Your Opinion: Response to Sampson on King James Bible

Dear Editor:

In a letter to the editor "The Bible, court, and marriage" in the Aug. 2 edition, Mr. Sampson seems to have taken umbrage at some of the comments that I had made earlier to a piece written by Larry Russell Johnson. Sampson's logic is a bit obtuse, but after reading his document three times, I seem to get two primary messages; First, he believes the KJV Bible does not allow polygamy (or for that matter divorce), and second, the KJV is the only text appropriate for Christianity.

Mr. Sampson, my statement you quoted is in fact true; there are a number of Christian sects that do allow polygamy, and it's not only the Mormons (and please, let us not have any silliness about the Mormons not being a Christian sect). There are several Christian sects in Africa that allow polygamy, some of these (not all) have Zulu influence, while others have Anglican influence. As recently as 1988, the Anglicans affirmed their policy of allowing polygamists who convert to remain so.

With respect to the King James Bible, I fear you are may be an anachronism. There is a growing movement in Christianity to scrap the KJV, for a number of good reasons. First and foremost, the language; several hundred words now mean something different. Second, but more importantly, the very foundation (basis) of the KJV is considered to be inferior by many biblical scholars.

The KJV was (is) English translation of the Christian Bible originally written between 1604-11 by a team of members of the Church of England, all "inspired by the Holy Spirit." One primary basis document that the team used was a translation of Greek New Testament in the early 1500s by a Roman Catholic priest and humanist named Desiderius Erasmus.

He was "in a race to publish" as he believed that Cardinal Ximenes was also working on a translation of the Greek manuscripts. Erasmus' work was littered with hundreds of typographical errors; indeed, his work has been referred to as "the most poorly edited volume in all of literature."

The King James Version of the bible has been revised three times with approximately 100,000 changes. Which version was inspired?

Martin Luther translated the Greek New Testament to German in 1522. What of the discrepancies between the Luther's work and the KJV? Did God inspire both? Are we arrogant enough to believe God speaks only in English?