Subject: Introducing the English Standard Version |
Bible Note: Makarios -- In these days of King James Only-ism -- which for lack of any other tag I would label a crack-pot ism -- I am careful to try to tone down my unbridled admiration for this masterpiece of English literature, which among learned users of English the King James Bible has for centuries been recognized to be. There has never been another translation to match the beauty, the music, or the majesty of its sonorous English, nor can there ever be, because the beautiful Elizabethan English of 1611 is not the same English of 2003. The King James Version captured the English language at the very moment it blossomed into full flower. It was the age of Shakespeare, the age when English was so new and so malleable that masters of the language, such as Shakespeare and the team of peerless scholars who produced the remarkable King James Bible could mold it and shape it into a thing of exquisite beauty, as a master sculptor forms a work of art from a piece of clay. The manuscripts that supported the translation of the King James Bible have sometimes been brought into question, but modern research and scholarship have virtually exonerated the King James from the charge that it was produced from inferior manuscripts, and here I speak mainly of the New Testament manuscripts wherein lay the alleged inferiority. The King James New Testament was based on the traditional text of the Greek-speaking churches, known to us as the Textus Receptus, or Received Text. Some 125 years ago, two scholars named Westcott and Hort theorized that this text had been edited by the church during the fourth century, but absent from their theory was a total lack of historical evidence that any such editing had ever occurred. It is now widely held that the Byzantine text, which largely supports the Textus Receptus, has as much right as any other tradition, including the Alexanderian, to be weighed in determining the text for the New Testament. ..... Confidence having been restored in the textual basis on which the King James Bible was produced, we can turn with further assurance that the painstaking efforts of the translators produced a translation that is as transparent of the biblical manuscripts as good English usage will permit. Scholars are in accord that the Scriptures in their original tongues, especially the Old Testament, are masterpieces of literature. The books of Job, Ruth, and Esther are acclaimed the world over as superlative literary masterpieces, perhaps never excelled by any other piece of writing in the long history of world literature. The King James, therefore, is the only translation in history, sacred or secular, that has ever been called a masterpiece of a masterpiece -- a masterpiece of translation of a masterpiece of writing, a classic of a classic. This Authorized Version, this King James Bible, has been justly called "the noblest monument to English prose" and for nearly four centuries has found favor with prince and pauper alike, has warmed the hearts of millions and been the lighthouse of millions more that guided them from the darkness of a stormy sea to the salvific harbor that the Light of the World provides by the grace of God. I fear that I have not toned down my unbridled admiration for this incomparable work; for, indeed, how can I curb so great an enthusiasm for so great a translation of the greatest book ever written -- the Word of God! --Hank |