New King James Version | NKJV

The New King James Version was produced by Thomas Nelson Publishers in 1982. The committee of 130 biblical scholars, pastors, and laypeople sought to retain much of the beauty and style of the well-loved King James Version and its traditional sentence structure while modernizing the vocabulary. While this translation approach has appealed to many lovers of the KJV who welcomed the more understandable language, others have found the rendering of contemporary English in archaic word order cumbersome.

The new version still relies upon the same manuscripts used in producing the original King James Bible. This has produced some criticism of this translation since older manuscripts that are thought to be more accurate have been discovered since the production of the original KJV. While none of the discrepancies affect core Christian doctrine, the new version has included notes where there is variance with other manuscripts.

What does it sound like:

John 3:16-17 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

*