Author Topic: Happy 400th B-Day, KJV!  (Read 8047 times)

roo_ster

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Happy 400th B-Day, KJV!
« on: February 14, 2011, 04:04:25 PM »
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/114946/
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/259655/happy-birthday-kjv-michael-potemra

"IT’S THE 400TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE KING JAMES BIBLE: Which must have been divinely inspired, because it was done by a committee, and yet it’s well-written."

A commenter:
"20,800 weeks on the Best Seller list !!!"

I am not a KJV-only guy, but it is my preferred translation.


Regards,

roo_ster

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Balog

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Re: Happy 400th B-Day, KJV!
« Reply #1 on: February 14, 2011, 04:29:33 PM »
Ah kjv... Translated by backslidden Catholics at the behest of a homosexual pederast, and chockful of poor translation, satyrs, and unicorns. Given massive promenance by modern Americans because... Well, actually I've never really understood why. I guess things sound more holy when the language has changed drastically in the intervening years. It certainly makes warping the Scripture to your own weird and heretical interpretations easier...
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Perd Hapley

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Re: Happy 400th B-Day, KJV!
« Reply #2 on: February 14, 2011, 05:09:13 PM »
I guess things sound more holy when the language has changed drastically in the intervening years.

And them new perversions take away the divinity of Christ, donchaknow!


My KJV-preferring preacher wants to set up a display in the narthex for the quadricentennial. I'm planning on making one for him ('cause otherwise I'll be annoyed by any factual errors, all year long). I'd appreciate any ideas from all you Bible scholars. I think I'll do something that traces the English Bible from Wycliffe to the 1769 revision of the KJV. I'm going to try and give people a realistic way of appraising the KJV, instead of thinking it as the "original" or "most conservative," or whatever weird ideas people tend to have.


roo,

What's with that second link? Is he saying that the KJV is more supportive of slavery? The passage he alludes to says "servant," rather than "slave," as some modern translations do. I would think the KJV's reading was actually less supportive of slavery than those newer ones that say "slaves obey your masters." Though I am given to understand that "slave" is the more accurate reading.
« Last Edit: February 14, 2011, 05:18:55 PM by Fistful »
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mtnbkr

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Re: Happy 400th B-Day, KJV!
« Reply #3 on: February 14, 2011, 05:45:51 PM »
If this continues to be a "my bible is better than your bible" thread, I will close it.

Chris

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Re: Happy 400th B-Day, KJV!
« Reply #4 on: February 14, 2011, 05:47:19 PM »
i am reminded yet again why i shy away from "organized" religion
It is much more powerful to seek Truth for one's self.  Seeing and hearing that others seem to have found it can be a motivation.  With me, I was drawn because of much error and bad judgment on my part. Confronting one's own errors and bad judgment is a very life altering situation.  Confronting the errors and bad judgment of others is usually hypocrisy.


by someone older and wiser than I

Perd Hapley

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Re: Happy 400th B-Day, KJV!
« Reply #5 on: February 14, 2011, 06:21:07 PM »
i am reminded yet again why i shy away from "organized" religion

Then you'd be the only one. We're talking about a Bible translation. Why does that make you all unpleasant?
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Re: Happy 400th B-Day, KJV!
« Reply #6 on: February 14, 2011, 07:15:49 PM »
Then you'd be the only one. We're talking about a Bible translation. Why does that make you all unpleasant?

A very warm place may have just frozen over....

I'm with fistful here.  Its just a translation of the bible.  Either you believe it or you don't. 
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Re: Happy 400th B-Day, KJV!
« Reply #7 on: February 14, 2011, 07:29:00 PM »
As long as sentient bipeds walk the earth, they will argue about bible translations.  I like the NIV best, actually, especially the large print version.  (That way I can get my errors without having to squint.  :O :facepalm:  That's a joke, son.)

I've spent a good deal of time visiting various Christian web sites and after a couple of years of reading the arguing that goes on in most of them, I wonder why the LORD did not imbue us with an a priori ability to read and understand ancient Hebrew and Aramaic as inevitably the argument will most generally devolve down to "If you don't know Hebrew, you don't know the truth because all of you rude and crude fellows mistranslated the book so much that it's all wrong now, especially that George Bush fellow and you bastard Romans and Greeks."

Now my view is this:  If the LORD wanted a book written about Him and the goings on that He deemed important enough that we should know about them, He'd hardly allow His intent be garbled by mistranslations.  I don't believe the Scripture is intended to be a quiz that one first needed to learn ancient languages in order to understand the points presented.   Further, since He spoke the creation into being, He would hardly have a problem inspiring particular people at particular times to be able to write down what He wanted written in a way that anybody at any particular time or place would be able to  understand.  People and cultures do change, but the Truth does not.  Perhaps the Truth just needs to be presented after a fashion in a vernacular so that each generation of arrogant self absorbed human are able to have something that can cut through the self absorbtion.   That's assuming the reader wanted to actually know what is the immutable Truth.  I believe that if one wants the know the Truth, it will be provided.
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Re: Happy 400th B-Day, KJV!
« Reply #8 on: February 14, 2011, 07:30:55 PM »
Never intended to imply there is anything wrong with the kjv per se. I have a personal dislike for them given the funky cult (who were radical kjv only) I grew up in, but even I'd prefer people read the kjv to nothing.

As for the point that it uses archaic language, has translational oddities (really does mention satyrs and unicorns as real animals) etc I don't think it's possible to try to refute that. It's not an accusation, it's a simple statement of fact. I have no issue if someone prefers it. But there are a huge number of folks who think it's the "real" translation, and others are somehow... Bad, or wrong. I don't really get those folks.
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Re: Happy 400th B-Day, KJV!
« Reply #9 on: February 14, 2011, 07:53:26 PM »
Then you'd be the only one.

Nope, he's not.
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Re: Happy 400th B-Day, KJV!
« Reply #10 on: February 14, 2011, 08:16:13 PM »
eh tu?

ironically the type of finality that accompanies "then you'd be the only one" is on on the list of other reasons i avoid formal churches today and at one time all churches in totality.  i think the line that  goes "how you live might be the only version of the bible some folks ever know" is much overlooked, shame that
It is much more powerful to seek Truth for one's self.  Seeing and hearing that others seem to have found it can be a motivation.  With me, I was drawn because of much error and bad judgment on my part. Confronting one's own errors and bad judgment is a very life altering situation.  Confronting the errors and bad judgment of others is usually hypocrisy.


by someone older and wiser than I

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Re: Happy 400th B-Day, KJV!
« Reply #11 on: February 14, 2011, 09:20:52 PM »
i am reminded yet again why i shy away from "organized" religion

For once I agree with cs&d.
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mtnbkr

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Re: Happy 400th B-Day, KJV!
« Reply #12 on: February 14, 2011, 09:31:51 PM »
Either the threadcrapping ends or the thread does.  Maybe that's the goal of the threadcrappers...  [tinfoil]

Chris

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Re: Happy 400th B-Day, KJV!
« Reply #13 on: February 14, 2011, 10:11:17 PM »
I don't particularly see any problem with this thread.  People's opinions can be strong and blunt and we've done the religion/faith/bible/atheist etc. inter alia thing enough times here that the conversation can reasonably be civilized.

Though I agree, the OP was about a particular translation of scripture and it's birthday.  There is likely 2 ways to have this conversation.  1.  KJV uber ales and why.    2. All scriptural translation is inspired and is intended to reach all people by presenting Truth in various subtle ways so that it can be understood because the Holy Spirit is doing the ultimate teaching.
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Re: Happy 400th B-Day, KJV!
« Reply #14 on: February 14, 2011, 11:14:16 PM »
My KJV-preferring preacher wants to set up a display in the narthex for the quadricentennial. I'm planning on making one for him ('cause otherwise I'll be annoyed by any factual errors, all year long). I'd appreciate any ideas from all you Bible scholars. I think I'll do something that traces the English Bible from Wycliffe to the 1769 revision of the KJV. I'm going to try and give people a realistic way of appraising the KJV, instead of thinking it as the "original" or "most conservative," or whatever weird ideas people tend to have.

What?  An illustration of Christ ascending to Heaven whilst handing down the KJV to James his own self ought to do the trick.

[That's a joke, BTW.]

I am not going to set up a display, but the KJV has had an influence on the English-speaking world that is difficult to overestimate.

The commenter (from the second link) BB expresses a view nearly identical t omy own:
Quote
There is no other work that has so shaped our English language as the KJV Bible. And, even today, no other translation display such literary beauty, and contra JPK, the KJV is, in my estimation, at least as accurate as the best of the current "readable" translations (i.e., translations that attempt to render the original languages into properly-constructed English). It has its archaisms (cf. Luke 11:27 and 23:29) and anachronisms (Acts 12:4), but these do not disfigure the towering accomplishment.

For over 300 years, the vast majority of English-speaking Christians spoke a common Biblical language. We now have a multitude of inconsistent translations, most of which exist without the reverence for Scripture AND beauty that characterize the KJV.

roo,

What's with that second link? Is he saying that the KJV is more supportive of slavery? The passage he alludes to says "servant," rather than "slave," as some modern translations do. I would think the KJV's reading was actually less supportive of slavery than those newer ones that say "slaves obey your masters." Though I am given to understand that "slave" is the more accurate reading.

The author is disdaining the "trendy" focus of the usual academic suspects and hailing how the KJV transcends uses & abuses. 



As for religion (of the Christian kind, anyways), if it isn't organized, you're doing it wrong.
Regards,

roo_ster

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Perd Hapley

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Re: Happy 400th B-Day, KJV!
« Reply #15 on: February 14, 2011, 11:31:08 PM »
eh tu?

ironically the type of finality that accompanies "then you'd be the only one" is on on the list of other reasons i avoid formal churches today and at one time all churches in totality. 

Actually, I was just saying that this thread is not much of a reason to reject organized religion.
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Perd Hapley

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Re: Happy 400th B-Day, KJV!
« Reply #16 on: February 14, 2011, 11:53:54 PM »
Quote
For over 300 years, the vast majority of English-speaking Christians spoke a common Biblical language. We now have a multitude of inconsistent translations, most of which exist without the reverence for Scripture AND beauty that characterize the KJV.

There's a lot of truth to that, but at least with the newer translations we have vastly better manuscript support, centuries of improvement in the scholarship, and Bibles in our own language. And only a relative few of those newer translations are lacking in reverence. At any rate, the KJV has very real weaknesses, so maybe its fans should be more understanding of the flaws in other translations.


Never intended to imply there is anything wrong with the kjv per se.

I think the last time you said all that "backslidden Catholic pederast" stuff, you added a disclaimer about how it wasn't quite true. You really should have done that this time. It did lend things a sour note right out of the box.
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Balog

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Re: Happy 400th B-Day, KJV!
« Reply #17 on: February 15, 2011, 01:33:55 AM »
I don't like it, and I enjoy pointing out that it's origins are not quite what most people would thing (translated by Anglicans at the behest of a king who was not exactly a paragon of CHristian virtues etc). That's not meant as a criticism of people who use it today, just the people who seem to ginore the fairly obvious limitations and revere a particular translation more than they seem to the actual words of God.


Since this seems to be controversial, let me go ahead and state seriously and specifically, my own position on translations.

There are a great number of different translations of the Bible in English. They have their pros and cons, and one is not necessarily "better" than the other, just better at different things. A lot of this has to do with what you're using it for. Amplified has synonyms for every major word, which is great for studying a confusing passage but very hard to read. NIV is more thought for thought, which I personally don't care for as I feel it allows more translator bias, but it is very readable. I think it's goal was a lower reading level than some other translations, lowering the bar to understanding for those who don't have good comprehension skills. ESV is a pretty hardline word for word, which I still feel is imminently readable. And so on, and so on.

KJV is undoubtedly the most lyrical of all translations and when I want to appreciate that the Psalms were originally songs to be sung I'll read it. I can certainly appreciate those who simply grew up reading it and are more comfortable with it. But for serious study it has centuries old scholarship leading to a great many oddities and errors ("Thou shalt not kill" anyone?). If you view the Bible as a collection of truths God passed down to a. reveal His character to humanity & b. give instructions to us in how to live a life honoring Him, then reading it in the most archaic and lyrical version possible seems like an odd choice to me personally. If I wanted to know how to build a fire or skin a deer, I certainly wouldn't want an instruction manual that reads like Shakespeare. And it was translated by adherents of a religious order founded by a notably corrupt monarch in order to 1 get divorced 2 seize the riches of the Catholic community in England and 3 establish himself as a religious as well as secular power. I seriously doubt the objectivity of such a source of translation.

All that being said, I certainly respect it's place in the historic pantheon of English translation, just like I do Wycliffe's version. I have no problem with people who choose to read it themselves. But I have a serious problem when "Christians" say that it is the only acceptable translation, and ostracize or punish those who would prefer something else. It is (to me anyway) symptomatic of some issues with the modern American "Bible belt" churches, but that's an entirely different discussion.
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MechAg94

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Re: Happy 400th B-Day, KJV!
« Reply #18 on: February 15, 2011, 09:48:23 AM »
As long as sentient bipeds walk the earth, they will argue about bible translations.  I like the NIV best, actually, especially the large print version.  (That way I can get my errors without having to squint.  :O :facepalm:  That's a joke, son.)

I've spent a good deal of time visiting various Christian web sites and after a couple of years of reading the arguing that goes on in most of them, I wonder why the LORD did not imbue us with an a priori ability to read and understand ancient Hebrew and Aramaic as inevitably the argument will most generally devolve down to "If you don't know Hebrew, you don't know the truth because all of you rude and crude fellows mistranslated the book so much that it's all wrong now, especially that George Bush fellow and you bastard Romans and Greeks."

Now my view is this:  If the LORD wanted a book written about Him and the goings on that He deemed important enough that we should know about them, He'd hardly allow His intent be garbled by mistranslations.  I don't believe the Scripture is intended to be a quiz that one first needed to learn ancient languages in order to understand the points presented.   Further, since He spoke the creation into being, He would hardly have a problem inspiring particular people at particular times to be able to write down what He wanted written in a way that anybody at any particular time or place would be able to  understand.  People and cultures do change, but the Truth does not.  Perhaps the Truth just needs to be presented after a fashion in a vernacular so that each generation of arrogant self absorbed human are able to have something that can cut through the self absorbtion.   That's assuming the reader wanted to actually know what is the immutable Truth.  I believe that if one wants the know the Truth, it will be provided.
Regarding this, you don't need different translations and languages in order to have people misinterpreting and failing to understand the Bible.  That is likely going to happen anyway.  Translations just add to it. 

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MechAg94

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Re: Happy 400th B-Day, KJV!
« Reply #19 on: February 15, 2011, 09:56:52 AM »
I guess I should state the obvious and point out that the KJV was the English translation of the Bible available to most English speaking people for quite a long time.  It should be recognized for that at least, despite its known issues. 

Maybe someone with more history on the subject talk about the other translations available in English at the time. 

Personally, I never understood the idea that a particular translation should be revered.  It was always a foreign idea to me. 

If you want to talk about difficulties then talk about what it might have been like to have no Bible to read and be dependent on a priest with a Bible written in a foreign language to tell you what it says.  That has got to be worse than having a Bible with a few flaws.

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CSM Kersh

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Re: Happy 400th B-Day, KJV!
« Reply #20 on: February 15, 2011, 10:09:07 AM »

Quote
Translated by backslidden Catholics at the behest of a homosexual pederast...

Don't forget the editing done by my Church at the Pope's orders.  You want to get the back story and base info, read the Epic of Gilgamesh who preceded the Hebrew children buy hundreds of years.
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roo_ster

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Re: Happy 400th B-Day, KJV!
« Reply #21 on: February 15, 2011, 10:48:37 AM »
Personally, I never understood the idea that a particular translation should be revered.  It was always a foreign idea to me.

Reverence for the Word of God is not so difficult to comprehend, I think.  For centuries, the KJV was the only one most English-speaking peoples used and as such, was THE BIBLE, not just a Bible translation.

As for the persistence of such sentiment for the KJV, maybe it commands such because, to the literate, it reads better than the others?  The prose is lively and the poetry poetic, rather than a clunky mess that more contemporary translations make of it.  If you're going to spend time reading something, choosing the better read is not so outlandish.

I've seen the same thing WRT Sun Tzu's The Art of War.  Some new translation will come along claiming to have finally gotten it right, or at least better than "that old translation."  Too bad the new translation goes down like a husk of dry bread. 

A film example might be Tombstone vs Costner's Wyatt EarpTombstone is lively and engaging, whereas WE was a never-ending, painful slog.  Same material, different interpretation & presentation, with one clearly the superior to spend one's time with.
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roo_ster

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Perd Hapley

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Re: Happy 400th B-Day, KJV!
« Reply #22 on: February 15, 2011, 10:22:18 PM »

Don't forget the editing done by my Church at the Pope's orders.  You want to get the back story and base info, read the Epic of Gilgamesh who preceded the Hebrew children buy hundreds of years.



If you choose to believe that. That's been brought up here, before, but it so happens that the Sumerians wrote on clay. The fact that they wrote on a durable medium doesn't mean that the story originated with them.

Of course, if Noah was a real person, and the flood was an actual world-wide event that only left 8 survivors on the planet, you'd expect other cultures to have stories about it.
« Last Edit: February 15, 2011, 10:26:21 PM by Fistful »
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Perd Hapley

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Re: Happy 400th B-Day, KJV!
« Reply #23 on: February 16, 2011, 01:07:28 AM »
Maybe someone with more history on the subject talk about the other translations available in English at the time. 

If you wish.

The first complete translation of the Bible into English was the Latin-to-English translation by Wycliffe (14th century). The first translation of the entire Bible from the original languages (Hebrew/Greek/Aramaic) was begun by Tyndale in the sixteenth century, just as Martin Luther was translating the Scriptures into German. There were several other English Bibles published in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Geneva Bible was the most popular, largely due to its low cost. The Geneva was probably the first English translation brought into the American colonies, and was not supplanted by the King James on either side of the Atlantic until some decades after 1611. (And, yes, if you dig hard enough into the musty soil of the internet, you can find Geneva Bible purists on the modern-day interwebs.)

Here are some more details from Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Modern_English_Bible_translations


Reverence for the Word of God is not so difficult to comprehend, I think.  For centuries, the KJV was the only one most English-speaking peoples used and as such, was THE BIBLE, not just a Bible translation.

As for the persistence of such sentiment for the KJV, maybe it commands such because, to the literate, it reads better than the others?  The prose is lively and the poetry poetic, rather than a clunky mess that more contemporary translations make of it.  If you're going to spend time reading something, choosing the better read is not so outlandish.

Hence the problem. Reverence for the Word of God would mean a desire to get closer to what was written by Moses, Paul, inter alia; even if some poetry or "readability" is sacrificed. You will notice that the idea MechAg spoke of was "reverence for a particular translation," and not "reverence for the Word of God." Confusing the two is unfortunately common among KJV adherents.
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Re: Happy 400th B-Day, KJV!
« Reply #24 on: February 16, 2011, 03:24:36 AM »

Here are some more details from Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Modern_English_Bible_translations
Very good info. I am amused at the clergy's fondness for Bible-burning.  :laugh:
It appears that commentary Bibles are also much older than I thought.