Why I use King James |
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Let me start with a quote from Andrew Murray, the first president of the YMCA: It is often said that the great aim of the preacher ought to be to translate Scripture truth from its Jewish form into the language and the thought of the nineteenth century, and so to make it intelligible and acceptable to our ordinary Christians. It is to be feared that the experiment will do more harm than good. In the course of the translation the force of the original is lost. The scholar who trusts to translations will never become a master of the language he wants to learn. A race of Christians will be raised up, to whom the language of God's Word, and with that the God who spoke it, will be strange. In the Scripture words not a little of Scripture truth will be lost. For the true Christian life nothing is so healthful and invigorating as to have each man come and study for himself the very words in which the Holy Ghost has spoken. Murray's assertion is that the further scripture is removed from it's original language, the harder it becomes for us to understand the author. If our aim is to understand God himself so that we can become more like him, we should try to get as close to the original language as possible. This makes a lot of sense. After all, if you've never met me, it would be a lot harder to understand my views on say, baseball, by talking to my sister than by talking to me directly. My sister might have some very good information for you -- she might be able to tell you what team I support (Oakland) and who my favorite player is (Nick Swisher). But there is also a lot of information that my sister doesn't have. I doubt very much that she could give you reasons why on-base-percentage is more important than batting average or why I prefer small-market teams over the Yankees. Even more importantly, you would miss all the subtle emotional and stylistic subtleties that a real conversation with me might have. Similarly, the best way to understand God is to read his word the Bible. It can't hurt to talk with your Christian friends or your pastor -- but if it replaces reading the Word itself, you're taking the long and hard (and least certain) approach. Unfortunately, the Bible itself as it was originally inspired doesn't exist in complete form. So men have to compile and organize it to the best of their ability. The translations that alter the text from the original are clearly best. Those that preserve the subtleties and nuances of the original language are especially worthwhile. Fortunately, English is very similar to Hebrew and Greek. In fact, we use many of the same idioms, images, and stylistic structures. Older English, with "thees" and "thous" comes closest to those languages in grammatical structure. The King James, by preserving these constructs, renders a far more faithful translation of the original. The attempt to modernize translations necessarily alters the meaning of important passages, but it is the emotional impact of those changes that is the most subtle and radical. By modernizing the translation, we are really trying to "modernize God." But that's a mistake. God isn't made in our image. We are made in his. Translations such as the NIV that destroy the poetry of the Biblical text take away from our image of God as majestic and terrible. When our focus shifts from translating the Bible as accurately as possible to making the Bible as easy to read as possible, we make a horrible mistake. We might make the text itself more attractive -- but we make the object of the text a god of our own creation. I could, perhaps, make a hundred converts a day to the worship of a god who justifies their own self-interest and complacency. But what would be the point? Now, I will admit that most modern translations don't go quite this far in emasculating the scripture. While the NIV and NSB lose much of the poetry of the text due to their use of modern language, they remain faithful enough to the substance of the text that the substance itself can give us a fairly clear picture of God (arguably not as clear as KJV, but I feel I've given this enough attention), paraphrases such as the "Living" bible or The Message alter that substance itself. To see why this is a problem, think about the goal of these "amplified versions." They replace scripture -- in order to make scripture more clear and understandable. Therefore, they make every attempt possible to present a god who is clear and understandable. But the God of the universe, by his very nature, isn't limited by human reason. He transcends the very best of our thinking and description. The attempt to make him logical and comprehensible by necessity will drawn us in exactly the wrong direction! It will give us a false image that appeals to our own fleshly desires and human pride. I have often heard people justify their use of a paraphrase or modern translation with one of two arguments. The first is that it is an effective tool for witnessing. As I have already argued, witnessing has no value in and of itself if it converts the sinner to a false religion of works and self. The King James text is certainly as effective as any other in explaining God's nature. I've found that most of my friends who claim to use other versions bring far fewer sinners to the Lord than those who use King James. The second argument is that it is easier to use a modern translation for devotions and use the King James as a reference when a "theological question" comes up. That excuse assumes that the time spent in devotions hardly affects our theology. I believe that the opposite is more nearly the case. The more time we spend reading something, the more it will have an effect on our philosophy and, more importantly, our actions. On the other hand, I have heard complaints that the King James Version is too hard to learn or too hard to get used to. But so is learning a new sport or a new board game at first. With time and patience (and usually only a little of both), it is extremely easy to adapt to King James English. For one thing, many of our idioms still rely on the constructions of that older dialect. Most of the syntax is really quite familiar to most Americans -- from Shakespeare if from nothing else. I know blue collar mechanics who read the King James without missing a word. Certainly, anyone with a college education should be able to master it. Why don't you give it a try? |