"What about the New King James (NKJV)?"
Proverbs 30:6 "Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar."
I remember someone asked me about this question before: "What about the New King James (NKJV)?"
In many posts, I have shared about the New King James (NKJV) which claims to be an update of the 1611 King James Bible (KJV). I do not agree with these claims. The NKJV is not an update of the KJV, but another bible altogether. Here's the proof:
"For the New King James Version the text used was the 1967/1977 Stuttgart edition of the Biblia Hebraica, with frequent comparisons being made with the Bomberg edition of 1524-25. The Septuagint (Greek) Version of the Old Testament and the Latin Vulgate also were consulted. In addition to referring to a variety of ancient versions of the Hebrew Scriptures, the New King James Version draws on the resources of relevant manuscripts from the Dead Sea caves..."
The above passage was taken from the preface of the NKJV.
The underlying Old Testament text of the 1611 King James Bible is not the same as that of the NKJV. The King James Bible used the 1524-25 Jacob Ben Chayyim text, 2nd edition of the Rabbinic Bible published by Daniel Bomberg. For the NKJV, the text used drew from the 1967/1977 Stuttgart edition of the Biblia Hebraica, the Greek Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate, a variety of ancient Hebrew Scriptures, as well as the Dead Sea Scrolls.
"The King James New Testament was based on the traditional text of the Greek-speaking churches, first published in 1516, and later called the Textus Receptus or Received Text... Very few scholars still favor the Textus Receptus as such, and then often for its historical prestige as the text of Luther, Calvin, Tyndale, and the King James Version... most have followed a Critical Text (so called because it is edited according to specific principles of textual criticism) which depends heavily upon the Alexandrian type of text... Finally, a small but growing number of scholars prefer the Majority Text, which is close to the traditional text except in the Revelation... In light of these facts, and also because the New King James Version is the fifth revision of a historic document translated from specific Greek texts, the editors decided to retain the traditional text in the body of the New Testament and to indicate major Critical and Majority Text variant readings in the footnotes."
The above passage was also taken from the preface of the NKJV.
Essentially, the NKJV still uses Textus Receptus (traditional text) as the underlying text of the New Testament, even though the NKJV translation committee does not favour it. Did it affect the way they translate the Bible? Most certainly 'Yes', as I will show more direct evidences in the later part of this post. Notice they have also included the Critical Text and Majority Text variant readings in the footnotes of the NKJV. They did that because they did not believe the Textus Receptus is the perfect, inspired word of God. Further proof is found in Wikipedia:
"The Executive Editor of the NKJV, Arthur L. Farstad, addressed textual concerns in a book explaining the NKJV translation philosophy.[3] While defending the Majority Text (also called the Byzantine text-type), and claiming that the Textus Receptus is inferior to the Majority Text, he noted (p. 114) that the NKJV references significant discrepancies among text types in its marginal notes: "None of the three [textual] traditions on every page of the New Testament ... is labeled 'best' or 'most reliable.' The reader is permitted to make up his or her own mind about the correct reading."[3]"
Arthur L. Farstad, the Executive Editor of the NKJV even admitted that he believed the Textus Receptus was inferior to the Majority Text. He further warned the reader to make up his or her own mind about which part is truth and which part is not. He clearly did not believe that the Textus Receptus is the perfect, inspired word of God, but that they were compelled to use it only for the sake of maintaining the historical prestige of the translation. Did it affect the way the NKJV translators translated the word of God in the New Testament? Lets examine the differences:
COMPARE: 2 TIMOTHY 2:15
KJV: "Study to shew thyself approved unto God"
NKJV: "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God"
COMPARE: MATTHEW 7:14
KJV "Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way"
NKJV "Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way"
COMPARE: REVELATION 1:18
KJV: "and have the keys of hell and of death"
NKJV: "And I have the keys of Hades and of Death"
The above are just three examples among the thousands of differences between the KJV and the NKJV. Furthermore, there are many places in the NKJV where we find word-for-word matches with other modern version bibles that are based on the Critical Text (NIV, NASB, ESV, etc). For example,
COMPARE: 2 CORINTHIANS 2:17
KJV: "For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God"
NKJV: "For we are not, as so many, peddling the word of God"
NASB: "For we are not like many, peddling the word of God"
NIV: "Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit"
ESV: "For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God's word"
Conclusion: The NKJV is not a continuation of the 1611 King James Bible that it claims itself to be, but a different bible altogether, one that is helping to lead the mass to "another Jesus" (2 Corinthians 11:4), which number is '666'.
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