Search the Scriptures: Does Questioning the KJV Question God’s Word?

Let me lay out a disclaimer at the beginning, since this blog may be off-putting to some who do not take the time to read it in its entirety and think it through. As I write about the meticulous historical work done by those who generated the King James version, I am aware of the serious warning in Revelation 22:18-19: “For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.”

I am also aware of the words of Jesus Himself in John 5:39: “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me.” I have often wondered what Jesus meant when he said, "...in them you THINK you have eternal life..." We know the Scriptures lead us to Christ. But it seems He is saying they are not an end in themselves but rather the God-given testimony we are commanded to seek.

Many people believe in the truth of scripture above all else. I am one of them. That does not prevent us from questioning whether there are some errors in the book we call the King James Version (KJV). Somebody once said, “If the KJV was good enough for Paul and Silas, it is good enough for me.” The sad thing about that belief is that there was no KJV in the days of Paul and Silas. The Apostle Paul was beheaded about 64 or 67 AD under Emperor Nero's rule. This was well before the 1611 AD KJV.

One famous textual question that has been debated is 1 John 5:7 (the so-called Johannine Comma: “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one”). This longer reading is not found in the earliest Greek manuscripts.

Erasmus of Rotterdam omitted the Comma from the first two editions of his Greek New Testament (1516 and 1519) because the Greek manuscripts available to him did not contain those words. Critics in his day argued that the verse belonged in the text, and Erasmus was eventually given a Greek manuscript containing those words (believed to be a forgery) while writing his third edition. In his annotations, Erasmus questioned its authenticity, but he yielded to the voices of the people and the Catholic church and included the verse in his third edition (1522). This reading was maintained in later editions of the Textus Receptus, and it is from this textual tradition that the King James translators drew in preparing the 1611 Bible.

It is also interesting that defenders of the Trinity did not use the verse as a main argument at the Council of Trent (1545–1563). The non-use of it in those debates is consistent with the lack of early Greek support for the reading and its failure to achieve the wider circulation it would later have through the printed Textus Receptus and subsequent English translations. The debaters would have certainly jumped on it to defend the trinitarian position.

Whatever manner is used to weigh 1 John 5:7, the core truths of the Godhead and the testimony of scripture stand firmly on many other clear passages. This evidence does not shake one's faith in God or the godhead. It remains that there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved (Acts 4:12). The same Spirit that guided the original writers has preserved the essential testimony through the centuries of transcription. We search the scriptures, not because the paper and ink are magical, but because they testify of Jesus Christ, and in Him is eternal life.

Any response?