I actually brought that up to my friend. I asked him “what about the Geneva Bible?” Apparently, it was OK, but it was surpassed in 1611. Why, he couldn’t say. And, of course, while the KJV surpassed all previous English bibles, it can never be surpassed itself...being perfect and all. It also didn’t matter to him just how evil King James was, nor did it matter that the sole purpose of his bible was to compete with, and eventually do away with the Geneva Bible (which it did). It also didn’t matter to him about the fraudulent “Trinity” passage in 1 John (the doctrine of the Trinity does not stand or fall based on this passage. Getting rid of it does NO harm to the doctrine) It was still “perfect”. Since he believed that there has to be a “perfect word” in all languages...particularly English, always, I wondered why the Geneva Bible wasn’t perfect, since it came before the KJV. And if it was “the perfect Word”, how could it be surpassed? It was all very illogical, and he knew it, but didn’t care. Very sad.
I use the KJV for normal reading. I like Young’s Literal Translation because it is, well, much more literal. I don’t have a huge problem with the New American Standard translation. Not crazy about the texts used, but I don’t find them so abhorrent. By all accounts, the translation itself is quite good. What I would like is a literal translation (as literal as possible, anyway) based on the “Majority Text”. I think there is one, but I haven’t seen it yet.
Unless one has the original God inspired original manuscripts, everything else including the KJV is a product of man who is imperfect. How can imperfect men perfectly translate Greek and Aramaic languages to English and have it be a perfect representation of the original? As you know, current day Bibles are translated from 2 different sources, both of which do not agree in some places.
Even though the KJV was never "revised", many human errors and other changes in translation of various words and typos were "corrected". Here is a rather lengthy article that discusses changes made in the various editions:
http://www.av1611.org/kjv/kjvupdt.html
The Catholic Church is not very impressed with the KJV (or any other Protestant Bible):
http://www.catholicapologetics.net/0002kjv.htm#The%20Errors%20and%20oddities%20found%20in%20the%20King%20James%20Bible:
My minister uses the KJV in church, so I bring a KJV study Bible to church. Otherwise, I use the NKJV and the ESV (English Standard Version). But like I said in my original post, it is more important to read and study any of the older reliable Bible versions (and the ESV), and not worry and fret about "the perfect translation". Because none of them are perfect.
ESV translation info: http://www.esv.org/translation/philosophy
Thanks for the post.