Distinctives of the Kingdom Bible translation
The Golden Ratio Format
The first and most important distinctive of the Kingdom Bible Version is the Golden Ratio format, which is exclusive to the KBV 2011. All other Bible versions to date have either continued to rely on the old Chapter and Verse system of Robert Stephanus from the Middle Ages (e.g. the KJV), or only half-heartedly attempted to group the text, but with continued reliance upon the overall organization structure of the Stephanus Chapters and Verses. The reality is that you cannot go half-way with organizing the Bible correctly: it must be 100% Golden Ratio format or not at all. And if you attempted to use the Golden Ratio format without explaining why you were using a Division, Volume, Book, Part, Chapter, Section, and Paragraph format, it would make no sense at all. The headings and the UCCOO indicators are absolutely essential to providing the answer to the "Why do it this way?" question.
"Jehovah" is literally translated everywhere in the Bible
The Kingdom Bible translation is one of the very few in the world today, at least in English, to correctly translate the true Name of God in all places, which is Jehovah. See this page for more discussion of this issue. But the KBV goes beyond even those few others, in that citations of Hebrew text in the Greek documents that contain the Name of Jehovah show [Jehovah] in place of "the LORD" where this occurs. For example, the citation of Psalm 110:1 "Jehovah said to my Lord, 'Sit on my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool'" in Matthew 22:44, is shown as "[Jehovah] said to my Lord,...", rather than "The LORD said to my Lord..." as in every other Bible version that I can find. Putting "Jehovah" in brackets indicates that it is the original Hebrew word that is being referred to. The English phrase "the LORD" (used in the KJV) is a "translation of a translation", which is something that hinders correct understanding by putting even more distance between the reader and the actual Bible word, which is Jehovah.
Quotations of previous statements, including citations of prophetic statements, statements of God, and even previous statements of Jesus Christ, are BLUE
I don't know of any other Bible version that does this. Some will use altered text fonts to indicate Scripture citations, but none use blue type. I prefer this way, because changing the text font excessively makes the Bible look rather odd, unless there is a very good reason for doing so. Some Bible versions go to extremes in using odd fonts to show "emphasis" on things they want the reader to notice, but the Kingdom Bible only points out quotations, and leaves interpretation to the headings in these situations. The one exception for an altered font for emphasis is the Name of Jehovah, which is always in Franklin Gothic regular font, which gives a little extra "glory" to the special Name of our Lord; but even here the difference is subtle. I have deliberately tried to keep the text as normal as possible, so as not to distract the reader from the content.
Capitalizations
All capitalizations follow conventional modern English grammatical rules, with the following exceptions:
Every occurence of the word "Name", is capitalized when it refers to God; e.g. "the Name of Jehovah", the "Name of the Lord", etc.
The words "Temple", "Tabernacle", "House of God", "House of Jehovah", "Sanctuary", etc are capitalized when the word directly refers to the Tabernacle or Temple of Jehovah.
The words "Commandments", "Ten Commandments", "Law", "Testimony", "Ordinances", "Statutes", "Testimonies", etc, are capitalized when the word directly refers to the written Word of God, the Bible, or important portions thereof.
The word "Word" is capitalized when it refers to direct revelations of God to his prophets, such as Jeremiah 1:4 "Then the Word of Jehovah came to me, saying,...". Also, when "Word" refers to the preached or written Word, it is capitalized.
Other words, such as "Tree of Life", "Garden of Eden", "Holy One of Israel" are not so common, but are examples of "extraordinary" capitalization not found elsewhere. In short, only words that hold strong theological importance are capitalized, and they are always nouns, not adjectives (except for "Holy", when referring to God or the Bible).
In general, you will never find capitalizations such as "My", "His", "Me", "Yours", etc, unless it occurs at the start of a sentence. The "New KJV", along with other modern versions, is notorious for this abuse of the English language. When reading a Bible version with such odd capitalizations, I feel like I'm driving on a rocky dirt road, hitting all kinds of "bumps" that shouldn't be there. I realize that capitalizing adjectives that refer to God is a popular practice among Christians when quoting a Bible verse in personal correspondence, and I have no objection to seeing it in an email or a letter, as long as it isn't a long quote. But I feel strongly that the Bible itself should use the highest quality of grammar possible, and any deviation from normal rules of grammar needs to be justified. The only words in the Kingdom Bible version that I have capitalized "out of the ordinary" are nouns that directly refer to God, his Temple, or his Word, the Bible. In the KJV, most or all of the words I referenced above are not capitalized at all, due to the different rules of grammar in use in the 17th century. If the only changes in the KJV text were these words, it would be a great improvement all by itself.
Interestingly, I did a quick check of the most popular modern versions on Biblegateway.com and found that not a single one capitalizes the words that I have referenced above. I did not do an exhaustive check, but it seems clear that the Kingdom Bible version is unique in how it capitalizes these words. My question would be "Why wouldn't words that directly reference the Word of God, the House of God, or the Name of God be capitalized?" Could it be that the translators of these versions did not hold a high view of Scripture? The KJV can be excused for not capitalizing these words, since their rules of grammar were much simpler, but modern versions of the Bible are without excuse. I do not believe that they showed proper reverence for God or his Word with their neglect of this important area.
ALL of the directly spoken words of God, including quotations of Jesus Christ, direct quotations of Jehovah in the Hebrew text, and direct quotations of the Holy Spirit, are RED.
I do not know of any Bible version in existence that follows this pattern other than the Kingdom Bible Version. It occurred to me while updating the KJV text to modern grammatical standards of English, that it made no sense to make only the words of Jesus in red, as most Bible versions that have colored text do. Is Jesus more important or greater than his Father in Heaven or even the Holy Spirit? The answer is clearly NO: all three Persons are co-equal members of the Triune Godhead; yet that is exactly what showing only the words of Jesus in red implies. I have no doubt that those Bible publishers who implemented this practice in their translations did not intend to imply this perverse idea, but this simply proves that they were sloppy and untrained in their theological thinking. In fact, sloppy theological thinking is the root of the great majority of theological error being propagated in churches today. The point here is that showing all of the words of God in red type, no matter which Person of the Trinity is speaking, promotes theological accuracy and Biblical truth. Jesus is certainly central to the life of the Believer in every way, but we must not go so far that theological balance is lost. Those among God's servants who are privileged to handle the Word of God, whether in the pulpit, the lecturn, or on the printed page, must be extremely careful that we speak and write only balanced Biblical Truth in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are ambassadors for Christ (2 Corinthians 5:20); and therefore we are representatives of the King of kings and Lord of lords. If we speak falsehood in His great Name, we are bringing reproach upon Him, and will give an account to Him at the Bema Seat of Christ; something that should put fear in our hearts (2 Corinthians 5:8-11); and an unbalanced theology is really the root of all heresy.
"Assembly" is used in place of "church" in the entire Bible
I am preparing a webpage devoted to explaining this very complex and misunderstood issue. If the link isn't showing yet, keep checking back here periodically.
I made this change for several reasons:
"Assembly" is a much more accurate term than "church", which is like a bucket which can hold almost anything. "Assembly", on the other hand, is very specific, and can "hold" only the meaning of the original Greek term, which is "Ecclesia". When Christians use terms that are vague, like "church", it leads to sloppy and inaccurate theology. The last thing that we need today is yet more sloppy and unbiblical theology, which is the root of all heresy.
Using a specific vs a general term solves an entire host of ecclesiological errors. Of course, this is one reason why Protestant denominations and Roman Catholics love the term "church", because it gives them religious cover for their theological innovations and errors. They do not want to be bound to the Word of God; instead, they love to use it as a pretext to create false religious structures. I will not be a party to this religious charade and put something in this Bible version that makes them feel good at the expense of truth.
Some Fundamental Baptists are also guilty of adopting Protestant ecclesiological thinking which has no foundation in Scripture. You know these types of Baptists by their infatuation with the Protestant theologian John Calvin and TULIP. Calvin was a great Reformer in Reformation times, but he only came out part-way from Catholicism, when he should have come out all the way. His theology is in agreement with very similar ecclesiological structures (e.g. a National "church") to the Catholic religion. I am not interested in John Calvin or his "Institutes" for that reason. Thank God for what he got right, but we can do much better than anything John Calvin had to say on almost any subject. I only need the Word and Spirit of God to teach me the mind of God. Stop following the Reformers and start following Jesus Christ and his Word!!
Loyalty to the same basic underlying Greek and Hebrew texts as the King James Version
The reference Greek text is "The Holy Scriptures in the Original Languages", published by the Trinitarian Bible Society. This Book contains the 1894 Scrivener Greek Textus Receptus and the Hebrew Bomberg text.
No references to corrupted texts such as the Aleph and B (Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) texts are used in the Kingdom Bible
The reasoning for that is this: Does the average Christian who has not been trained in the Word of God have the necessary understanding to be able to discern that a statement such as "Not found in most ancient mss." is misleading? The answer is clearly "No". All that a statement like that does is add more confusion to the mind of an average Believer, who might come to the wrong conclusion that "Hey, if it's not in the oldest texts, then maybe it isn't real Scripture!" I have devoted an entire webpage to showing how the Golden Ratio format exposes a a pair of grevious errors in the Critical texts: specifically the "holes" in Mark 16:9-20 and John 8:1-11.
I do not accept the popular reasoning that "the oldest Greek texts must be the best and most accurate texts", for a number of reasons, which I must keep short here because of the need for brevity:
The over 5,000 manuscripts of the Byzantine text group were the ones chosen by God's people for at least 1,800 years (if not 1,900) to be the basis for Bible versions of all types; while the two (2) manuscripts of the Critical texts were ignored by God's people and left in the basement of the Vatican and in a dusty, almost-forgotten monastery in the Sinai desert. So God's people have been wrong for almost 2,000 years about which Greek and Hebrew manuscripts were the true Word of God? Give me a break!
Believers copied the Byzantine text group manuscripts over and over and over again, because they knew which texts were the true Word of God, and hence, they wore out faster, and eventually needed to be discarded. This is a major reason why the oldest manuscripts in this text group date back only to the late first Millenium A.D. But the bad copies of the Scriptures were ignored and not copied, and hence they tended to last much longer. This is why the Sinaiticus text was discovered by Tischendorf as the monks in the Catholic monastery in the Sinai were preparing to throw them away as trash, not realizing their archeaological significance.
Because of this great difference in age, many Bible scholars in the late 1800's jumped to the false conclusion that "older must be better", and these two texts (known as Aleph and B) became the primary texts used to support the translation of literally thousands of new Bible versions. The King James Version (reviled by Liberals and Roman Catholics for its strong emphasis on a grammatical-historical approach to translation) soon became the preserve only of Fundamental Christians (mainly Baptists), who clung to it in spite of the outdated grammar beause it was the only Bible version they felt they could trust. Most Fundamentalists have never trusted the Critical text, and any Bible version based upon it; and they were right in doing so.
A fact which is conveniently ignored by the advocates of the Critical texts in most Christian Universities today (even many who profess to be "Fundamental") is that the monastery in the Sinai desert where the Sinaiticus manuscript was discovered was in close proximity to Egypt. Historically, Egypt has been a center of Arian theological teaching since the days of the Arian heretic Origen (cir.184-253). He taught that the Son of God was a lesser "god", which led to his being declared a "heretic" by the early churches. Today, that "antichrist" teaching (I John 2:20-23) is still being popularized by many cults, the most notorious of which is the so-called "Jehovah's Witnesses". The manuscripts of the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus contain literally thousands of omissions of and changes to words, phrases, and even entire paragraphs, when compared to the Traditional Textus Receptus manuscripts collated from selected manuscripts of the Byzantine text group. Most importantly, these changes directly attack key teachings in the Scriptures regarding the Person and Work of Jesus Christ, and the Triune Godhead of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Considering these facts, is it only a coincidence that these are the precise types of changes that Arian followers of Origen would have made to the Greek Scriptures in order to remake the Bible according to their own thinking? Many Fundamental Christians (and I among them) believe that this, in fact, is the case; which is why we do not trust any Bible version based upon the Critical texts.
Strangely (or perhaps not so strangely), if you were to attend one of the many Christian colleges today who support the use of the Critical texts, you would likely hear little or none of what I just explained to you. Instead, you would be told that the much greater ages of the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus manuscripts trump any claims that the Byzantine text goup might have previously held on what is "orthodox" and what is not. Some even claim that there is "no difference" between the Critical texts and the Traditional "TR" (Textus Receptus) text group. They say that there is only about 5% less Greek text in the Critical texts than the TR, and this doesn't amount to anything important. They also claim "However, most scholars generally agree that there is no evidence of systematic theological alteration in any of the text types" (!!). (Wikipedia, Alexandrian_Text-Type) While technically correct in saying that there is about 5% less text in the Critical text than the TR, they are either lying or completely ignorant in making such a statement that there is no difference.
I myself briefly fellowshipped with a Fundamental Baptist Seminary in the Twin Cities, MN in 1992, intending to earn a Master's degree there. I was shocked to learn that even doctoral degree students knew almost nothing about the information I just discussed. Instead, they had been told only positive information about the Aleph and B texts, and knew very little about the TR or any favorable information about the Byzantine text group. Instead of receiving a balanced discussion of both sides, they were receiving a pro-Critical text viewpoint with little or no discussion of any contrary information. You might call that brain-washing at worst, or a poor education at best. In any case, I could never support any college or seminary that didn't teach both sides of the issue.
These Critical text advocates also claim that the TR is an "inflated" text, meaning that the reason that it has more Greek text than the Critical texts is because the manuscript copiers introduced additional words into the Greek portion of the Bible in order to bolster the claims of Orthodox theology (meaning not "Greek Orthodox" per se, but Orthodox in the sense of traditional Trinitarian Biblical theology). This is one claim that I find especially strange, because those who hold a "high view" of Scripture (i.e. Orthodox in theology) are extremely reluctant to make any sort of change to the Bible text, especially the original languages of Greek and Hebrew, unless there is abundant evidence to support making such a change (Revelation 22:18-19). On the other hand, those who hold a heretical Arian view of Scripture, such as the followers of Origen in Egypt, had no such reluctance to change the Bible to support their false views. An obvious (to those who study the history of Christianity) example is the heretic Marcion (84-160 A.D.) who freely cut out any portion of the Greek Bible which he did not favor, and from that process produced his own "bible" which contained very little of the genuine Greek Scriptures. Marcion, however, was not the only person with the demonic urge to change the Bible to their own liking; there have been many throughout history who have done so. Therefore, the statement that "there is no evidence of systematic theological alteration in any of the text types" would be laughable if the subject wasn't so serious. In fact, such a statement is evidence of deliberate brainwashing through the college and/or seminary that the person attended, or perhaps just plain ignorance. In any case, it is a popular notion, and one which I believe should be rejected.
One of the greatest proofs of Arian willingness to tamper with the Bible is the so-called "New World Translation" produced by the Jehovah's Witnesses Arian cult. They changed John 1:1 to read "In the beginning was the Word; and the Word was with God; and the Word was a god" vs "the Word was God" or literally from the Greek: "God was the Word". Clearly, Arians have no problem with changing the Bible to suit their heresy. Bible-believing Christians, on the other hand, from the Reformation until today (and that includes the great reformers Calvin, Luther, and so on), love the Scriptures and have no desire to tamper with the Word of God. There are, of course, problems with Protestants using words such as "church" and "baptism" in ways which do not honor the original meaning of the Greek text, but these are trivial issues by comparison with the Arian heretics. You can have a difference of opinion over "Church" and "baptism" without anyone going to Hell over it, but denying the Deity of Jesus Christ is a soul-damning error that will certainly end in Hell.
Some of the TR skeptics argue that an altered Bible version doesn't produce heresy, but heresy produces altered Bible versions (http://www.fredsbibletalk.com/qa008.html). In other words, the heretic Marcion produced the altered "bible", not the other way around; and the Jehovah's Witness "bible", which changed John 1:1 to "the Word was a god", was a product of heretics, but does not influence others to become heretics by itself. This reasoning is patently false, because people are influenced by what they read and hear from other people, whether it is on TV or radio or the internet or some other context. This is the reason for preaching the Gospel, since "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God" (Romans 10:17). The reason the JW's produced "The New World Translation" which contains this corrupted text alteration of the Bible was to give theological support to those who follow the teachings of the Jehovah's Witnesses. The JW could take this "bible" to others and say, "See, here it is right in the Bible!" Does not this altered "bible" produce more heretics? Of course it does! Fred's theologial contortions in support of Aleph and B simply hold no water.
Another argument in favor of the Critical texts is that if they had been truly heretical texts, then Orthodox Christians would have vehemently spoken out against them, as they did against Marcion in his day. Since they apparently didn't, then that must mean that the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are not heretical texts (so the thinking goes). My answer is, do we have every letter that has ever been written against every heretic in Christian history? I doubt it. Secondly, Origen was certainly denounced as a heretic, and the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus text are part of a group of text-type that is called the Alexandrian text-type, and Origen's theological school was located in Alexandria, where many of his followers were trained in his heresy! 1 + 1 = 2. This is not hard to think through, folks. This argument is based on the lack of evidence that anyone denounced the specific text-type as heretical, rather than simply observing the huge amount of evidence that these altered Critical texts originated in Alexandria, Egypt, a center of teaching in the ancient world for the heretic Origen and his followers. The problem is not the lack of evidence that the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus texts are the fruit of Arian theology, but rather the obfuscating argumentation produced by those who really want to believe that "older is better" in spite of all of the evidence to the contrary.
The following is something that occurred to me as I have considered this issue over the years:
When God brought Israel into the Promised Land, they remained orthodox and true to the Word of God (the Law of Moses) until the death of Joshua and all of his generation (Judges 2:6-13), then they turned away from Jehovah, and began serving other gods through idolatry. In other words, after hundreds of years of waiting, God's people finally attained to what they and their fathers had been waiting for since God told Abraham that they would inherit the land of Canaan forever. They had finally reached the top of the mountain, as it were! They were living in Zion, the Promised Land! But they did not continue in the Word of God, but fell away and served idols instead of continuing to serve Jehovah. God gave them what they had been seeking and waiting for, but then they faced a test: would they continue to serve Jehovah, now that they had everything that they could possibly want, a land that flowed with milk and honey? The answer was no, they failed the test and fell away.
During the great persecutions of Christians by the Roman empire from 30 A.D. to 313 A.D., many thousands of Believers were slain by the Roman authorities, either by the sword or other means. Persecution and suffering were the hallmark of this period, and Christianity flourished in spite of it. But suddently, in 313 A.D., Constantine proclaimed tolerance toward Christianity throughout the Roman Empire, and later brought many of the Christian churches into a governing alliance with the Roman Empire, so that those churches became known as Roman Catholic. Suddenly, Christianity was the favored religion in the Roman Empire, and instead of persecution and death, Christians were the powerful ones, in alliance with the most powerful empire in the world of that day, and everyone wanted to become a Christian, even if it only meant they had been baptized in water and didn't really believe in Jesus Christ. This isn't in the Bible, but simply my own observation: I believe that God tested the early Christians in the same way that He had tested Israel in the first example: they suffered for many years, and finally achieved what they had always dreamed of. In many of their minds, they had finally entered the Kingdom of God on earth, and it was the "Christian" Roman Empire. But was it the will of God for Christians to join in a governing coalition with the pagan Roman Empire? The subsequent history of Roman Catholicism since that day is one of decay, idolatry, and apostasy. The Bible even brands it as "MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH" (Revelation 17:5). The evidence that it was not the will of God is overwhelming. I believe that this was the exact same test that God gave the early Israelites in the days of the Judges, and Gentile Christians failed the test, miserably. Although I must add that not all Christians joined the Roman Empire; many remained separate, and were later persecuted by the Roman Catholic "Church" as heretics.
With reference to the Critical text controversy, I believe that Believers faced the exact same test in the late 1800's as the Israelites and the early Christians faced. In the 1800's, missionary activity by Christians, especially in England and the United States, was thriving. Great Evangelists, beginning with the Wesley brothers in the Reformation, to George Whitefield, D.L. Moody, and a number of others had spread the Word of God all through the United States, especially in the large cities, and also in Great Britain. There had been three "Great Awakenings" in the United States during the previous 200 years in which probably millions of people accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, and missionary activity had taken the Gospel of Jesus Christ to Burma, China, India, and Africa. It seemed to many at that time that the "world was theirs" to win to Christ. It was only a matter of time, they believed, before all the world would be singing hymns and serving the Lord Jesus Christ. This was called "Post-Millennialism", which was the idea that Christians would "bring in the Millennium" by winning the entire world to Christ, after which Jesus Christ would return. Any honest evaluation of the world today would show that Post-Millennialism was a noble, but false idea. The world is more opposed to the Gospel than ever before. But an interesting event occurred in 1859, the discovery of the Sinaiticus manuscript by Constantin von Tischendorf. Over the next fifty or so years, the influence of this corrupt manuscript spread to most Christian Bible colleges and Universities in the US and Europe. Students began questioning whether the Bible was really the Word of God after all; Bible versions supported by the Westcott-Hort manuscript (derived from Aleph and B) began to appear, some of which changed important Bible verses supporting the Virgin Birth of Christ, the Deity of Christ, and so on. This led to the spread of Liberal teachings in the large "mainline" denominations in the U.S., such that by the early 1930's or so, the Methodist denomination had mostly abandoned the historic Christian faith, and become a hotbed of Liberal teachings: in denial about the literal six days of Creation in Genesis, the literalness of the story of the Great Flood, the literalness of the crossing of the Red Sea, and even whether Jesus had really risen from the dead at all. Liberalism, by the early 1900's, had spread to the Northern Baptist Convention, the Southern Baptist Convention, Presbyterian denominations, and so on. This general apostasy led to the departure from these denominations of a large group of Bible-believing Christians who called themselves Fundamentalists. You can read a detailed history of this apostasy and the reaction of Bible-believers to it in the excellent book, published by Bob Jones University, "In Pursuit of Purity", by David Beale. I highly recommend it to you. The point that I want to make here is that a careful study of this time period in American history indicates a clear parallel with the tests faced by the Israelites in Judges and the early Christians of the Roman Empire. Christians in the United States and Great Britain were flourishing through the Great Awakenings. Christianity had such influence in early America that major newspapers in New York would reprint sermons preached in Bible-believing church pulpits every Sunday. Then, over a period of decades, that godly influence weakened and finally disappeared. Why? I don't think that it is a coincidence that the rise of corrupted Bible versions based on the Critical texts and the decay of Bible Christianity in the United States into Liberalism happened at the same time. In my opinion, God gave Bible Christianity in the United States and Great Britian a great test with the discovery of the Critical texts, and the introduction of new Bible versions based upon it and the Vaticanus, to see whether his people would continue to follow the Word of God, or depart from it. And clearly most of God's people failed the test: they fell away into Liberalism and modernism until the remnant of Fundamental, Bible-believing Christians separated from the apostate denominations and formed new churches and organizations based on the Word of God, and the Old-Time Religion. The influence of Evolution during this time period cannot be ignored, and certained aided and abetted the great Apostasy. Nonetheless, I believe that it was the powerful influence of the Critical texts upon theological thinking, in combination with new theories of mankind's origin which led to the departure of so many professing Christians, churches, and colleges from the historic Christian faith.
One webpage that I recommend is one devoted to showing the historical evidence for the use of 1 John 5:7-8 since the days of the Apostles: http://www.1john57.com/1john57.htm. In my opinion, the evidence in favor of including 1 John 5:7-8 in the Bible is greater than the evidence against it.
A critical examination of the Sinaiticus text: http://www.deanburgonsociety.org/CriticalTexts/sinaiticus.htm. Many more excellent articles on the subject of the Critcal texts and the TR can be found at the Dean Burgon Society website. I recommend them to you, although I do not agree with some of their conclusions that assert that the KJV cannot be improved upon, etc. I do agree with the vast majority of their research on the issues of the Critical texts and the TR.
In conclusion, the reasoning that "older is better" simply holds no water, in my opinion. If the text was essentially the same as the Byzantine text group, then there would be very little to argue about; but that is not the case. It amazes me that so many of my fellow Bible-believing brothers in Christ seem so willing to ignore this powerful evidence and, like lemmings, simply follow the crowd over the cliff of apostasy without any hesitation. I cannot and will never join them in this error.