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The Earliest Baptist Critics of the KJV: Leonard Busher (1614) and Henry Jessey (Part 2) | SHARPER IRON
Article by Doug Kutilek: "Here, then, is the clear testimony of a pre-eminent Baptist of the 1600s that the final authority for our faith is the Scriptures in the original tongues of Hebrew and Greek, and not any translation in any language since they all come short of conveying fully and perfectly the complete sense and meaning of the originals. Those who would in our day lord it over our faith by imposing on us the KJV translation as the final authority are propagating a doctrine which neither the Scriptures honestly interpreted will bear, nor our learned Baptist ancestors embraced, but which is in all essentials the old Roman Catholic claim of an infallible translation (in their case, the Latin Vulgate) repurposed and applied to an English translation. . . .
"[Henry Jessey's biographer] adds, 'Many places which are not falsely, may be yet better rendered, or more consonant to the text,' (p. 50), citing especially Isaiah 9:3; John 15:2; Jeremiah 50:5; Genesis 39:9, 11; he notes an improper omission in the KJV in Ecclesiastes 8, an unitalicized addition to I Corinthians 1:2, and the use of 'St.' as a designation of the Gospel writers (pp. 50, 51, 52, 53). He says further that 'In many places though the translation be right in the main, yet there may be still cause of bettering it' (p. 53), noting the non-literal 'God forbid' which frequently occurs in the KJV, plus various 'harsh expressions,' 'obscure words,' and 'Hebraisms,' to say nothing of inaccuracies in chapter and verse division. He summarizes by saying, 'in these and many more particulars, too tedious to be here comprised, Mr. Jessey proposed to amend our late translation' (p. 56).
"Jessey himself declared that in more than 800 places the KJV’s margin was more accurate than its text (pp. 59, 60), and commended Ainsworth’s new translation with annotations of the Pentateuch, Psalms and Song of Solomon (1627, 1639) wherein some 500 mistakes in the KJV were remedied. . . . Let the mouths forever be stopped which claim infallibility for the KJV English and repudiate the Hebrew and Greek. Whatever these people may be, they are certainly neither defenders of Biblical truth nor Baptists in any historical sense regarding Bible translation."
[Henry Jessey lived from 1601 to 1663. It appears that there were no "King James Only" Baptists in the 17th Century, or any time prior to the time of Peter Ruckman. Personally, I prefer not to talk about "mistakes" in the King James Version - I prefer to think in terms of renderings that could be "bettered," but hey, that's just me].
Article by Doug Kutilek: "Here, then, is the clear testimony of a pre-eminent Baptist of the 1600s that the final authority for our faith is the Scriptures in the original tongues of Hebrew and Greek, and not any translation in any language since they all come short of conveying fully and perfectly the complete sense and meaning of the originals. Those who would in our day lord it over our faith by imposing on us the KJV translation as the final authority are propagating a doctrine which neither the Scriptures honestly interpreted will bear, nor our learned Baptist ancestors embraced, but which is in all essentials the old Roman Catholic claim of an infallible translation (in their case, the Latin Vulgate) repurposed and applied to an English translation. . . .
"[Henry Jessey's biographer] adds, 'Many places which are not falsely, may be yet better rendered, or more consonant to the text,' (p. 50), citing especially Isaiah 9:3; John 15:2; Jeremiah 50:5; Genesis 39:9, 11; he notes an improper omission in the KJV in Ecclesiastes 8, an unitalicized addition to I Corinthians 1:2, and the use of 'St.' as a designation of the Gospel writers (pp. 50, 51, 52, 53). He says further that 'In many places though the translation be right in the main, yet there may be still cause of bettering it' (p. 53), noting the non-literal 'God forbid' which frequently occurs in the KJV, plus various 'harsh expressions,' 'obscure words,' and 'Hebraisms,' to say nothing of inaccuracies in chapter and verse division. He summarizes by saying, 'in these and many more particulars, too tedious to be here comprised, Mr. Jessey proposed to amend our late translation' (p. 56).
"Jessey himself declared that in more than 800 places the KJV’s margin was more accurate than its text (pp. 59, 60), and commended Ainsworth’s new translation with annotations of the Pentateuch, Psalms and Song of Solomon (1627, 1639) wherein some 500 mistakes in the KJV were remedied. . . . Let the mouths forever be stopped which claim infallibility for the KJV English and repudiate the Hebrew and Greek. Whatever these people may be, they are certainly neither defenders of Biblical truth nor Baptists in any historical sense regarding Bible translation."
[Henry Jessey lived from 1601 to 1663. It appears that there were no "King James Only" Baptists in the 17th Century, or any time prior to the time of Peter Ruckman. Personally, I prefer not to talk about "mistakes" in the King James Version - I prefer to think in terms of renderings that could be "bettered," but hey, that's just me].
