From: Sightings <divsightings@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 7:00 AM
Subject: *Sightings* 11/29/2010 - Celebrating 400 Years of the King James Bible
To: sightings@lists.uchicago.edu

Sightings  11/29/2010

 

 

Celebrating 400 Years of the King James Bible

- Martin E. Marty

 

 

Thanksgiving weekend gave those who live off or for the media an excuse to slow down, turn off some signals, and settle back to football, turkey, and family—or to shop. For those who keep the Christian calendar, yesterday was also a significant change-of-pace day, since it was the beginning of a new church year. Readers of Sightings who are distant from Christian observances cannot have escaped the carols and wreaths which resound and decorate public spaces. Looking for ways to celebrate the season and anticipate 2011, we were aided by an editorial from the Observer in the UK.

           

Here’s the deal: 2011 is the 400^th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible, an event that merits observance far beyond the circles of librarians, antiquarians, and classicists. Anyone who keeps files on the fate of the KJV in the twentieth century and ever since will find many controversies to pass on the way to the book and its cultural import. Thus I have files, books, and personal recall of the way defenders of the King James edition fought off new translations. The Revised Standard Version, backed by the National Council of Churches, was scorned as “Stalin’s Bible” because it seemed to some to slight the virgin birth of Jesus. Burnings of the Bible at mid-century, when the Revised Standard Version appeared, drew attention just as the planned burning of the Qur’an recently did.

           

Expect debates all anniversary year over whether the authorizer of the KJV, King James I, was homosexual, bisexual, or falsely pointed to as “different” in his time as in ours. When fundamentalists have a slip of tongue or memory and speak of him as the “Saint James Bible,” selective readers of the evidence will pounce and proclaim him as a homosexual saint. This is a second distraction on the way to the celebration.

           

And there is much to celebrate, as the Observer editorial makes clear. More than any other writing, including the plays of Shakespeare, KJV did so much to formalize written English and do so with majesty. The Observer: “as well as selling an estimated 1bn copies since 1611,” it went into our literary bloodstream. Shakespeare needed 31,000 words to bless that bloodstream, while the KJV needed only 12,000.

           

Among the 12,000 words that the translating committee of King James adopted from the Hebrew and Greek were “long-suffering,” “scapegoat” and “peacemaker.” We might need all three as the antagonists line up on both sides of “Stalin’s Bible” and the sexually-complex battles mentioned above. Those who mourn the loss of the Version’s hegemony will side with Raymond Chandler, who said that the Bible was “a lesson in how not to write for the movies.” It was a lesson in how to write for elites and masses alike.

           

 

References

 

Robert McCrum, “How the King James Bible Shaped the English Language,” The Observer, November 21, 2010.

 

Martin E. Marty's biography, current projects, publications, and contact information can be found at www.illuminos.com.

 

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Editor’s Note: Last week’s column referred to Dale S. Wright’s book as The Six Imperfections. The title of the book is The Six Perfections.

 

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Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

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[I received a free perusal copy of this Bible from booksneeze.com, Thomas Nelson's blogger network.]

I was interested in seeing this particular Bible because I was curious to see what Bibles "for new believers" were looking like these days.  When I first returned to the Christian faith after a brief hiatus in my early twenties, I purchased a couple different Bibles that were oriented towards new believers.  One was a NLT, as I recall, and the other one was a NIV.  I think the NIV was actually billed as being for those who considered themselves "seekers."  I later got rid of both Bibles, because I didn't find the notes and articles in them very useful for a mature believer.  But I digress...

One of the things I found interesting about this new offering from Thomas Nelson Bibles is that it is a NKJV.  NKJV is somewhat of an odd choice for new believers, because it reads so much like the KJV that I think it can be confusing for people who aren't used to reading more complex translations.  On the other hand, it could be very comforting for someone who was raised nominally Christian, or who was vaguely familiar with famous quotes from the Bible, to read a version that sounds so much like King James, but is considerably less intimidating.  After all, the complaint that one hears all the time about the Bible is "it sounds like Shakespeare, with all the 'thee's' and 'thou's' in it!"  It's sometimes hard for Christians who are familiar with a variety of Bible translations to remember that a vast majority of people are completely unaware of the variety of easy-to-read translations on the market.  So much for the base text of this edition.

I also found it interesting that the General Editor of START! The Bible for New Believers is Greg Laurie, who is a major player in the megachurch movement, and pastor of one of the nation's largest churches.  This is clearly a guy who has contact with probably thousands of new believers every year.  When it comes to making the Bible nonthreatening to new believers, this guy has some experience.  That being said, let me tell you there are absolutely no surprises in all the supplementary material in this edition of Scripture.  He opens with a brief article detailing the evangelical concept of The Plan of Salvation, less than three pages, concise and direct.  Of course, this contains the obligatory Sinner's Prayer: "Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, etc." Typical contemporary evangelical stuff.  Next we find a little more detailed article with the type of title that has graced the covers of numerous contemporary "spiritual self-help" kind of books: "Secrets to Spiritual Success."  Personally I find this kind of formulaic approach to Christian faith a bit disturbing.  But let's be honest, it's the kind of thing that has proven success, at least as far as sales figures are concerned.  Read your Bible, pray, go to church, evangelize...no surprises here.  It's well written and easy to digest.  Is it deep theology? Not really.  But apparently, new believers are completely uninterested in deep theology.

So much for the opening material.  The rest of this Bible is pretty basic.  To give him some credit, Laurie doesn't go overboard with a ton of sidebar material or study notes or any such thing.  There are simple, one page introductions to each book of the Bible, and some brief sidebar material to explain key concepts, divided into three main categories: Live, Learn, and Know.  Actually, most of this material is considerably less cheesy than lots of the stuff one finds in Bibles of this type.  The material seems to give the reader credit for being intelligent enough to digest adult material, without having to resort to too much trendy "Christianese."  Some short Bible passages, that the editor wants the reader to pay special attention to, are blown up with chapter and verse citations and red arrows pointing them out.  The Bible concludes with a section about Essentials of the Christian Faith, which digs a little deeper into some important information about the nature of God and Jesus, providing a little more theological depth for the interested reader.

One more little detail that I found interesting was a tiny little blurb on the backpage that I had never noticed on a Nelson Bible before.  Even though it's a paperback Bible, it is "Guaranteed for Life." A website is provided (www.thomasnelsonbibles.com/guarantee) for the owner of the Bible to register his copy, learn about proper care and feeding (I'm kidding about the feeding, of course), and take advantage of some free offers.  I went to the website, and sure enough, Thomas Nelson guarantees that their Bibles will be free from defect, and they will apparently replace a Bible that proves to be defective.  The guarantee does not apply to normal wear and tear, so I imagine a paperback Bible such as this will eventually fall apart.  But still, it is encouraging that they stand by their product.  And hopefully, a new believer will eventually mature into the kind of believer who will eventually be interested in a more complex study Bible that will encourage Bible study of more depth.

So overall, I would have to say that START! The Bible for New Believers compares quite favorably to other similar Bibles I've encountered before.  Indeed, I would say it's one of the better products of its type.  I very well may end up giving away my copy to a new believer myself.  If I do so, I can do it in good faith, knowing that I'm not giving them a cheap piece of work.

If you are interested in different versions of the Bible, and if you enjoy studying those versions online, then today is a big day for you.  Today marks the debut of the new update of the New International Version (NIV).  If you go tot the main NIV site at Biblica.com, you will find that the new NIV has replaced both the 1984 version of the NIV and the short lived Today's New International Version (TNIV).  The new NIV can also be found at Bible Gateway, which has long been a favorite site for online Bible readers.  Which brings me to my other news.  Bible Gateway has unveiled their new beta version today, where you can view the 1984 NIV, the new NIV, and the TNIV (among other popular translations) in parallel format.  This tool makes it much easier to compare changes the Committee on Bible Translation (CBT) has made to the NIV, as well as comparing those changes to similar (or not so similar) renderings in the TNIV.

I have only had a chance this morning to give the new NIV a cursory glance.  I shall be attempting to be more thorough in my reading of the new NIV in the days to come.  So far, I think they've done a pretty decent job.  I'm sure some fans of the 1984 NIV will be disappointed, and I know fans of the TNIV will be disappointed, especially since no one really seemed to give that version a fair shake.  Here are a few of my observations thus far:

• Gender language in the new NIV is a bit more conservative than the TNIV, but several changes from the TNIV have been retained. 
  
• It looks like, in general, the new NIV prefers the word "mankind" to the TNIV's "humankind" and the "old" NIV's "man," when referring to the human race.  Hopefully, the word "mankind" will be a kind of middle ground between the traditional and the contemporary.
• "Brothers and sisters" for the Greek word adelphoi still seems to be very much present in the new NIV, which may disappoint some of the more conservative readers, but will certainly be acceptable to more liberal readers.
• Using plural pronouns for generic singular is still pretty common, which will grate on the ears of many.  But the CBT has continued to defend the usage, based on common American English.
• I'm sure there will continue to be a debate about the phrase traditionally rendered "son of man" (or Son of Man) in the Old Testament.  Many readers feel that ever occurrence of "son of man" is necessarily a Messianic reference, but the issue has been hotly debated among scholars for a long time.  Based on a few of the passages I've looked up so far, the new NIV seems to follow the TNIV on this issue.

For those who are interested in discussion of the new NIV, I would recommend the Better Bibles Blog, which is always a good place to read interesting discussion on all kinds of Bible translation issues.  Also, I have a couple groups on Facebook, on which we will hopefully be discussing the 2011 NIV: the Bible Versions Debate and Discussion group and the New International Version (NIV) group.  If you haven't checked into any of these forums/groups/blogs before, I highly recommend them.