Ah, Gail Riplinger, the foremost designer of tinfoil hats for the KJV-only crowd. This one's gonna be fun.
The King James Bible contains God's built-in dictionary, defining each word, in its context, using the very words of the Webster's and Oxford English Dictionaries!
The KJV, being one of the first great documents in modern English along with the works of Shakespeare, was a huge influence on everything that followed, but mostly in terms of literary style. Of course Webster and the OED would have KJV words in them -- they couldn't not. However, anyone who's ever actually looked at any of the great dictionaries of the English language -- the OED, Merriam-Webster, Webster's New International, the American Heritage -- would find the language has evolved just a bit since then.
* The King James Bible has a vocabulary and reading level which slowly builds progressively from Genesis to Revelation.
I'd say that's a failure in translation then. Granted Revelation is some pretty hard reading (almost nobody who actually reads it really knows what it's saying), but for example the Gospel of Mark was written in very simple vernacular Greek, compared to the highly literary style of, say, Hebrews. If a translation doesn't respect those differences, it's missing something. If what Riplinger says is true, that's actually a point against for accuracy.
* The King James Bible uses words with the appropriate sound symbolism. It has a vocabulary that phonaesthetically fulfills the Bible's own description of itself as "powerful."
Which is just a mildly malapropic way of saying "it sounds more Biblical". Again, not the virtue it seems to be; it's simply an aesthetic choice, and from a textual criticism point of view, not a particularly helpful one.
* The King James Bible is the only extant access we have to the pure language lexicons of the 16th and 17th centuries.
You mean apart from the works of Shakespeare or Ben Jonson or other authors of the period? In any case, that's not really an argument in favor of it as a Bible translation per se so much as a historical document.
* The King James Bible gives a transparent view of the Greek and Hebrew vocabulary, grammar and syntax.
Prove it. Seems to me Richmond Lattimore and Everett Fox would have a bit of a quibble with that statement, given that both are/were experts in their respective languages.
* The King James Bible has internationally recognizable vocabulary and spelling.
Obviously Ms. Riplinger has never actually seen an original-edition KJV. That's just flat-out wrong -- Elizabethan/Jacobean spelling is kind of squishy and the vocabulary is very outdated. Shakespeare has the same problem -- most people would find an original-spelling complete Shakespeare to be borderline unreadable.
* The King James Bible uses literary devices which enhance doctrinally important concepts and memorability.
Assuming that's true, that's either a legacy of the original source text or a sign that the translators changed things that they shouldn't have. Either way, not an argument in Riplinger's favor.
* The King James Bible has a sentence structure which enhances accurate doctrinal interpretation.
You know, a lot of people praise the French language for its clarity, but nobody can ever prove that this is true, or that such a concept even makes sense. I'd argue the same about this argument.
* The King James Bible's words and sentences are patterned and woven through its fabric so as to provide a consistency of form and content.
Same thing applies as to the reading level thing -- if the entire document has been leveled to the same literary style, something has gone horribly wrong in the translation. The Bible is not a single book, it's an anthology. Not to mention this point contradicts the reading level argument anyway.
* The King James Bible has the precision and longevity of the legal document that it is.
How exactly is it a legal document in any meaningful sense except to a Cromwellian Puritan theocracy?
Anyway, it's pretty much a well-known fact that Riplinger is a monster raving looney, which is probably what makes her so favored of Ye Chicklet. Pretty much everything needs to be checked and heavily vetted with her.
