New Covenant Christian Ministries
KING JAMES VERSION ONLY?

Christians, young and mature, often ask us which Bible version we recommend for use in public and private devotions. With so many English versions on the market now it can be a bewildering choice. Here are some of the most commonly used Bibles (the list is not exhaustive) with the four most popular ones appearing first:

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* The IV is a product of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a denomination of the Mormon Church, but is not strictly-speaking a "translation" as no Hebrew or Greek manuscripts were used -- it is an alleged correction of the KJV by Joseph Smith using "inspiration" only and is unreliable.
** The NWT is a product of the Watchtower Bible & Tract Organisation and is not a translation either. It is a doctored Bible designed especially to reflect Jehovah's Witness dogma and is unreliable. This is probably the most mutilated Bible "version" on the market and should be avoided completely.

A controversy has arisen in the last decade over which version of the Bible is the most reliable. There are essentially three positions:

There is a growing movement which takes the King James-Only Position. It is a highly dogmatic and intolerent position that condemns all those who do not use the KJV. Worse, it is without biblical foundation and is manifestly irrational. There are some who maintain that this position is cultic.

New Covenant Christian Ministries believes that God's Word is to be found in a variety of translations and that no one translation can claim to be exclusively the only correct one. We do, however, believe that the King James Version, inspite of its antiquated language, is probably the best and most reliable. It has long been our hope to produce a modern translation based on the Received Text. We had hoped that the New King James Version would be that version but it, like all other modern ones (NIV, NASB) is based on the minority texts and contains glaring errors. We began work in 1995 to produce a New Covenant Version (NCV) but did not make great progress. Instead we have largely contented ourselves with making revisions to the NIV and hope one day to issue a collection of revised passages. The NIV is the version we favour in public ministry because of its readability.

The King James-Only Debate

Because alot of people are being misled and having their testimonies undermined by the King James-Only Question, we have decided to include a number of excellent articles and site links that cover this question throughly. We are not the authors of these articles, and whilst the position of the authors on other topics is not necessarily always our own, we consider them to be excellent aids to understanding the KJV-Only problem. We further wish to add that we are admirers of many King James-Only ministries and that our position on the KJV in no way detracts from these ministries' otherwise excellent services generally (e.g. Tex Marrs, William Schnoebelen, etc.). Our opposition to the KJV-Only position must not, furthermore, be construed to mean that we are against the KJV -- we are not proponents of the Minority MS position either! Having clarified our position we recommend the articles and sites that follow:

The KJV-Only Issue. A very balanced and fair treatment of the issues. This site is being updated all the time and deserves to be visited regularly.
Pilgrimettes. An extensive and through site covering almost all the angles on the KJV-Only controversy. Written from a Baptist perspective. As it is quite difficult to find the KJV-Only materials on this site and as the author encourages copyright-free duplication, we have incorporated most of his materials on this site. A sincere thanks to Bob Ross at Pilgrim Publications for his hard work and excellent research!

Other Materials on "King James Onlyism"

This Page was Created on 23 November 1998

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