There have been a great many attempts to "update" the King James Version of the Bible, including the "New King James Version" published by Thomas Nelson, the "21st Century King James Version" from KJ21 Bible Publishers of Gary, South Dakota, and Ray Comfort's modest revision in his "Evidence Bible." I found another updating at a local Dollar Tree Store recently, a New Testament billed on its title page as "AV7, The New Authorized Version in Present-Day English." Here is the website of this publication, which at this writing is not all that loaded with detailed information like sample chapters and other things one might reasonably expect.
The "Introduction" in this volume (which is given on the AV7 website in PDF format; due to the way the site is laid out, direct linking to most pages isn't possible) states that "among the great number of different versions of the Bible in print, many use interpretive paraphrasing that may dilute, diminish, or misrepresent the full truth of the Word of God . . . . AV7 is different. It is not a product of commercial sponsorship or the result of any individual's or committee's interpretation of what the Word of God says. Instead, AV7 is a present-day English update of the traditional English text that stood for more than 300 years as the most widely accepted, literally accurate English language translation of the Bible."
We also read in a section at the back of the book ("How the AV7 text was compiled") that "AV7 is a computer-generated, updated, and enhanced presentation of the Bible" and that it was "compiled by an automated system that is able to perform translations directly from Greek and Hebrew original language sources into word-for-word, direct equivalent English. The resulting literal translation is then fine-tuned through seven levels of processing to produce an accurate yet easy-to-read, present-day English text...."
Frankly, this impression of an automated retranslation of the KJV strikes me as rather weird. I suppose the intention is good--to present the "AV7" as something uncorrupted by human translators who might insert their own second-guessing into the updating (as clearly happened in the case of the NKJV, which turned out to be neither a true KJV update nor a new translation but sort of straddles the line between). But the very idea of a computerized translation of Scripture 'untouched by human hands'--if that is what the AV7's publishers are claiming this to be--is ridiculous. Anyone who has ever worked with translation software knows that computers alone cannot pick up all the nuances and senses involved in converting one language to another. And obviously the greatest translations of all, including the KJV, have all been performed by humans.
And when one picks up this "AV7," one is left with some significant concerns about the way it has altered the text of the KJV. We can see this in looking at some passages in the Third Epistle of John. Verse 3 of this epistle in the 1611 KJV reads, "For I rejoiced greatly, when the brethren came and testified of the truth that is in thee, even as thou walkest in the truth." AV7 presents this as "For I rejoiced greatly when the family came and testified of the truth that is in you, even as you walk in the truth" (emphasis mine).
One has to ask on what basis the Greek word adelphos (G80 in Strong's Concordance) has been changed in most passages from "brethren" (KJV) to "family" (AV7)? It appears that the idea was to be gender-inclusive (much the same reason that AV7 gives in Matt. 7:3 "the speck that is in your brother's or sister's eye"--adding in italics the words "or sister's" which are of course nowhere in the Greek). But in many cases, the substitution completely destroys the intended meaning and produces absurdity, as at Acts 3:17 & 22, where AV7 has (italics theirs here and afterwards): "Now family, I know that it was through ignorance..." and "The Lord your God will raise up a prophet to you, like me, from among your family...." While I do not claim any kind of proficiency in Greek, I can see enough to know that the original text cannot be subjected to such rough handling, "politically correct" though it may seem, and still retain its integrity. The present book of 3 John also shows this destructive change of "brethren" to "family" at verses 5 and 10.
Verse 7 in AV7 begins "It was for His name that they went forth...." This destroys the connection between verses 6 and 7, which in KJV clearly depend on each other: "...whom if thou bring forward on their journey after a godly sort, thou shalt do well: Because that for his name's sake they went forth..." (emphasis added). This agrees with the Greek where verse 7 begins "huper gar" (Strong's G5228 and 1063, respectively). Someone's computer must not have been working very well when this passage was run through the "automated system"!
Verse 9 has in AV7 has "I wrote to the assembly, but Diotrephes, who takes pleasure in having preeminence among them, does not receive us." Did the Greek word ekklesia (Strong's G1577) really need to be changed from "church" (KJV) to "assembly"? This seems like change simply for the sake of being different.
In the next chapter, which is the Epistle of Jude, verse 4 in the KJV begins "For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation...." AV7 makes this into men who were "long ago written off as ungodly men." The Greek word rendered "ordained" (KJV) is prographo (Strong's G4270), which actually means according to A.T. Robertson's Word Pictures (note on Gal. 3:1) "to write beforehand, to set forth by public proclamation, to placard, to post up." AV7's "written off" gives a very different idea, like that of balancing a ledger, which appears to be foreign to the original text--at best, a paraphrase.
Other examples could be given, but I trust this is sufficient to show that AV7, well-intended though it may be, is not the reliable and trustworthy update of the KJV its publishers would like it to be. And when the printed edition gives the gospels out of their canonical order (in the sequence John, Matthew, Mark, Luke), for no explained reason that I could find, the impression that is reinforced to me (and, I think, will be reinforced to most readers) is of a publication that is willing to make ill-advised and frivolous changes in the KJV, both textually and even in its sequence of books.
In short, I am not tremendously impressed by this publication. And, while I have no reason to think that the publishers are anything but sincere in presenting AV7, I don't think it will prove very useful for any kind of serious Bible study.
UPDATE, 10/19/06: I received an anonymous e-mail a week ago from someone claiming to be from the foundation that publishes AV7, which three days later they uploaded (slightly rewritten) to their website as their "response" to this informal blog post. They also linked to it from the (very neutral) Wikipedia article I started on their version after writing the above post.
Tonight I put up my response to their response. (Warning: Lengthy! But that was unavoidable in order to respond to all the important and semi-important claims they made.)
(Link above to my response updated 10/15/08 on occasion of moving to new domain.)
