Grant Hardy

GRANT HARDY {[email protected]} is a professor of history and reli￾gious studies at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. He has pub￾lished books on early Chinese history, as well as the Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Edition (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003) and Under￾standing the Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Guide (New York: Oxford Univer￾sity Press, 2010). His recent publications include the Oxford History of His￾torical Writing, Vol. 1, co-edited with Andrew Feldherr (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2011) and Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition (a thirty-six-lecture course on both DVD and audio CD, pro￾duced and distributed by The Great Courses, 2011). This essay is a revised and updated version of one posted at By Common Consent, Feb- ruary 15, 2011.

The King James Bible and the Future of Missionary Work

Articles/Essays – Volume 45, No. 2

Not long ago I went out with the full-time elders and we taught a young mother who was quite interested in our message. In fact, she had been meeting with the missionaries for several weeks. When they referred to a biblical scripture and invited her to read along, she did so and then responded, “That’s not what it says in my Bible.” Even though she was a conservative Christian, from a Pentecostal background, she was using the New International Version (NIV). And it is not just that the words were different—most Christians are familiar with multiple versions of the Bi ble these days. The meanings did not match up. The elders were flustered, having no idea how to handle the situation, and they tried to move on to the next point as quickly as possible. 

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