The King James Only movement (also known as King James Onlyism or KJV Onlyism) asserts the belief that the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible is superior to all other English translations of the Bible. Adherents of the King James Only movement, mostly members of certain Conservative Anabaptist, traditionalist Anglo-Catholic, Conservative Holiness Methodist and Independent Baptist churches, believe that the King James Version has been providentially preserved to be a perfect translation of the Bible into English, and they also generally believe that all other English translations of the Bible which were published after the KJV was published to be corrupt.
These assertions are generally based upon a preference for the Textus Receptus (which is mainly based on the Byzantine text-type, with some influences from other text-types)[1][2] and they are also based upon a distrust of the Alexandrian text-type or the critical texts of Nestle-Aland, and Westcott-Hort, on which the majority of twentieth- and twenty-first-century translations of the Bible are based. Sometimes these beliefs are also based on the view that the King James translation itself was inspired by God.
- ^ F. H. A. Scrivener, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, (George Bell & Sons: London 1894), vol. 2, pp. 183–184.
- ^ Heide, Martin (7 February 2023). "Erasmus and the Search for the Original Text of the New Testament". Text & Canon Institute. Retrieved 8 February 2024.