http://www.hcu.edu Heritage Christian University is celebrating the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Version of the Bible. Dr. Larry Adams, adjunct instructor of literature, spoke in chapel on September 13, 2011, about the richness of the KJV's use of the English language. This is Dr. Adams' presentation.

1. KJV (the Authorized Version) as Literature

2. DR. cleland Boyd mcaffeed.d. Born in Missouri. For 20 years, he served as professor, chaplain and choir director at Park College. He also served churches in Chicago and Brooklyn, as well as on the faculty of McCormick Theological Seminary (1912 - 1930) and as director of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions (1930 - 1936). He died in 1944. In 1903, he wrote the hymn, Near to the Heart of God.

3. Shakespeare’s english There is something about the language of William Shakespeare that is elegant and rich, which is an oddity, because it is not the language of the privileged and educated. Many, if not most, of the tickets sold for a Shakespeare performance were the groundlings, people who paid a penny to stand in the area before the stage. This is the language that many students of the Bible in the 1900s were steeped in. Perhaps unfortunately, it is a foreign language to most members of most churches today. The most well-known biblical text of the last millennium is arguably the King James Version, often called the Authorized Version. There have been brutal and devastating congregational wars over the use or non-use of this particular translation, which is not the first English-language translation. There were at least 8 prior. These conflicts are unfortunate, most especially because there are probably not more than a few thousand out of the countless millions of Christians from about 1814 until this day that have actually seen an original Authorized Version, much less actually read one.

5. Let’s put it in perspective Title/AuthorCopies Sold (millions) 1.The Bible 5,000 - 6,000 2. Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong by Mao Zedong 9003.The Qur'an8004.Xinhua Zidian 4005. The Book of Mormon by Joseph Smith, Jr. 1206.Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling 107 7.And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie 1008.The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien 1009.Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling 6510. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown 65

7. If we judge it as literature, then we have to use the tools of literary critical analysis.

9. FEWER is better Shakespeare = about 15k-20k Milton = 13k or so OT in Hebrew/Chaldee = 5642 NT in Greek = 4800 ALL of the KJV = around 6k Yet, there are very few repetitions, that is using the same word over and over to say the same thing. “The English version shows constantly the marks of the Hebrew influence in the simplicity of its phrasing. Renan says that the Hebrew ‘knows how to make propositions, but not how to link them into paragraphs.’ So the earlier Bible stories are like a child's way of talking. They let one sentence follow another, and their unity is found in the overflowing use of the word "and"--one fact hung to another to make a story, but not to make an argument.” http://www.crcbermuda.com/bible/versions/kjv-its-influence-on-life-and-literature/the-kjv-as-english-literature

11. “another way of saying that is that the words are generally Anglo-Saxon, and, while in the original spelling they were much longer, yet in their sound they were as brief as they are in our present spelling. There is no merit in Anglo- Saxon words except in the fact that they are concrete, definite, non-abstract words. They are words that mean the same to everybody; they are part of common experience”

12. “a simple one in the Communion service: "This is my body which is given for you." That is all Saxon.”

13. “When our theologian comes to comment on it he says we are to understand that "the validity of the service does not lie in the quality of external signs and sacramental representation, but in its essential property and substantial reality." Now there are nine words abstract in their meaning, Latin in their form. It is in that kind of words that the Bible could have been translated, and in our own day might even be translated.”

15. Gail Riplinger has a chapter in her best-selling New Age Bible Versions titled "King James for Kids". Mrs. Riplinger provides 23 pages of irrefutable evidence proving the King James Bible is far easier to understand and read. She lists over 350 examples in the New Testament where the King James Bible is much easier and simpler to understand.

16. In comparing the first chapter of the first and last books of the Old and New Testaments, the Flesch-Kincaid research company’s Grade Level Indicator shows "The KJV ranks easier in 23 out of 26 comparisons" (Riplinger, New Age Bible Versions, 1994, p. 195)

17. Mrs. Riplinger writes: "Why is the KJV easier to read? The KJV uses one or two syllable words while new versions substitute complex multi-syllable words and phrases." (Ibid, p. 196) She lists over 270 examples in the New Testament. Mrs. Riplinger also attributes the King James’s ease of understanding to "Simple sentence structure. . .." (Ibid, p. 204

20. “ An idea is large or small according to its breadth of interest to the race and its length of interest to the race. If there is an idea which is of value to all the members of the human race to-day, and which does not lose its value as the generations come and go, that is the largest possible idea within human thought. “