cannot understand it, so long as the Church can. But if less than 10% of today’s church members can understand it, the translation is not suitable. If the Word of God is to be placed in the hands of the ploughman in words he can understand, to cite Tyndale’s hope, then the King James Version is unsuitable on the grounds of its English usage alone. To speakers of the “People’s English” the “King’s English” is a foreign language and the King’s Bible is a foreign book. It is not suitable for today’s reader, and its continued use is a millstone around the neck of today’s church, hiding the Word of God. Whether from conviction or tradition, to impose the translation our Puritan forebears rejected, is to place today’s readers in bondage to a version that for them darkens the meaning of God’s Word. To those who are familiar with the ancient language, the King’s Bible is a treasure; to those who have not learnt that English, it is a lost treasure. IMPACT OF THE KING’S BIBLE ON ENGLISH Much is made of the impact of the King’s Bible on modern English: it is said to have shaped our language. So good was its English, we are told, that today we speak English moulded by the KJV. It is clear that certain expressions and vocabulary from the English Bible are to be found in general English, especially in literature. Yet it is equally true that the vast majority of those expressions and words come, not from the work of the KJV translators, but from Tyndale. Of course, it was in the Kings’ Bible that they have been read for 400 years, so in that limited sense it can be said these sayings have become part of the English we use because of the KJV. Yet even that does not constitute an influence on the English language.
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