Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Toto · 05-09-2011, 10:11 PM

Quote:

... Guesswork and approximation will not do: the resurrection cannot be half true or questionably attested. For the first 1,500 years of the Christian epoch, this problem of “authority,” in both senses of that term, was solved by having the divine mandate wrapped up in languages that the majority of the congregation could not understand, and by having it presented to them by a special caste or class who alone possessed the mystery of celestial decoding.

Four hundred years ago, just as William Shakespeare was reaching the height of his powers and showing the new scope and variety of the English language, and just as “England” itself was becoming more of a nation-state and less an offshore dependency of Europe, an extraordinary committee of clergymen and scholars completed the task of rendering the Old and New Testaments into English, and claimed that the result was the “Authorized” or “King James” version. This was a fairly conservative attempt to stabilize the Crown and the kingdom, heal the breach between competing English and Scottish Christian sects, and bind the majesty of the King to his devout people. “The powers that be,” it had Saint Paul saying in his Epistle to the Romans, “are ordained of God.” This and other phrasings, not all of them so authoritarian and conformist, continue to echo in our language: “When I was a child, I spake as a child”; “Eat, drink, and be merry”; “From strength to strength”; “Grind the faces of the poor”; “salt of the earth”; “Our Father, which art in heaven.” It’s near impossible to imagine our idiom and vernacular, let alone our liturgy, without them. Not many committees in history have come up with such crystalline prose.

DCHindley · 05-10-2011, 05:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

When the King Saved God

Quote:

... Guesswork and approximation will not do: the resurrection cannot be half true or questionably attested. For the first 1,500 years of the Christian epoch, this problem of “authority,” in both senses of that term, was solved by having the divine mandate wrapped up in languages that the majority of the congregation could not understand, and by having it presented to them by a special caste or class who alone possessed the mystery of celestial decoding.

Four hundred years ago, just as William Shakespeare was reaching the height of his powers and showing the new scope and variety of the English language, and just as “England” itself was becoming more of a nation-state and less an offshore dependency of Europe, an extraordinary committee of clergymen and scholars completed the task of rendering the Old and New Testaments into English, and claimed that the result was the “Authorized” or “King James” version. This was a fairly conservative attempt to stabilize the Crown and the kingdom, heal the breach between competing English and Scottish Christian sects, and bind the majesty of the King to his devout people. “The powers that be,” it had Saint Paul saying in his Epistle to the Romans, “are ordained of God.” This and other phrasings, not all of them so authoritarian and conformist, continue to echo in our language: “When I was a child, I spake as a child”; “Eat, drink, and be merry”; “From strength to strength”; “Grind the faces of the poor”; “salt of the earth”; “Our Father, which art in heaven.” It’s near impossible to imagine our idiom and vernacular, let alone our liturgy, without them. Not many committees in history have come up with such crystalline prose.

There had been several attempts to translate the bible into other languages, notably Luther's "High" German translation, and Wycliffe's and Tyndale's into more or less common English. They were not always welcomed by the "government approved" church authorities. In most kingdoms, the king chose the denomination whose version of christian liturgy and doctrine would be endorsed, and all others rejected.

Given the power that religious belief has over the behavior of the people, translations into the local language were seen by authorities as opportunities for dissident sects to form outside of the approved church hierarchy and thus challenge the government's authority.

What the KJV did, to it's credit, was create a scholarly translation "from the original tongues" that was rendered into "High" (literary) English, based on what at the time a cutting edge eclectic Greek NT text (Erasmus') and the Masoretic Hebrew text of the OT. Until then, everything was based on the Vulgate for the OT/NT or the Greek Septuagint translation of the OT. It even included Deutero-Canonical books in the translation.

It was "Authorized" only in the fact that it was an approved English translation for use in England (Church of England, essentially Catholic rites with Protestant theology) & Scotland (strong Calvinist Reform influence).

I cut my teeth on it, and ultimately learned to read it effortlessly without having to consciously translate it into modern English, but have long ago moved on to modern translations. Although I have a couple really dog eared KJV copies with tons of underlining and highlighted passages, I haven't picked up a KJV to read for a decade.

DCH

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