The Gospels: King James Version

I've been using the King James Version a great deal in my personal and devotional reading. It's the Flannery O'Connor, Johnny Cash influence upon me. I like to read about the "Holy Ghost."

Trouble is, I don't like most of the KJV editions out there. Most KJV editions present the text in a verse-by-verse format in double columns. I prefer my translations in paragraph, single-column format, like you'd have in a novel.

Recently, I discovered that Oxford Press' KJV edition of the gospels presents the text in a paragraph, single-column format. It also has two other features I like: dropping the italic font and adding quotation marks.

In the KJV whenever the translators added a word that wasn't in the original text they put it in italic font. I appreciate their goals with this choice, but the mixed font is aesthetically unpleasing. Also, in the KJV they didn't use quotation marks. Quotes are set off by a capital letter. You get used to this if you use the KJV a lot, but quotation marks are preferred.

All that to say, if you're looking for an entry point with the KJV let me recommend the Oxford Press gospels. It's cheap and portable, the kind of Bible you can throw into a backpack or briefcase, and has a nice modern, novel-like layout.

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