Plain Reasons for the AV: Served as a Standard English Translation for 350 Years

5. The Authorised Version has served as a standard English translation recognised throughout the English-speaking world as the source and foundation of effective Gospel preaching, and as the highest authority in all matters of controversy.

No other version has taken its place in this respect. The greatest evangelists and expositors of the last 350 years have used this version for their ministries, and by means of it God has blessed millions of people with the light and truth of the Gospel of Christ.

There are hundreds of thousands of Christian people in Africa, India, the Far East and the West Indies, who use this version and want no other. During recent years, the Trinitarian Bible Society has sent hundreds of thousands of copies of the Authorised Version into Africa, where it is read by Africans whose language is English. It is the Bible they know and love, and from which the Gospel is preached to them. In their resistance to less reliable modern versions these people show more discernment than many in our own country, who have too readily adopted one or other of the modern versions far inferior to the Authorised Version.

There are more than a hundred modern English versions. No doubt in every one of them some passages may be found well translated and perhaps some difficult passages are made clear, but any such advantage gained is far outweighed by the shortcomings and losses which have been mentioned. It is right to keep to the Authorised Version, not because it is older, but because it is better than the versions offered in its place. This Bible is a precious gift of God for which we should be thankful. Its excellence, its faithfulness, its power and fruitfulness, have been well tried in the experience of millions. It must not be surrendered in exchange for an inferior version.

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Trinitarian Bible Society, “Plain Reasons for Keeping to the Authorised Version”