They have grown accustomed to praying in Olde English and have finally understood the usage of “thee’s, thou’s, you’s, and ye’s,” and it seems unfair to suddenly have to move on NOW.
They also are uncomfortable with the idea that the Textus Receptus could actually contain additional verses than what was originally written! To them, it is frightening to think the Bible could be corrupted (they lose sight of the fact that ALL TRANSLATIONS are imperfect renderings of the pure Word of God). It is easiest to argue that the since the production of the AV in 1611, no additional phrases, words, or verses were present in the biblical text because God preserved it. They want to avoid to difficulty and confusion (and doubt, for many) that comes with admitting the text was corrupted. What’s more, they do indeed neglect the fact that the entire Deuterocanon was included in the first edition of the King James Bible. Sounds to me like for Protestants, one way or another, they HAVE to admit A LOT of additional verses (in the form of books) were added.
Lastly, I think a lot of this has to do with tradition (for instance, “My family raised me on this version, and my church has always used it, so it must be true, must be right”) and with the eloquence of the translation. Honestly, sitting down with a Moslem who will directly translate the original Arabic for me before me eyes into a verse that reads much like an Archaic translation like the KJV, might make me feel pretty inferior if I pulled out an uneloquent, basic English, reads-like-a-newspaper verse from the NLT, or something like that … I actually adore (not literally) the poeticism of the AV, but I do not use it due to its corrupted manuscripts.
So, let’s see, the preservation of this somewhat lacking translation may be attributed to:
- Doubt brought about by the idea of corrupted manuscripts (which abound);
- Tradition, usually in family and in church preferance;
- Style and poeticism found uniquely in this translation;
I think these are the primary reasons the AV has all but developed its own theology.
(As a sidenote, I do know of a local Baptist church whose entire congregation and staff use NKJ, interestingly enough.)