ViaCrucis
Confessional Lutheran
- Oct 2, 2011
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I just read from the Authorized one. Never really looked into it much, just believe with faith. If there are many differences from the 1611 one than my own, they're very minor and I just trust God will not lead me into error.
The term "Authorized" refers to the fact that it is authorized by the British Crown for use in the Church of England, specifically King James I of England authorized it because he felt it was necessary to update and standardize English Bibles for use in the Church of England. The King James Version went through several immediate revisions and updates within a few short years of its initial publication in 1611, in 1613, 1629, and 1638. However by the mid 18th century there were so many variations in the text from different revisions and updates from different publishers that it was decided that a new standardized text was necessary. The task fell to the two of Britain's most prestigious institutions, the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford, the first of these which came out was the Cambridge 1760 edition, but was largely superseded by the 1769 Oxford edition. The Oxford became the de facto edition of the KJV in the English speaking world. Another major change to the KJV took place in the late 19th century, American Bible publishers began to publish the KJV without Apocrypha, largely as a cost-saving measure but likely anti-Catholic sentiment was a major contributing factor. I'm not sure if the same thing happened as drastically by British publishers.
For the most part, in the English-speaking world if you one is picking up a copy of the KJV, it is the 1769 Oxford edition without Apocrypha, that is the standard version of the KJV; and it is markedly different from the original 1611, not simply in terms of orthography and spelling, but also changes to the translation itself, sometimes relatively substantial depending, for example the 1611 version of Ezekiel 24:7 reads "powred it vpon the ground”, the 1769 reads "poured it not upon the ground".
Then there's the simple fact that the KJV has translated some things poorly, for example Psalm 2:12. The KJV translators aren't the originators of the mistranslation, as the same mistranslation is found in the Coverdale Bible, Great Bible, Geneva Bible, and even the Luther Bible; the problem is that translations from this period seem to have desired to treat the text as though it were Aramaic, rather than Hebrew, leading to the rendering of it as "kiss the son"; in Aramaic "bar" means "son" but in Hebrew means "purity", hence why in ancient translations such as the Septuagint and Vulgate it is retained as "purity", so we find (for example) Wycliffe's Bible translating it as "Take ye lore; lest the Lord be wrooth sumtyme, and lest ye perischen fro iust waie.", the Douay-Rheims has "Embrace discipline, lest at any time the Lord be angry, and you perish from the just way.", the rendering of "kiss the son" is innovative and does not seem to be based on the plain reading of Hebrew, or ancient translations in use among Christians prior to the 16th century. It's worth noting that not only does the KJV not originate this error, it's not alone--most translations have continued to retain this idiosyncratic translation, including the NIV, ESV, and others.
-CryptoLutheran
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