Great is the controversy surrounding the use of Bible
translations…
In Islam, the Koran is sacred and holy, and translations are
seen to detract from the infallible authority of the Arabic manuscript is of
itself. In Judaism, the primary, treasured, text is the large Torah and Tanakh
scroll, which is a work of art, systematically and meticulously handed down by
scribes. Printed editions of this text, Chumash, is in Hebrew. Every
religious child learns Hebrew. Every Bar Mitzvah boy, coming of age, reads
aloud a portion of the Torah which he has studied. English translations, Jewish
translations, exist, though they play a minor role.
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| *The Bar Mitzvah is not the same as the Bris Millah, which is the covenant of circumcision. |
When the Authorized Version came out, it was a primarily
Anglican work. But British Jews came to use its translation in worship
services, and continued to do so, adapting slightly as time went on, until only 1836, when the first continuous Jewish English translation came out (Solomon Bennett's 1836 Specimen), and in 1917, the
groundbreaking JPS, and later on, the Orthodox Stone’s Translation. The
translators of the KJV were well familiar with the exegesis of Jewish scribal
tradition, and though no Jews were directly involved, they were committed to
the authenticity of what was essentially a Jewish text. And thus, the
Authorized Version became for Jews to be a standard. A standard of what? Of the
quality of translation. When the JPS was translated, it was understood
that its goal was to produce a work of such quality in English.
Indeed, the Authorized Version, in Elizabethan English, is said
to hold within its pages majesty and grandeur. By choice of words and
vocabulary, it is well-written, smooth, Shakespearean, and beautiful. But it is
not a language in contemporary English. It falls short, because it is alien and
foreign to many people today, who are not British, who are not grounded in firm
Anglo-Saxon foundations, and who don’t know who Shakespeare or Queen Elizabeth
were.
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| carnal, bloody
and unnatural acts... and in the upshot, purposes mistook, Fall'n on th'inventor's heads |
When it was authorized by the King, head of the Anglican Church,
he forbade the use of certain words. He, the head of the Anglican church, laid
down the rules that bound the translators to his domain. No using of the word, “assembly”
instead of “church” (aimed at the dissenters), no using of the word “immerse”
for “baptize”, etc. Because man was at
its head, it was, of course, imperfect.
Thousands of years of tradition lay set in stone before the
Authorized Versions plowed the sodden grounds and brought the gospel in the
language of the common, Koine , people in a way never done before. The
Latin Vulgate was the Roman Catholic Church’s standard. It has been translated
by Jerome, and considered sacred.
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| "The tradition is not sprinkle, not to immerse!" |
The Puritans (including Pilgrims), used the Geneva Bible,
the English of a century before. To them, the Authorized Version was a
newfangled horror, a Government Bible, a Bible prescribed by His Majesty for
His majesty’s own goals. No, I am not saying that it was a Little Red Book or
Mein Kampf. The Latin Vulgate was in some ways the Authorized Book of
the Vatican, even as the Authorized Version was the Book of Westminster (or
Oxford, or Cambridge).
Even today, the Authorized Version must be studied and read
in history context. We ought to look at what those words really mean, because
familiarity breeds contempt and what we today see words as meaning cannot be
the same way in which translators of the 1611 Authorized Version intended. “Study”
to thyself approved, does not really mean “study”, as in “go to the library and
look it up.”
I believe that to really understand and comprehend the Authorized
Version, one needs a working knowledge of the cultural, historical, and
linguistic traditions of English, not only during the time of King James, but
also during the Tudor and Elizabethan periods that preceded it, and even the
contributions to English by writers like Shakespeare and lexicographers like Samuel
Johnson who preceded and followed it. If one really wants to stretch
it, one can stretch it far.
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| "I say you go all the way!" |
I must address one issue, and that is that of religiosity.
We like a Bible written in “majestic”, “pompous”, as it were, “religious”,
“liturgical” English. It makes us sound godly, pious, and rooted in infallible
tradition. The Quakers, known for their antiquated conversation, were the opposite.
“Thee” and “thou” were pronouns meant to be humble, unassuming, and
equalizing in nature. They were “common” words, of the earth, of the working
lower-class peoples. They were not “high and lofty” titles. They were used to
avoid class distinctions.
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| "Join us at Green Valley!" |
Evangelical Christians today look at the Amish, who read the
High German Bible of their forefathers, which they can read but probably scarcely
comprehend, as being legalistic and bound by tradition. This attitude of condescension
is far more deserved by our own selves!
If one really wanted to study, truthfully, one might as well
take a little time to study texts ordained by God Himself, to read the Greek
and Hebrew for yourselves, and study them. A little Jewish child begins at age
three not only to study but also to treasure the actual manuscript. They
come into contact with it.
There’s nothing wrong with going a little backwards when
reading the Authorized Version. But let’s go back. Let’s go all the way back.
And I’m saying that on two different levels, one of satirical exaggeration, and
one of absolute sincerity. A student of God and of the Bible, as every one
of us, the least of us should be, should be scholarly, scribal, as it were,
students of the Word in the historical and cultural sense as well – not primarily,
mind you, lest I be accused of diminishing the voice of the Spirit.
And on the same hand,
we ought to work towards bringing the gospel to people, the gospel in simple
terms and in simple words a child ought to understand. Simplifying the language
of our gospel, making it contemporary, will not water down its effects.
Many dogmas and traditions lies in the way of people hearing the true word and
call of Jesus. Is it Jesus who speaks through our preaching, or Shakespeare?
Making the language common, not pompous, not upper-crust, will only hammer home
Jesus’s call of discipleship, of the cross, of leaving all to follow Him. Intellectual
superiority only stands between us and Jesus.
The New Testament authors attest to this. Not only did they
bypass the God. Given. Hebrew., though they loved and cherished the Hebrew
Scriptures, they even bypassed the common, verbal, language of the Jews,
Aramaic, which Jesus Himself spoke. They chose Greek, the language of the Gentilers, the language of men who burned pigs of their altars and who sought to turn Jews away from their Living God to philosophy and idol worship. It must have made them cringe. They had the vision of reaching the whole
world, to save them from the throes of death. This urgency caused them to die
to everything they held dear. This gospel, caused them to lay down all that was
familiar, and even godly, to them, in bringing the gospel to the Gentiles. It
was a sacrifice to those Jewish saints to bring their Messiah to the Gentiles.
It cost them dearly. It cost them the respect of their own countrymen, whom
they still loved and shared camaderie with. So much so, that if Paul had not insisted
on the gospel also for the Gentiles, his brothers who sought to kill him would
have welcomed him with open arms.
I love those Jewish saints, to whom we Gentiles owe our very
lives. It pains me to note that within three hundred years, the Gentiles who
received the gospel turned against, indeed hardened their hearts against,
blaspheming and accusing, against the sons and daughters of those who laid down
life and love to bring to us Gentiles what first belonged to them, because they
did not want us to perish. How we treated the descendants, the nephews and
nieces of Paul, the sons and daughters of Peter, the brothers and sisters of
Jesus, is more than abominable, it is cruel. It is not only cruel, it is
unjust. It is not only unjust, it is unthankful.
If we want to be stuck in tradition, to a leather-bound and Coptic-woven
Authorized Version, not just the revised version of the 1800s but the actual
1611 version, if we want to insist that “You” must be “thou”, every alphabet “V”
spelt as “U” and every, “S” written as “F”, then common sense would tell us,
and I rather, that we ought to go back even further, and insist that our Holy
Scriptures be written on parchments of animal skins, kosher animal skins, our
Bibles written for a year by a trained male scribe in STA”M script, and our
Bibles bound with exactly twelve stitches between each page of papyrus, and
every malformed version with a single jot and tittle removed be burned and cast
into the depths of the Dead Sea.
If we realize what our objection really is, then let us
bring the Bible to people. Yes, even if it is a modern version. There is a
plentitude, a glut of bad translations, but there are also god-fearing,
authentic, translations that do their best to bring to us the full, fresh,
breath of Scripture. Translations like the NASV and NKJV are pretty good, and
good for bringing to people. Translations like the Living Bible and NIV are pleasant
to the ears of standard American English-speakers, like the KJV was pleasant to
the ears of the English.
Every translation has it problems, and let us recognize them
so that we can be helped. Let us bring the Bible to people through Apps and
through Websites, even, through smartphones and through MP3s. I believe the
early church would have done so, and even, the translators of the King James.
The amazing thing is that recently Greek papyri of the
earliest known origins have surfaced. Wow! Thank God! And guess what, the
message of the Bible is still the same! The deity of Christ, the fundamental doctrines
of our faith, can be traced back even further! Recently, in the last century certain
Greek constructions make our understandings of Scripture clearer. We don’t have
to depend on Erasmus; we don’t have to depend solely on Jerome. We have a
history. We have thousands of footnotes. We have thousands of manuscripts, none
of which are exactly the same as another. We should be thanking God that the
gospel spread, that no one man had the authority to manipulate our Greek
scriptures, that many heard the gospel or read it in times past, and are saved
in heaven. We thank God for every text He allows us to have. We thank God for
the men and women who laid down their lives in times past to bring the Word of God
and the gospel to many at the costs of their lives. We thank God for the
Vulgate, for the Geneva Bible, for the Authorized versions, for godly modern
versions, for Bible Apps, for the Bible in every language imaginable.
The Word of God is no longer written on stone. Nor can it be
implanted by cardiovascular surgery.
No one translation, one Bible, or even one manuscript, is perfect and infallible, carved by the hand of God amidst a backdrop of thunder and lightning. But God still speaks, and His Word is still as powerful, piercing, and cutting as it ever was in history.
Sources:
The KJV and the Jews
Plain Language of the Quakers
Archaic Words in the KJV
The Geneva and the Puritans
The King James Translators
No one translation, one Bible, or even one manuscript, is perfect and infallible, carved by the hand of God amidst a backdrop of thunder and lightning. But God still speaks, and His Word is still as powerful, piercing, and cutting as it ever was in history.
Sources:
The KJV and the Jews
Plain Language of the Quakers
Archaic Words in the KJV
The Geneva and the Puritans
The King James Translators
