California:
You said it well, when you said, "The various KJV's imagine they have the license to make continuous changes to their language, I know the NKJV has done that".
Dave P. asked, "Do you have any objection to NKJV or any modern English translations based on the same texts?" The question assumes that the publishers of the likes of NKJV actually have carried out their claims of following the samemanuscript evidence as the KJV, but in reality they make exceptions and deviate in bits and pieces. (Matthew 28:19) Bible publishing these days is monetarily competitive business, almost as much so as women's fashions and the latest tech toy. Publishers whose bottom lines depend on numbers of units sold, must keep churning out something new and different to remain in business.
One means of doing that to compete with other bible publishers is to periodically come out with the entirely new and innovative . That appeals to the itching eyes and ears of those who have already abandoned the KJV long ago.
Another useful approach is to keep the more recent "runaways from KJV" (a generation or so) in their publishing house camp, by publishing revisions of their best sellers, and revisions of revisions to come. That is the second market to retain.
But what market has yet to be corralled? The refuseniks, the resistors, those who haven't taken the bait, and cling to the time tested, reliable KJV.
They won't jump from KJV to NIV and certainly not a NNIV, but if they can be enticed to take that first step away from the KJV, the marketers have achieved two things. Tapping a market which hasn't responded to the New of everything, but more importantly, they will have succeeded in getting the last holdouts to make that step.
A next step will be easier and the next and the next......until KJV is all but extinguished. They can continue to plagiarize the KJV title while the gradual weaning of the last of them away from KJV and family of manuscript evidence Luther and KJV translators used is accomplished. The Devil will rejoice.
That having been accomplished, who can trust any so-called version, with even what I call the "bridge" bibles (from KJV to the great unknown) versions sure to come in even more rapid succession. For as you correctly observed, "The various KJV's imagine they have the license to make continuous changes to their language......". Why bother with taking the "bridge" when one can simply "leap" directly to NNIIV and any of the other current New Translations and the ones which are sure to follow in short order. Save the publishers all that trouble to court the KJV holdouts by publishing NKJV and "cousins".
Bottom line in more ways than one....doesn't anyone wonder why no publisher has published a revision of the KJV which only does some updating of obscure words and nothing more?
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GJ - Maybe the KJV 21st Century has done that, California, making very minor adjustments. But your points are valid. The modernized KJV efforts have filled that market and also made a lot of Baptists happy by getting rid of the Means of Grace in the original recipe KJV.
The 21st Century one will also sell, but the niche is filled and (my guess) that one will not make a difference.
Lutherans could have jolted the industry by doing exactly what California suggested, putting their money behind it. But that is why WELS excommunicated her - for having a brain and using it.
