The point about the KJV is that it changed radically over the centuries. How can readers trust that the current version is truthful?
There are places where King James’s men probably did make poor choices–as the purveyors of modern translations point out, they didn’t have the benefit of current research into Biblical Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic (as someone else pointed out, the language that modern translators have trouble handling is English). The KJV isn’t the sink of errors that a lot of Catholic apologists paint it as, but it could probably benefit from certain revisions, and has in fact–but then, you seem to say that such revisions count as a point against its truthfulness! Can’t win, I guess.
Radical? Like the difference between the New World Translation and the KJV, or Geneva to KJV radical?
No. Like taking books out. And putting them back in. Like taking parts of books out. And putting them back in. That what I meant. That’s essentially what I said.
It’s difficult to ‘win’ when you attempt to reformulate what someone says and then get caught.
It can be legitimate, but not necessarily so. You would have to demonstrate that it is necessarily legitimate
I don’t believe I made that claim.
It can be. But on the other hand it can also be sound and fury signifying nothing.
Understood. The 1640 Geneva Bible is the first English Bible to not include the Apocrypha.
Ah, my mistake. Is it the Deuterocanon you’re referring to? Well, I imagine that a Catholic would tend to prefer the version that has the Deuterocanonical books as more “correct.” But one doesn’t think of those pocket Psalms/Proverbs/NT Bibles as being “incorrect” for lacking most of the Old Testament–just whittled down. A more complete Bible can be had if that’s what the reader wants, and the same for the KJV.
I guess you’ve got a point, but depending on how ironclad you want my argument, demonstrating it could take a book. How’s this: if one concedes that some degree of beauty is fitting in cathedrals, liturgies, vestments, sacred music, etc., then it is as fitting that the language of the Bible be beautiful within the demands of responsible translation (and yes, I know what a can of worms those last six words comprise). If you don’t concede such a thing, then you’re not necessarily out of line, but you would certainly be endorsing a radical separation of style and substance–which is what I thought you were inveighing against in the first place.
I’m sorry; didn’t mean to imply that you did. I was just offering that as an example of why a Bible translation’s aesthetic value might be considered significant and worth upholding.
I suppose I should thank you for not including the “tale told by an idiot” part in your quote! Well, perhaps in my spare time I can try to flesh out my arguments–but I’d be surprised to learn that they hadn’t already been made elsewhere by someone abler than I am. Anyone know of any treatises on aesthetics and the Word?
No. I guess I meant that a work has to have integrity – whether that be artistic integrity or any other kind of integrity – over time. The KJV reverses its position over time. A merging of those horizons would have to be from a non-KJV source (thus making the KJV insufficient).
Maybe not.
I don’t mean to oppose your point of view just for the sake of opposing it. I actually agree with you that true things are beautiful things. I am merely trying to introduce some rigour to the questions we ask ourselves. Perhaps this is something I myself am struggling with. What is beauty? And what is merely flashiness? Can ugliness have beauty because it has integrity? Can beauty be ugly because it has no integrity?
I happen to agree with you. But the reader must also take some responsibility for sharpening his perception.
Ha! Ha! If the truth be known, I forgot that part and I would not imply it anyway. No worries.
Good man. If we don’t get any answers maybe we can start a thread on that subject. What say?
Living in the South & our Bible belt here, there are A LOT of KJO adherents. In fact, I used to date one and I attended the church that he was a member of a couple of times (A LOOOONG TIME AGO).
Bit extreme don’t ya think!
Well, we never been much into that fancy book learnin…Most of the KJO I have come across have been very close minded and very defensive of their faith. I’m going to try to make this as nice as I can, but I also find that the ones who are in teh KJO congregations (not necessarily the ministers) around my area tend to be poorly educated in anything so they don’t realize the history of the KJV or other versions of the Bible, at not fault of their own sometimes. I almost feel sorry for them becuase they will constantly be simply “following the leader” and the leader, in this case, may be wrong.
But I guess they could say the same thing about us Catholics and the Pope!
I am not following you. Could you explain?
Hmmm, but St. Paul plainly tells St. Timothy “Carefully study to present thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.”
Yeah right… better go look at the history of the early church conferences about the canon.
I am not referring to the Roman Catholic church view of the canon. They are not the ones who translated the KJV, which is our topic. Not some early regional synods by North Africans.
I am on topic…the KJV lacks 7 books and parts of others that were canonized by the church many centuries before 1611.
Sounds good (and sorry for taking a while to respond). Whichever one of us is right here, and however valid our mutual concerns, I’m starting to suspect that these issues are sort of oblique to the average KJV-Onlyer, and hence to the thread.I don’t mean to oppose your point of view just for the sake of opposing it. I actually agree with you that true things are beautiful things. I am merely trying to introduce some rigour to the questions we ask ourselves. Perhaps this is something I myself am struggling with. What is beauty? And what is merely flashiness? Can ugliness have beauty because it has integrity? Can beauty be ugly because it has no integrity?
…If we don’t get any answers maybe we can start a thread on that subject. What say?
Better go look again. Trent only affirmed what previous councils had already stated.
Not true. The DCs were canon long before the “reformers”.
All this means is that you are verifiably wrong.
A “council” that was not a council consisting of men without the authority to settle anything at all. To this day the Jews don’t even consider that of any authority.
An inaccurate rhetorical statement that has no Biblical or historical basis. You can allege this, but it is nothing more than baseless anti-Catholic propaganda. It is also best dealt with in a thread of it’s own.
So then KJV translators were infallible? So an error made by those men makes it inspired?
Not likely.