracity of the Bible; it’s a comment on a particular translation of the Bible. I hope that you can see the difference.

  • Tavis: I do not share your enthusiasm for this book. I certainly would not use “fantastic” to describe it. To use the word “danger” as Ward does in your interview is neither gracious nor appropriate. To ask, “Did William Tyndale die to hand the plowboy a Bible—and a twenty-volume copy of the OED?,” and then to assert, “David J. A. Clines’ advice to academics regarding the KJV was accurate: “As with Shakespeare, a commentator should look up the OED for every word.”” seems to push his case over the top when it comes to persuading those not already in his choir.

    I will not defend KJV-Onlyism, and have no intention of doing other than educating folks against that error. That being said, Ward’s conclusions, IMHO, seems to do the following:

    1) overemphasize the linguistic differences between the 17th century and the 21st century English language;

    2) overemphasize the advantages of modern translation theory over what is encountered prior to the 20th century;

    3) minimize the significance of the cultural assimilation of the KJV over more than 4 centuries;

    4) minimize the importance of the underlying textual basis, indeed “purposely avoids those intricacies” (“like a canker”!);

    and, as a result of all of the above,

    5) throws out the baby with the bath water.

    In fact, the final paragraph in this interview is startling given the rest of Ward’s assertions. If what he does with the textual differences between the TR and modern editions were to be applied to what he does with the KJV and modern translations it should be obvious to the objective reader that you can’t have it both ways.

    If and when a modern translation produced on a sound textual basis, and with valid principles of translation that are driven by the doctrine of verbal, plenary inspiration rises to the stature of the KJV, then those of us who use it for public ministry and memorization will get on board. As in the days when the KJV was produced the situation is very much in flux at present on both textual criticism and translation theory. The dust has not settled on the modern glut of translations. Ward provides no alternative with the stature of the KJV once the bath water carries the baby away.

    Back to the presenting problem in dealing with the bottom line of KJV-Onlyism:

    1. Ward’s extremes in criticizing the KJV are not the answer.

    2. KJV-Onlyism can be dealt with and exposed without going down Ward’s road.

    IOW, King-James-Neverism is not the answer to KJV-Onlyism.

    • John, you write well and think clearly, judging by this one comment! Your comment leads me to suspect, however, that you have not read the book. Message me through the contact form on my website and I’ll happily get you a free Logos copy. If I am misjudging you and you have read it, then I’ll *still* get you a free copy, plus a consolation prize.

  • Mark Ward: You are correct in your suspicion that I was only responding to your statements in the interview posted by Tavis, and have not read your book yet. Thank you for your gracious offer. I will take you up on that.

  • Mark, I am not a Bible word scholar…just an intentional follower of Christ. I love the Bible. As a lay person, I appreciate what you have to share with us. Some people whom I love defend what they think KJV is saying…but they argued for their interpretation when I tried, in a friendly tone, to explain the meaning of the words when KJV was written. KJV is beautiful language, the version I memorized not as a task, but as a result of reading it again and again in my youth because I love the Lord.

    I do speak several modern languages. For what it’s worth, I’ll say It is sometimes impossible to translate a language verbatim into a different language. Using a word today that used to mean something else centuries ago can be confusing. I appreciate Brian Casey’s comments. I applaud your efforts. Please, continue sharing.

    • Thank you for these kind words, Anne. Somehow I have to help confused sheep without being patronizing to them. That’s the Christ-like spirit I’m praying for.

  • Mark,
    Why not update the KJV so that the archaic english can be referenced (in footnotes or some other reference), while providing a suitable common language word that is accessible to the current-day reader?

    One of the primary arguments, which I think is a strong one, from the KJV only folks is that modern translations rely on the eclectic texts, and thus in many places produce a translation that is, not just updated, but strikingly dissimilar to the older translations to the extent it could impact the reader’s interpretation and applied theology. Modern readers and interpreters, as they deviate from dependence on translations that rely on the TR and MT, may develop theologies that are as dissimilar to those of past generations as the modern translations are to the translations those past generations utilized.

    Just a thought. Thanks!

    • This is something I would love to do, James. I’ve got ideas and even plans. But it is very difficult to get traction for a new Bible translation of any kind, even a minor revision. It takes the trust and good will (and often the money) generated by large institutions. I think it more likely that I will pursue study notes for the KJV that highlight dead words and false friends.

      I can understand the objection you cite, I really can. But I invite anyone who thinks that the critical text is strikingly dissimilar to the textual critical decisions of the KJV translators to look at every last difference between the two, in English, at my site, KJVParallelBible.org. If someone concludes that the differences are significant and they wish to retain Scrivener’s TR, I encourage them to use the NKJV or MEV.

  • Myself, I appreciate the KJV specifically because of its worn language. It makes it easier to remember that one memorable word that brings up the whole verse on my computer. And my Strongs Concordance wouldn’t work as well in a different translation.
    But beyond that, the KJV is better than more modern translations in some cases For instance, in other translations, the word “people” is often added to those the beast has power over in Rev. 13:7 – along with kindreds, tongues and nations. However, when checking instances of the word “people,” it seems in many cases to relate specifically to God’s people, such as “come out of her, my people.” To return to the beast, it is correct, then, as originally written, to omit “people” because he doesn’t
    have power over those whose names are written in heaven – like the 70 disciples who returned rejoicing. Another example is finding the word “partner” to describe the woman, instead of a suitable helper.
    Nevertheless, in regard to an updated version, it would be good to not have to add small print to point out, for instance, a “fuller” is a laundry worker.

    • Nancy,

      The difference you are seeing is not the fanciful whim of modern translators. The best and oldest manuscripts include the Greek word for “people,” λαὸν, in that list of those over whom the Beast will have authority. These manuscripts were not available to those who translated the Textus Receptus from Greek to English in the 17th century. The TR is the Greek text that underlies the KJV. However, those older and better manuscripts are available to us now and we should be careful before we disregard their contents on the basis of our preferred translation/interpretation/understanding of a particular verse.

      Jay

Written by Tavis Bohlinger
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