Skip to main content
Some links on this page are Amazon affiliate links. We may earn a small commission from qualifying purchases.

The LDS Church Flip-Flopped on the KJV

Image
By

Recently, the LDS church announced updated guidance on the "approved" list of Bible translation for use in local congregations, spanning both English and international language versions. You can find the specifics of this guidance in the LDS General Handbook.

The Updated Narrative

On January 6, 2026, an interview was hosted by BYU to highlight the updated LDS Bible recommendations:

Josh Sears, Associate Professor of Ancient Scripture

[L]anguage just keeps evolving. That's a natural thing. And that's nothing to be afraid of. That's just how language works. And we see out throughout history that as language gets of the scriptures gets too far removed from what people are speaking, there's always a need to update and modernize...

So, when the announcement came about the handbook updates that were going to be more flexible and allow for a variety of translations to work alongside the King James, it didn't really surprise me because to me this was aligned with this trajectory that we've had since the roots of the Restoration to make sure people can understand the scriptures.

The Old Guard

But how does Sear's confidence in the "trajectory that we've had since the roots of the Restoration" square with statements from past LDS leaders? Consider the following quotations:

Mark E. Petersen, 1966, As Translated Correctly

Quotations from ancient Jewish prophets appearing in the Book of Mormon are the most correct Old Testament passages in existence today. They were copied onto the gold plates directly from the plates of brass, and translated by the gift and power of God as a part of the Book of Mormon. And yet—these passages resemble the King James translation more than any other Bible version. This gives reason to believe that indeed the Lord did have a hand in the translation of the King James version...Not one of the modern versions can match the language of the brass plates quotations as the King James version does.

First Presidency Statement, 20 June, 1992

The most reliable way to measure the accuracy of any biblical passage is not by comparing different texts, but by comparison with the Book of Mormon and modern-day revelations.

While other Bible versions may be easier to read than the King James Version, in doctrinal matters latter-day revelation supports the King James Version in preference to other English translations. All of the Presidents of the Church, beginning with the Prophet Joseph Smith, have supported the King James Version by encouraging its continued use in the Church.

Dallin H. Oaks, April 3, 1993

When we address prayers to our Heavenly Father in English, our only available alternatives are the common words of speech like you and your or the dignified but uncommon words like thee, thou, and thy, which were used in the King James Version of the Bible almost five hundred years ago. Latter-day Saints, of course, prefer the latter. In our prayers we use language that is dignified and different, even archaic.

Pivot and a Caveat

The push to prioritize the KJV over other English translations was certainly not original to the Restoration, or it would not have been pushed so hard by conservative leaders of the 1950s and 60s. Unfortunately, the updated guidance seems to shoot the entire effort in the foot:

When members encounter doctrinal discrepancies between Bible translations, they should refer to the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, and teachings of latter-day prophets.

This presents a major problem: by placing the modern Bible translations as subordinate in interpretive authority to the other LDS canonical scriptures, this policy ends up preserving the outdated King James interpretation of the Bible, as a great deal of KJV passages and meanings are paraphrased or even copied verbatim into the Book of Mormon, which was written with the assumption that the KJV was the intended English rendering of the original Hebrew, and seems unaware of any other language to consider the Bible. Thus, the KJV will still be seen, albeit now covertly, as the "correct" translation, because it was the basis for Joseph Smith's imitation of Jacobian English as a prooftext for his prophetic authority.

"Seek Ye Out of the Best Books"

If you're interested in learning more about topics related to the LDS church and Biblical translations, check out the following resources:

Professor Benjamin Parks, YouTube: "Why Mormons LOVE the King James Version of the Bible"

Dan McClellan, YouTube: "What's the best translation of the Bible?"

Bible Gateway: The New Revised Standard Version

Category:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Peacemaker Summit and an Attempt to Silence Mormonism's Critics

By Mason
 An upcoming event called the Peacemaker Summit , organized by The Holy Rebellion , is being promoted as a gathering for faithful LDS creators. The organizing vision for this event is explicitly about displacing critics of the faith by flooding social media platforms with coordinated, high-volume pro-Mormon content. That goal deserves scrutiny. My initial reaction to the original video The Stated Aim: Outnumber the Critics Travis Lish and Christian Williams from The Holy Rebellion have been clear about their motivation. They believe critics of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints dominate online spaces and that faithful voices need to overwhelm that presence. The solution being proposed is to create enough volume to hide criticisms from search results.  ... our goal is 1 billion views per month  collectively  as Latter Day Saint creators. Imagine a world where when you search Mormon or LDS or Joseph Smith  across any platform, what you would see...
1 comment
Read

The "Mormon" Trademark is About to Expire

By Mason
 The request for Mormon Stories to rebrand has spread quickly through Mormon spaces. Followers learned that om November 14th 2025, the LDS Church had reached out with claims that the podcast was infringing on the “Mormon” trademark. The demand leaned on the legal idea that the Church owns the word.  The request was shared on social media by @mormstories, but those posts seem to have been removed. Fortunately, copies of the email were  shared on reddit. But there is a significant detail sitting behind this entire dispute. The Church will have to renew the "Mormon" trademark in the 2026 to 2027 window.  Source: USPTO database When that time comes, they must prove that they still use the word “Mormon” in active commerce. USPTO rules are clear on this point. A trademark only survives if the owner can show that it is still printed on actual goods or services that are still being sold or distributed. The official guidelines spell it out at uspto.gov under “ Keeping your r...
3 comments
Read

Mormon Blood and the Esther Cohen-Tizer-Epstein Letter

By Mason
With the recent release of nearly 3.5 million pages of the Epstein files, there have been several connections made regarding Jeffery Epstein paying tuition for several students at BYU. The most notable of which is presented in what is known as the Esther Cohen-Tizer-Epstien Letter.    Some are questioning the authenticity of the letter, but some clues seem to point us to a woman named   Esther Cohen .  Lets look at a few connections. Note that these connections are not an attempt at making any accusations and are simply connections made through publicly available information. I will be updating this page as I find more information. EFTA00129111  Reference to the Seven Bowls School of Nutrition From Esther's website: alchemyofnourishment.com She began studying nutrition as a teenager: Which also seems to align with her site. Alchemy of Nourishment Along with the claim of residing in Colorado Alchemy of Nourishment The final piece of the puzzle is a 2017 revi...
2 comments
Read

Where Did Joseph Smith Dig for Treasure?

By Mason
Before Joseph Smith was known as a prophet, he was known locally for treasure digging. An article written by Dan Vogel   mapped out the physical locations connected to that earlier phase of Smith’s life. Drawing from court records, affidavits, neighbor testimony, and later reminiscences, Vogel was able to place Smith on specific hillsides, farms, and riverbanks across western New York and northern Pennsylvania. Show Dan Vogel's Full Article (If you have issues on mobile, you can read the full document  here ) The article itself is a valuable asset to anybody who wants to understand the treasure digging activities of Joseph Smith. However, due to the design of the maps provided it may be difficult to immediate tell where the digs took place. Which in my opinion, may limit the sharing of his research. As such, I took it upon myself to update the map in Google Earth using Dan Vogel's research as my guide. This gives us a bit of clearer idea of w...
Post a Comment
Read

Early Mormon Criticisms - 4: Fanaticism

By Mason
 This series looks back at how early critics of the church reacted to the rise of Mormonism. Some mocked it, others warned against it, and a few tried to make sense of it. Each post features a historical excerpt and some brief context to show how critics viewed the new faith as it was unfolding.  -The full series can be found  here - The article titled “Fanaticism” was published on February 11, 1831, in the United States Gazette , a Philadelphia paper with national circulation. It reprints material from the Painesville Gazette , reflecting local reports from northeastern Ohio rather than direct investigation by the Gazette itself. The author is unnamed, consistent with early-19th-century newspaper practice, and the tone reflects mainstream Protestant skepticism toward emerging religious movements. The piece focuses on Kirtland and nearby areas in Geauga and Cuyahoga counties at a very early stage in Mormon development, less than a year after the Book of Mormon’s publica...
Post a Comment
Read

Full Text - Mormons Taking Oaths of the Temple House (1904)

By Mason
  This article appeared in 1904, during the height of national scrutiny surrounding the LDS Church and the U.S. Senate investigation into whether Apostle Reed Smoot should be seated as a senator. At the center of that inquiry were questions the public had debated for decades but rarely heard addressed in sworn testimony.  What actually happened inside the Endowment House ?  What oaths were required?  Do the oaths conflict with civic loyalty, democratic norms, and basic transparency? The reporting below relies on testimony given under oath to the Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections and presents the claims exactly as they were reported to a national audience. This was not written as theology or internal instruction. It was written as political journalism, aimed at informing a non-Mormon public that largely had no access to temple ceremonies and relied on secondhand descriptions. THE WASHINGTON TIMES DECEMBER 14, 1904 MORMONS TAKING OATHS OF ENDOWMENT HOUS...
Post a Comment
Read

LDS Apologists Try to Beat a Dead Horse

By
It looks like the topic of horses and the Book of Mormon is going to crop up every few months like a nasty case of eczema, so I feel it’s worthwhile to summarize the debate as it currently stands. There's another post on this blog  about more recent research, but it always goes back to the (in)famous analysis done by Matthew Roper and his colleagues at BYU, John Clark and Wade Ardern, all the way back to 2005. But first, let's look even further back.  What the Book of Mormon Said The word “horse” appears 14 total times in the Book of Mormon in the context of domesticated livestock, with half of those references being connected with pulling chariots of war. Both Lamanite and Nephite peoples equated these horses with those described in Isaiah 2:7 and 5:28, which Nephi expressly quotes in his own record (compare 2 Nephi 12:7 and 15:28), with no distinction made between them. The horses of the Americas, per the Book of Mormon, are intended to be the same in form and function to ...
Post a Comment
Read

Encouraging Marriage: Lowering the Age for Female Missionaries

By Mason
 In October 2012, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints officially lowered the minimum age for missionary service. Before that change, men could begin at age 19 and women at age 21. The update allowed men to start at 18 and women at 19, a major shift in how young Latter-day Saints approached their early adult years. That change dramatically increased missionary numbers, with applications skyrocketing in the weeks after the announcement and women making up a much larger share of those who served.   For more than a decade after that update, the rule stayed the same. Women could serve at 19 and men at 18, with women serving 18-month missions and men serving two years. In November 2025 the Church again changed the rule: the minimum age for women to serve was lowered to 18, equalizing it with men.  What made this new policy notable wasn’t just equality in age; it was the statements that came with it.   In a January 2026 interview with the Church’s own Deseret News, Presid...
Post a Comment
Read

There Is No Curse, Part 5: Then What Is It?

By
We need to talk about the current apologetics attempting to downplay the Lamanite curse. Nephi Sees Our Day In preparation for my next topic, I was reading 1 Nephi 13:15 , where Nephi sees a vision of the future for his own civilization and the European conquest of America. This passage stuck out to me: And I beheld the Spirit of the Lord, that it was upon the Gentiles, and they did prosper and obtain the land for their inheritance; and I beheld that they were white, and exceedingly fair and beautiful, like unto my people before they were slain. This is in direct contrast to 1 Nephi 12:23 : And it came to pass that I beheld, after they had dwindled in unbelief they became a dark, and loathsome, and a filthy people, full of idleness and all manner of abominations. You might notice that there is ample ambiguity in both passages, but in juxtaposing these two peoples, we see a contrast that I just can’t reconcile if the curse is only “symbolic” or “spiritual.” In comparing Gentiles to Lam...
Post a Comment
Read

The Smithsonian “Early Horses” Article Does Not Prove the Book of Mormon True

By Mason
     A Smithsonian Magazine article titled “ Native Americans Spread Horses Through the West Earlier Than Thought ” (2023) has been circulating in Mormon spaces as supposed proof that horses existed in the Americas during Book of Mormon times.      The article summarizes a legitimate scientific study published in Science titled “ Early Dispersal of Domestic Horses Into the Great Plains and Northern Rockies .” (2023) But when you read what the researchers actually found, it’s clear this does not support the Book of Mormon’s claims at all.      What the Study Actually Found      The research team, led by William Timothy T. Taylor, analyzed horse remains found across the Great Plains and northern Rockies. Using radiocarbon dating, DNA sequencing, and isotopic analysis, they discovered that the animals were of Spanish origin. In other words, these were not remnants of ancient, native North American horses that somehow...
Post a Comment
Read
e
Link copied!