XV. AV Or NIV English

With the advent of the Internet and its effect on global business, the English language itself has become globalised on an ever-increasing scale.  It has been a primary medium through which the Word of God has spread during these last centuries of church history.  And, in these final days before Christ returns, this globalisation of English is an important aid in the carrying out of the Great Commission.  There are however a number of reasons why the AV and its English remains better suited as a vehicle for divine revelation in these last days.

While the AV English is different, it is not difficult.  It is an evidence of God's providence that after four centuries, so little can be found to be archaic to the point of not being understood.  Certainly there is a big difference between the Elizabethan English of that day and current English.  The AV, however, is not Elizabethan English!  As a comparison will show, there is a great difference between AV English and the wordy, affectatious Elizabethan style.

Far from our Bible being a product of that day's literary style, the English language after 1611 owes its development to the Authorized Version!  “The King James Version was a landmark in the development of English prose.  Its elegant yet natural style had enormous influence on English-speaking writers.” (World Book Encyclopedia).  This partially explains why the AV is ever fresh and lucid while most else from that period is very difficult to read.

Edward Hills speaks on the misconception that the English of the AV is Elizabethan:

The English of the King James Version is not the English of the early 17th century. To be exact, it is not a type of English that was ever spoken anywhere. It is biblical English, which was not used on ordinary occasions even by the translators who produced the King James Version.  As H. Wheeler Robinson (1940) pointed out, one need only compare the preface written by the translators with the text of their translation to feel the difference in style.  And the observations of W.A. Irwin (1952) are to the same purport.  The King James Version, he reminds us, owes its merit, not to 17th-century English - which was very difficult - but to its faithful translation of the original.   Its style is that of the Hebrew and of the New Testament Greek.  Even in their use of thee and thou, the translators were not following 17th-century English usage but biblical usage, for at the time these translators were doing their work these singular forms had already been replaced by the plural you in polite conversation. (The King James Version Defended, pp. 218, emphasis mine).

In 1604 when James I authorised preparations for a new English version of the Bible, a watershed was reached not only in the history of Bible translation, but of the history of the English language itself.