The King James Bible at 400

[groovedaddy]

Sometime in 1611, a new English Bible was published. It was the work of an almost impossibly learned team of men laboring since 1604 under royal mandate. Their purpose, they wrote, was not to make a new translation of the Bible but “to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principal good one.” What was published, 400 years ago, was indeed one principal good one: the King James Version of the Bible.

It’s barely possible to overstate the significance of this Bible. Hundreds of millions have been sold. In 1611, it found a critical balance in a world of theological conflict, and it has been beloved since of Protestant churches and congregations of every stripe. By the end of the 17th century it was, simply, the Bible. It has been superseded by translations in more modern English, translations based on sources the King James translators couldn’t have known. But to Christians all around the world, it is still the ancestral language of faith.

To modern readers, the English of the King James Version sounds archaic, much as Shakespeare does. But there would have been an archaism for readers even in 1611 because the King James Bible draws heavily from a version of William Tyndale’s New Testament published in 1534 and from translations by Miles Coverdale also published in the 1530s.

Tyndale’s aspiration was to make his New Testament accessible to “the boy that driveth the plough.” Though readers often talk about the majesty of the King James Bible, what has made it live is in fact the simplicity of its language.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/opinion/09sun3.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha211

[AlecBGreen]

1. Happy Birthday KJV

I am simultaneously amused & confused by the insistence of many conservative churches that the KJV is the only 'true' Bible and that all others are heretical. Having read some history on the formation of the NT and the modern discovery of texts unknown to the KJV authors, I cant help but wonder what the problem is. I have a study version New International Version and fully half of it is liner notes which explain context, discrepancies between new and old manuscripts, etc. I find it helps having so much info @ hand when I am studying Scripture.

[WolverineDG]

2. probably because it's been around for so long

And for many many years, it was the only book almost everyone owned.

I know there are other, more "readable" Bibles out there, but I prefer the KJV. I'll look at the newer versions for the research & insight, but none of them hold a candle to the wording of the KJV.

dg

[AlecBGreen]

3. I find just the opposite

I like the sense of tradition that comes across with all the thee's and thou's but I find myself getting caught up on the wording so often that its just not as readable me. Now that I think about it, maybe thats a good thing. I tend to read too fast anyway. Maybe a slower, more forceful and thoughtful reading would be beneficial. I keep one (KJV) at work to read on break but I never do for the reasons mentioned. Maybe Ill dust it off tomorrow. :hi:

[WolverineDG]

6. What I like about the "thee"s & "thou"s

they are left-overs from a time when English had a "formal" "you." (like the "usted" in Spanish) The Quakers still use those because they believe the light of God is in all of us & using "thee" & "thou" is their way of recognizing & honoring it.

And then, there's that whole English Lit minor I've got + the loads of Shakespeare I read for that & Theatre. Might have something to do with my preference. :P

:hi:

dg

[Igel]

9. Actually, not true for the KJV.

The KJV's ye and thou are simply plural and singular. They don't express honor or familiarity, just number. One person, God, king, or hated pagan was always "thou" and groups were always "you." It's why I like the KJV: The Greek and Hebrew are crystal clear, and there are lots of places where the number shifts; strip out the distinction and some passages suddenly mean something a bit different.

The French tu/vous distinction, IIRC, was catching on in English but didn't get in the conservative KJV. And when the T/V distinction *did* catch on, it was precisely as in French, Russian, and even some Spanishes: The singular was familiar and down-speaking, the plural was formal and showed respect. You'd address the king as "you" (vous, vy, vosotros) and your dog as "thou" (tu, ty, tu).

Plurality, it's been claimed, can be confused or merged with the idea of greatness. It's been adduced as the reason for the plural "elohim" ('god') in Genesis and elsewhere; also for the "royal we".

Spanish "vosotros" (older 2nd person plural) was carried into "usted" ("vuestra merced," 'your mercy'); had the king been addressed informally instead of "vuestra merced" they'd have been addressed as "tu merced."

Showing respect gradually filtered down the social hierarchy with increased democraticization of power and wealth, so that you would call even commoners "you" (vous, vy, vosotros/usted) unless you perceived them as equals and the context was informal or familiar. The same's happened with titles: sire > sir (monsieur, gospodin, senor) and "master/mistress" > mister/misses. Even in Austen you find "Mr." wasn't a term used for just any adult male. A lot of this stuff involving titles changed in the 1800s; American English often led the way for English. But English pronoun usage, at least in the standard norms, pretty much entirely replaced "thou" with "you" across the board.

God is a funny case, because usually the Bible translations were old and preserved the singular/plural usage, so in English they'd have called God "lord" and then properly used the singular pronoun; later they'd have called God "lord" but seen that God was still addressed using the singular pronoun in the Bible translation and then had to rationalize it. So now we say God is king or lord but we're on informal, buddy-buddy terms with our king and lord.

[struggle4progress]

14. How then do you explain the difference here?

... Clarence: Where art thou, Keeper? Give me a cup of wine.
Second Murderer: You shall have wine enough, my lord, anon.
Clarence: In God's name, what art thou? ...

Shakespeare's Richard III, Act I, Scene iv (c. 1591)

A non-royal, sent to murder the Duke of Clarence, addresses him formally as "you," while the royal Duke of Clarence calls for his gaoler informally with "thou" and similarly informally addresses the non-royal murderer as "thou"

It is actually subversive and striking to see "The Lord" addressed with the informal "Thou"

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. The KJV was using the 'conservative' 'thou for everyone' mentioned above

While Shakespeare was using thou or you to make the formal/informal distinctions.

As this distinction signified respect, it would have been something of a social faux pas when the convention was broken. A master addressing a servant with you might have raised eyebrows in the thirteenth century. Among the upper class, using thou could have been considered a sign of disrespect. For a subordinate to use thou when addressing a superior, however, such familiarity would at best be considered presumptuous—and more likely boorish. Likewise, the use of thou could be considered condescending or insulting when used in a more formal situation.

The clearest example of this in Shakespeare is Sir Toby Belch's line in Twelfth Night, when he eggs on Sir Andrew Aguecheek to challenge Viola with "if thou thou'st him some thrice, it shall not be amiss." Not only is Sir Toby telling Sir Andrew to insult Viola with thou, Sir Toby himself is slyly insulting Sir Andrew by using thou with his peer. Shakespeare intentionally plays upon the significance of thou in this scene.

With the beginning of Early Modern English in the fifteenth century, however, the distinction was already becoming lost as you began to supplant thou as the only second person pronoun. By the time Shakespeare was writing, the inconsistency of his usage tells us that the process was already underway. For instance, Shakespeare often uses ye and you interchangeably, and there are instances of close friends or lovers calling each other you as well as thou—sometimes within the same speech.

Thou was essentially extinct in standard English usage by the 1700s. One of the main reasons thou survives at all is Tyndale's translations of the Bible into English in the early sixteenth century. In his translations (for which he was condemned to die at the stake in 1536), Tyndale returned to the simpler convention of Old English, consistently using thou in singular usage and ye in plural usage. As Tyndale's work became the foundation for the King James version of the Bible in 1611, thou was preserved for posterity.

http://www.bardweb.net/content/thou.html

Example of 'thou' used to a 'superior': Joseph's brothers, trying to be humble to the Egyptian pharaoh - Genesis 47:3-4:

And Pharaoh said unto his brethren, What is your occupation? And they said unto Pharaoh, Thy servants are shepherds, both we, and also our fathers.

They said morever unto Pharaoh, For to sojourn in the land are we come; for thy servants have no pasture for their flocks; for the famine is sore in the land of Canaan: now therefore, we pray thee, let thy servants dwell in the land of Goshen.

[struggle4progress]

17. Preface to the 1611 King James

... firmly knit the hearts of all Your Majesty's loyal and religious people unto You, that Your very name is precious among them: their eye doth behold You with comfort, and they bless You in their hearts ...
http://mb-soft.com/believe/txh/kjavpref.htm

Thus, the authors of the King James text thus certainly did recognize and practice a formal singular use of "You." They seem to have made a conscious decision not to import this formal/familiar distinction into their translation

[struggle4progress]

15. Here is another example:

... And her ear was pleased with the Thee and Thou of the Quakers,
For it recalled the past, the old Acadian country,
Where all men were equal, and all were brothers and sisters ...

Longfellow's Evangeline c. 1847

The text here explicitly indicates "Thee" and "Thou" were used in a "familiar" sense (that is, to address equals and family members)

[skepticscott]

4. Just one example

of the many KJV whackos out there: http://www.amazinggracebaptistchurchkjv.com/Download100.html

As you say, difficult to fathom the thinking, even by people this nutty...

[AlecBGreen]

5. I respect their zeal but I think it is misplaced

My understanding of the matter is that we best serve the Lord by helping the needy, we best serve God the Father by quietly seeking to understand, and we best serve the Holy Spirit by cleansing our hearts of impurity. Like I say, thats just my understanding.

Now in defense of the church you posted, I will say one thing: a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy loses its clarity. The continual 're-wording' and translation of Scripture (Hebrew -> Greek -> Old English -> Modern English) will sacrifice some of its original meaning. That said, I think true spiritual knowledge comes from prayer and meditation, things you experience first hand. The Bible should only be the first word in our budding understanding of God, not necessarily the last.

[toddaa]

7. KJV zealots have nothing on HPL/REH/CAS fans

You should read fan forums dedicated to the pulp big three everytime a book comes out with a single "editted" word.

[brendan120678]

8. My least favorite version...

Maybe because I'm Catholic, I've been raised to be wary of it.
Seems to me that the KJV authors were more concerned with the poetry aspect of it than getting the translations correct.

[Igel]

10. Not quite right.

They had two charges.

(1) Making sure that the text of the Bishop's Bible, the translation that formed the basis of their translation, was changed only when needed to not be incorrect given the Greek/Hebrew text available (note that this is different from picking the best possible translation). It meant that squirrelly translations that weren't absolutely wrong were kept, even if they would be likely to be misinterpreted.

(2) To produce a text for "reading aloud" in the churches. They tried to make it so it sounded good. Of course, after being the only version read for 100 years it was--like the Qur'aan--defined as having good style. (Just not as explicitly fanatically as the Qur'aan, where you actually get dissertations trying to show the linguistic basis for the perfection of the Qur'aan's style, and otherwise level-headed faculty too scared to say it's a crap topic to object.)

One problem was the fact that the older translation relied on non-Greek/non-Hebrew texts, at least in part. Another was that the Greek texts available were limited. A third was that the understanding of the Greek and Hebrew was also limited. Koine wasn't just a stripped down Attic (not well understand, in any event); and to this day there are questions about the Hebrew, even if we have improved on Gesenius' lexicon.

The Douay Translation had many of the same problems, but was explicitly from the Vulgate as intermediary. The Vulage wasn't just a horrible translation for its day, but it was also based on limited knowledge of Gk/Hebrew and few texts.

Then again, what "correct translation" means is also a question.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

11. Very poetic.

For accuracy I have a New English Bible and its successor, the Revised English Bible. Used the New English Bible in college religion classes. It came out in the early 70s and they were just getting into textual analysis with computers.

I still like the King James for its poetic style. Most of the figures of speech we use come from either the bible or Shakespeare. (Yes I read my Bartlett's.) :D

[LAGC]

12. Ah yes, the "Authorized Version."

I still have a copy my old boss gave me. He did his best not to preach to me on the job and as my superior, but he let me have a piece of his fundamentalist conservative mind when visiting him at home. He left a good paying job to become a pastor down in Arizona. Go figure.

[_ed_]

13. ...yet again proving that religion is nothing more than a way

for kings and oligarchs to keep the feeble-minded meek.