I was provided with a free copy of this booklet in order to review it. It’s currently available for pre-order here.
Update: The book is now available! Please see this video trailer from Kept Pure in All Ages.
“Return to the Authorized Version (AV)? But we’ve discovered older and better manuscripts since the King James Version (KJV) was written! And the old English makes it so hard to understand!” These are the most commonly used objections to using the KJV. Dr. Letis ably answers these, and more, in this short book.
After comparing all of the English Bibles from Tyndale’s in 1525, to the first edition of the NIV in 1978 [1], he concluded the KJV “should be retained in the churches, in Bible studies, and in the classroom, because of the superiority of its Greek text, translation, and English usage; and because it is a link with our past as well as a unifying factor for the present.” [2] This is the thesis he sets out to prove in this work.
Chapter 1 – The Scrolls and the Parchments
Letis responds to the most common objection first, that of the “older and better” manuscripts, specifically Codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. Readings from these two codices are often adopted in modern Bible versions contrary to the majority of manuscripts in many places. Prevailing scholarship accepts these two without question despite the fact they contradict one another more than 3,000 times in the Gospels alone!
Regarding their antiquity, Letis provides a quote from scholar and dean of Chichester Cathedral John W. Burgon, who personally examined the codices. Burgon offers a different perspective on their age. “We suspect that these two Manuscripts are indebted for their preservation, solely to their ascertained evil character… Had [Vaticanus and Sinaiticus] been copies of average purity, they must long since have shared the inevitable fate of books which are freely used and highly prized; namely, they would have fallen into decadence and disappeared from sight. But in the meantime, behold, their very Antiquity has come to be reckoned to their advantage.” [3]
According to Letis, the difference between these two and the majority of manuscripts can be summed up by the word “omissions,” though there are other revisions. Wilbur Pickering, pastor and author in the late 20th century, counts approximately 5,000 fewer words than in the majority. Despite the claim that these variants don’t affect any major doctrine, Letis offers 1 Timothy 3:16, Colossians 1:14, and Luke 2:33 as evidence to the contrary. [4]
Dr. Letis points out the Bible bears human and Divine qualities, and its Divinity must never be minimized. Alterations to Scripture should never be too hastily accepted, and learning about translators B.F. Westcott and F.J.A. Hort provides a cautionary tale.
Chapter 2 – The Revised Version of 1881-1883
Chapter 2 is short and describes a revision committee in 1879 led by Westcott and Hort tasked with updating the English of and correcting any obvious errors in the KJV. What they did, however, was present a modified text changed to meet the “standard” of Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. After another astute quote from Burgon, Letis ends the chapter on the hopeful note of scholars, including himself, examining the work of Westcott and Hort, resulting in “some scholars… return[ing] to the type of Greek text on which the AV was based.” [5]
Chapter 3 – Biblical English
Chapters 3 and 4 deal with the other common objection to the KJV: its “archaic” English. A strange phenomenon has occurred with the King James Version: it has been both praised for the beauty of its language, and scorned for its archaisms. Letis counters this by arguing the English of the KJV is not the English of the 17th century, but a “Biblical English” [6] hardly spoken by anyone. Its beauty is owed to its faithful translation of the original Greek and Hebrew. [7]
Dr. Letis also answers the misconception of modern Bible versions being easier to understand. He compares the word usage in the KJV to the New English Bible and actually finds the KJV more readable!
Chapter 4 – Thees and Thous
Also regarding the “antiquated” language of the KJV, Dr. Letis offers a defense of the second person pronouns “thee” and “thou,” while also offering an alternative to the KJV if someone genuinely struggles with the English of the KJV: The 21st Century King James Version. It is “an exact reproduction of the AV with accurate, modern equivalents for all the several archaisms found throughout its last revision.” [8] The “thees and thous,” however, are retained in the KJV21, because those pronouns make it easier to distinguish between “you singular” and “you plural.” Thee, thou, thy and thine are singular, while ye, you and your are plural.
Chapter 5 – The “Language of the People”?
Through surveying many twentieth century English Bibles, he demonstrated the fallacy of producing Bibles with updated language. Of the translations he examined, all publishers stated, among other purposes, their desire to make the Bible understandable to the average reader. Two related factors gave rise to this. The first is “a low regard for Scripture as a sacred text.” [9] The Bible is regarded as mere literature rather than the inspired Word of God. This caused a second factor- thanks to free enterprise and the love of money capturing various Bible publishers, multiple versions abound today. After all, there is a lot of money to be made in Bible printing/publishing.
Chapter 6 – Historical Ethos: The Forgotten Factor
What is this “forgotten factor”? For Dr. Letis, it is both the academic and spiritual accomplishments of just a few of the men who were responsible for translating the KJV. As scholarship was at its height in the 17th century, he takes this chapter to illustrate the scholarship and theological competence of a few of the KJV committee translators. These men were not infallible, neither was their final product perfect. However, Letis posits that modern translators, despite recent archaeological discoveries and technological advances, contain no special insight over the translation committee of the KJV. Modernity does not necessarily give us an advantage over the past. “Modern does not always equal better.” [10]
Chapter 7 – The Modern Approach to Translation (Utilitarian)
This chapter details the shift in translation philosophy from a word-for-word approach (formal equivalence) to a thought-for-thought approach (dynamic equivalence), and some of the theological problems which can, and often do, result from the latter approach. Though arguments for dynamic equivalence today are reasonable, a question translators must consider when translating into another language is, which methodology is paramount? Is the right route to communicate the ideas into the culture and form of the receptor language, or to translate the words as the Spirit inspired them?
Chapter 8 – The Renaissance/Reformation Approach to Translation (Theological)
As an example of translating into a receptor language, Letis provides Martin Luther’s German Bible in 1534. Luther did such a masterful job of giving the German people a Bible they could understand AND maintaining faithfulness to the original Hebrew and Greek in doing so, that it influenced the German language. Moreover, it molded it! Luther’s Bible is generally seen as the birth of German literature, giving rise to German as a literary language and is used to this day. The King James Version has done the same for the English language. It molded the language and set the standard for future English versions. This seems to settle the question of if Bible versions should be reduced to the culture. Scripture should convert the culture! Someone once said, Christians should be thermostats, not thermometers. In other words, we should set the moral tone in our contexts, not conform to the influences around us. The same could be applied to Bible translations. If translators are faithful to the Spirit-inspired words of God, He will bless their work. So history testifies to the superiority of the formal equivalence method over dynamic equivalence.
Chapter 9 – Historical Cycles and the Modern Situation
In this last (and longest) chapter, Dr. Letis observes what he sees today as a watered down version of Christianity. He reminds us of the well-known quote from Tertullian, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” The KJV is the last vestige of an era of western Christianity under persecution. Being a product of the Reformation and William Tyndale (whose work makes up about 90% of the KJV), it is certainly a “blood-stained book” to use the author’s term. The KJV serves as our link to our Christian heritage and brings linguistic unity to the present English-speaking world. This quote from Dr. Letis is too good to not include: “…if given the choice to embrace the type of Christianity historically produced by the AV (if I may be allowed to speak in such terms), or the type that has been produced since the arrival of ‘the Bible in the language of the people,’ I feel constrained to embrace the former, archaisms and all.” [11]
On unity, he concludes with a discussion of the value of each person having a Bible version of their choice. Rather than producing unity, it often leads to confusion and, in the worst case scenario, schism. The footnotes in many modern versions also often fail to bring clarity to the reader. He then closes his work with an analysis of the textual variants in John 1:18 and Mark 16:9-20 to illustrate his point.
My Conclusion
Today’s Christian & The Church’s Bible does contain some outdated information regarding Bible versions and statistics. To note, he wrote the Gideons exclusively use the KJV for their Bible distribution, but this is no longer the case. They have also started distributing the NKJV and, several years ago, a Textus Receptus version of the ESV, along with the KJV. But such things are to be expected for a booklet originally published in 1978, then re-published in 1997. Dr. Letis died in 2005.
With that said, I heartily recommend this work by Dr. Theodore Letis. There is much more I could have elaborated on, despite the brevity of this book, but I wanted to keep this review somewhat short. If the reader has additional questions or desires more information, he likely addresses them either in Today’s Christian, or in his more detailed exposition, The Ecclesiastical Text: Textual Criticism, Biblical Authority and the Popular Mind, [12] where he devotes an entire chapter to John 1:18.
Perhaps the best thing I can say about Today’s Christian & The Church’s Bible is it leaves the reader wanting more. At least it did for me. Dr. Letis presents the reader with enough information to make his case, but inquisitive and truth-seeking minds will desire to dig deeper. I pray the reader of the booklet and of this review does so. And may God, through His Holy Spirit Who inspired the Bible, unify His Church around, through, and by it.
Footnotes
1 The year the book was originally published
2 From the Introduction
3 Italics in Letis’ original, p. 2. Quote taken from John W. Burgon, The Revision Revised, 2nd ed. (London: John Murray, 1885), p. 319
4 To this list I would add John 1:18 and 1 Corinthians 15:47
5 p. 10
6 Citing E.F. Hills
7 More on translation philosophy later
8 p .22
9 p. 31
10 p. 40
11 p. 61, parentheses in original
12 Which I am also currently reading
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