Sean Finnegan errors in evaluating the KJV
In a video, part 16 (as part of a series on “How we got the Bible,”) Sean Finnegan does an evaluation of the KJV version of the Bible.
This video can be watched How We Got the Bible Part 16: Evaluating the King James Version
Unfortunately, Sean makes many errors and false claims in this video, this is not untypical of those that evaluate the KJV, especially those coming from a seminary background and modern textual criticism where the KJV is seen as a kind of “black sheep of the family”. Sean repeats some claims that are, again typical of those that are “evaluating” the KJV, as if they are fact, when in reality they are not facts, they are repeated myths that have been learnt rather than evaluated.
I won’t address all what was said in this writing as much of it I have already written against in prior posts, and instead will just link to my writing on that particular claim.
So lets start.
Sean goes through the history of early English revisions.
He notes the Tyndale, Coverdale, Matthew Bible, Great Bible,. However, when he gets to the Geneva Bible he puts this in a different place on the screen.
He states “The Geneva Bible was really different than this other line of revisions. You have Tyndale that leads directly to Coverdale, and Coverdale that leads directly to the Matthew Bible that leads directly to the Great Bible, the Geneva Bible really is its own thing.”
This is simply false. The Geneva Bible, while it was translated away from England, in Geneva Switzerland, from where it gets its name, is still of the same line as the aforementioned Bibles. The Geneva Bible relied heavily on the Tyndale Bible (and to a lesser degree the Coverdale. The Geneva Bible is a Textus Receptus Bible. In reality, its text is very similar to that of the later KJV. While there are differences and the Geneva was not simply a revision directly from the Great Bible, as being the next in line, it certainly is not its own thing. While it included thousands of marginal notes, many of which were Calvinistic and Puritan, the text itself follows the same lineage as all the others.
To infer that it is its own thing and put it in a different line from the others is disingenuous and gives the listener a rather incorrect understanding of what the Geneva Bible was, or rather is.
Sean states that the KJV didn’t just come out of nowhere, it is a revision of the Bishop’s Bible, which is a revision of the Great Bible, which is a revision of the Matthews Bible.
This is true, but nor does anyone who is even remotely studied on this subject believe that that the KJV did just come out of nowhere. The KJV translators never set out to create a new translation, but they said “to make a good one better.”. All of these Bibles are based upon the Textus receptus, different editions of the Textus receptus this is true but the Textus Receptus none the less.
Sean then continues on and says “furthermore we don’t stop there either” He then goes on to list other “versions” that came after the KJV. He refers to the 1769 KJV. He then strangely includes the 1881 Revised version.
Now before I jump into the claim regarding the Revised version, I need to just address the 1769 Blayney edition of the KJV.
Copied from my writing on “Which KJV is Correct?”
In 1769 Dr Benjamin Blayney produced an edition of the KJV. Many people, those who do not know any better, James White included, love to point to the 1769 Blayney “revisions” to proclaim that the KJV has indeed gone through literally thousands of changes.
However, what they do not realise, probably because they have not actually bothered to find out what those changes were, is that Blayney did not change the text of the KJV at all. The THOUSANDS of changes he made were the updating of the spelling of many words to the finalised spelling. He changed saide and sayde to said, Sinne to the now modern sin, dayes to days, sonne to son and others words in the same manner. He also edited some of the punctuation and removed the capitalisation of some words like Ark to ark. Some words that were not previously italicised were put in italics. He also corrected the last of the printing errors that had not yet been caught. Such as
Numbers 6:14 And he shall offer his offring vnto the Lord, one hee lambe of the first yeere without blemish, for a burnt offering, and one ewe lambe of the first yeere without blemish, for a sinne offering, and one lambe without blemish for peace offerings, 1611 KJV
Numbers 6:14 And he shall offer his offering unto the LORD, one he lamb of the first year without blemish for a burnt offering, and one ewe lamb of the first year without blemish for a sin offering, and one ram without blemish for peace offerings, KJV
As you can see the original 1611 KJV had lambe, the KJV today has ram. The Hebrew word behind the English is ram. It was always meant to be ram.
However, the word lambe (lamb) appears 2 other times in the verse. and the printer simply repeated the word lambe when it should have been ram. With the fact that lambe appears two other times and the fact it is spelled correctly (1611 spelling) this would have been a hard spot for anyone to notice it was incorrect. It would have taken someone (Blayney) literally checking word for word what the KJV translators had used and what appeared in the print. This is most likely why it took so long to “correct”.
And that was it. Those are the thousands of changes that he made. He NEVER changed the actual wording of the KJV.
So now lets get back to the 1881 Revised version,
This version is NOT a revision of the KJV. It is not based on the Textus Receptus. It is the first bible of the modern versions. It is based on the Westcott and Hort Text which is the foundational text of the Critical text (Nestle-Aland/UBS text).
The Westcott and Hort text is predominantly based on 2 manuscripts, the majority being Codex Vaticanus and to a lesser degree Codex Sinaiticus. It is completely false to include the Revised version of 1881 in the lineage of the KJV back to Tyndale. Especially when you have asserted that the Geneva Bible is “its own thing”.
Sean then includes the 1901 ASV, the 1952 Revised Standard Version, 1971 New American Standard Bible, 1982 the New King James Version, 1989 New Revised Standard Version, 1995 New American Standard Bible Update, 2001 English Standard Version, 2017 Update edition of NRSV.
These Bibles (with the exception of the NKJV. (Kind of)..which is another story), are NOT revisions of the KJV or any preceding Bible. They are different, based on a different text type. It is false to say they are revisions of the KJV. The underlying text is not the same.
The Textus receptus is predominantly based upon the Byzantine text type whereas the modern versions are almost entirely based on the Alexandrian text type. Two different text types. As Sean has been to seminary I am confident that he is fully aware of this. I will not try to second guess why he has failed to mention this and why he has made it seem like the RV is simply a revision of the KJV.
It may carry the name Revised version…it may be classed as the only officially authorised revision of the KJV, but revision of the KJV it most certainly is not.
Inside scoop….
Sean then tells us he is going to give us the inside scoop on the reason that the King authorised the KJV. He repeats the usual …it was authorised because King James didn’t like the footnotes regarding going against the King.
While there is some truth in this, King James did not like these footnotes as stated by William Barlow, this is such a small and minor detail of the formation of the KJV. and certainly not the reason for the creation of the KJV at all. I won”t go into detail here. But I shall repeat, it was NOT the reason for the KJV translation. I will link to my writing on the subject. The truth is that it is clear that anyone who cites this as the reasoning behind the KJV has not studied the subject in any great detail or is not specifying the truth.
Sean then says that King James called it the authorised version. Again this is factually incorrect. The KJV was not originally called the authorised version, in fact, it wasn’t even originally called the King James Bible. It was originally known as the “New translation” or some times as “our English translation”. It was later called King James’ Bible by the Scots, identifying this version distinctly from the others, the Geneva Bible was used in Scotland, and this later became the King James Bible. It didn’t take on the authorised title until later in the 16th Century and it isn’t until the 17th Century that this becomes a standard title. The KJV was never officially authorised or decreed. (I will point out that some do argue that the authorised title didnt become standardised until the 18th Century).
The claim regarding Revelation 22:19 I shall link to my writing on this particular passage. The information Sean quotes is so limited it certainly cant be classed as accurate or informative.
https://www.followintruth.com/book-of-life-or-tree-of-life
I will link to my writings on both 1 John 5:7 and 1 Timothy 3:16, of course ,the usual attacks against these two verses are repeated by Sean, again with almost no actual information provided on either.
https://www.followintruth.com/is-1-john-5-7-as-it-is-worded-in-the-kjv-correct
https://www.followintruth.com/1-timothy-316-what-is-the-correct-reading
As for the claim that the KJV translators didnt have access to the oldest manuscripts, I will link to my writing on the manuscripts that the KJV translators used…and what the manuscripts the Greek text is based on.
https://www.followintruth.com/what-manuscripts-did-the-kjv-translators-use
I will also link here to my writings on the dead sea scrolls and the oldest and best manuscripts. (I am currently working on this so will link when its finished.)
What Sean does refer to at this part of the video is that the oldest Hebrew manuscripts were not available to the KJV translators.
However, the KJV Old Testament is based upon the Jacob Ben Hayyim masoretic text. When compared to the text of Codex Leningrad, the oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible, it differs in just 9 places which are basically just vowel pointing and paragraph division. The Hebrew Masoretic text found in ALL of the masoretic manuscripts that have been discovered since the KJV match (in at least 98% of the time) the Masoretic text used by the KJV. When we look at the proto Masoretic text found amongst the dead sea scrolls this is again almost identical to the MT we have today. I would suggest looking into the proto Masorectic text manuscripts found at Masada which again are in almost uniformity with the Masorectic text we have today.
Either Sean is unaware of this fact or s trying to make it sound like the KJV had a different Masoretic text that they used. If it is the former then Sean needs to stand corrected, if it is the latter then he is being disingenuous.
Again I wont deal individually with the verses that Sean claims are not original, I have dealt with them elsewhere in my writings.
Sean then goes on to assert some mistakes in the KJV.
Here he starts with 1 Timothy 6:10. I shall link to my writing on this particular verse here.
Sean states that the KJV translators didn’t have a good understanding of Hebrew he quotes Robert Alter as support for this claim from his book Art of the Bible translation.
The KJV translators were experts in both Greek and Hebrew. Most of them spoke Latin and many of them spoke other languages also. Lancelot Andrews spoke 15 languages (at least). It is simply nonsense to state that these men knew less than modern scholars.
Bart Ehrman, one of the worlds leading Scholars, and who is himself studied in Greek stated that the KJV translators were in fact, highly skilled in Greek, even surpassing his own Greek knowledge. Learning Greek is what they did….
“There are questions among scholars about how many people actually participated in the translation; but the best answer is that there were forty-seven translators, who were all skilled, highly skilled, in Greek and Hebrew. Today when somebody is highly skilled in Greek, like Jeff Siker and me, we’re considered highly skilled – that means we can kind of slosh our way through a Greek text if we have a good dictionary sitting next to us. These guys, including King James, could speak Greek and did speak Greek to each other when they felt like it. They could read Hebrew like the newspaper. These were serious serious scholars. They didn’t have TV – no ESPN. So what did they do? They sat around and studied Greek. This is what they did. And Latin, and Hebrew…”
“Manifold Greatness” exhibition at Loyola Marymount University in 2013.
It is available online Bart Ehrman: What Kind of a Text is the King James Bible? (Manifold Greatness exhibition opening)
“The sad reality is that the average so-called Greek professor could not have been hired as a tutor to a high school student one hundred years ago. The average janitor at the Helenikon International Airport in Athens is more fluent in the ancient Greek tongue than most supposed experts in the Greek language…”
Dr John M. Asquith (Pastor), Further Thoughts on the Word of God, p.35
Sean then refers to the language of the KJV. Here is the bit that I actually agree with him on ..to a degree. I do think that the English language has evolved and that some of the language and words used in the KJV could be updated to more modern English, as long as the exact meaning remained. I will note that there are many words contained within modern versions that are difficult to understand by the average reader. Sean, like most others who address the flaws of the KJV does not mention this.
I shall link to my writing on this topic.
The KJV version and its “archaic” language. – Follow In Truth
The simple fact, and it is a fact, is that Sean has simply regurgitated many of the claims made against the KJV that have been shown inaccurate, over-exaggerated or misrepresented and misunderstood. I am happy to go through any of the claims with Sean at any time he would wish to engage in a discussion.
The information presented here, isn’t itself in full. More could be said and has been in many of my writings on this blog. I will continue to address these claims as and when I come across them and have time to do so.
While some of the wording in this post may seem harsh, I do not have any personal grievances with Sean, I do not even know the man, but I do have grievences when it comes to inaccurate claims regarding the KJV.
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