MODERN BIBLES - the Dark Secret
By Pastor Jack A. Moorman
Part 9 - THE N.I.V. OR THE A.V. ENGLISH
English is the closest thing there is today to a universal
language. Upwards of 350 million speak it as their first language, with
many more than that using it as a second language. It has the largest vocabulary
of any language (550,000 separate entries in Webster's Third New International
Dictionary). English has become the diplomatic language of the United
States, and the standard language of science, technology, business and
communications. It has been the primary medium through which the Word of
God has spread during these last centuries of church history. Before giving
several reasons why the English of 1611 was better suited as a vehicle
for divine revelation, let us note briefly the preparations which led to
the AV's translation.
The Authorized Version was the culmination of some 100
years of preparation. There was intensive study of the Greek Text (not
to mention Hebrew). The five Greek editions of Erasmus, the four of Stephanus,
the nine of Beza provided the translators with a refined text, representative
of that which was in the majority of manuscripts, and had been acknowledged
(John
16:13) by God's people through the centuries. There were no fewer
than seven "preparatory" English translations:- Tyndale, Coverdale, Matthews,
Great, Taverners, Geneva, and Bishops. The AV translators themselves were
men of unparalleled scholarship, representing the combined intellectual
might of Oxford and Cambridge. But far more importantly, they were marked
by a holy awe and deep reverence for the Word of God. It is this latter
that places them poles apart from the translating teams of today.
Coming back now to the English in which our Authorized
Bible was written, it is an evidence of God's providence that after nearly
four centuries, so little can be found to be archaic. Certainly there are
"profound differences" between current and Elizabethan English. But the
AV is not Elizabethan English! As a comparison will show, there is a great
difference between AV English and the wordy, affectatious Elizabethan style.
Far from our Bible being a product of that day's literary
style, the English language after 1611 owes its development to the Authorized
Version! "The King James Version was a landmark in the development of English
prose. Its elegant yet natural style had enormous influence on English-speaking
writers" (World Book Encyclopedia). This partially explains why
the AV is ever fresh and lucid while most else from that period is quite
difficult to read.
Edward F. Hills speaks on the misconception that the English
of the AV is Elizabethan:
"The English of the King James Version is not the English
of the early 17th century. To be exact, it is not a type of English that
was ever spoken anywhere. It is biblical English, which was not used on
ordinary occasions even by the translators who produced the King James
Version. As H. Wheeler Robinson (1940) pointed out, one need only compare
the preface written by the translators with the text of their translation
to feel the difference in style. And the observations of W.A. Irwin (1952)
are to the same purport. The King James Version, he reminds us, owes its
merit, not to 17th-century English — which was very difficult — but to
its faithful translation of the original. Its style is that of the Hebrew
and of the New Testament Greek. Even in their use of 'thee' and 'thou'
the translators were not following 17th-century English usage but biblical
usage, for at the time these translators were doing their work these singular
forms had already been replaced by the plural 'you' in polite conversation."
( The King James Version Defended, Des Moines: Christian Research
Press, 1984, p. 218).
In 1604 when James I authorized preparations for a new English
version of the Bible, a watershed was reached not only in the history of
Bible translation, but of the history of the English language itself.
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