God’s promise to preserve his word

An argument is sometimes made that the KJV cannot be perfect because it is “only a translation.” An additional argument used against its trustworthiness is that the word of God was perfect “only in the original manuscripts.”

It will be remembered that as we do not have the original manuscripts, we must make do with copies. If a copy is intrinsically flawed then God has failed in his promise to preserve his word:

Psalm 12:6-7 (KJV) The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.

Assuming, then, that a copy may be perfect, the question arises as to whether a translation from one language to another can be perfect. A couple of points on this.

Firstly, God invented languages…

Genesis 11:5-9 (KJV) And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

…and God has the capability to reverse the process:

Zephaniah 3:9 (KJV) For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the LORD, to serve him with one consent.

Given this level of authority over languages, it may be assumed that God has the ability to have his word preserved in more than one language, or in any given one, as he sees fit.

Secondly, the original manuscripts themselves testify to the above point.

The original manuscript of the book of Acts was written in Greek, and yet it contains a translation of words spoken in Hebrew:

Acts 21:40-22:2 (KJV) And when he had given him licence, Paul stood on the stairs, and beckoned with the hand unto the people. And when there was made a great silence, he spake unto them in the Hebrew tongue, saying, Men, brethren, and fathers, hear ye my defence which I make now unto you. (And when they heard that he spake in the Hebrew tongue to them, they kept the more silence: and he saith,)

So the KJV is a translation, but it is not “only” a translation.

Multiple copies of God’s word

Furthermore, it is God’s plan to preserve more than one copy of his word. We see that there were at least two copies of the book of Isaiah available during Jesus’ earthly ministry, because Jesus read from one of them in the synagogue at Nazareth…

Luke 4:17 (KJV) And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,

…and the Ethiopian eunuch had another:

Acts 8:30 (KJV) And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest?