King
James Bible: Purple Letter Edition
(Based
on the 1611 Authorized Version Old and New Testaments)
Preface to the Reader
Purpose and Intent: The premise of this
humble effort is simple: The assumption
that the main purpose in reading God’s
Word is to learn more of Him. One of the impediments for the casual Bible
reader is the unfortunate use or assignment of pronouns in virtually all extant
translations. The purpose here is to
use a tri-color font scheme to clue the reader as to whom a noun or pronoun
refers: Deity, angels, man, or ‘other’.
The
spectrum of pronoun resolution difficulty ranges from perfectly clear and
obvious, to somewhat vague, to a little confusing, to outright misleading, and
enigmatic. Many vague usages are
readily resolved from the immediate or broader context; others require more
diligent research; and some defy certain resolution. The cause of the difficulty may be simple ambiguity, failure to
adhere to antecedent rules, or in a few cases ‘dual resolution’. In some instances, the entity
that a given pronoun refers to will change within a verse or sentence – a
phenomenon some have come to refer to as “pronoun swap”. To varying degrees, these can cause
confusion as to who is being discussed; and what conclusions are to be drawn from
the passage. This is particularly
critical when the subject may be God. The goal here is to use visual clues (font
colors) to enable the reader of God’s
word to more readily comprehend what His word tells us of Him, without the
distraction of having to decipher what are true references to the Triune God:
one or more members of the Holy Trinity. This is by no means a scholarly work; and it likely will find little
appreciation or value among true Biblical scholars, or those well versed in the
original Hebrew or Greek texts. Indeed,
it may earn their well-deserved disdain. But they are not the ones for whom this was undertaken – but rather the
layman in the pew who simply wants to be able to read God’s Word, with greater comprehension and
appreciation of who God is – and of His character - without the confusion or distraction of having to interpret on the
fly who is being referenced – God,
mortal man, or some other entity. This
is what this poor effort seeks to remedy in this simplistic fashion. In a sense, it is not unlike the “Red Letter Edition” of the Bible (first published in
1900), which set out to readily identify to the reader the words uttered by our Lord, Jesus Christ, while on earth. Frankly, the words of Christ are more readily identified from the context
than are some references to God (as
opposed to other entities) throughout the Bible. Some Bible translations seek to remedy this pronoun resolution
problem by capitalizing pronouns that refer to God. While helpful, the capitalization remedy is
inherently limited, since the pronoun “I” is always capitalized, as are any
pronouns that happen to start a verse, sentence or quote, rendering
capitalization an unreliable indicator.
Caveat: With
the higher level of difficulty of this undertaking comes the higher risk of
unintended misinterpretation and misrepresentation. The goal of this effort is ease of reading and comprehension;
relieving the reader of the task of repeatedly solving those identity riddles
within Scripture that can, through careful study, be resolved. The great majority of these identity
questions are of this type. However,
there is a residual minority of tougher identity questions that cannot be resolved
with any high degree of certainty. The
intent here is not to offer, nor to favor, one answer over another in these
questions. The author is uniquely
unqualified to act as an authority or as ‘referee’ in areas of dispute. Let him here apologize for and disavow any
instance where it might be construed that he has ‘taken sides’ on any such
dispute. He will attempt to serve as a
convenient ‘clearing house’ of those reputable scholarly and authoritative
sources of light that can be focused on these issues; but will not knowingly
represent one view as more credible than another.
Bible Text Version Used and its
Preparation - The Authorized King James Version was chosen
for this project because it is “public domain”, and free of copyright
encumbrances. The copy used as the base
text for this “Purple Letter Edition” pronoun
resolution project was not what a “purist” might regard as “the 1611 AV
KJV”, if, indeed, such a text exists. There are several ‘flavors’ of what is today called the “AV KJV”. The text base as received did not have the
Gothic type set that the original 1611 AV printing had, with the attendant
letter and spelling variations. Nonetheless, this old KJV text had inherent problems that posed greater
consternation for most readers than what this project set out to alleviate. These problems were mainly in the areas of
bizarre punctuation, and archaic words. (It also included the Apocrypha, which was deemed beyond the scope of
this project, and is not included in this “Purple
Letter Edition” rendering.)
Re-punctuating
the text was required to better conform to current punctuation rules and
usage. (As received, the text was
characterized by the prolific use of colons where periods, commas, and
semicolons were better suited. About
the only places where colons rarely occurred were those places where they were
appropriate.)
Then
there was the need to replace archaic words with ones we are more familiar with
today. After doing word-substitution
through much of the Pentateuch, I was suddenly gripped with pangs of remorse
for having replaced those fine old words. So I began the word change process again – this time retaining and
enclosing the archaic words with ‘braces’ ({}), and preceding them with
italicized substitute words to effect a “verbal bridge” to span the four
centuries from the 1600s to now. It was
only after these preparatory efforts that the text was ready for the intended
“pronoun resolution font color-coding” project. Throughout this project, every effort was made to preserve and
not alter the text from its original intent and meaning. Even so, the resulting text may not exactly
match your favorite AV KJV.
The
popularity of many more recent English translations and versions is also
recognized; but this “Purple Letter Edition”
is KJV based. However, much of the
information conveyed by this ‘color-coded’ “KJP” could be transferred to and
implemented in other translations without much difficulty, beyond the legal
copyright issues, if someone sees merit in such an undertaking.
Implementation Notes and Conventions
Followed in this Implementation:
Significance
of the Three Font Colors Used -
The purple font (I like to think of it as “royal purple” in this implementation), available in
most word processors, is used to identify all references to Deity – be it Father, Son, or Holy Spirit. (As initially implemented, it was the only colored
font utilized.) In this work, all nouns
that refer to any member of the Holy
Trinity have the “royal purple” font color applied, and are capitalized, except as noted in this paragraph. “Weak” references, such as the demonstrative
pronoun “that”, as in “Him that”, or a possessive pronoun such as “own” as in
“His own”,
are not capitalized, but will have the purple font. The word “name”, where it refers to the name of God (whether Father, Son or Spirit),
also receives the purple font without capitalization treatment. Certain nouns and adjectives that are
applied to God also receive the purple font treatment without capitalization. (Those found in Psalm 62 are good examples.)
Later,
as the need became apparent, a blue font was
adopted to identify non-deity angelic beings and to distinguish between them and Members of the Trinity. (However, words for Satan
and his “angels” have only the regular black font applied to them.)
A
third, darker ”deep
purple font” was later adopted and applied to words where it is not
clear whether the referenced beings are Deity, angels, true Theophanies (manifestations of God or
pre-incarnate Christ), or in those instances
where the identity of the referent cannot be conclusively identified. Please see “Deep Purple Registry”
(below) for more information on how these exceptions are handled.
Other
Font Nuances Employed and their Significance -
In
many instances, it is easier to distinguish between references to the God, the Father, (First Person) and the Holy Spirit (Third Person) of the Holy Trinity, than it is to distinguish between
references to God, the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. To
aid the distinction between references to our Lord, Jesus Christ and references to the other two members of the Holy Trinity,
the “Bold” font is applied to references to God,
the Father, and the Holy Spirit,
while leaving references to our Lord, Jesus Christ, in
normal (non-bold) font. That
distinction ‘device’ was an afterthought in this simplistic implementation –
but does not in any way suggest or imply a slighting of any member of the Holy Trinity. The exception to this “bold/no-bold” rule is the pronoun “I”: Because it is a single letter pronoun, and
is already always capitalized, it will be made bold in all instances where the
pronoun “I” refers to any member of the Holy Trinity, to make it more readily noticed.
There
is yet another special case that warrants explanation here. When a pronoun is used in a question as to
the identity of an entity, and the correct answer to that question is Deity (i.e., Father, Son or Holy
Spirit), the pronoun which the question seeks to resolve will have the “deep purple” non-bold font
applied to it to signify that it represents God,
when the question is answered correctly. The two occurrences of “Who”
at the beginning of Isaiah vv. 41:2, and 41:4 are examples of this.
Use of Explicit
Identification Notation -
In
rare cases, explicit identification notation was needed for clarity. In such cases, a parenthetical insertion of smaller
font, enclosed in blue parentheses (), is used. An
example of this is Ezekiel 43:3, where we read: “3.And it was according to the appearance of the vision which I saw, even according to
the vision that I saw when I came to
destroy the city; and the visions were like the vision that I saw by the
river Chebar; and I fell upon my face.” In
this verse, where the pronoun “I” appears four times, only the 3rd occurrence refers to God, while the
other three occurrences of “I” refer to Ezekiel. In such cases, a parenthetical insertion, enclosed in blue parentheses (), is employed to further clarify ambiguous or conflicting references, as shown
here: “3 And it was according to the appearance of the vision which I (Ezekiel) saw, even according to the vision that I
saw when I (the LORD) came to destroy the city; and the visions were like the vision that I saw by the river Chebar; and I fell upon my face.”
These explicit
identifications were used only in selected passages in OT books Numbers,
Joshua, 1 & 2 Kings, Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel,.
Hosea, and Micah.
Deep Purple Registry -
Upon
completing the “KJP” (Purple Letter Edition) of the Bible project, the research notes compiled while researching the
exceptions or difficult passages and references that required the “deep purple font” treatment were then used to compose a “Registry” of entries for these “exceptions” in book,
chapter and verse order. Each “Deep Purple Registry” entry identifies the
question or issue, the passage in question, any appropriate notes or comments,
and the resolution arrived at. This
“look-aside” registry approach seemed preferable to imbedded in-line notes within
the scripture text, which would have been more of a distraction to the
reader. It enables any reader whose
curiosity is raised when a noun or pronoun with the “deep
purple font” treatment is encountered to look it up in the Registry,
while not encumbering those who do not share this curiosity as to why it is so
treated. This “Deep Purple Registry” is available on this
website and can be accessed by clicking the button (box) that appears on the
lower right of the website page when the KJP Bible text is displayed. This “Deep
Purple Registry” may also prove useful to readers of other Bible
translations when they encounter pronoun ambiguity problems while reading their
favorite translation.
My apologies in advance for any confusion,
oversights, errors or inconsistencies that may appear in this implementation. I trust that it serves its intended purpose,
despite my foibles. Please forward any
concerns or comments to KJPfdbk@nc.rr.com. (jam)
©2009 by Jim Musser. Used by Permission. All rights Reserved.
Law
Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy
History
Joshua Judges Ruth 1 Samuel 2 Samuel 1 Kings 2 Kings
1 Chronicles 2 Chronicles Ezra Nehemiah Esther
Poetry
Job Psalms Proverbs Ecclesiastes Songs
Prophets
Isaiah Jeremiah Lamentations Ezekiel Daniel
Hosea Joel Amos Obadiah Jonah Micah Nahum
Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah Malachi
Gospels and Acts
Matthew Mark Luke John Acts
Letters
Romans 1 Corinthians 2 Corinthians Galatians Ephesians Philippians Colossians
1 Thessalonians 2
Thessalonians 1 Timothy 2 Timothy Titus Philemon Hebrews
James 1 Peter 2 Peter 1 John 2 John 3 John Jude
Prophecy
Revelation
