is the best version of the Bible.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nWhen I say \u201cbest,\u201d I don\u2019t mean \u201cmost accurately conveys the oldest documents.\u201d I know there are older arguments that try to argue something along these lines (J. Reuben Clark wrote a booklet about it, but when I was in Stephen Robinson\u2019s class at BYU he didn\u2019t seem to think his arguments held much water), but I have no reason to doubt the idea that newer translations rely on older texts and have less mistranslations.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nStill, when choosing a translation that is not the only criteria. The creation of the King James Version really was lightning in a bottle that will probably never be repeated. The most learned people in the land coming together as the English language was coming into its own and at its most lyrical. (It\u2019s been a while, but the book <\/span>Fire in the Bones: William Tyndale, Martyr, Father of the English Bible<\/span><\/i> by BYU Religion Professor Michael Wilcox does an excellent job describing all of this).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThe English language predecessors they relied on such as Tyndale had enough of a handle on the cadence of the English language to really make it sing, while having enough authority in their own right that they could simply create their own English words or phrases when the perfect word didn\u2019t exist such as \u201cJehovah\u201d in the case of Tyndale, for Coverdale \u201ctender mercies,\u201d \u201crespecter of persons,\u201d \u201clovingkindness,\u201d \u201cthe valley of the shadow of the death,\u201d \u201cForgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,\u201d etc.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nTyndale\u2019s importation of the Hebraism of denoting possession by saying X of Y, for example \u201cThe House of God,\u201d\u00a0 (a Hebraism which, by the way, is 100% accurately conveyed in the Book of Mormon; in which I don\u2019t believe there\u2019s a single instance of an apostrophe s-possession) lends the KJV worldview more formal grandeur.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nTechnically precise translations that strip the beauty from the text is one of the reasons why for me most attempts to read the scripture of other traditions in translation land a little flat. Why wouldn\u2019t it? If I read the beginning to the 23rd Psalm as \u201cThe Lord is my Shepherd, I lack nothing\u201d (NIV), I would wonder what the big screaming deal is about the 23rd Psalm. (Maybe there\u2019s a King James Version of the Quran or Vedas where I can access the lyrical qualities of the Arabic\/Sanskrit original without actually dedicating years of one’s life to learning the languages well enough to pick up on the beauty of the original.)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nNot that all modern translations trade beauty for technical precision. Robert Alter, for example, tries to preserve the beauty and poetry of the Bible without getting caught up in the technical precision but without sacrificing it either. Still, the more accurate translations that the KJV is juxtaposed against often do just that. And sure, the KJV\u2019s euphemisms can become annoying at times (I think I was in my 20s before I realized what the \u201ctime of the woman\u201d meant, and don\u2019t even get me started on the Song of Solomon).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nStill, for a sacred text the ideal balance point between technical precision and beauty is not necessarily all the way on the precision side of things. While I am appreciative of Biblical translations that do take that approach when I want to get to the skinny of a particular passage, it\u2019s not going to be my day-to-day source of spiritual nourishment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThe Latter-day Saint perspective adds another layer to this discussion. We sometimes say that English is the language of the restoration, but more specifically it\u2019s King James English. Official Declaration 1 is the only one written in 19th century English, and \u201c…press dispatches have been sent for political purposes from Salt Lake City\u201d doesn\u2019t exactly give me the same spiritual chills as \u201cOh God, where art thou, and where is the pavilion that covers thy hiding place?\u201d God chose the King James English as the language of the restoration, and I\u2019m convinced that the KJV in particular was used in the BoM translation process as part of \u201cstudying it out in [his] mind” (which would explain why KJV errors made it into the BoM, but does not explain cases, like, 2 Nephi 12:16\u2019s \u201call the ships of the sea\u201d where the BoM improves on the KJV). The specific language of the KJV was used either as a template or placeholder in modern-day revelations in D&C. Even if the KJV or even the original documents they are based on aren’t authentic, their inclusion in modern day revelation gives them the divine imprimatur as scripture after the fact.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As a TBM there are a surprising number of issues dealing with religion where I have some agreement with Richard Dawkins, and one of them is that the King James Version is the best version of the Bible.\u00a0 When I say \u201cbest,\u201d I don\u2019t mean \u201cmost accurately conveys the oldest documents.\u201d I know there are older arguments that try to argue something along these lines (J. Reuben Clark wrote a booklet about it, but when I was in Stephen Robinson\u2019s class at BYU he didn\u2019t seem to think his arguments held much water), but I have no reason to doubt the idea that newer translations rely on older texts and have less mistranslations.\u00a0\u00a0 Still, when choosing a translation that is not the only criteria. The creation of the King James Version really was lightning in a bottle that will probably never be repeated. The most learned people in the land coming together as the English language was coming into its own and at its most lyrical. (It\u2019s been a while, but the book Fire in the Bones: William Tyndale, Martyr, Father of the English Bible by BYU Religion Professor Michael Wilcox does an excellent job describing all of this).\u00a0 The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10403,"featured_media":47897,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scriptures"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/e3367b11-7666-453d-b8cb-ccb9898442af.webp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10403"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47894"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50279,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47894\/revisions\/50279"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/e3367b11-7666-453d-b8cb-ccb9898442af-800x800.webp\")
<\/p>\n