New King James Version

The New King James Version is a major modernization of the King James Version that seeks to preserve both its textual tradition and its literary cadence while replacing archaic vocabulary and pronoun forms with contemporary English. Published in 1982 by Thomas Nelson, it comprises the complete Bible, translated from the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, and rests on the Masoretic Hebrew text together with the Textus Receptus Greek, supplemented by critical notes. Its translation philosophy is one of formal equivalence, and it is classified as a substantial revision, taking the King James Version as its predecessor and base translation. Among its distinctive features are footnotes documenting differences with the critical Greek and Majority texts, allowing readers to compare the traditional readings with those of later scholarship. It has been widely adopted by readers and churches wishing to retain the King James tradition in a more accessible idiom.