sotto voce

They do. It's remarkable that 'atheists' have so much in common with American fundies in their devotion to literal early Genesis and 'KJV' usage. It's almost as though they belong to the same faction.

Those are not specific to the 'KJV', so they are irrelevant.

Those objections have anyway all been shown to be specious, here, as elsewhere, and opportunistic raising of them now will be ignored.

spin

Sorry but what is this obnoxious arseholery? You've been making snakey little comments around here for months, totally unconstructive pure bad attitude, unable to enter into conversation, ever ready to sell your religious wares. Why the fuck do you keep posting if not merely for your own perverse amusement at the expense of other posters? There is a word for that and such activity contravenes the user agreement.

Sheshbazzar

I was wondering if anyone else noticed.

sotto voce

Noticed that this has been totally ignored?

Obfuscation in printed versions is particularly true of the tome known as the King James Bible. Why does Dawkins so predictably promote it on this occasion, as he has on many others? The reason given is cultural and literary, but if so, why has he and many others who claim this motive so glaringly fail to support the reading of other classical books? Surely the primacy of accuracy ought to be the primary concern of a well-known skeptic, and ought to be seen to be his concern? Surely, many will take this as inept warning that the 'KJV' is less than what Christians find acceptable.

They will be correct to do so. Very few in Dawkins' own country now use the 'KJV', that became known as 'the steam Bible' concurrently with the rapid phasing out of steam railways in Britain in the 1960s. Dawkins has been unduly influenced by the American fundamentalists with whom he has so much in common. He's made a fool of himself, again. The 'Bible' that Dawkins advocates was put together (translated is far too strong a word) by people who did not even know that the New Testament was written in non-classical Greek! It is based on a text-type that holds sentences that are found in no known Greek manuscript. It contains a known forgery, and several spurious passages, yet gives no warning of any of them.

As the belated but vastly superior official revision of this Bible, the RSV, put in its preface, the ancient version had 'grave defects' and was unfit for purpose. In fact, it had been an unjustifiable version for well over two centuries, due to scholarly advances. Since 1946, when the RSV began to appear, scholarship in all relevant fields has moved on even more. So 'Dinosaur Dawkins' might seem a particularly apt and well-deserved epithet. Or maybe Richard 'Grave Defects' Dawkins would be suitable, and unexceptionable judgement of one whose profession is supposed to be precision.

Shambolic.

Perspicuo

Let's make it a poll. I vote for naive.

sotto voce

Perhaps a bit of British expertise will help here. What will happen to most of these Bibles is that they will be locked in glass cases and forgotten. The few that don't will be made much of by headteachers, but resistance from teachers and students will mean a short exposure, and these tomes also will go to obscurity.

English teaching in the UK has for decades now excluded attention to such as Hardy, Dickens, Wordsworth and even Shakespeare. Pupils read a modern book (sorry, one or two chapters of a modern book), that does not mention God, gender inequality or anything non-PC. Some have protested about this consistently as paranoid dereliction of culture. But there has never been so much as a squeak from Dawkins, except where he wants people to be completely confused by phrases like 'through a glass darkly'. Like posters here, he's a true believer. And most now think him a pretty disgraceful hypocrite. Naive if he thinks he's gonna be liked, yes.

Joan of Bark

Atheists I know hate the KJV, because it relies on inferior copies. Around here, we often quote the RSV, NRSV, or NIV.

Okay, here's a poll I conducted a couple of years back about which Bible people here use. The KJV actually came out stronger than I thought it would.

spin

But recognizing this doesn't suit sotto voce's perversions. And his statements about use of the KJV are not cluelessness. He is deliberately and maliciously making things up for their impact here.

Steven Carr

SO why are the Tories pushing through this plan to put a KJV in every school?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2...ng-james-bible

'Lord Robert Edmiston, a motor trade entrepreneur who gave more than £3.2m to the Tory party between 2000 and 2010, has also sponsored the Bible project. The life peer is an evangelical Christian who set up the charity Christian Vision.'


'The Liberal Democrat donor Paul Marshall, a hedge fund boss and committed Christian, and his wife have also donated funds for the scheme,....'

Why are evangelical Christians diverting their charity money (money that they would obviously be otherwise giving to eye operations for blind children in 3rd world countries, or setting up crossings so old ladies could cross the road) to getting a KJV in every school?

sotto voce

You have an extraordinarily select circle of friends. Not inclusive of Richard Dawkins.

I told you that. The echoes in here!

How sensible. Though of course, translations are only to give a rough sense. Very rough, at times.