By missionary Calvin George
Revised Feb. 8, 2025
There are those who insist on translating directly to foreign languages from the KJV instead of from the original languages. They will often state in certain terms that there is a precedent for doing so. There are all sorts of wild claims as to the King James Version having been translated directly into hundreds of foreign languages, which implies totally bypassing the Greek and Hebrew. Only one of the claims we have encountered so far provide the source from which the number of translations was taken. Let us examine those claims:
The book To All Generations states that the KJV was “used to translate into more than eight hundred foreign translations.” No source was provided for this information.[1]
The book Final Authority claims that the KJV was translated into 300 languages. No source was provided for this information.[2]
A certain online article stated that the KJV was translated into foreign languages 800 times. No source was provided for this information. When I requested the source from the author via e-mail, he replied that he could not recall from where the information came.[3]
According to another internet article, the KJV has been translated directly into a foreign language 1,000 times, but then in the same article the author says it took place in whole or in part with 1,578 languages. No source was given for this information. When I requested the source from the author via e-mail, he replied that he could not recall from where the information came.[4]
The book Things that are Different are not the Same makes the following claim: “Many foreign nations have the Bible in their own language, and many of these are translations made directly from the King James Version. Missionaries have translated the King James Version more than any other version. It has been the standard to translate the King James Version into other languages.”[5] No source was provided for this information.
The book Which Bible? mentions that one (unnamed) writer claimed the KJV had been translated into 886 languages.[6]
The book Seventy-Five Problems states that the KJV has been translated into other languages between 600 and 700 times. It also did not provide a source for this information.[7]
The book In Awe of Thy Word states: “Because the KJV is a precise and contextual accurate translation, thousands of foreign language translations were subsequently made directly from it.”[8]
Peter Ruckman was by far the most contradictory of all authors, providing eight different wildly-varying figures, even different figures in the same book! According to The Christian’s Handbook of Biblical Scholarship, the KJV was translated directly into a foreign language either 300 times[9] or 700 times,[10] depending on which chapter one was reading. In The History of the New Testament Church, he states that the KJV was translated 800 times,[11] and in yet in The Christian Liar’s Library the number given was 901.[12] In January, 2006, in his monthly publication, the number given is 160.[13] Then in the April, 2006 issue of the previously-mentioned periodical published by Ruckman, he states that the KJV is available in 60 different languages with only parts of it available in 160 different languages.[14] His Manuscript Evidence book puts the number at 500.[15] Ruckman has also claimed without a source that “the AV was translated into more than one hundred times as many languages as any Greek Bible.”[16] Finally, Ruckman’s book What Saith the Scriptures? gives a figure of 600 before the year 1880.[17] Our last quote does not give an exact number, but it asserts without evidence that the Bible was translated more often from English than from Greek: “… the AV was translated into more than one hundred times as many languages as any Greek Bible was ever translated, why would you put more confidence in the Greek than the English?[18] The fact that Ruckman has so many different widely-varying numbers with no sources prove that his information is not scholarly, and should not be taken seriously.
A website that is now defunct stated that the KJV had been translated into 760 languages.[19] In contrast to other claims, it actually included a source. The source turned out to be a book by Winston Churchill. The following is the ambiguous context of Churchill’s quote:
If the adventurers took books with them they took the Bible, Shakespeare, and later The Pilgrim’s Progress, and the Bible they mostly took was the Authorised Version of King James I. About ninety million complete copies are thought to have been published in the English language alone. It has been translated into more than seven hundred sixty tongues. The Authorised Version is still the most popular in England and the United States.[20]
The question is —was the reference to 760 languages referring to the Bible in general being translated into 760 languages, or specifically the KJV being translated into that many languages? It seems it can be interpreted either way. The sentence previous to the mention of 760 languages seems to be referring to the Bible in general, otherwise if it was referring to the KJV it would not have been necessary to state how many times it was published “in English.” The sentence previous to that speaks of the Bible in general among other books, and only mentions the KJV in passing. If one leans towards believing that the reference to 760 languages is the number of times the KJV had been translated into other languages, there are several matters to consider: Does Churchill’s figure even fit within Bible translation statistics in the 1950’s? Should Churchill’s figure be taken seriously considering he did not provide a source for his information? Also, how could Winston Churchill be considered an authority in the area of the history of Bible translations?
An example of an authority on the history of Bible translation would be The Bible of Every Land: A History of the Sacred Scriptures in Every Language and Dialect Into Which Translations Have Been Made published by Samuel Bagster in editions between 1848-1860. In it several translators are mentioned as having consulted the KJV (often alongside other translations), but in my perusal of the book I could only find about 3-4 translation projects in which the KJV was the only one listed as the translation source (and not for mere consultation). It should be pointed out that consulting the KJV in the process of translating does not count as translating from the KJV. For example, the Spanish Bible was consulted among other languages in the process of translating the KJV 1611 (according to the preface). It would certainly not be proper to say with that detail in mind that the KJV was translated from Spanish. Another example of an authority on the history of Bible translation would be T.H. Darlow and H.F. Moule, who wrote the massive multi-volume Historical Catalogue of the Printed Editions of Holy Scripture in the Library of the British and Foreign Bible Society between 1903-1911. I have browsed through it, and the times I’ve looked for the source of a given Bible, it did not mention the KJV.
Another source which is quite authoritative is the American Bible Society, due to its involvement in Bible translation projects since its inception. In 1951, they announced in the May issue of the Bible Society Record that whole Bibles had been translated in 191 languages, with whole New Testaments having been translated into 246 languages. The figure for languages in which at least a Gospel or other whole book had been published was put at 597. The only way in which Churchill’s number of 760 can even fit was in the figure in which at least a portion (including less than one whole book) of the Bible had been translated, which came to a total of 1,034 languages. These statistics, coming from an organization that had been involved in Bible translation, printing and distribution for over 100 years at the time, invalidates Churchill’s undocumented statistics, and likely all other authors in this study. It should be noted that the figures provided by the American Bible Society were for Bibles in all languages translated from any source, not Bibles translated from the KJV exclusively. Organizations such as New Tribes Mission and Wycliffe Bible Translators are also involved in such matters, but they do not have a reputation for using the KJV exclusively, so likewise any statistics they could provide should not be automatically considered to be foreign translations directly from the KJV.
Conclusion
One situation in which a translation directly from English might be justified, is in cases where a missionary with no knowledge of original languages desperately needs to translate the Bible into a dialect neglected by translators familiar with the original languages. Organizations such as New Tribes Mission and Wycliffe Bible Translators may be involved in such matters, but they do not have a reputation for using the KJV exclusively, so any statistics they could provide should not be automatically considered to be foreign translations directly from the KJV.
At the time of this writing, I am only aware of 4-5 translations that I know for sure were translated directly from the King James Version. This includes a Spanish New Testament translated directly from the King James Version, but it is no longer in print and was overwhelmingly rejected by Spanish speakers. Although it is possible that more than 4-5 Bibles were translated directly from the KJV, no other specific documented examples could be located at the time of this writing. The fact that only one of the above authors provides a source for the supposed hundreds or thousands of times the KJV has been translated into other languages is cause for caution when considering the integrity of such figures.
The KJV is a good example of what a foreign translation should be like, but it should not be considered superior to Greek and Hebrew, as Peter Ruckman began to teach in the 1960’s.
Why not translate the KJV, bypassing Greek and Hebrew?
The thinking of some is that by translating from the KJV, all foreign translations will come from the exact same source and therefore there will be consistency across all Bible translations in other languages. Additionally, there would be no need to learn Greek and Hebrew. This may sound reasonable and appealing on the surface.
When there is no translation available, the need is great, and no one who is trained in Greek and Hebrew is coming forward to do a much-needed translation, a provisional translation of a translation would be proper. Translations of translations have been done in the past, apparently in scenarios as just stipulated, but these provisional translations were not always from English when bypassing Greek and Hebrew. That an English Bible was not always the basis of translation when bypassing Greek and Hebrew can be verified in such sources as The Bible of Every Land (1860) and Historical Catalogue of the Printed Editions of Holy Scripture in the Library of the British and Foreign Bible Society (1903).
Insisting on translating the Bible from English demeans the authority of the original languages.
The KJV translators in the preface to the 1611 edition of the KJV expressed the authority of the original language in the following manner:
If you ask what they had before them, truly it was the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, the Greek of the New. These are the two golden pipes, or rather conduits, where-through the olive branches empty themselves into the gold. … That “as the credit of the old Books” (he meaneth of the Old Testament) “is to be tried by the Hebrew Volumes, so of the New by the Greek tongue,” he meaneth by the original Greek. If truth be tried by these tongues, then whence should a Translation be made, but out of them? These tongues therefore, the Scriptures we say in those tongues, we set before us to translate, being the tongues wherein God was pleased to speak to his Church by the Prophets and Apostles.
Insisting on bypassing Greek and Hebrew is in line with the Ruckmanite view that the KJV is superior to Greek and Hebrew. Not all who promote translating the KJV into foreign languages are Ruckmanites, but many who insist seem inclined to such views.
Insisting on translating the Bible from English would invalidate about 99% of foreign-language Bibles in use.
We would have to start all over again. This would be highly disruptive and raise more questions than answers with those who have high confidence in their foreign translations.
All Bible translators would have to know English.
Greek and Hebrew would have to be dropped in seminaries and English taught instead. Admittedly English is more prevalent and learning one language is easier than two, but the easy route isn’t always right.
If the view was taken to its logical extent, Bibles for Greek and Hebrew speakers would have to be translated from English.
Paleo Hebrew and Koine Greek is not completely discernible to modern speakers of those languages, but a translation from an English Bible would be seen as highly insulting.
An insistence on translating from the KJV would have the effect of rendering invalid all English Reformation Bibles translated before 1611.
This is in spite of the fact that the KJV is basically a revision of the Bishop’s Bible, and about 80% of the KJV text matches Tyndale.
If the practice of translating from the KJV was taken to its logical extent, it would invalidate the KJV itself, as it was not translated from the KJV.
The ultimate example of a logical fallacy! Some of these last points are gratuitous, but they can serve to reveal whether a line of thinking is logical.
It is highly convenient for English-speakers to insist that the Bible that happens to be in their own language be the final authority for all other languages!
Foreign Bible believers will take notice that a translation done from English is being imposed on them. They are likely to rightfully question why they can’t have a translation straight from the original languages as the major languages of the world have had for hundreds of years.
Many people who insist that foreign Bibles must be translated from the KJV are not speaking a foreign language fluently themselves and do not have to live with the decisions they want to make for others, as they cannot even read from any foreign Bible, much less witness or preach from one.
I have spoken Spanish since infancy and have ministered in the Spanish language all my life. Some may pretend to place themselves momentarily in the shoes of someone who speaks a foreign language, but in my case, and for billions of souls around the globe, there is no pretending; it is real life.
There are some missionaries who unfortunately go to the mission field with the attitude that “these people have an awful Bible and we are going to straighten it out for them with our King James!”
The English language cannot always reproduce all the nuances of a particular Greek or Hebrew word or phrase.
The preface to Young’s Literal Translation informs us that the Hebrew verb nathan is rendered by KJV translators 67 different ways (if we include 17 varieties in idiomatic renderings, the total reaches 84)! The general meaning of this Hebrew word is “give.” To give the KJV the benefit of the doubt for having translated it as 67 different words, Strong’s definition does state “used with great latitude of application”.
Young’s Literal Translation further informs us that the English verb destroy is, in the KJV, the representative of not less than 49 different Hebrew words! Said another way, 49 different Hebrew words in the Old Testament were translated as only one English word in the KJV.
When a term is equivocal in Greek or Hebrew, and the context is ambiguous, if the closest equivalent in the language being translated into is unequivocal, it creates a conundrum for the translator.
Another observation from the preface to Young’s Literal Translation:
That the Hebrews were in the habit of using the past tense to express the “certainty” of an action taking place, even though the action might not really be performed for some time. And that the Hebrews, in referring to events which might be either “past” or “future” were accustomed to act on the principle of transferring themselves mentally to the period and place of the events themselves, and were not content with coldly viewing them as those of a bygone or still coming time; hence the very frequent use of the “present” tense.
There are nuances in the Greek and Hebrew that are virtually untranslatable to English without excessive verbiage. However, some of those same nuances may be perfectly translatable in some other languages without issues. Some languages may be able to follow the syntax and nuances of Greek and Hebrew closer than English.
Quite often a term in one language will be equivocal (ambiguous, non-specific) while the closest equivalent in another language will necessarily be unequivocal (specific, unambiguous). Case in point. Techo in Spanish is equivocal, because it does not specify ceiling or roof; it can mean either/or. Sometimes the ambiguous context in which techo is used does not reveal whether ceiling or roof is meant. However, the common terms used in English (ceiling and roof) are unequivocal compared to Spanish, as they specify interior or exterior. Another example, this time with a Spanish word that is unequivocal. Cabello is specific to the hair on the top of one’s head. In English we say hair, but it is equivocal in comparison to Spanish, because it does not specify the location of the hair on the body. Spanish does have an equivocal term for hair, pelo.
A translation done from English is not likely to result in a Bible in a native tongue that has the beauty, rhythm, and cadence that the language deserves.
What makes the KJV a masterpiece of the English language would not necessarily make it so when translated in another language.
Translating the KJV into another language that already had original language translations has been attempted before.
In the 1980’s a missionary by the name of Bernard McVey translated the KJV New Testament into Spanish. That few copies were printed (due to apparent low demand) seems evident by the fact that it took me over 20 years to locate a copy. Spanish speaking believers rejected it overwhelmingly. Most are unaware it ever existed, including Spanish-speaking believers who were active in the Lord’s work when it came out. The KJV Old Testament was never translated to Spanish, as there was no demand for it. The Spanish McVey New Testament translated from the KJV was a total fiasco.
Misunderstanding the 400-year-old vocabulary of the KJV could lead to extremely awkward translations in other languages.
Someone translating from the KJV into another language bypassing the Greek and Hebrew altogether could seriously misinterpret some old English words, despite good intentions. For example, take the word “reins” in the KJV OT (Psa. 139:13 “For thou hast possessed my reins…” et al). The underlying Hebrew term refers to kidneys, and metaphorically to the seat of the emotions. It is spelled identical to “reins,” the straps used by riders to control their horses. If a translator understood reins as straps used to control horses, his resultant translation would be considerably mistaken.
An example is the word “nephew” in the KJV (found twice, Job 18:19 and Isa. 14:22), which in Elizabethan English meant “grandson,” which is also the meaning of the underlying word in the original languages. If the translator is unaware of this, and translates the KJV word as “nephew” in the receptor language, he will produce a translation that does not accurately represent the original languages.
A real-life example is the term Holy Ghost (which is not different than Holy Spirit in Greek) as Fantasma Santo in the New Testament Bernard McVey attempted from the KJV to Spanish. There is no exact equivalent for the term Holy Ghost in Spanish, so he used a term that would be as ridiculous as “Holy Spook” in English.
McVey translated Romans 2:11 as “Porque no hay respeto de personas para con Dios,” which in Spanish sounds like God does not respect anyone. The Greek word underlying “respect” is partiality or favoritism.
McVey translated “we fetched a compass” as “buscamos un compás,” as if it referred to a physical compass.
Acts 28:13 And from thence we fetched a compass, and came to Rhegium: and after one day the south wind blew, and we came the next day to Puteoli.
More examples of Elizabethan English that could cause mistranslations into other languages
| KJV word | Meaning in original languages and Elizabethan English (depending on context; occasional exceptions may apply) |
| meat | bread or food |
| prevent | before |
| quick | alive |
| conversation | manner of living |
| invention | device |
| let | hinder |
| corn | grains |
| quit | behave |
The complication of italics
Italics in the KJV are another matter. Normally they represent places where the KJV translators had to add extra English words not found in the original language. It is often necessary to add extra words during translation from any language to another to preserve syntax and coherence. In this scenario, italics are for words not found in the original languages but found to be necessary in English. Those same words would not necessarily be needed in another language.
Many do not realize that italics in the KJV have been inconsistent between editions and even between modern KJV publishers.
(Dore, J. R. Old Bibles. 1888, p. 340)
The matter of which exact words are determined to have been added that were not present in the source language can be quite subjective. Italics seem to also have been utilized to signify places where the KJV translators chose to be a little creative in their translation. Some cases of italics in the KJV seem to go beyond the usual.
Notice these phrases in italics that are longer than usual:
- 16:10 “unto the Lord thy God”
- 2 Sm. 5:8 “he shall be chief and captain”
- 2 Sm. 23:8 “he lifted up his spear”
- Mark 13:34. “For the Son of man is”
- 1 Jn. 2:23 “but he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also.” 10 words in italics.
Concluding thought
Do Christians dependent on foreign translations not read their Bibles with a believing heart and do their preachers not preach with authority? As a missionary kid and then a second-generation missionary, I have likely heard more sermons delivered in Spanish than in English. I would venture to say that in my personal experience, the preaching in both languages from the KJV and Reina-Valera overall was about equal in passion and authority, although with much greater responses during gospel invitations after preaching in Spanish.
Endnotes
[1] Bradley, William. To All Generations. Self-published, no date. p. 70
[2] Grady, William. Final Authority. Schererville, Indiana: Grady Publications, 1993, p. 174
[3] http://members.aol.com/AVBibleTAB/av/gbook.htm Accessed February 14, 2006
[4] http://members.citynet.net/morton/kjv4.htm Accessed February 14, 2006
[5] Carter, Mickey. Things that are Different are not the Same. Haines City, FL. Landmark Baptist
Press, 1993, p. 84
[6] Fuller, David Otis (editor). Which Bible? Grand Rapids International Publications, Grand Rapids, MI, 5th
Edition, 1987, p. 317.
[7] Streeter, Lloyd. Seventy-Five Problems. First Baptist Church of LaSalle, 2001, p. 252
[8] Riplinger, Gail. In Awe of Thy Word, Av Publications, 2003, pp. 991-992. The author characterized a quote from a publication of the American Bible Society as if they had ordered new foreign Bibles be translated from the KJV. To the contrary, see Strickland, William Peter. History of the American Bible Society: From Its Organization to the Present Time. 1850, Harper & Row, pp. 154-155.
[9] Ruckman, Peter. The Christian’s Handbook of Biblical Scholarship, Pensacola: Bible Baptist
Bookstore, 1988, p. 18
[10] Ruckman, Peter. The Christian’s Handbook of Biblical Scholarship, Pensacola: Bible Baptist
Bookstore, 1988, p. 170
[11] Ruckman, Peter. The History of the New Testament Church, Pensacola: Bible Baptist
Bookstore, 1984, Vol. 1, pg. 390
[12] Ruckman, Peter. The Christian Liar’s Library, Pensacola: Bible Baptist Bookstore, 1997, p. 186
[13] Ruckman, Peter. “Destroyed for Lack of Knowledge” Bible Believer’s Bulletin. January 2006, p. 9
[14] Ruckman, Peter. “The Horrible Holy Bible” Bible Believer’s Bulletin. April 2006, p. 5.
[15] Ruckman, Peter. The Christian’s Handbook of Manuscript Evidence. 1997, p. 189
[16] Ruckman, Peter. “Manners, Methods, Ways, Means, And Identifying Marks” Bible Believer’s Bulletin. Dec. 1980, p. 4.
[17] Ruckman, Peter. What Saith the Scriptures? Pensacola: BB Bookstore, 1994, p. 37.
[18] Ruckman, Peter. The Alexandrian Cult, Part Six, 1981, p. 30.
[19] http://wcbible.org/documents/thewordofgod.pdf Accessed April 11, 2009
[20] Churchill, Winston. A History of the English-Speaking Peoples. Vol. 2 The New World, 1959, Dood, Mead & Company, 1959, pp. 153-154.
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