Mozart from the Chapel of New College, Oxford 12.i.Xl

[decantor]

I blame the King James Bible myself. In the admittedly unlikely eventuality that you were to encounter Jesus tomorrow, would you address him as 'you' or 'thou'?

If I didn't recognise Him, I'd use 'you'. If I did know who He was, I doubt I'd get beyond "Jeez!"

As for the KJV and its like, my own view is that history has accorded us texts (as also buildings and music) that facilitate a special experience during worship, and one that all can share with minimal effort. We are entitled to attempt to add to the tradition, but not to uproot past excellence. Would we raze Salisbury Cathedral to make space for glass and stressed concrete? (Just one man's opinion, of course.)

[Miles Coverdale]

My point was this. Apart from the first four verses of Luke's Gospel, which are in written in classical Greek, the New Testament is written in koiné, or everyday Greek. The translations of Tyndale and Coverdale, although they might sound 'quaint' to twenty-first-century ears, are in the language of their day. It was the KJB revisers who made a (self-)concious attempt to give their translation the authority of history by using archaic forms of language. Thus, for example, the KJB will use 'saith' while Tyndale uses 'said', depite the fact that Tyndale was writing over 80 years before the KJB was published. I cite Tyndale because the great majority of the New Testament in the KJB (over 80%) is derived from Tyndale.

So, my question is, if the writers of the NT itself and translators before the KJB did not feel it necessary to use archaic language, why do we do so now?

Here ends (or should that be endeth?) the lesson.

[Magnificat]

Whilst we musn't worship words I do think that the use of, albeit archaic, language in worship over the course of many centuries by generations of people does endow the words with a form of holiness and is also a link between us and the faithful down through past generations.

Also the poetry and rythm of the old language is definitely missing from modern language services which, to me, makes for a much less pleasant worshipping experience.

Who would want to be married to anything but thr Prayer Book service for Holy Matrimony for example? Even some Roman Catholic priests prefer and have been known to use it rather their modern rite.

VCC

[Simon]

the poetry and rythm of the old language

...and there, for me at least, is the important bit!

[ardcarp]

...and the extraordinary thing (according to the recent Radio 4 mini-series about it) the KJB was pretty much designed by a committee. Its cadences have certainly permeated our language and culture for over 300 years. I met a prison chaplain once who bemoaned modern translations of The Lord's Prayer not only because of their clumsy ineptitude, but because the 'old words' were the one prayer ingrained in all prison inmates of whatever age or class and which they could say in an hour...or 20 years...of need. (Not sure even that applies now.)

[DracoM]

St John's Cambridge Jan to Easter

In the upcoming term, the college will be premiering new material by Macmillan, Bingham, Rutter among others. Worth chasing their website.

[Simon]

...the KJB was pretty much designed by a committee.

Yes it was - but a committee of eminently capable men dedicated to a single aim AMDG, and no need to score points off each other amongst themselves.

A rare committee indeed!

[decantor]

Not only was it composed by a committee. There's the lovely theory that The Bard himself was co-opted, and left his 'signature' buried in Psalm 46 - as I'm sure you will all know. It may be rather 'Dan Brown'-ish, but it's certainly an intriguing thought, and there's no real reason why Shakespeare should not have contributed.

[Miles Coverdale]

I can probably do no better than quote David Daniell, form his excellent book The Bible in English:

The world is divided into those who think that sacred Scripture should always be elevated above the common run — is not, indeed, sacred without some air of religiosity, of being remote from real life, with a whiff of the antiquarian: and on the other side those who say that the point of the Incarnation was that God became man, low experiences and all, and if the Greek is ordinary Greek, then ordinary English words are essential. ... In the earlier years of the seventeenth century, the weight of high Anglican politics was heavily on the side of increasing, as it was thought, a worshipful distance.

[Magnificat]

The quote is logical as far as it goes but ignores the fact that the words, phrases and sayings of the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer have had such cultural impact over the centuries that they can't and shouldn't just be dropped altogether from use in parish churches and even cathedrals as they have been.

What about future generations? Our children have the right to knowledge of these seminal works of English literature. If they are not used in places of worship where else will they hear them read, certainly not in schools and at home. Already University dons are lamenting the ignorance of these books amongst undergraduates.

St Albans Abbey a place of which I am extremely fond, for example, which is otherwise highly regarded for it's education provision for local schools and provides all sorts of activities and tremendous mission work to the hundreds of children in its congregation never uses the King James Bible in its services. This is a disgraceful gap in its overall educational provision to which it seems totally blind. I hope this anniversary year of KJB sees a change in this policy and the same goes for other similarly blinkered places.

VCC

[Miles Coverdale]

The book from which I took that quote does discuss that very topic at some length, but I wasn't going to quote whole chapters to you.

If you would have the KJB used in teaching purely because of its literary merit, then one could argue that the English class might be a more suitable place. If you would have St Albans educational department use it because it is the Bible, then a) I imagine they use the Bible already, and b) the KJB isn't the Bible, it is merely one translation of it.

With regard to the influence of the KJB on the English language, I would point out that most of the phrases which people think come from the KJB actually come from Tyndale or even earlier writers. The number of phrases or idioms which have survived into contemporary English usage and which had their origin in the KJB is actually quite small.

[ardcarp]

MC What a pity your translation of the Psalms was not transplanted ipsissimae verbae into the KJB.

[Magnificat]

The book from which I took that quote does discuss that very topic at some length, but I wasn't going to quote whole chapters to you.

If you would have the KJB used in teaching purely because of its literary merit, then one could argue that the English class might be a more suitable place. If you would have St Albans educational department use it because it is the Bible, then a) I imagine they use the Bible already, and b) the KJB isn't the Bible, it is merely one translation of it.

With regard to the influence of the KJB on the English language, I would point out that most of the phrases which people think come from the KJB actually come from Tyndale or even earlier writers. The number of phrases or idioms which have survived into contemporary English usage and which had their origin in the KJB is actually quite small.

MC.

If only it were discussed in school English classes. University English depts, as I have said, lament that it is not.

For cathedrals and churhes not to use it at all, even say, just at Christmas, is equally lamentable.

VCC.