Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible

By Mark L. Ward Jr.

Book Overview

The King James Version has shaped the church, our worship, and our mother tongue for over 400 years. But what should we do with it today?

The KJV beautifully rendered the Scriptures into the language of turn-of-the-seventeenth-century England. Even today the King James is the most widely read Bible in the United States. The rich cadence of its Elizabethan English is recognized even by non-Christians. But English has changed a great deal over the last 400 years, and in subtle ways that very few modern readers will recognize. In Authorized Mark L. Ward, Jr. shows what exclusive readers of the KJV are missing as they read God's word.

In their introduction to the King James Bible, the translators tell us that Christians must "heare CHRIST speaking unto them in their mother tongue." In Authorized Mark Ward builds a case for the KJV translators' view that English Bible translations should be readable by what they called "the very vulgar," and what we would call "the man on the street."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1683590554
• ISBN13: 9781683590552
• Release Date: January 2018
• Publisher: Lexham Press
• Length: 168 Pages
• Weight: 0.44 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 4.9" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Dreadful

This book was given to me by a pastor who was trying to get his church people to stop using the KJV Bible and switch to any other version—as long as it was not the KJV. The entire point of the book was to get christians to stop using the KJV Bible. It apparently according to Ward, has outlived its usefulness. I was baffled by the bad research. Biased and easily refutable with a small amount of effort. I was also baffled as to how the author constantly talked down to the reader and tried to convince the reader that they are too unintelligent (in more carefule words) to understand the KJV bible. There were a few places where his humor gave me a chuckle, but that was hardly enough to make it worthy of any praise.