Four Hundred Years
Welcome to 2011, the four-hundredth birthday of the King James Version of the Holy Bible. Many in the English-speaking world will be joining the celebration. And no wonder—the King James Version has been read by more English speakers and has done more to shape the language than any other document.
These days, Christians express mixed attitudes toward the King James Version. On the one hand are some who treat it as if it were written in a foreign language. They prize readability above all else, and they seem to think that an ordinary person of the 21st century cannot reasonably be expected to decipher such an arcane text. They value the King James Version only as an historical oddity, to be relegated to the museum of religious antiquities.
On the other hand are a few who affirm that the King James Version alone is the Word of God in English. Their professed reasons are diverse, having to do with manuscript preservation and translation theory, but when pressed they generally affirm with tautological certainty that they believe their position “by faith.”
Of course, what the advocates of this second position usually value is not so much the King James of 1611, but the revision of the King James that occurred in 1769. Different publishers, however, have issued different editions of the 1769 revision, and these contain differences in wording. Matthew Verschuur of Australia has gone so far as to insist that only the “Pure Cambridge Edition” of the King James Version is to be accepted as the true Word of God.
Divergent as these two attitudes are, they have one thing in common. Neither takes adequate account of the phenomena of Scripture itself. For example, King James Only advocates have difficulty explaining the divergent ways in which the text of the Old Testament manages to find its way into the New. They have further difficulty explaining how the sayings of Jesus could be rendered differently in the various gospel accounts (e.g., Matthew’s choice of “kingdom of heaven” where Mark and Luke prefer “kingdom of God”). Most of all, they have difficulty finding an actual promise of textual preservation anywhere in the Bible. All of these considerations should give anyone pause before subscribing to the theory that we only have the true Word of God if we have the exact words of God.
Similar problems beset those who wish to retire the King James in favor of “readability.” Of course, Scripture is written to be understood—that is its perspicuity. Affirming that Scripture can be understood, however, is not the same as insisting that its meaning ought to be transparent to a shallow reader upon a fleeting and facile scan of the text.
The original readers of Scripture could hardly have expected such simplicity. Even the apostle Peter gave voice to the difficulty he experienced in understanding Paul’s writings. And no wonder. Thoughtful writings—whether inspired or not—are often characterized by a measure of dense translucence that can be penetrated only by wrestling with the text.
The simple truth is that thoughtful reading requires thoughtful readers. When writers have to explain difficult concepts, they often employ technical vocabulary and intricate grammar. We find biblical writers doing both. The apostle Paul is famous for extended sentences filled with dependent clauses and parenthetical insertions—and Peter is sometimes not far behind. The terminology of Luke the physician is richer than that of John the fisherman, and the architecture of his syntax is correspondingly more complex. Reading Paul is not terribly unlike reading Aristotle. The writer to the Hebrews employs some of the most difficult Greek anywhere.
In the attempt to heighten their language, the writers of Scripture often deploy devices that were not part of ordinary street-talk. Poetical sections in particular are filled with archaisms. Listing the various tropes used in the text of Scripture would fill a cyclopedia of figurative language.
The early perpetuation of Scripture also affects the issue of clarity. By the time the New Testament was written, the language of both the Hebrew Old Testament and the Septuagint was at least mildly archaic. Nevertheless, Jesus and the apostles continued to employ these documents and to expect others to do so.
The clarity of a translation is important—especially for Holy Scripture. Clarity, however, must not be reduced to mere “readability.” If the tradeoff for clarity is a significant loss of precision, then the price may well be too high. We should not feel obligated to make the Scriptures more clear than God Himself did.
The translator helps nothing when he attempts to resolve vagueness or ambiguity by making interpretive decisions for the reader. To assert that “God says” is miles away from humbly suggesting that, “I think this means….” Translators necessarily do the former, which means that they must resist the temptation to insert the latter.
The King James Version strikes a very good balance between accuracy and clarity. In spite of occasional failures (largely enforced by King James’s own dictates), the translation is remarkable both for its precision and for its intelligibility. Anyone who can understand Mortimer Adler’s How to Read a Book can understand the text of the King James Version.
The translators of the King James Version went beyond balance, however. What they produced is not merely a good translation. Their work is critically regarded as one of the great literary masterpieces of the English language. By translating at a high literary level, they have followed biblical writers such as Asaph and Isaiah, who were themselves masters of literary excellence. The glories of the Psalms and Prophets must not be lost to abecedarian translational technique. In the King James Version, they are not lost. Indeed, the cadences and locutions of the King James Version have seeped deeply into the heart of the English-speaking world.
Translations should reflect the literary level of the original text, and even the Greek of the New Testament was not really ordinary speech. It was not the Greek that one would hear in the shambles or even that one can read in the papyri. It was more formal, and at times it was crafted carefully according to literary considerations (the writer to the Hebrews is a master of literary technique).
Some are bothered by archaisms in the text of the King James Version. They need not be. Most of those archaisms are fairly easy to decipher. By performing that task, contemporary readers are imitating the original readers of many biblical documents. What is more, the archaisms serve a valuable purpose. They teach us that Scripture did not just come into being yesterday. They underline the truth that Scripture provides enduring answers to permanent questions. The Bible is not a book to be perused for momentary amusement, but one to be studied for life.
In the case of truly obsolete language, the King James Version can and should be updated. It has been before. It can be again. The work should be undertaken with reverence, not merely for the content of what is revealed, but for the locutions of the King James Version itself. No more should be changed than is really necessary. The people who would perform this task would place all readers of English in their debt.
It will never happen. The New King James Version fails by making changes that are unnecessary and sometimes banal. It is the worst of all possible worlds. No other translation, however, is likely to do better. The problem is that a version incorporating only necessary changes could never obtain an exclusive copyright. No publisher could hold exclusive rights to it. With no large sums to be made from a gentle revision, the printing houses will distribute and the pious will receive only a continuing stream of translations du jour.
Therein lies the real problem with the proliferation of modern translations. Few of them are objectionable in their own right. Most of them contribute something, and most are worthy of being consulted by readers who cannot understand the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. In the multiplication of translations, however, today’s Christians have lost significant intelligibility in sharing the Scriptures with one another.
On the average Sunday, even among fundamentalists, one can find churches using (at minimum) the King James, the New King James, the New American Standard, the New International, and the English Standard versions. One never knows what Bible to carry when visiting a new church. One hardly knows which version to memorize—what is learned from one version this year may become obsolete when the church changes its Bible next year.
How many Christians appreciate the irony that most new versions include the word Standard in their title? The fact is that the English language has only ever had one standard version, and that is the King James. Beginning with the publication of the New American Standard Bible, the English-speaking evangelical world has lost any semblance of, and probably any hope for, biblical standardization. How could anyone not see this as an evil?
Worse, the comparison of versions has made the Word of God into a consumer commodity. In order to attract the purchasing public, every new translation, paraphrase, and amplification has to have its own signature features. Its publisher must convince readers of the in-sufficiency of all previous versions. The purchase of a Bible becomes akin to the selection of a designer tie or perfume. One chooses a version like one chooses a flavor of soda. How can the transitory nature of modern versions not cast aspersion upon the enduring nature of God’s Word, and, consequently, of His character?
In sum, a good version of the Bible will be accurate, but it will not oversimplify. It will choose elevated language because it aims to shape feeling as well as thinking. It should be widely used and readily shared. It must leave the reader with the impression that the book wasn’t just written yesterday. It ought to be just a bit archaic.
In my opinion, the King James Version is the only translation of Holy Scripture into English that meets these criteria. It is not just a good version, it is a great one. It is both a great translation and a great work of literature. For me, the use of the King James Version is not simply a matter of nostalgia or sentimentality. It is unsurpassed for use in the corporate church setting, and it is as good as any for private devotional reading.
If others think differently, then they may use any faithful version without offending me. If I am preaching in their church, I will honor the church’s choice of Bible. At one level, it is a joy to have many good versions at our beck and call. All the same, I wonder how many of those versions will be celebrated four hundred years from now.
My Spirit Longeth for Thee
John Byrom (1692-1763)
My spirit longeth for thee
Within my troubled breast,
Although I be unworthy
Of so divine a guest.
Of so divine a guest
Unworthy though I be,
Yet has my heart no rest
Unless it come from thee.
Unless it come from thee,
In vain I look around;
In all that I can see,
No rest is to be found.
No rest is to be found
But in thy blessed Love;
O! let my wish be crowned,
And send it from above.
This essay is by Dr. Kevin T. Bauder, president of Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN). Not every professor, student, or alumnus of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
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- The KJB has had a huge and positive impact on the English language
- With some work it is usually possible to correctly understand it (and we should not expect understanding to be effortless)
- The making of translations today is excessive and too commerce-driven
- The NKJV has its flaws
But…- God did not give His word for the purpose of elevating or preserving a language (though I’d love to see English elevated & preserved!)
- The barriers to correct understanding are quite understated here… and we should not present people with linguistic hurdles that are unnecessary
- Some excellent translations have been made in recent years
- The NKJV pretty much is an update of the KJV. Though it has some unfortunate translation choices, so does the KJV. All translations have flaws.
When I hear folks downplay the effort involved in getting to an accurate understanding of what God said via the KJV, I can’t help but wonder how often they’ve worked with folks with average or sub-average education explaining verses to them. I agree strongly with Kevin that the answer is not to dumb down the text. But there is much between the extremes of handing them a 400 yr. old translation and saying “OK, learn the Bible, but learn Elizabethan English first” and handing them a dumbed-down, reduced vocabulary translation at the 3rd grade reading level. Let’s not act like these are the only two choices.
(Though I’m not opposed to giving a person a reduced vocab. Bible and telling them, “This is a paraphrase. Eventually you should move up to a real Bible. But until then, this will help you get started.”)
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
I countered that if the Greek text wasn’t a special, elevated Greek, then we should not translate it into that sort of English.
But apparently portions of the Greek are just that. Don’t know if this fellow didn’t get my point, or if he was not aware of the fact, but he didn’t make point that out to me.
Aaron, as to your reduced vocab version, I know this calls for speculation, but do you think thats how the first century church leaders dealt with the book of Hebrews with the less literate in their flocks?
[Kevin Bauder] Translations should reflect the literary level of the original text, and even the Greek of the New Testament was not really ordinary speech. It was not the Greek that one would hear in the shambles or even that one can read in the papyri. It was more formal, and at times it was crafted carefully according to literary considerations (the writer to the Hebrews is a master of literary technique).I think there is a potential for confusing categories here. There is a difference between http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Register_%28sociolinguistics%29] register , literary sophistication, and difficulty. One can speak or write in a low register with a high level of literary sophistication, or in a high register without any regard for literary style. In general, the New Testament prefers a low register, though it maintains throughout a high sensitivity to literary considerations. Occasionally, we see instances of a higher register break out, but those spots are significant for their relative scarcity. Neither register nor literary structure necessarily make reading difficult. The greatest difficulties in reading NT Greek are the Aramaisms, Semitic idioms, and Septuagint quotations woven into the Greek text.
Also, “not terribly unlike” is vague, but I fail to see any appreciable correlation between Paul’s Greek and Aristotle’s. I’ve read all of Paul and a decent bit of Aristotle, and the comparison strikes me as simply wrong. They aren’t writing the same genres, and they aren’t writing in the same period of Greek. Aristotle was Macedonian, thus was raised speaking Ionian and learned the Attic dialect. The rise of Hellenistic (or Koine) Greek is a generation after Aristotle, and even then wasn’t used in traditionally Greek territories. The prevalence of Koine caused a reaction, in which the Atticists declared that only the Attic dialect was the proper model for Greek prose. The salient point is that the New Testament writers universally rejected Atticism in favor of Koine. So, despite occasional “Atticisms,” no NT writer (including the higher register Hebrews) is really much like Aristotle. If any Attic writer, the NT is more like Xenophon.
So, in terms of the language employed, the NT is quite an easy read (perhaps with a few exceptions). The difficulty certainly comes from the subject matter. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” is elementary in English and Greek, but how much depth it contains.
My Blog: http://dearreaderblog.com
Cor meum tibi offero Domine prompte et sincere. ~ John Calvin
What kind of “updates” in a translation are reasonable to expect? I think I do agree that the literary qualities of KJV are largely missing in versions we have seen more recently. Obviously, the issue of profiteering from more recent versions is a legitimate one. To me, these are legitimate reasons to see KJV as a standard, and that I haven’t seen a consensus pick that replaces it.
(In my case it’s not about leaping back to preconceptions though. I’ve heard all of this before and wrestled with it back in the late 80’s)
Aaron, as to your reduced vocab version, I know this calls for speculation, but do you think thats how the first century church leaders dealt with the book of Hebrews with the less literate in their flocks?Well, we do this in sermons all the time anyway. The question is, what do I want them to be able to figure out when I’m not standing behind the pulpit to re-translate the translation?
I actually wondered, back when we switched to NKJV as the preaching text, if my sermons would get shorter with so much less to explain. But, no, they didn’t. Does seem like I’m able to focus a bit more on significance and a bit less on defining English words. But since we’ve got some NIVs and some NASBs in the congregation (as well as quite a few KJVs), I still have to pause to talk about why they are not seeing the same thing I’m reading.
But one benefit of the multitranslational environment we are now in is that people more naturally understand that they are looking at a translation and that none of these should be viewed as perfect. There are downsides to multiversionality but there are also advantages.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
But I just wanted to react to this statement…
[Kevin T. Bauder] The New King James Version fails by making changes that are unnecessary and sometimes banal. It is the worst of all possible worlds. No other translation, however, is likely to do better.I could not possibly disagree more.
My own testimony is that I memorized HUNDREDS of verses from the KJV in Lutheran grade school — and scores more passages from Luther’s Small Catechism that were rooted in the KJV or KJV-like-speak. After reading the NKJV now for more than 20 years, however — with no concerted effort to memorize it during much of that time — I find myself “thinking in NKJV,” even struggling to remember the exact wording of the KJV when necessary.
I love the NKJV, and believe it is as probably the best translation we have in English today — including the KJV. Of course, I am not a world-class textual scholar, but that is my humble opinion. (I still read the KJV and also use it when appropriate.)
To be practical about it, if you do not want the “KJV legacy” to eventually disappear and be found somewhere next to the Geneva Bible on the historical shelf, I would think you would want to promote the NKJV for all it is worth. The old KJV is being used less and less every day and — aside from the committed KJVO — I believe it will ultimately disappear from practical usage.
Church Ministries Representative, serving in the Midwest, for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry
I agree that your first post did not fit my description. Neither did anything that followed. I hope my statement proves to be wrong.
[Kevin Bauder] Anyone who can understand Mortimer Adler’s How to Read a Book can understand the text of the King James Version.Boy, I sure hope that’s not the standard for Bible readability and “understandability.” Would I be wrong to think that most (or even a majority of) people today could not read How to Read a Book with comprehension?
I agree with Aaron. I think Dr. Bauder grossly understates the obstacles KJV English presents to the average English-speaker.
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Greg Long, Ed.D. (SBTS)
Pastor of Adult Ministries
Grace Church, Des Moines, IA
Adjunct Instructor
School of Divinity
Liberty University
This book sets forth the great influence of the KJV but also the great restrictions and limitations that make it an imperfect translation. You will find that the KJV is not in Elizabethan language as some commonly claim. Also, it actually standardized the English language. It also sets forth the great weaknesses of the translation such as the translators not being aware of the existence of the Koine Greek and trying to translate a Greek dialect they were not aware of. It also sets forth the lack of understanding of Hebrew as many discoveries that would give us better understanding of the language were yet to be made. This book gives high praise of the KJV and its influence but does not ignore the flaws and the facts of history.
We owe a great deal of theological confusion to the KJV. Such words as Baptism, Church, Deacon, Bishop, Propitiation, and Justification, have created an ambiguity in many interpretations. There has never been confusion with the Greek Orthodox regarding “Baptizo.” They immerse their babies. The noun “Pistis” is translated 243 times as “faith” and the verb “Pistuo” also appears 243 times and is always translated “believe.” Faith comes from the French and derived from latin. “Believe” is a English word. They do not mean the same thing. Are we saved by faith or are we saved by believing? To this is added the confusion of the English word “repent,” which does not convey the intent of the Greek at all. Now we have several opinions of what “repent” means when the word should probably not be in the NT Biblical vocabulary at all. Some even talk of “repentant faith” which is a phrase never appearing in scripture and actually redefines “faith.” Such confusion may exist because we are embracing KJV words used and not willing to really translate in a way that will avoid bad translation tradition and embrace true clarity. There is often a false loyalty to the KJV that presents needed vocabulary change in translations.
The KJV is a good translation but far from perfect. Its eventual wide acceptance put the Bible into the hands of the average English speaking person. This would eventually change theology for many Christians. The clergy pseudo intellectual conspiracy of Calvinism would be widely questioned and new consideration would be given to Eschatology and other aspects of theology. However, today we have translations that meet the criteria of being better translations than the KJV. This began with the 1901 ASV and then the NASB, the NKJV, and now also the ESV. The original NIV also was a good translation in spite of its so called dynamic equivalency approach.
Most born again Evangelicals today use other than the KJV. Most all evangelical churches are using other than the KJV in their services. IMO Fundamentalist churches that still use the KJV in their services are perpetuating tradition over a duty to present and teach the word of God with clarity and understanding. Clergy comfort should not exceed Divine intent.
Regardless of motives we should not fear or discourage new translations. We can use discernment and inform as to weaknesses and strengths. Either make every Evangelical proficient in Greek and Hebrew or rejoice in the providence of God giving clarity to the real intent of His word to us.
So I checked my Greek text and the wording there is simply angelos kuriou (no textual variants). So modern versions correctly translate this “an angel of the Lord.” The KJV translators made the interpretive decision to add the article to angelos in their translation. No big deal…unless you believe the KJB to be the one and only Scriptures.
Of course many other examples could be brought forward. But as to the 400th anniversary, I had thought initially that this milestone would become a feather in the cap of the KJVO movement. However, the anniversary also highlights an uncomfortable truth for the KJVO advocate—that the KJV had a beginning, and it was not with the apostles.
[Darrell Post] But as to the 400th anniversary, I had thought initially that this milestone would become a feather in the cap of the KJVO movement. However, the anniversary also highlights an uncomfortable truth for the KJVO advocate—that the KJV had a beginning, and it was not with the apostles.Careful now Darrell,
That’s St. James to you!!! :bigsmile: 8-) ;)
Church Ministries Representative, serving in the Midwest, for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry
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