The New King James Version (NKJV) is a modern Bible translation, published by Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Anglicized edition was originally known as the Revised Authorised Version, but the NKJV title is now used universally. The NKJV New Testament was printed in 1979 and the complete Bible in 1982. The aim of its translators was to update the vocabulary and grammar of the King James Version, while preserving the classic style and beauty of the 1611 version. Although it uses substantially the same Hebrew and Greek texts as the original KJV, it indicates where other manuscripts differ. The efforts of translating the books of the Bible from the original languages it was written in has spanned for over two millenia. ... The Bible has been translated into many languages. ... A number of Old English Bible translations were prepared in mediaeval England, translations of parts of the Bible into the Old English language. ... Folio 27r from the Lindisfarne Gospels contains the incipit from the Gospel of Matthew. ... The age of Middle English was not a fertile time for Bible translations but saw the first major translation that of John Wyclif. ... Wyclifs Bible is the name now given to a group of Bible translations into Middle English, that were made under the direction of, or at the instigation of, John Wyclif. ... Early Modern English Bible translations are those translations of the Bible which were made between about 1500 and 1800, the period of Early Modern English. ... William Tyndale (sometimes spelled Tindale) (ca. ... Myles Coverdale (also Miles Coverdale) (c1488 - January 20, 1568) was a 16th-century Bible translator who produced the first complete printed translation of the Bible into English. ... Matthews Bible, also known as the Matthew Bible, is the first complete English translation of the Bible (not just the Old Testament or New Testament) published in 1537 under the pseudonym Thomas Matthew. The Matthew Bible was the combined work of three individuals, working from numerous sources in at... Taverners Bible, more correctly called The Most Sacred Bible whiche is the holy scripture, conteyning the old and new testament, translated into English, and newly recognized with great diligence after most faythful exemplars by Rychard Taverner, is a minor revision of Matthews Bible edited by Richard Taverner and... The Great Bible was the first authorised edition of the Holy Bible in English, authorised by King Henry VIII of England to be read aloud in the church services of the Church of England. ... The Geneva Bible was a Protestant translation of the Holy Bible into English. ... The Bishops Bible was an English translation of the Holy Bible produced under the authority of the established Church of England in 1568. ... The Douai Bible, also known as the Rheims-Douai Bible or Douay-Rheims Bible, is a Catholic translation of the Holy Bible from the Latin Vulgate into English. ... The King James Version (KJV) is an English translation of the Holy Bible, commissioned for the benefit of the Church of England at the behest of King James I of England. ... There are many attempts to translate the Bible into modern English which is defined as the form of English in use after 1800. ... The Holy Bible in Modern English, commonly known as the Ferrar Fenton Bible, was one of the earliest translations of the Bible into modern English. ... Categories: Literature stubs | Bible versions and translations | Quakerism ... Charles Thompsons Translation is a very rare direct translation of the Greek Septuagint version of the Hebrew Scriptures. ... Noah Websters 1833 limited revision of the King James Bible focused mainly on replacing archaic words. ... Youngs Literal Translation is a nineteenth-century translation of the Bible made by Robert Young, author of the Analytical Concordance to the Bible. ... The Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible, also called the Inspired Version of the Bible or the JST, is a version of the Bible dictated by Joseph Smith, Jr. ... This was the first complete Bible translation by a woman. ... The Revised Version (or English Revised Version) of the Bible is a late 19th-century British revision of the King James Version of 1611. ... The Standard American Edition, Revised Version, more commonly known as the American Standard Version (ASV), is a version of the Bible that was released in 1901. ... The Jewish Publication Society of America Version of the Jewish Bible (i. ... The Revised Standard Version (RSV) is an English translation of the Bible that was popular in the mid-20th century and posed a serious challenge to the King James Version (KJV) as the most popular Bible in English. ... The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (NWT) is a modern-language translation of the Bible published by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc. ... The Jerusalem Bible is a Catholic translation of the Bible which first was introduced to the English-speaking public in 1966. ... Formally titled The Holy Bible from Ancient Eastern Manuscripts (ISBN 0060649232), the Lamsa Bible (which it is commonly called, after its editor, George M. Lamsa) first appeared in 1933. ... In 1970 the New American Bible was first published. ... The New English Bible (NEB) is a Bible translation jointly produced in 1970 by Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press. ... The New American Standard Bible (NASB) is a translation of the Bible. ... The New Jewish Publication Society of America Version of the Jewish Bible (i. ... The New International Version (NIV) is an English translation of the Christian Bible. ... The Recovery Version The New Testament Recovery Version is an English translation of the New Testament of the Holy Bible by the so-called local churches. First published in 1985 by The Living Stream Ministry, the Recovery Version of the New Testament was created in response to the publishers of... The English Standard Version (ESV) is an English translation of the Holy Bible. ... The Holman Christian Standard Bible is an English-language Bible translation, first published with the complete Old and New Testaments in March 2004. ... The Anchor Bible Series is a scholarly and commercial co-venture that has been setting a high standard since 1956, when individual volumes of the series began publication. ... The NET Bible ® (acronym for New English Translation) is a free, on-line English translation of the Bible, funded by the Biblical Studies Foundation. ... The World English Bible (also known as WEB) is a public domain translation of the Bible that is currently in draft form. ... The Orthodox Study Bible is a translation of the Christian Bible currently in production by the Orthodox Church. ... The holy Jewish scripture: The Torah. ... Translation is an activity comprising the interpretation of the meaning of a text in one language — the source text — and the production of a new, equivalent text in another language — called the target text, or the translation. ... This page is about the version of the Bible; for the Harvey Danger album, see King James Version (album). ... Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken by 6 million people mainly in Israel, parts of the Palestinian territories, the United States and by Jewish communities around the world. ...

The New King James Version is a revision of the King James Version that does not make any alterations on the basis of the Greek New Testament or Hebrew Old Testament texts established by modern scholarship, but adheres to the readings presumed to underlie the King James Version. The revisers have also sought to follow the principles of translation used in the original King James Version, which the NKJV revisers call "complete equivalence" in contrast to "dynamic equivalence." The New Testament, sometimes called the Greek Testament or Greek Scriptures is the name given to the part of the Christian Bible that was written after the birth of Jesus. ... The Old Testament or the Hebrew Scriptures (also called the Hebrew Bible) constitutes the first major part of the Bible according to Christianity. ...

The NKJV translation project, which was conceived by Arthur Farstad, was inaugurated in 1975 with two meetings (Nashville and Chicago) of 68 interested persons, most of them prominent Baptists but also including some conservative Presbyterians. The men who were invited to these meetings prepared the guidelines for the NKJV.

The task of updating the English of the KJV involved significant changes in word order, grammar, vocabulary, and spelling. One of the most significant features of the NKJV was its abandonment of the second person pronouns “thou,” “ye,” “thy,” and “thine.” Verb forms were also modernized in the NKJV (for example, "speaks" rather than "speaketh").

One major criticism of the NKJV is that it is rendered in a language that no one has ever really spoken. By maintaining much of the Elizabethan structure and syntax of the KJV (an intentional effect on the part of the revisers, who intended for a reader to be able to follow along in one version as the other version is read aloud), the NKJV at times has been accused of putting modern words into archaic orders. Unlike the English Revised and American Standard Versions, which sought to take advantage of modern scholarship but left the overall text worded in archaic Elizabethan language, the NKJV sounds neither Elizabethan nor particularly modern. The Revised Version (or English Revised Version) of the Bible is a late 19th-century British revision of the King James Version of 1611. ... The Standard American Edition, Revised Version, more commonly known as the American Standard Version (ASV), is a version of the Bible that was released in 1901. ...

A second major criticism involves the fact that it is based, as noted above, solely upon the ancient texts available during the time of King James and not on earlier manuscripts and documents which have since been discovered. Since these manuscripts, most of which reflect an Alexandrian text-type, are argued by most of today's scholars to be more reliable, the NKJV's adherence to the Textus Receptus seems to many to violate the spirit of open scholarship and open inquiry, and to ascribe a level of perfection to the documents available to the 17th century scholars that they would have not claimed for them. (Regarding this point see David Dewey, A User's Guide to Bible Translations, pp. 162-3, where he quotes strong criticism of the NKJV's textual basis by Steven Sheeley and Robert Nash.) NKJV supporters note that alternative readings based on other texts do appear as footnotes, though this is unlikely to placate those who feel that the "Johannine Comma" (at 1 John 5:7), for example, is not a legitimate portion of scripture and should not be treated as such. James VI of Scotland and I of England (Charles James) (19 June 1566–27 March 1625) was a King who ruled over England, Scotland and Ireland, and was the first Sovereign to reign in the three realms simultaneously. ... The Alexandrian text-type (also called Neutral or Egyptian) is a group of early manuscripts of the New Testament in the original Greek. ... Textus Receptus (Latin: received text) is the name given to the first Greek language text of the New Testament to be printed with movable type. ... (16th century - 17th century - 18th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 17th century was that century which lasted from 1601-1700. ... (Redirected from 1 John) The First Epistle of John is a book of the Bible New Testament. ...

Adherents of the so-called "King-James-Only Movement," on the other hand, see the New King James Version as something less than a true successor to the 1611 version. Such supporters argue that, because the NKJV makes scores of changes to the meaning of the 1611 translators, it is not a simple "updating" but actually constitutes a new version. To take just one example, Acts 17:22, in which Paul in the KJV calls the men of Athens "too superstitious," is changed in the NKJV to have the apostle call them "very religious," consistent with the rendering of most contemporary versions. Because of this, staunch supporters of the 1611 version do not feel that the NKJV is an acceptable substitute. One example of a criticism along these lines is provided by M.H. Reynolds. The so-called King-James-Only Movement is a position within Protestant fundamentalist Christianity of English-speaking countries, which rejects all modern translations of the Bible, and accepts only the King James Version (KJV). ... The Acts of the Apostles (Greek Praxeis Apostolon) is a book of the Bible, which now stands fifth in the New Testament. ...

At the same time, many churches and evangelical groups have embraced the NKJV as an acceptable compromise between the original KJV and a Bible with more contemporary wording.

Online text of the NKJV

• Bible Gateway.com provides information on NKJV and links to the text of each chapter.

Further reading

• Dewey, David, 2004. A User's Guide to Bible Translations. ISBN 0830832734