The 400th Anniversary of the publication of the KJV.

[classical_hero]

The KJV is problematic. First of all it comes from a corrupt Byzantine manuscript. Secondly it's overly literal. Third, it's in such archaic English it leads people to make all sorts of strange mistakes in understanding. Still, it's better than that apologetic hack job the NIV.

The best you can do for translations, IMO, is the Oxford Study Tanakh for the OT and either Lattimore's New Testament or Robert M. Price's Pre-Nicene New Testament; though the latter is a reconstruction to find out what the Nicene-era redactors screwed with.

Yeah, the village atheist act is tiresome. I think that Christianity is about as true as the Illiad so I don't bother. I don't need to constantly harp about how silly it is to believe that Athena helps out Greek warriors because I don't believe in Athena. I wish the Evangelical Atheists would do the same.

I disagree that it use the wrong Greek text, since it used the majority text which in the Byzantine family. This family of text contains about 90% of known existing manuscripts. Older does not mean better. I could got further into that, but right now i am not feeling the best, so I don't have the energy to go into great depth right now.

 

[BuckyRea]

One of the books I'm in the middle of reading right now is God's Secretaries by Adam Nicolson, an account of the political, social, and theological disputes that were going on when the Translators were hammering out the KJV. Nothing in there about Shakespeare sticking his own name into the 46th Psalm, which was the original reason why I bought the book. But the picture of King James himself wanting desperately to unite his two countries (and squeeze the radical Puritans out of the C of E, while keeping the moderate Puritans happy under the big tent) is fascinating.

If it's a political translation, and thus theologically flawed, then at least give credit where it's due. The flaws are a result of the KJV being translated in an country where the people made a fetish out of talking about their historic liberties.

A more top-down social order could probably produce a more accurate translation with a less pliable theological world view, because the authorities could then easily announce: "This is the word of God; line up and bow or we burn you for a heretic." James and his translators were trying to make as many people happy within the C of E & KJV structures because they understood the pressures still driving Christianity towards war. Important to understand is that the KJV wasn't just a product of the England of Shakespeare and Jonson. It was also a product of the England of Guy Fawkes and Robert Cecil.