[Author's Note: Apparently, when the server crashed at the beginning of June, one of the posts that went missing was my book review of James White's book "The King James Controversy." I have found where I added my review on amazon, and am putting it back here again.]
The King James Only Controversy
James R. White
Paperback: 368 pages
Publisher: Bethany House; 2 Upd Exp edition (June 1, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0764206052
ISBN-13: 978-0764206054
Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
Buy Here: Amazon.com

Thanks to Jim Hart and Bethany House Publishers for sending a copy of the book to review!

The “King James Controversy”–the debate on whether the KJV Bible is the only true Bible or not–is on that is very interesting to me for several reasons. First, I grew up in an area where many churches “favor” the KJV, and are functionally KJV Onlyists. Second, I am a bit of a translating geek if you haven’t been able to tell. I have been wanting to read James White’s book for awhile now, and was excited to receive the new second edition in the mail. I haven’t read the first edition, so unfortunately, I cannot compare the two, though it seems that a couple of sections were added, and James added the ESV to most of the translations lists throughout the text.

White has written an excellent book defending modern translations, such as the T/NIV, ESV, NLT, etc. His arguments are thorough, easy to understand, and devastating to the King James Only (henceforth KJVO) position. He shows, primarily, that the KJVO position is built on circular logic, and that if they were to apply their critiques of translations to the KJV itself, it would fail their tests horrible. Their logic is circular, because they set out to prove what they already assume to be true–the KJV is the only true Bible, therefore all other translations must be false because they disagree with the KJV. There are some major problems here, not the least of which is why should we accept the KJV as the standard? KJVOists can’t answer this, outside of “because it is.”
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