Repercussions
Under careful scrutiny, then, J. Reuben Clark's justifications of the King James Bible do not fare well. While the various points of excellence of the Authorized Version ought not be treated lightly, to insist on it as an official version guarantees significant misunderstanding (or non-understanding) by ordinary Saints. Moreover, although Clark held his views passionately, he was literally the first to admit his opinions were personal. The initial words of Why the King James Version were: "For this book I alone am responsible. It is not a Church publication."
Yet President Clark held an exceedingly prominent position in Mormondom. Despite his own disavowal, there were inevitably many who believed his words represented God's opinion on the issues, especially since some other Church officials actively supported his views. In addition, President Clark was unusually erudite. Because of his forcefulness, making it seem that to abandon the King James translation in favor of another was to abandon one's faith, and perhaps also because no one of influence and competence publicly presented an alternative view, his book galvanized conservative impulses among the Saints and quickly acquired a quasi-official aura. Virtually all subsequent apologies for the Authorized Bible depended primarily on President Clark or used similar arguments less ably than he.
On rare occasions, leaders have offered reasons for continued KJV usage that Clark did not call upon. Joseph Fielding Smith, for example, suggested the Authorized Version was retained because it was accepted by most Protestants, providing "common ground for proselyting purposes." President Smith's assertion was perfectly true in the 1950s when he wrote and therefore, quite apart from Clark's reasoning, the KJV was a logical choice for the Saints if proselyting, rather than scriptural understanding or scriptural accuracy, was the controlling criterion. However, even if we were to accept this rationale, it becomes less true with each passing year. By 1979, when the Church produced its new edition of the Authorized Bible, only 34.8 percent of American homes used the KJV as their primary Bible. This is actually an impressive figure and proves that the KJV is still the popular choice among U.S. Protestants. But its dominance is waning; it no longer represents "the majority of Protestants." And what of the country's fifty million Catholics?
In recent years, LDS religious educators have not usually borrowed the slightly more developed defenses offered contemporarily by the few fundamentalist scholars who continue to push the Textus Receptus. Instead, they have tended to cite J. Reuben Clark or use his logic and to augment his uniquely Mormon argument that Joseph Smith's modern revelations verify the accuracy of the KJV.
One teacher compares many passages where he feels modern translations obscure "doctrines of the Restoration," whereas KJV language "triggers" them. For instance, the "dispensation of the fulness of times" (Eph. 1:10) has a very specific Restorationist meaning for most Latter-day Saints. Therefore, translating the Greek phrase behind it as "when the time is right" or "when the time fully comes," as some scholars do, mars a proof-text for a popular Mormon concept and abandons "unique terminology seemingly preferred by God." This approach, like President Clark's, ignores the fact that all sorts of popular illusions are based precisely on this process, which allows -- forces -- theology to depend on incidental KJV phraseology rather than on the genuine intent of the original authors or on some other basis. As a result (to stay with the same example), the KJV translation of Ephesians 1:10 helps confine Mormon thought to an early 19th-century dispensational mind-set popularized by John Nelson Darby of the Plymouth Brethren.
Another LDS writer uses Joseph Smith's modern revelations to verify the accuracy of the KJV from a slightly different angle. He notes that the Prophet translated the Book of Mormon and recorded his own revelations in the idiom of the KJV. The writer goes on to suggest that this style must be preferred by God, since Smith's successor prophets have continued to record revelations in the same idiom. He cites as "obvious illustrations" Doctrine and Covenants 135, 136, and 138 by John Taylor, Brigham Young, and Joseph F. Smith respectively. Because of this continued use of KJV language, he writes, the clear "intent is that [all scripture] be woven together as one book.”
This line of thought gives little weight to the probability that Joseph Smith cast his revelations in KJV idiom because, raised on the KJV, he (unconsciously?) equated it with religious terminology. But he did the same thing with early accounts of his first vision, yet greatly lessened the tendency in later accounts (particularly the one now canonized), as his confidence in his prophetic calling grew. And Brigham Young, who thought his sermons "as good scripture as . . . this Bible," did not preach in KJV idiom. Furthermore, of the three "obvious illustrations" cited to show the necessary continuance of King James English, only D&C 136 is clearly created in the image of the KJV. Section 138 uses transitional language, retaining heavy vestiges of Elizabethan style because the section is an inspired commentary on and expansion of certain KJV passages. But the section itself is not unambiguously in KJV form. Section 135 is manifestly not in Jacobean idiom; it retains only slight traces of the KJV simply because of its biblical subject matter.
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