Uses and Abuses of the King James Version

From The Living Church-

As was the case in 1911, this 400th anniversary year for the King James Version (KJV) has brought forth a flood of positive commentary on the style, affect, and influence of this greatest of English-language Bibles. Although I agree wholeheartedly with most of what has been claimed about the beneficent legacy of the Authorized Version, as both a historian and a Christian it has seemed to me that other sides of the King James Version story deserve a hearing. What follows, therefore, is not an attempt to negate positive assessments, but rather an effort to add sober realism to what sometimes becomes runaway triumphalism.

For a surprisingly numerous cloud of American witnesses, the recent ascension of new translations at the expense of the KJV was long overdue. James H. Hutson, chief of the manuscript division at the Library of Congress, has published a splendid little book providing well-authenticated quotations from the American Founders on religious matters. In this great wealth of fascinating commentary are several surprisingly negative opinions about the KJV. John Adams, for example, once wrote to his son, John Quincy, to attack the notion that any one version of Scripture could count as a true “Rule of Faith.” He began his argument by denouncing “the translation by King James the first” as being carried out by someone who was “more than half a Catholick,” which in 1816 was for Adams anything but a compliment.

More here-

http://www.livingchurch.org/news/news-updates/2011/9/26/uses-and-abuses-of-the-king-james-version