The Believer's Bible is based on the King James Version and includes research notes that will always be a work in progress as believers from around the world contribute research that is rightly divided and will enhance the reading of the Scriptures. The original notes are from the Companion Bible and will aid in the search of the dedicated student.
We use the King James Version for many good reasons. First, like the earlier English translations such as Tyndale's and the Geneva Bible, the King James Version was translated from Greek and Hebrew texts, bypassing the Latin Vulgate. The King James Version's Old Testament is based on the Masoretic Text (The Masoretic Text (MT) is the Hebrew text of the Tanakh approved for general use in Judaism).while the New Testament based on the Textus Receptus is the name given to the first Greek-language text of the New Testament to be printed on a printing press. It was compiled by Dutch Catholic scholar and humanist Desiderius Erasmus in 1516 for his translation of the Bible into Greek, and later used as the basis for the translation of the New Testament by William Tyndale, for the original Luther Bible, and for most other Reformation-era translations throughout Western and Central Europe. The Textus Receptus is classified by scholars as a late Byzantine text as published by Erasmus. The King James Version is a fairly literal translation of these base sources; words implied but not actually in the original source are specially marked in most printings (either by being inside square brackets, or as italicized text).
Secondly the KJV is available in the US in the public domain, this being a freely accessible Bible with no restrictions as to its use and content. The content of our teachings and electronic bible used on Believer.com have the KJV as the source Bible so as to stay consistent with the teachings.
We know that some of our readers may like to have the language to be more modern but in light of the above we would hope you would overlook this and make accommodation. It is a small price to pay to gain the understanding of the Scriptures. The Bible Reader program has a special feature where many of the Verse references when covered with a mouse over will pop-up a tool-tip which contains the Scripture Notes contained in the Companion Bible.
