King James Bromance: Why Do Black Christians Have Such an Affection for the King James Bible

I was raised in the Black Baptist Church. There is a lot of tradition, pomp and circumstance in the Black Baptist Church as there is throughout most Black Christian Churches. There are also some artifacts. One such artifact is the pew.

The church pew two main purposes: they seat congregants in the front and hold items on the back. On the back of every pew, there is a place holder for fans, books and communion cups. In the Black Baptist church, you will only find two books in the back of every pew: the King James Bible (KJV) and the New National Baptist Hymnal.

There are many version of scripture. In fact, congregants read other versions of scripture in addition to the KJV. But the KJV is the “go to” in the Black church.[1] That’s because Black folks love reading scripture in the king’s English. I love it. We love to read , memorize and quote scripture using the king’s language. In fact, 55% of people who read the Bible read the KJV. When done properly and in context, it is the equivalent of watching the final sequence of Michael Jordan’s last shot with the Bulls; it’s a thing of beauty.

However, there is pain associated with this particular version of scripture. White men and women who called themselves Christians used this version of the Logos to enslave and oppress Africans and their descendants for hundreds of years. While there are various places in scripture White people used to reinforce African enslavement, the most commonly preached were the “curse of Ham” found in Genesis and the “slaves obey your masters” motif found in both Peter and Paul’s epistles.

The KJV is labeled by some as inauthentic and a corrupted version of scripture written by a corrupted king. This misuse of scripture to maintain spiritual wickedness has led to some within the Black community to question the authenticity of the faith, point to an inauthentic scripture written by a White man and used by White men to enslave Black men and women and impose upon them irreversible physical, emotional and psychological harm.

While the pain and anger fueling these sentiments is authentic and should be honored, the sentiments themselves are not entirely accurate. It is true that the KJV was the primary text used by Europeans imperialists to colonize, exploit, extract from and enslave Africans and the Indigenous in Africa, Asia and the New World. However, the hearts of those men were corrupted by sin. God’s word is not corrupt. God’s word was established at the beginning (Jn. 1:1) and it will always remain (Matt 24:35). With that said, there is evidence that lend to the authenticity of the KJV and the faith at large.

In an attempt to somewhat kill two birds with one stone, I’ll draw parallels between two events; the Council at Nicaea and the Conference at Hampton Court. In the same way Constantine gathered the Church bishops together at Nicaea, James gather clergy together in London. Both events were political as they were religious. Constantine wanted stability in the empire. He used the council to secure his power by solidifying church doctrine to quell unrest. James sought to do the same in England as he was new to the throne.

Out of these events came the Nicaean Creed and the Authorized Version of the Bible aka the KJV, respectfully. Constantine did not write the Nicaean Creed; the bishops did. Most of the bishops were African, but I digress. James didn’t write the KJV. Rather, he authorized its writing by select scholars, who took seven years to complete it. You might say to yourself, “well then the scholars are the White men guilty of corrupting the Bible.” Not so fast.

The scholars crafted the KJV from the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and the Greek New Testament. Much of the translation As the Hebrew Bible was written in the language of the people, so too was the New Testament (NT). Although Latin was the official language of the Roman Empire, Greek was the language of the people, particularly Koine (common) Greek.[2] Both texts were in circulation for a few hundred years.

When it comes to questioning the reliability of the Christian Bible, it’s a question of the reliability of the NT. In England, prior to King James, Tyndale and Coverdale wrote their own versions of scripture and they relied on Erasmus — who used old Greek manuscripts of the NT to create his 1516 rendition of the scriptures. If Erasmus got his hands on old manuscripts, surely King James hired scholars who did as well. How reliable are those Greek manuscripts you ask?

They were written according to documents (papyrus) dating back to the second through fourth centuries. Manuscripts of the NT were copied by hand and hand copies were being made within a century of when the original text was written. There are over 5,000 of those manuscripts. To provide context, Homer’s Iliad was first copied 400 years after the original was written and there are only a little over 600 copies. We don’t dismiss the legitimacy of the as a text Iliad because of the time gap; why dismiss the legitimacy of the Bible as a text? By examining these manuscripts, over 99 percent of the original text can be reconstructed beyond reasonable doubt. The NT is one of the most reliable ancient text we have to date.

Also, the scholars withheld nothing from the KJV… it’s just that slave masters cherry picked what they wished to use for their agenda. For example, consider the verse, “slaves obey your masters.” In Ephesians 6, Slave masters were quick to use verses 5 to 8 in order to justify slavery and control the actions of their slaves. However, they failed to mention verse 9 where the apostle Paul reminds masters that they are accountable to their master in heaven. These men commissioned by King James didn’t leave out this or any of the other verses that slaves used as a rebuke of slavery and the foundation for their liberation. They true to the text they assembled together.

The history notwithstanding, what makes the KJV so special to Black people is its use in the antebellum South. Students of Black history and scholars alike commonly show love to the Black Church as the foundation of the slave’s ability to maintain their sanity; and they should. But early Black theological thought also played a major role in slave resistance and slave liberation. The KJV has a special space here.[3]

There was some mixed reaction amongst Whites as to whether or not they should offer religious instruction to slaves. While there was power in manipulating the text, there was another power; the power from engaging with the text on one’s own. The slave recognized this power and accessed it. There weren’t too many pieces of literature laying around the plantation that slaves could access. However, even if found in ripped pieces, the KJV was available. Not only did the KJV provide Black slaves with guidance, comfort and hope of their deliverance from slavery, but it also was the tool use to learn how to read — it was the tool to access that hope of their deliverance.

Literacy was the beginning of freedom, as expressed by many slave narrative authors. Slaves both learned how to read scripture and how to critically engage with the text; hermeneutically and exegetically. Some used the scriptures to turn the concept of race on its head. Using the KJV, formerly enslaved William Anderson used the story of Elisha and his servant, Gehazi, to conclude that whiteness and not blackness was the curse. The KJV was a tool of resistance and liberation. A slave reading or learning to read was a crime; the slave knew that by reading, he was taking his or her life in their own hands. But for the slave, they were giving it to their Lord.

Engaging with the text for Nat Turner and Gabriel Prosser was the impetus for slave rebellion and insurrection. In South Carolina for example, Prosser’s insurrection led to a law being passed prohibiting the gathering of slave or free Blacks for religious worship or mental instruction. In states like South Carolina where these laws were passed, the Sabbath (Sunday) became a day of entertainment for slaves: filled with drinking, gambling and organized fighting. Some Whites knew that the Christian Sabbath was more than a day of worship for slaves.

It was during the Christian Sabbath that slaves and “benevolent” Whites alike set up Sabbath schools for slaves to learn how to read. The Christian Sabbath was also the day of insurrection and escape. Learning the read the KJV afforded slaves with the ability to challenge the psychosis White superiority, understand the true intention and purpose of God’s word and thus the system of slavery itself — which is what White men in power feared. But lastly, the romance between Blacks and the KJV is because for some, the poetry and eloquence of the text were considered “God’s language.”

“Blacks revere the KJV for the same reason many Roman Catholics still are fond of the Latin/Vulgate Bible: the poetry and antiquitous tone associated with a spirituality of earlier times, even another world. That some of the text is ‘mysterious,’ i.e., not fully understood, is what makes it special, instantly beckoning one to pray and active dialogue with God. Modern translations, in making the text idiomatic in a contemporary way, cause the Bible to become suspect as a dubious translation of modernisms.”[4]

For Black Christian folk, the KJV holds a very special place… not because White men wrote it. But because it is the living word of God that continues to bring forth spiritual and physical liberation in the lives of Black readers. It is common for Black people to counter Christian authenticity where the Black community is concerned. Many critics believe Christianity to be the White Man’s religion; that simply is not true.

Christianity didn’t start when King James commissioned the writing of his version of the Bible. Nor did it start when it was completed; nor did it start with the docking of the first slave ship. Rather, the genesis of this text laid down seeds; some on stony place, some on thorns and some on good ground. “He who has ears, let him hear!”

[1] When I use the phrase “the Black Church,” I specifically mean protestant churches led and attended by Black people.

[2] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible. 2018.

[3] Emerson Powery & Rodney Sadler, The Genesis of Liberation: Biblical Interpretation in the Antebellum Narratives of the Enslaved. 2016.

[4] Alice Ogden Bellis, “The Bible in African American Perspectives.” Teaching Theology and Religion 1.3 (1998): 161–65.