Posted on 11/27/2010 7:12:53 AM PST by re_tail20
A new poll taken for the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible reveals that a majority of those under 35 in the United Kingdom don't even know about the work, which has been described as a significant part of the estimated 100 million Bible sales annually, making it the best best-seller, ever.
"Yet this is a work which was far more influential than Shakespeare in the development and spread of English," a spokesman for the King James Bible Trust told the Christian Institute in a recent report.
The Christian Institute's report said the translation, which will celebrate its 400th anniversary next year, was the subject of a poll commissioned by the Bible Trust, and a spokesman said it was clear "there has been a dramatic drop in knowledge in a generation."
The results revealed that 51 percent of those under 35 never have heard of the King James Bible, compared to 28 percent of those over the age of 35.
The institute reported that Labour Member of Parliament Frank Field said, "It is not possible to comprehend fully Britain's historical, linguistic or religious development without an understanding of this great translation."
According to officials who are working on a series of events marking the 400th year of the King James Bible, work on the translation into English of God's Word started in 1604 at the request of King James I. Work continued on the project until 1611, when the team of 47 of the top Bible scholars of the time finished their work.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
Bible bumper´s ping
***Which manuscript is more true, an older inaccurate parchment or the next oldest manuscript accurately corresponding to many more parallel parchments?***
Good question.
Which manuscript is more true? Several high dollar Alexandrian manuscripts set on a self for 1700 years and because of errors in them not used much (which is why they survived), or an older, mor accurate Byzantine text used and copied and passed down over the centuries?
You wrote:
“Reading the Bible in your own language isn’t a bad thing for freedom. That’s why Rome (at the time) “preferred” it in Latin.”
Rome had nothing to say about it. There were always translations in the vernacular - as the translators of the KJV mention in their preface. Apparently you don’t know as much as you think you know.
“Once the common man could read it in whatever language he was capable, freedom from those who would tell you what it meant and that you couldn’t possibly be allowed to read it for yourself was a good thing - and people got used to it.”
Literate people were already used to reading and hearing the scriptures in their own vernacular language. If anything held them up from doing so it was the following: the enormous cost of making Bibles, the difficulty of picking WHICH vernacular to use and the low literacy rates. Rome had nothing to do with it. Rome never prohibited the translation of scriptures. Rome preferred the use of Latin because that was the language that united all Catholics everywhere and still does. That preference had nothing to do with what individual diocese or hierarchies or even individual Catholics chose to do.
I still can't find a version of the Bible that contains Maccabees 1 and 2, Enoch and all the other books that should be in it but aren't, AND is not dumbed down into some kind of Valley Speak.
Joking aside, the KJ Bible isn't hard to read, at all, if you're English and can cope with regional accents. Nor, for that matter, is the Wycliffe Bible - if you can read Chaucer you can read Wycliffe.
There'll be a Gideon Bible in my hotel tomorrow, and Good News Bibles are easy to get hold of.
I think this story's being overplayed. America has dozens of different versions of the Bible in common use but there's only about three versions in mainstream circulation in the UK. You can get hold of more obscure ones if you want, or regional translations, but there's a bit of a "pub quiz" element to knowing the differences between the NKJV and the AKJV. By that I mean it's more likely to come up in a pub quiz than anywhere else.
Bible development should definitely be covered in the curriculum because of its historical importance, but then again, I also think the Wycliffe version in particular should be covered alongside the King James and Douay-Rheims versions, since it predates them both and is therefore - arguably - of greater significance as a historical marker.
Are those being sold anywhere yet?
(boyfriends)
Whereas most who read and treasure the King James Bible think the Douay-Rheims is already gathering dust a museum, if they think about it at all.
“Remember that the KJV that is common now was the revised version from the 19th century. You couldn’t read an actual original one today, too much of the language has changed.”
Not true. The text was standardized in 1769 to remove corruptions and standardize with more modern spelling. The 1611 version reads thus: “Though I speake with the tongues of men & of Angels, and haue not charity, I am become as sounding brasse or a tinkling cymbal. 2 And though I haue the gift of prophesie, and vnderstand all mysteries and all knowledge: and though I haue all faith, so that I could remooue mountaines, and haue no charitie, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestowe all my goods to feede the poore, and though I giue my body to bee burned, and haue not charitie, it profiteth me nothing.”
A bit awkward, but hardly unreadable.
“What would you call a book that was literally plagarized from the Douay Rheims Bible and is missing seven Books and parts of two others?”
I dunno, but certainly not the KJV! Most of it follows the Tyndale Bible - up to 90% of the New Testament. If anything, you have it backwards, verga:
“Much of the text of the 1582/1610 bible, however, employed a densely latinate vocabulary, to the extent of being in places unreadable; and consequently this translation was replaced by a revision undertaken by bishop Richard Challoner; the New Testament in three editions 1749, 1750, and 1752; the Old Testament (minus the Vulgate apocrypha), in 1750. Although retaining the title Douay–Rheims Bible, the Challoner revision was in fact a new version, tending to take as its base text the King James Bible rigorously checked and extensively adjusted for improved readability and consistency with the Clementine edition of the Vulgate.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douay%E2%80%93Rheims_Bible
If you check Thomas More and others, you'll find a big part of their objection was to commoners getting hold of scripture...
"They will say haply, the scripture requireth a pure mind and a quiet mind; and therefore the lay-man, because he is altogether cumbered with worldly business, cannot understand them. If that be the cause, then it is a plain case that our prelates understand not the scriptures themselves: for no layman is so tangled with worldly business as they are. The great things of the world are ministered by them; neither do the lay-people any great thing, but at their assignment. ‘If the scripture were in the mother tongue,’ they will say, ‘then would the lay-people understand it, every man after his own ways.’ Wherefore serveth the curate, but to teach him the right way? Wherefore were the holy days made, but that the people should come and learn? Are ye not abominable schoolmasters, in that ye take so great wages, if ye will not teach? If ye would teach, how could ye do it so well, and with so great profit, as when the lay-people have the scripture before them in their mother tongue? For then should they see, by the order of the text, whether thou jugglest or not: and then would they believe it, because it is the scripture of God, though thy living be never so abominable. Where now, because your living and your preaching are so contrary, and because they grope out in every sermon your open and manifest lies, and smell your unsatiable covetousness, they believe you not when you preach truth. But, alas! the curates themselves (for the most part) wot no more what the new or old Testament meaneth, than do the Turks: neither know they of any more than that they read at mass, matins, and evensong, which yet they understand not: neither care they, but even to mumble up so much every day, as the pie and popinjay speak, they wot not what, to fill their bellies withal. If they will not let the lay-man have the word of God in his mother tongue, yet let the priests have it; which for a great part of them do understand no Latin at all, but sing, and say, and patter all day, with the lips only, that which the heart understandeth not." - THE OBEDIENCE OF A CHRISTIAN MAN
placemarker
You wrote:
“If you check Thomas More and others, you’ll find a big part of their objection was to commoners getting hold of scripture...”
Completely false. This is what More wrote:
“The whole Bible long before Wycliff’s day was by virtuous and well-learned men translated into the English tongue, and by good and godly people with devotion and soberness well and reverently read.” (Dialogues III)
“The clergy keep no Bibles from the laity but such translations as be either not yet approved for good, or such as be already reproved for naught [bad translations or notes] as Wycliff’s was. For, as for old ones that were before Wycliff’s days, they remain lawful and be in some folks’ hand. I myself have seen, and can show you, Bibles, fair and old which have been known and seen by the Bishop of the Diocese, and left in laymen’s hands and women’s too, such as he knew for good and Catholic folk, that used them with soberness and devotion.” (Ibid)
So much for your claim.
“Rome had nothing to say about it.”
Lol, ya think? They reacted to it, being caught not meeting the needs of the Christian masses.
“Very few people had access to the scripture in the common tongue. That is what made Tyndale (and Wycliffe before him) so important - they pried the scripture out of hte hands of the few and gave it to the masses.”
So true, so true. and for that he was hated.
You wrote:
“Whereas most who read and treasure the King James Bible think the Douay-Rheims is already gathering dust a museum, if they think about it at all.”
1) Since the Protestant Revolution was forced on the entire English-speaking population, it should be no surprise that most English speakers today are Protestants. The DRV is far from “gathering dust [in] a museum” however. It is more popular now then it was 40 years ago. New printings are popping up: http://www.saintbenedictpress.com/Catholic-Classics/Bibles.cfm?ct=1372
You wrote:
“Lol, ya think? They reacted to it, being caught not meeting the needs of the Christian masses.”
They did not react to it. Rome had nothing to say about vernacular translations. Never did and really still doesn’t - other than expecting orthodox ones. It is up to individual Catholics, national hierarchies or consortiums to translate scriptures.
The tyrant who provoked the most devastating war this continent ever suffered bastardized Tyndale's explanation for his work:
The Best is the one that takes into account all of the most recent archeological discoveries and "outside" evidence. It takes into account all of the nuances of the original language based on the extensive current that has been gathered since 1611.
Are other (modern) translations poor, bad, or even (linguisticaly) corrupt, yes, but it all started with King Jimmy.
Yeah thats right there have been at least three different versions of the 1611. Lets be aware of one important facts the "translators can say what ever they like, but it has been documented that significant portions of the King Jimmy have been lifted directly from the D/R.
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