Is the Language in the KJV Difficult & Archaic? In the 1990s, Gail Riplinger,a college professor and educator, in the course of researching the King James Bible Controversy decided to apply a test of 'readability' to the King James. Many persons had stated the untested notion that because the King James Bible is written in older English, that it is very difficult to understand, necessitating the presumed 'easier' English in the Modern Bibles. She took a test called the xx-xxxx, and ran portions of the KJV through the test.note 1 The results were very surprising: the language in the King James actually scored at a more readable level for most people than passages from the 'modern' Bibles such as the NIV and NASV. While the King James Bible contains about 400 'archaic words which are not used or not used frequently today, and many words with an 'eth' ending instead of 'ed' or es, the majority level came out easier to read than the modern language Bibles. Part of this is because the new Bibles were often pieced together by committee members working separately at first, and with scholarly backgrounds, who translated off the Alexandrian instead of the Historical texts. The syntax, or word order in sentences, is more complex in the new Bibles than in the King James. He Readeth and Comprehendeth: Archaic endings Words no longer in Use Modern is not 'Easier' KJV SELECTION II. THE TRANSMISSION OF TWO BIBLES III.THE BIBLE FOR THE COMMON MAN- 'FIDEISM' or 'FIDES ET RATIO' IV. TISCHENDORF AND THE "OLDEST AND MOST RELIABLE" SOURCES:CREDIBILITY V. THE GREEK AND THE HEBREW VI. THE VATICAN AND THE SCRIPTURES VII. THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN BIBLES "Does a Rose by any other name smell as sweet...? VIII. WESTCOTT, HORT, & BURGON: UNHOLY OR HOLY HANDS ON THE BIBLE? IX.DID GOD KEEP HIS WORD? THE ISSUE OF SOVEREIGNTY & PRESERVATION X. COMMON ARGUMENTS: EASIER TO READ? The JEWS, IN OTHER WORDS NOTE 1: If you have Microsoft Word on your computer, you can run a simplified version of a readability test even on what you write. First go to Tools and under options, choose the tab "spelling and grammar". There is a checkbox for 'run readability test'. Then, when you spell and grammar check a document, one of the categories will be readability. It is the result of the reading level of the material you have just checked using the Flesch-Kincaid test of readability. For general public use, the level should be about 8th grade. Previous Study Next Study