By Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin
PIKESVILLE, Maryland — Very few books have impacted humanity and hold an enduring, influential place in people’s minds and behaviors, such as the King James Bible. It was published in 1611 under the patronage of King James VI and I. It shaped not only religious life for centuries but also the very contours of English literature and everyday language, poetry, prose, and literature of all kinds. Yet, it contains flaws—many of them.
The King James Bible was translated by a group of about 47 scholars, divided into six committees at Oxford, Cambridge, and Westminster. Each committee was responsible for translating a specific portion of the Bible. While the King James Bible was a massive new project in itself, it built on the earlier work of translators like William Tyndale, who was the first to translate the Bible into English from the original Hebrew and Greek.
William Tyndale (born in 1494) was an English scholar and translator who produced one of the first printed English translations of the Bible. He was martyred in 1536 for translating the Bible into English, since it was illegal at the time. Nevertheless, his work became the foundation for many subsequent English Bibles, including the King James Bible. Like the KJB, Tyndale’s translations and writings significantly influenced the English language and theology.
His murder was tragic and ironic. Ironic because the clergy forbade translating the Bible because of their fear that the population would stop listening to what the clergy told them the Bible taught and instead would look into the translation they were given and interpret it based on their preconceived notions and according to what they wanted to see in God’s text, which would be contrary to Church teaching. It is ironic because this is precisely what the tone-deaf clergy and scholars of all religions did with their translations.
One of the KJB’s most significant qualities is its style. Its commitment to rhythm, clarity, and poetic structure continues to resonate in liturgy, hymnody, and public speech. Many people remember phrases like “the powers that be,” “a thorn in the flesh,” and “the valley of the shadow of death.”
The translation was written to address Protestant concerns and unify the Church of England’s scriptural practices.
Yet, despite its accomplishments, the KJB has many limitations. It includes archaic vocabulary, obsolete grammar, and words that appear familiar but carry different or outdated meanings. These features can pose challenges even for trained clergy. Even more significant is the repeated failure of translators to understand the nuances of the original Hebrew of the Jewish Bible and the Greek of the New Testament. There are many mistakes.
The mistranslations remind me of the joke my daughter Daniela told me when I said I was writing about this subject. It is about two friends, one able to see and the other blind, who are sitting on a bench. The sighted friend is eating a matzah and asks his companion if he wants a piece. The blind man says, “Yes.” When he is holding the matzah and feels the holes in it, he remarks, “Who wrote this sh-t!”
The mistakes also remind me of another tale Daniela told me. An English teacher wrote the words, “A woman without her man is nothing.” He asked his class to punctuate it correctly. The boys in the class wrote, “A woman, without her man, is nothing.” The girls wrote, “A woman: without her, man is nothing.”
A common mistranslation in the KJB is “children of Israel” for the Hebrew “benei Yisrael.” True, the literal meaning of the two words is what they used. But to call the Israelites “children of Israel” makes no sense. The translators failed to recognize that the two words are an idiom that should have been translated as “Israelites.”
While the Bible’s word nefesh is used today for “soul,” it only meant a person in the Torah. Yet many translators fail to realize the meaning changed and render “soul” in their translation.
A famous example of an improper translation is the Hebrew word almah in Isaiah 7:14, which is rendered as “virgin” rather than the more widely accepted modern translation of “young woman” or “adolescent girl.” This has significant theological implications and was probably mistranslated in this way to reflect the view that Jesus’ mother was a virgin when she bore him.
Similarly, the translation of certain Hebrew words related to the afterlife, such as sheol, was altered to reflect Christian beliefs, rendering it as “hell” rather than its original meaning, which is “grave.” The biblical concept of sheol lacks the notion of everlasting punishment that the modern word “hell” implies.
The opening statement of the New Testament Gospel of John 1:1 is “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” in English, and “Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος” in Greek. The Greek word λόγος, “logos,” in English letters, means both “word” and “wisdom.” The translator of John mistakenly chose “word,” which makes no sense since Genesis mentions God speaking ten times, not a single word, and Jewish tradition, which the Christian author of John was familiar with, since early Christianity was a part of Judaism, knew this.
The author of John certainly knew Proverbs 8:22-31, which is clear. Verse 8:22 and 23 state, “I, wisdom, was with the Lord when he began his work, long before he made anything else. I was created in the very beginning, even before the world began.” Jewish tradition, as seen in a Palestinian Targum—an Aramaic translation of the Bible—also interprets Genesis 1:1—”In the beginning God created…”—as “With Wisdom God created….”
Another significant error was the misunderstanding of the opening biblical verse. KJB has: “1In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”
These two sentences should have been translated as a single verse, and several words were misunderstood.
KJB’s first sentence makes no sense. Is it saying that the first thing that occurred in the world was the creation of heaven and earth? What is “heaven”? Did the translators think the Bible pictured a dwelling in the sky where gods lived, as the early Greeks and Romans believed? The Hebrew shamayim literally means “there was water.” Wouldn’t it make more sense to translate the word as “universe,” especially since the word mayim reappears at the end of verse two, where the KJB mistranslated it as “water” this time, when “universe” makes more sense.
The wording of “without form, and void” is unclear. A better translation is “cluttered,” or “chaotic,” or “disordered.”
What is “Spirit of God”? Is it something different than God, reflecting the Christian belief in the trinity?
Additionally, the translators failed to realize that the word “Elohim” is the plural of “El,” which ancient people understood as meaning “powerful.” They therefore applied to their god, as Muslims still do when they call god Allah. Jews wanting to distinguish their understanding of God used the plural form “Elohim” to suggest by the use of the plural that the Jewish God is the most powerful. The translators forgot that “Elohim” is used to describe powerful humans as well as God and sometimes means “powerful.”
A better translation is: “When God made the universe and earth, the earth was in disarray, all was dark, and a mighty wind blew across the universe.”
The noted problems are not limited to the King James Bible. People who read the Bible need to learn how to read it. Some Bible commentaries will help. But even many commentaries and clergy make mistakes.
God or nature gave us intelligence, and if we use it to the best of our abilities, we will learn much that the Bible wants us to learn. We must not be like the man who feels he is improving his health by jogging at midnight in a dense forest while donning dark glasses.
We must not copy overly pious, inactive people who act like Carlo Lorenzini’s (1826-1890) wooden puppet Pinocchio, who stand frozen in place, waiting for the puppeteer to pull their strings and make them perform what the puppeteer prefers. Students of literature recognized that the meaning behind Lorenzini’s classic tale was a theme of morality and the consequences of choices, as seen through Pinocchio’s journey from a puppet to a boy. The key hidden meanings include the idea that being a good person isn’t about perfection but about constant effort and learning from mistakes.
Rabbi Tarfon in Pirkei Avot, “Ethics of the Fathers” advises us: “It is not your obligation to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.” (2:16). This passage from the Mishnah emphasizes that while we are not expected to complete an enormous task, we have a responsibility to start and continue working on it.
God gave us free will and wants us to use our intelligence to improve ourselves and the world God has gifted us.
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Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin is a retired brigadier general in the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps. He is the author of more than 50 books.