It can't have escaped the notice of alert blog readers that 2011 is the 400th anniversary of the publishing of the King James Bible (The Authorised Version). Leaving aside the issue of the textual reliability of the Received Text, and the reliance on Erasmus's Greek New Testament, itself an insecure textual foundation, and the wholesale borrowing from Tyndale's English translation of the New Testament and part of the Old Testament, the King James Bible remains a stellar achievement of English literature, and one of the glories of the English language.
However accessible or contemporary, relevant or scholarly, all other translations by comparison dilute, diminish and render banal a text produced by a rich vocabulary distilled into stylistic concentrate, and then composed into sonorous prose and sublime poetry. Mixed metaphor? Yes. Exaggeration? Caricature? Possibly - but only slightly.
Since the mid 20th Century, translation of the Bible has become a hugely profitable industry. Leave aside (yes, please do) the hundreds of sectional interest Bibles - I mean, recently we were insulted by the issue of the C S Lewis Bible. I can just hear Lewis delivering his lecture in heaven on the occasion of the publication of the C S Lewis Bible. And beginning with the acronym he used to describe the hated task of writing his allocated volume of the Oxford History of English Literature - OHEL!
Leaving aside all that nonsense, there has still been a conveyor belt of translations sponsored by publishers and major church traditions. The RSV, the Good News Bible, Living Bible (described by Ian Paisley as the Livid Libel), Jerusalem Bible, New English Bible, The Common Bible, New International Version, Today's English Bible, New RSV, New Living Translation, Today's NIV. And yes, even a New KJV!
There are now substantial books written to guide Christians to the right Bible for them. Criteria range from readability, accuracy, theological presuppositions, cultural resonance, and marketing terminology includes new, today, contemporary. I get all of that. And I recognise that reading the Bible isn't easy for committed Christians, let alone the casually interested or dismissively indifferent. So there is a good case for accessibility balanced with accuracy, and readability linked to reliability. And I have absolutely no brief to defend the King James Version as the best translation - it isn't. Nor am I saying that the others are inferior in all ways to the King James - they are most decidedly not.
But. If as an English language speaker and reader you want to hear the Psalms rendered into poetry written by a genius that sounds as if it was written by a genius - then read them in the Authorised Version.
And if you want to be moved to the deep places in your soul and ignited in the complacent corners of your heart, read the Authorised Version of Isaiah 1 and 2, 35 and 40, 53 and 55, and catch a glimpse of images that flash from inspired words. The Beatitudes read and sound in the Authorised Version like promises that, if they were true would be miracles, and in the unforgettable rhythms of the Authorised Version they do indeed sound miraculous. The King James translation of Romans 8 is a text worthy of Patrick Stewart's voice as Jean Luc Picard of the starship Enterprise declaring that life and the universe are ultimately and finally redeemed.
The scan of the big black Bible above is of my ordination Bible. And though seldom read in church now, and I preach from the New RSV (though I still love my even larger RSV!), now and then I take up this Bible with my name stamped on it in gold, and I read it. Not because it is accessible, relevant, the last word in textual integrity, culturally resonant or ecclesially approved - none of that matters. I read it because it is great literature. I read it because the cadences and rhythms of language are a joy to read and hear; because our language is sequined with words and phrases that still catch light and sparkle with meaning and point. I read it because it is a thing of beauty and a joy forever, and its language is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.
And I read it now and again, because now and again, in the dumbed down discipleship for dummies approach of much contemporary Christianity, I need to hear a language that reminds me that God is Other than us, that the transcendent God whose eternal love is known in Beauty, Truth and Goodness, is one who is beyond the language of the news bulletin, whose holiness and mercy eludes the appeal of the too-clever advert, and whose Being is way above and beyond the reductionism that tries to domesticate majesty, or dissolve indescribable mystery in a solution of oversimplified prose justified by the impudent adjective "New"!
Feel better now. Sorry. Didn't mean to rant - much. Think it's time to remember the One who "maketh me to lie down in green pastures; [and] leadeth me beside the still waters...and restoreth my soul". Yea, verily..."my cup runneth over".
Great rant! And I couldn't agree more about Patrick Stewart's voice - though I was hugely surprised to find his pic here: more likely to be on blethers!
Posted by: chris | January 12, 2011 at 11:50 PM
Just wanted to let you know that I love your blog. Thanks for all you do.
Posted by: Bible Study | January 24, 2011 at 07:58 PM
I like to read the Bible through in a different version each year and last year I read the KJV that my husband was given over 45 years ago, after scorning that version ever since I was a teenager. I LOVED the experience - one thing that I found very moving was knowing I was reading the same words that heroes of mine had read - William Carey and Jim Elliot and Amy Carmichael and Eric Liddell...
Posted by: Daveen Wilson | February 21, 2011 at 10:29 PM