The King James Bible/ Jehovah Is Not God's Name

When I was a kid, I was sick a lot. I missed many days of school. More of those days than I wish to remember were spent in a steam tent in virtual isolation. This was in the days before television, and radio only had kid programming on from four to six P.M. My mother kept me occupied by helping me to memorize huge passages of scripture from the Bible. I memorized the ten commandments, the twenty-third Psalm, much of the Sermon on the Mount, the one hundredth Psalm and many other selected passages that mom thought might come in handy for me some day. Later when I began preaching, I would find myself quoting a scripture ext emporaneously and I would think, “Where did that come from?” Then I would remember that that was one of the many scriptures I learned as a kid. All of these scriptures were from the King James Bible. I have quoted the twenty-third Psalm probably several thousand times in the course of my ministry and I can’t imagine saying anything other than, “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul.” Thanks to my mom the King James Bible will always be a part of me.

However, when I study the scripture or preach from it, I will always use the Revised Standard Version of the scripture. I prefer it simply because it was the new kid on the block when I was in seminary and the best translation available at the time. There are today many excellent translations that one can choose. I have a single volume New Testament that has eight translations side by side for the reader to study.

The purpose of this chapter is to give you the pros and cons of using the King James Bible. There are several places that the King James Version is obviously superior to any other modern translation. There are also places that the King James Bible is absolutely the worst translation one could use.

Please remember that the King James Bible was “that new fangled translation in 1611.” The King James translators dared to put the scripture in the language of the people. There were still some people that were speaking middle English in 1611. The King James Bible was the Good News for Modern Man of its day.

First I would like to cover the positives of this ancient translation. There are two scriptures that I feel the King James Bible has been truer to the Greek translation than any of the modern translations. The first is in John 1:2 and the second is in Acts 1:11. It has to do with the translation of the Greek personal pronoun autos. When this pronoun is used in a certain way it is best translated “same.” In both of the scriptures mentioned this particular construction exists.

Let’s look at John 1:1 and 2 in the King James. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.” Most modern translations say in v. 2 “He was in the beginning with God.” Does that make much difference? You decide.

Now let’s look at Acts 1:11 in the King James Bible. Jesus has just ascended in to heaven and two angels say to those staring into the sky. “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into the heaven? This same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.” Most modern translations simple say, “This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” Now, does that make a difference? I think so, but I will let you draw your own conclusion.

In First Samuel 25 David sends his young men to Nabal who is shearing sheep in Carmel to ask for provisions for his men. One must remember that Nabal is a very wealthy man. He has three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. The shearing of the sheep was similar to harvest time for the farmer. It was a time of abundance , and it was common for the owner of the flock to have a big party when all of the sheep had been sheared. It was also common for an abundance of food and drink to be present for the men working at the shearing of the sheep. This was the perfect time for David to make his request for provisions. David also felt that he had a good reason for asking Nabal for the provisions. David and his men had been a security force for Nabal’s shepherds who traveled with David and his band of men.

Nabal whose name means fool plays the fool and not only does he deny David’s request, he insults David as well. Listen to I Samuel 25 10-11 “And Nabal answered David’s servants and said, Who is David? And who is the son of Jesse? There be many servants now a days that break away every man from his master. Shall I take my bread and my water, and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men, whom I know not whence they be?”

When David heard how his men had been treated, he commanded his men to arm themselves to prepare for battle, and he plans to attack Nabal’s camp and kill all the men.However, one of Nabal’s men who knew what the relationship between David’s men and his master’s men was went to Abagail, Nabal’s wife, and told her what had happened. Listen to I Samuel 25:14-15 “…David sent messengers out of the wilderness to salute our master, and he railed on them. But the men were very good unto us and we were not hurt, neither missed we anything as long as we were conversant with them, when we were in the fields. They were a wall unto us both by day and night all the while we were keeping the sheep.” Apparently David’s men and Nabal’s shepherd had spoken about how David’s men were a security wall between Nabal’s sheep and shepherds and danger.

When David calls his men to arms, it is to avenge himself against those who insulted his protection. He says in I Samuel 25:22, “So and more also do God unto the enemies of David, if I leave of all that pertaineth to him by the morning light any that pisseth against the wall.”

All of the modern translations translate v.22 this way: “God do so to David and more also if by morning I leave so much as one male of all that belongs to him.” The modern translations totally miss the metaphor of the wall and Nabal’s distain for the wall.

These are the only three places that I feel the King James translation is superior to any modern translation.

Now on the other side of the fence, there are several place that the King James Bible doesn’t even come close to saying what God intended for us to hear. The first is Phillipians 4:6. The King James says, “Be careful for nothing…” In today’s world that is terrible advice. One has to be careful in everything. But, in 1611, careful meant full of care. The Revised Standard Version accurately translates Phillipians 4:6, “Have no anxiety about anything….” Now that makes a lot of sense for today’s world.

The main place that the King James Bible goofed is in its covenant name for God in the Old Testament. Jehovah is not now nor was it ever God’ name. The word Jehovah is entirely the creation of the King James translation committee. Let me explain how it came into existence.

Let’s look at Exodus 3. This is Moses’ burning bush experience. When Moses turns aside to investigate this bush that burns but is not consumed, God speaks to him and identifies himself in v.6, “…I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” So Moses knows to whom he is talking. God has just called him to lead the people out of the land of Egypt. In verse 14 Moses says, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ’The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am.”

First we need to deal with the question, ‘What is his name?’ In biblical Hebrew when one asks, what is your name, he is NOT asking for an appellation. What he is asking is what is your character. When one wants to ask someone’s name he would say who is your name or as Jacob did when he wrestled with the angel, in Gen 32:29 “Tell me your name.” So Moses is saying, the people of Israel know who you are, but they want to know your character. And God responds by using the imperfect form of the verb “to be.” That implies continuous action. All biblical Hebrew verbs can b e translated past, present or future. What God said to Moses is (this is the Reid translation) I was the One who was with you; I am the One who is with you; I will be the One who is with you. But let’s look at the actual letters for the covenant name of God. They are YHWH. Whenever this covenant name appears in any of the modern translations it is translated LORD all in capitals.

The eight century prophet Amos in chapter 6 verse 10 describes a time, and I’m not exactly sure when that was, when the people of Israel will no longer mention the name YHWH. However, that time came and the people of Israel became superstitious about the use of the name YHWH and they would no longer speak it. Instead when they came to the word YHWH while reading the scriptures, they would substitute the word adonai the Hebrew word for lord. Any time the word adonai appears in the Old Testament it is translated in the modern translations as Lord, using a capital L and lower case letters.

Now we need to move ahead to the ninth century A.D. The Jewish people are scattered all over the world. Few Jews if any could still speak Hebrew. Most had adopted the language of the land in which they lived. There was a group of Jewish scholars called Masoretes. They dedicated their lives to making copies of the sacred texts. One must understand that biblical Hebrew has no vowels. The Masoretes reasoned that since their language had no vowels, when they di ed no one would be able to read the Hebrew Scriptures. Consequently, they devised a series of vowel points and inserted them into the sacred text. However, when they came to the word YHWH, they inserted the vowel points for adonai. A transliteration of that conglomeration of consonants and vowels looked like this: YaHoWaiH.

Now we move ahead to 1611 and the translation of the King James Bible. There were on that translation committee several German scholars. When the committee came to the Hebrew word YHWH, they did NOT translate it. Instead the transliterated it as I did above, but they made a few changes. The German influence changed the Y to a J and the W to a V. That would make it look like this JaHoVaiH. But since they were scholars, they had to follow the grammatical rule of biblical Hebrew that says that if the last syllable of a word is an open syllable, and this one is, the first syllable is attenuated. (shortened)< SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> That gave them JeHoVaH.

Jehovah is NOT God’s name. Never was. The word itself didn’t even exist before 1611.