# Dan McClellan — Is the Most Famous Bible Translation Really All That Good? **Summary.** McClellan argues the King James Version actively gets in the way of understanding what the biblical authors meant, for three reasons — textual, linguistic, and translation-philosophy. The KJV's cultural prestige leads readers to treat it as the most authoritative or highest-quality English Bible when, by scholarly measures, it is none of those. His one concession: style is the single legitimate reason to keep using it. (Source: [[3. Resources/Readwise/Articles/Is the Most Famous Bible Translation Really All That Good|Is the Most Famous Bible Translation Really All That Good]]) --- ## Key claims and arguments **1. Textual reliability.** The KJV rests on later, less reliable Greek manuscripts. Modern translations reconstruct an earlier, better-attested source text from manuscripts recovered or collated since 1611, correcting additions and alterations the KJV inherited. **2. Linguistic currency.** The KJV's English was already archaic at publication — "criticized for already being out of date in 1611." Its `-eth` endings and grammatical gendering ("if the salt have lost his savor") did not match everyday spoken usage even then. **3. Translation philosophy.** The KJV is overly literal, following the *form* of the Greek so closely the English becomes impenetrable. His example: 2 Corinthians 2:5 ("but if any have caused grief, he hath not grieved me, but in part that I may not overcharge you all") — form-driven literalism producing unreadable English. **4. It is a revision, not a fresh translation.** The KJV is a revision of the 1602 Bishops' Bible; translators "scribbled changes into the margins" of handed-out Bibles, later compiled. It is a compilation of Tyndale, Coverdale, Geneva, Bishops', and even Rheims. **5. Its survival is an accident of style.** Its literary reputation is "a product of a historical accident" — chiefly the first and second Great Awakenings. McClellan marshals scholarship (Lerer; Norton; Hamlin & Jones) showing it was *not* well received in 1611, that the Geneva Bible stayed more popular for decades, and that "avolatry" (Norton's coinage for near-worship of the KJV) only took hold from the 19th century. **Recommendation.** If you want the source meaning, use a recent translation — he recommends the updated NRSV — and keep the KJV only for its style. --- ## Theological tension > [!contradiction] KJV-only authority vs. text-critical scholarship > **KJV-only / high-prestige position:** the KJV is the most authoritative, even providentially preserved, English Bible; its language is a feature, not a defect. > **McClellan's position (academic / historical-critical):** the KJV is not high-quality, not up-to-date, and not textually reliable; its prestige is a 19th-century cultural accident, not intrinsic merit. "Understanding" means recovering authorial intent, and on that measure the KJV underperforms modern translations. > [!question] Open question > McClellan defines "understanding" narrowly as recovering authorial intent. A literary, idiom-rich translation can aid *devotional* understanding even where it diverges from technical accuracy — so the disagreement is partly about what reading the Bible is *for*, not only about manuscript quality. --- ## Analysis for this wiki A fifth [[Dan McClellan]] source and a companion to the wiki's translation-criticism thread. Where [[The Passion Translation]] documents *fabricated* meaning inserted by a single NAR-adjacent translator, this source critiques *inherited* problems in the most trusted mainstream translation — older manuscripts, archaic register, form-bound literalism, and prestige mistaken for accuracy. Together they make the wiki's broader point: every translation carries an interpretive framework, and "most famous" or "most beautiful" is not the same as "most faithful to the source." It sits beside the still-open `Literature Notes/Case Study of Gender Ideology in the ESV.md` ingest candidate (06-22 flag) — both are translation-philosophy critiques of high-status English Bibles, and the three together (KJV, ESV, TPT) would justify a `concepts/bible-translation-philosophy.md` page. > [!note] Tradition > Academic / critical scholarship engaging popular Bible-translation assumptions. Argues from textual criticism, the history of English, and translation theory — not a confessional position.