KING JAMES VERSION (KJV)
Holiness.com Response
You
might be wondering what I mean by this seemingly "tricky
wording" of a translation being "faithful" or "true to the
essence". Well, I use this wording as there are some who set
about to discredit the KJV because they say it is not
accurate. For example, let us look at Matthew 5:14&15 in the
King James Version -
Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill
cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under
a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all
that are in the house.
I know an archeologist of Arabic descent, who I met while in
Jerusalem, who has actual implements that people used to light
their homes during biblical times. In modern American common
speech we would more accurately call these implements "lamps".
You would no doubt find the word rendered "candle" above in
the original KJV, alternatively rendered as "lamp" in some
modern translations. However, candle for the 17th
century person still captured the essence of the original
words that Jesus spoke - that people do not take their
personal illumination (lighting) device and totally cover it
in times when they need to see by the light of the device. So,
these so-called "major problems" pointed out in the KJV are
ridiculous - these words used in the KJV don't change the
essential meaning of what Jesus said whatsoever.
In an introductory biblical Hebrew class I took some years ago
from a phenomenally knowledgeable Jewish Scholar and
Archeologist, I learned that the verb "to be" does not exist
in Hebrew in the present tense. There are no Hebrew words for
"is", "are", or "am." If I wanted to be extremely
unreasonable, I could say that all English translations that
use the words "is", "are", or "am" in the Hebrew portions of
scripture (the Old Testament) are perversions of the original.
However, any English speaking person who is a serious Bible
translator knows that you have to insert the present tense of
the verb "to be" in order to carry forward the meaning of this
verb which is understood implicitly in the original Hebrew (as
you do not visibly see this verb in the Hebrew text);
otherwise, you would have sentences translated from the Hebrew
into English that read something like: "Moses judge" instead
of a more understandable reading for English-speakers such as
"Moses is a judge." Yes, the article "a" preceding the word
"judge" is also implicit in the Hebrew of my example, but
explicit in the English.
Another little piece of information to remember is that the
portion of scripture written in Hebrew (the Old Testament) is
written only using consonants (that was the way they did it
then). Much later, when Hebrew ceased to be a spoken language,
there was much concern that the precise sounds of the language
might be lost. So, during the middle ages Jewish scholars
introduced a system of dots and dashes to represent vowels.
These dots and dashes were incorporated into the copies
(manuscripts) of the Old Testament. I guess a real purist
would say that we should only read the Old Testament in
Hebrew, and that we should only read those copies of the Old
Testament that do not have the dots and dashes (I believe
artifacts such as the Dead Sea Scrolls would qualify here-
some portions of which are as old as 250 B.C. and some as late
as A.D. 70). If you are of this persuasion, I recommend you
see the Dead Sea Scroll exhibit if you ever get a chance to
visit the Shrine of the Book at the Jerusalem Museum; or, see
the scrolls if the exhibit ever comes back again to the USA.
Unless you are an extremely, very well trained expert in
Biblical Hebrew, I would dare say reading these scrolls would
be an impossible task.
Further, if it is acceptable when translating into English, to
form the English sentences to more accurately communicate the
meaning of different grammatical forms that are existent in
the Hebrew & Greek , how can we say it is wrong to then go
back and revise the KJV into more modern English to better
communicate the scriptures to 21st century
English-speaking Christians. I truly love the KJV for its
faithfulness to the essence of the original and for its beauty
of language. I have been reading from the KJV almost as long
as I have been able to read. However, I recognize that the
original KJV uses terms, grammatical forms, and etc. that were
more common to persons speaking a version of English in use
some 400 years ago. As I understand it, there have been
individuals in antiquity who were most resolute to obstruct
the Bible from even being produced in the English language
that we have in the notable translation work of the KJV.
Next
Page
|
