Hello XXXXX,

You ask some good questions.

Questions:
the KJV translators did not have complete copies of the OT in Hebrew. Much of their work was done from second-hand Greek and Latin texts. Can it, then, always be trusted?

What are your feelings about the KJV?

Answer:
The KJV translators had as complete a copy of the Old Testament as everyone, including the Jews, have today, in fact they match. No one has newer or better copies. The translators worked from the Hebrew, and Greek manuscrips, as well as all of the English translations which preceded it, and The copies made over thousands of years were so accurate that when a full copy of the book of Isaiah was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and was compared to a copy known to be made 1000 years later, I read that the only difference was one accent mark missing.

Now let us look at what God Himself thinks about the quality, and value, and importance, of a copy as opposed to the original writing.

God has Jeremiah to write down in a book or scroll, all the words that God has told him.

Jeremiah 36:2, 4 "Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee against Israel, and against Judah, and against all the nations from the day I spake unto thee, from the days of Josiah, even unto this day. (4). Then Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah: and Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the Lord, which he had spoken unto him, upon a roll of a book."

This is the first original copy, and was then destroyed

Jeremiah 36:23 "And it came to pass, that when Jehudi had read three or four leaves, he cut it with the penknife, and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth, until all the roll was consumed in the fire that was on the hearth."

The first original is no more. Then God tells Jeremiah to write the scroll again

Jeremiah 36:28, 32 "Take thee again another roll, and write in it all the former words that were in the first roll, which Jehoiakim the king of Judah hath burned. (32). Then took Jeremiah another roll, and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah; who wrote therein from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the book which Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire: and there were added besides unto them many like words."

We now have a copy of the first scroll, (every word of the first scroll is still there,) and a little more added. Thus we have the second original, which is also destroyed by the command of God.

Jeremiah 51:63 "And it shall be, when thou hast made an end of reading this book, that thou shalt bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of Euphrates:"

We now have this copy destroyed. We can see that God Himself has absolutely no concern about keeping the originals, or even copies secure. But we are not done yet.

We find that the third copy of the original is still with us, for you will find this copy in the Bible itself. In Jeremiah chapters 45 through chapter 51, which tells us what was in the original scrolls. So we still have all the words that God gave to Jeremiah to write down. There has been nothing lost. Since we have what God said, and God thought that the original scrolls had no importance as long as we still have His Words, It would be foolish to attach an importance to the originals. There is not one original writing in existence today, but we do have accurate copies. How do we know they are accurate? We know it because God said that "Till heaven and earth pass, not one Jot or Tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled" (Matthew 5:18), that is the smallest part (we use the same word as iota) and the least particle of the letters.

From the Scriptures we can tell that those who tell us that the KJV translators didn't have the best copies, the latest copies, or had only inferior copies, and not the originals, etc. are just blowing smoke to hide , and to attempt to justify, what they are doing to Their versions of the Bible.

God's word tells us that there is ONLY ONE WORD of God. Yet every one of these so called new versions of the Bible are all different from the KJV and from each other, and are changed every time they reprint them. It is not a KJV verses any other version, It is a Word of God Issue, You find and follow the True Word of God and discard all the rest, for they are all counterfeit bibles. There can only be one that is the Word of God. The KJV 1611 has been proven by time as the Word of God. By it's use, souls are saved, revivals happen. The Word has not changed, regardless of what some claim. Satan would love to take you away from the Word of God, and has turned and twisted God's Words ever since the Garden of Eden.

Can the King James Bible of 1611 be Trusted?? It most certainly can!!!

Rev. Jack Barr