The Story of Our King James Bible 19 th Century (Part 2)

Joseph Smith made his own edition of the KJV Joseph Smith taught Latter- day Saints that it was “apparent that many important points touching the salvation of men, had been taken from the Bible or lost before it was compiled

He finished it in 1844 It was published in 1866 by the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Now: The Community of Christ) The “mainline” Mormons recognize it as an “enlightened commentary,” Altogether, Smith changed or added 3410 verses

And it came to pass, that the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Behold, I reveal unto you concerning this heaven and this earth; write the words which I speak. I am the Beginning and the End; the Almighty God. By mine Only Begotten I created these things. Yea, in the beginning I created the Heaven, and the earth up which thou standest. And the earth was without form, and void; and I caused darkness to come up upon the face of the deep.

Bible Distribution The 19 th century saw the formation of Bible societies; their goal was to get as many Bibles as possible into peoples’ hands. The first was formed in 1804 It distributed KJV’s that included the Apocrypha This led to other societies that didn’t print it By 1884 over 100 million Bibles were distributed

During the 19 th century The King James began to be viewed as the “high water mark” of the English language For the first time, its language was called “majestic” Which means that it was during the 19 th century that the King James Bible gained “separate” identities –Teaching religious truth –An example of literature

So you had men like Thomas Huxley praising the literary value of the KJV –He was called “Darwin’s bulldog,” and coined the word “agnostic” Frederick William Faber –Converted from Anglican to Roman Catholic –Claimed the KJV was “worshiped with a positive idolatry”

The 19 th century saw the first “inspired KJV” movement Inspiration was classified into 4 groups Verbal: the belief that every word was dictated by God Plenary: full; the collective meaning of the words is infallibly true Moral: the moral and religious teaching of the Bible is true Dynamic: writers used their own words to convey God’s thoughts