2011 is the fourth centenary of the so-called King James Bible. It is interesting observing reactions to it as museums, the BBC and other cultural pillars mark the anniversary. I do not hear much from from the churches. I wonder why that is?
A friend and neighbour was telling me recently that she took the KJV as her holiday reading. Okay she was going to Florence. I asked her why she chose it and her reply, instantly, was "the language". I really have to learn to keep calmer when people, who are not any kind of religious believers or rarely attend church other than for rites of passage, tell me the language of what they various call The King James, the Authorised Version and/or the Book Common Prayer is vastly superior to....what?
I suppose my first question is what else have they read? With what other translations do they judge onr or another superior and why? What do they know about biblical scholarship and specially translations? What do they know about William Tyndale and before him John Wycliff of Lutterworth? Do they know what happened to them? (I'm not sure this really matters when we come to think about the text).
The story of the KJV is a good tale and a nod in the direction of gathering small groups of scholars together to get on with impossible job of translation. Translation always means treachery.
The more interesting tale for me is the how the texts came to be written and, if they were, out of which oral sources over what kind of time frame. Do people know about the politics of the bible, how various church councils decided on what was in (the canonical) and what was out? (the non-canonical).
I want friends to know how the bible has been read- and mis-read over the years. How the levels of meaning have varied from the multi-layered and sophisticated, metaphorical, allegorical, poetic, legal, narrative, predictive and so on...even the very recently arrived phenomenon, literalist/fundamental which is less than an hundred years old?
I also want to think about how listening to some of the cadences of the KJV and the Book of Common Prayer can put some of us in a state of near infantile oceanic bliss as we remember the words of our early childhood. Not sharing the protestant background of many of my friends who advocate the superiority of the KJV over every other translation I have to say that I have similar attachments but mine, for the most part, are either to the simple pieties of my Irish migrant family (what are called 'pious ejaculations') and half remembered Latin from my early life as an acolyte. For me it is not the 'thees' and 'thous' of 1611 but De profundis ad te Domine of Ps 129 Out of the depths have I cried to you Lord.
I want a scholarly version, with the full critical apparatus and textual alternatives. I prefer the New Revised Standard Version which is a revision of the Revised version of the KJV. I also prefer one in gender neutral language. And for the difficult (for me) books like Romans, Hebrews, etc I prefer translations that help me understand complex and/or arcane arguments. Translations where the translation does not get in the way of understanding as, for example Nicholas King's translation of the NT. A Jesuit teaching at Oxford, I cannot but be envious of his students as be ploughs his way through the Greek text week by week. With regard to the First Testament (Tankh Torah etc) I find Robert Alter's Hebrew scholar approach just fine. Dry but fine. The last thing I want are translations intended to be relevant or colloquial.
and you, dear reader, what do you prefer and why?
The KJB is important as a book rather than as a bible. It is important to an understanding of the English cultural landscape of the last half-millennium in the same way that the Pennines are important to an understanding of English geology. (Plus of course it has had it's impact in those places where the English language has been exported).
ReplyDeleteThe importance of KJB as a bible is a very different matter and I guess this is why the church is not particularly interested in the anniversary (unless it is through the opportunity to hold an exhibition of the library's stock - as at Southwell).
The anniversary of the publication of Shakespeare's first folio will be coming up in just over 10 years and I expect this will be more relevant to the British Library than the RSC.
In 4 years time we will be celebrating the anniversary of Chapman's Homer translations. I expect the British Library may again be interested and there may even be some festival readings. For those interested in Greece however there is not going to be that much cause for a jamboree.
On my kindle I have the KJB, the first folio and the penguin book of english poetry. I like knowing that they are there. (It is becoming a cliche to use DNA as a metaphor - so I won't.) I use them as a reference source and I dip into them randomly from time to time. I don't regard them as superior or gold standard - they just are... like the Pennines.
During my life I have been given three bibles; the KJB at my christening, the New English as a school prize and the Good News bible at my confirmation. I like the KJB for it's 'Greatest Hits'. The New English makes most sense. I very rarely look at the Good News unless I'm looking for a paraphrase. Alter's translation of Genesis and the Penguin Book of Psalms in English are on my bookshelf. I have found them refreshing alternatives - but not so refreshing that I have completed reading them.
My personal experience of religious practice within C of E and Methodism is that it has the benefits (and tedium) of ritual but is ultimately empty of meaning. The bible in it's KJB and revised English guises will always be tainted by the experience of being in a church service for me. I have however found great inspiration in bible commentators (romanesque sculptors and builders, early renaissance painters, bach, handel, milton, dostoyevsky, messaien, pasolini, schuon, part, taverner, beckett, miles, mahfouz, pullman etc) and this leads me back to an interest in the bible, it's context and how it is interpreted.
Thank you for your comment, Richard. May I direct you to William Tyndale's NT published in the original pocket size (for safety) by the British Library. It immediately confronts the reader with the the fact that 70% of the KJV is Tyndale. It cries out loud to be read out loud.
ReplyDeleteMay I also suggest out loud reading of the BCP collects and prayers at Morning and Evening Prayer. Not as 'worship' or 'prayer' but as English.
I am reminded, reading comment, of the meaning of the word 'bible'.