Post by iris89 on Oct 27, 2006 3:45:27 GMT -5
Learn About the Authorized King James Bible:
The King James and the American Standard Versions of the New
Testament
by
Clarence T. Craig
(The following is the first in a series of five articles to be
reprinted in successive issues of The Bible Translator by
permission of the International Council of Religious Education,
which first *Issued these articles, together with certain others,
under the title "An Introduction to the Revised Standard Version of
the New Testament". The Revised Standard Version has met with
unusually wide acceptance, and these explanatory articles should be
of help to those who wish to understand more fully the nature of the
revision and what underlies it. - Ed.)
The King James Version was not the first English Bible. It is
difficult to realize that it had to fight its way for general
recognition for fifty years. It was charged with "bad theology, bad
scholarship, and bad English". To this day the form of the Lord's
Prayer most widely used is not that of the King James Version. The
Psalter and some other parts of the Book of Common Prayer were never
made to conform to this translation. But the noble language of the
King James Version so endeared it to generations of English-speaking
people that it has become the most widely used translation of the
Bible. and by far the most widely read English book.
It is needless to join here in the praise which has been heaped upon
this English classic. It will never be dislodged from its high place
in the history of our literature. But the Christian Church has more
than a literary interest in the Bible. It believes that the Bible is
the record of a divine revelation. Is this version of the New
Testament an accurate and understandable translation of the original
Greek? That is the vital question for religion.. During the
nineteenth century it became increasingly clear to all scholars that
such was not the case, The many and serious faults of the King James
Version finally led to the setting up in England of an official
committee for revision. These men in turn solicited co-operation
from an American committee. After more than ten years of exacting
labor, they published the New Testament in 1881, The American
preferences were inserted in the American Standard Version of 1901.
The first and most important improvement made by the revisers was in
the Greek text which was made the basis for their translation. The
King James Version was based essentially upon the Greek text of
Beza, printed in 1598. Though he had available what we know to be
much better manuscripts, Beza had followed the text of Erasmus,
which was based on late and corrupt medieval manuscripts. The
tremendous advance in textual criticism during the nineteenth
century made it clear that it was indefensible to follow this so-
called "Received Text". The revisers, following the principles used
by Westcott and Hort for recovering the original text. found
correction to be necessary at more than five thousand points.
The vast majority of these corrections are hardly noticed by the
average reader, but the attentive reader will find interesting
differences. A beginning student in Greek was translating I John 4 :
19, "We love him because he first loved us." I stopped him with the
query, "Where is the word for him?" He confessed that there was
none: but he was so familiar with the King James Version that he
took for granted that it must be correct. Yet John bad not said that
it I's our love of God that depends on his prior love for us, As the
text followed by the American Standard Version has it, all Christian
love depend, on that When a class comes to Acts 8, 1 usually ask a
student to read verse 37. Either he cannot find it, or finally
locates the footnote which tells him that it is not found in the
best manuscripts. An early scribe had thought it improper for Philip
to baptize the Ethiopian eunuch without a confession of faith,
Hence, he supplied the deficiency. The King James Version was based
on this corrupted text. Once I was comparing the version of the
Great Commandments as given in a modern hymnal with the true Greek
text and I was shocked at the inaccuracies. While the substance was
the same, within four verses there were four important deviations
from the correct text. Then I realized that the hymnal had used the
version of King James rather than the American Standard Version. A
slight textual change may be siqnificant as in 2 Corinthians 5: 14.
There the Received Text called for the translation. "If one died for
all then were all dead". But Paul did not think that there was
anything hypothetical about the representative death of Christ. The
apostle wrote, as the American Standard Version translates. "One
died for all".
A second need for the revision lay in the fact that many words used
in the King
James Version had become obsolete or had changed their meaning, What
modern reader would imagine that the "carriages " which Paul took
tip on his trip to Jerusalem were in fact "baqgage" (Acts 21 - 15)?
Or, when Paul beheld the "devotions" of the Athenians, that it
was "the objects of your worship" (Acts 17 : 23). He would hardly
know that "scrip" meant a "wallet" or "bag" (Mark 6 : 8) unless he
consulted his dictionary. Certainly a schoolboy would be forgiven
some perplexity if he should remember the date of the invention of
the compass and then read in the description of Paul's sea
voyage, "We fetched a compass" (Acts 28 : 13), "Made a circuit" is
more intelligible even if it is not particularly nautical. He could
probably guess the meaning of some words. When he read in Matthew
13: 21 of the seed which did not have root that it "dureth for a
while" he in might understand that as -endureth-, Or when I Peter 3 -
11 said, "Seek peace and ensue it", he might think the
word "pursue" instead. But in other
the reader would have an entirely false certainty. Flow, could he
know that the "nephews" of certain widows in I Timothy 5 , 4 were in
fact their "grandchildren"? He would assume that Mark was perfectly
clear in speaking of -tbe coasts of Tyre and !Sidon", for these
cities stood on the Mediterranean. But, as a matter of fact, the
word was used as a synonym for "borders" (Mark 7:24,31).
A great many words have changed their meaning in the last three
hundred years. We still use the word "let", but that does not help
us understand that "he who now letteth" really means "one that
restraineth" now (2 Thess. 2 : 7). Unless a reader remembers his
Latin he is likely to be misled by the words, "We which... remain
unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep
(I Thess. 4 - 15). Since we use "prevent" for "hinder", the revisers
wisely substituted "precede". Many people have charged Jesus with
qiving impractical advice when he said. "Take no thought for your
life" (Matthew 6 - 25). They welcomed the revision which read, "Be
not anxious", But that was exactly what the word "thought" meant to
our Elizabethan forefathers. We may speak of a "charger", but we
think of a prancing horse rather than a "platter" on which the head
of John the Baptist might be laid (Mark 6 - 25). We may use the
adjective "lively", but never when what we mean is "living" (I Peter
2 : 4-5). We may refer to a man's "conversation", but we never mean
by that his "conduct" (James 3 : 13) : yet that is the way the word
was used over and over again in the King James Version. No matter
what kind of "room" we eat in, we would never refer to higher and
lower rooms at a dinner table (Luke 14 .7-10). We know what
an "estate" is, but that does not help us to see how "chief estates"
could be invited to a birthday supper (Mark 6: 21). The Revised
Versions of 1881 and 1901 put all of these passages into words which
we use today.
It was in the use of prepositions that the King James Version was
most misleading.The famous "strain at a gnat' (Matthew 23 - 24) was
simply a misprint for "strain out a gnat", but the misprint was not
corrected. In some cases the reader might guess what the passage
really means. He may recognize that "Make to yourselves friends of
the mammon of unrighteousness" means in fact "by means of the mammon
of unrighteousness (Luke 16 : 9). When Jesus says. "against the day
of my burying hath she kept this", the meaning is "for the day"
(John 12 : 7), Other cases are probably too absurd to be misleading,
Pilate could not possibly have said about Jesus, "Nothing worthy of
death is done unto him" (Luke 23 : 15), It must mean "done by him",
as the revisers made it. But the average reader was left totally in
the dark when Pats] was made to write, "I know nothing by myself" (I
Cor. 4 - 4). The apostle certainly believed that he owed everythinq
to Christ, but what he actually wrote here was. "I know nothing
against myself". Among the significant points obscured by the King
James use of prepositions was the distinction between source and
mediation. In the prologue of John they said of the Word, "All
things were made by him" (I : 3). The American revisers properly
corrected it to "through him". The same change was made in I
Corinthians 8 - 6 where Christ is called the mediator rather than
the absolute source of creation.
Actual mistranslations are numerous, Paul did not write to the
Thessalonians, "Abstain from all appearance of evil" (I Thess,
5 :22). He meant that they should keep from "every form of evil."
When the Pharisee was made to say in the parable of Jesus, "I give
tithes of all that I possess", this ascribed to Jesus a
misconception of the law of the tithe. It was not on property but on
income. Hence the revisers properly wrote, "All that I get" (Luke
18 : 12). In I Timothy 6 : 5 the subject was mistaken for the
predicate. "Supposing that gain is godliness" had to be corrected
to "supposinq that godliness is, a way of gain". What Herod did with
John the Baptist when be put him in prison was not to "observe him"
but "keep him safe- (Mark 6 :20).
Some wrong translations were due to the influence of the Latin
Vulgate, In Luke 23 : 33 the 1611 Bible kept the word "Calvary",
which had been used since Tyndale for "the place which is called The
Skull", The Latin word for skull was calvaria. There is no reason
for its use in the English translation o***reek book. The mistake
in John 10:16 has a pertinent bearing on the question of Christian
unity. The King James Version reads, "Other sheep I have, which are
not of this fold... and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd",
But in the Greek there are two different words. both of which are
translated here fold". as in the Vulgate, What the gospel says is
that there are sheep who do not belong to this fold, but that all
belong to one flock.
For its own time the 1611 version did not contain many mistakes in
Enqlish grammar. But our usage in the gender of pronouns has become
entirely different. Any student who turned in a composition with
such sentences as "salt has lost his savour", (Matthew 5 - 13),
or "my messenger. .. which shall prepare thy way" (Mark I : 2),
would have his work blue-penciled rather severely. "Cherubims"
(Hebrews 9 :5) is a false plural, for the Hebrew word "cherubim" is
itself the plural of cherub. When they wrote in Hebrews 5 :
8 "though he were a Son", it was a false use of the subjunctive for
any period of our lanquaqe. Since there is nothing hypothetical
involved, the revisers properly made it read "though he was a Son".
Probably the most notorious grammatical slip was in the story of
Peter's confession. They must have been thinking in Greek, where the
subject of an infinitive is in the accusative case, when they
wrote, "Whom do men say that I am". (Mark 8 : 27). Naturally the
revisers restored it to English syntax with the nominative "who".
The King James Version introduced many distinctions which have no
basis in the original, In their famous preface, the translators
affirmed that they did not feel bound to a single rendering for the
same word. It is true that a translator must consider the
differences of context, and give attention to the literary
possibilities of the language in which he is writing. A Greek verb
like katargeo must be rendered in English in a wide variety of ways,
but when Paul deliberately used it three times in the same paragraph
with the same meaning they were not justified in using three
different expressions (I Cor. 13 : 8-10). What was to be gained by
calling the same Old Testament character by three different names,
Jeremiah, Jeremias, and Jeremy? The result of this carelessness or
freedom (whichever we prefer to call it) is that, the King James
Version gives an inaccurate picture of the underlying Greek text,
For instance, in Acts 17:11 are told that Paul was brought to the
Areopagus. Then in 17 : 22 he stands "in the midst of Mars' Hill".
How is the reader to know that both translate the same Greek word
and are really alternative possibilities as to its meaning? It was
most unfortunate that in I Corinthians 13 and a few other places
they forsook the Anglo-Saxon word "love" for the Latin "charity" as
a translation for agape. Tyndale, Cranmer, and the Geneva Bible had
all been uniform in their use of "love". If Paul used one and the
same word, why should not we?
In the Synoptic Gospels, where the parallels are so important, the
King James Version does not give any indication of the literary
dependence revealed by the Greek text.
Matthew 18 - 33 reads, "Shouldest not thou also have compassion on
thy fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee?" Why should the same
Greek word be "compassion" in one half of the sentence and "pity" in
the other? The revisers chose "mercy" in both cases. In Matthew
20,20 the King James Version reads. "Then came to him the mother of
Zebedee's children with her sons**. Zebedee may have had daughters
as well as sons, but the Greek word is "son" in each case.
On the other hand, the translators of the King James Version
obliterated many distinctions which are in the Greek, They
used "bell" indiscriminately for "Hades" (Matt, II : 23) and for -
Gehenna" (Matt. 5: 22). One meant the abode of the dead. the other,
a place of punishment. But how could the English reader know which
Greek word stood in any individual passage? The revisers of 1881
were very careful at this point, Again, the King James Version used
the word "beast" both for the four "living creatures" who stood
round about the throne singing praises to God (Rev. 4:6) and for the
diabolical monsters who were the opponents of God and his servants
(Rev. II :7: 13 - I). In the original, entirely different words are
used and the, revisers made this clear. To mention one more point,
the distinctions in Greek tenses were often not observed, even when
it was important for the meaning.
Two illustrations will suffice of the anachronisms which slipped
into the King James Version. The resurrection of Jesus is central in
the New
Testament, but that does not mean that apostolic Christianity had a
festival which they called "Easter" (Acts 12 : 4) Our Easter may be
close to the Jewish Passover, but that is hardly a justification for
translating the latter word as "Easter' , . It seemed perfectly
natural in
Elizabethan England that a woman should light a candle and sweep
the house to find a lost coin (Luke 15:8). But in first-century
Palestine
it was a little lamp which gave light to the room. The more exact
knowledge of the revisers made possible these corrections.
Examples might be extended almost indefinitely. but enough have been
given to indicate why so many changes were made by the revisers. In
their desire to remove inaccuracies, they may be accused of having
dropped into other pitfalls. A later chapter will deal with what
they failed to do and some of the points on which their judgment
proved faulty, But no one can, successfully deny that the English
Revised Version, and the American Standard Version provided the most
faithful and accurate translation of the New Testament which had yet
been produced. An advance to a more perfect translation could only
begin by building on their achievements.
LAST, I wish to make a comment. The King James Bible was an excellent translation in its day, but many thousands of manuscripts and parts of ancient manuscripts have been uncovered/found since then and our understanding of Koine Greek has improved since then very much. Also, the KJB was influenced by the biases of the day, and also contained some unauthorized additions in violation of Revelation 22:18-19.
Your Friend in Christ Iris89
The King James and the American Standard Versions of the New
Testament
by
Clarence T. Craig
(The following is the first in a series of five articles to be
reprinted in successive issues of The Bible Translator by
permission of the International Council of Religious Education,
which first *Issued these articles, together with certain others,
under the title "An Introduction to the Revised Standard Version of
the New Testament". The Revised Standard Version has met with
unusually wide acceptance, and these explanatory articles should be
of help to those who wish to understand more fully the nature of the
revision and what underlies it. - Ed.)
The King James Version was not the first English Bible. It is
difficult to realize that it had to fight its way for general
recognition for fifty years. It was charged with "bad theology, bad
scholarship, and bad English". To this day the form of the Lord's
Prayer most widely used is not that of the King James Version. The
Psalter and some other parts of the Book of Common Prayer were never
made to conform to this translation. But the noble language of the
King James Version so endeared it to generations of English-speaking
people that it has become the most widely used translation of the
Bible. and by far the most widely read English book.
It is needless to join here in the praise which has been heaped upon
this English classic. It will never be dislodged from its high place
in the history of our literature. But the Christian Church has more
than a literary interest in the Bible. It believes that the Bible is
the record of a divine revelation. Is this version of the New
Testament an accurate and understandable translation of the original
Greek? That is the vital question for religion.. During the
nineteenth century it became increasingly clear to all scholars that
such was not the case, The many and serious faults of the King James
Version finally led to the setting up in England of an official
committee for revision. These men in turn solicited co-operation
from an American committee. After more than ten years of exacting
labor, they published the New Testament in 1881, The American
preferences were inserted in the American Standard Version of 1901.
The first and most important improvement made by the revisers was in
the Greek text which was made the basis for their translation. The
King James Version was based essentially upon the Greek text of
Beza, printed in 1598. Though he had available what we know to be
much better manuscripts, Beza had followed the text of Erasmus,
which was based on late and corrupt medieval manuscripts. The
tremendous advance in textual criticism during the nineteenth
century made it clear that it was indefensible to follow this so-
called "Received Text". The revisers, following the principles used
by Westcott and Hort for recovering the original text. found
correction to be necessary at more than five thousand points.
The vast majority of these corrections are hardly noticed by the
average reader, but the attentive reader will find interesting
differences. A beginning student in Greek was translating I John 4 :
19, "We love him because he first loved us." I stopped him with the
query, "Where is the word for him?" He confessed that there was
none: but he was so familiar with the King James Version that he
took for granted that it must be correct. Yet John bad not said that
it I's our love of God that depends on his prior love for us, As the
text followed by the American Standard Version has it, all Christian
love depend, on that When a class comes to Acts 8, 1 usually ask a
student to read verse 37. Either he cannot find it, or finally
locates the footnote which tells him that it is not found in the
best manuscripts. An early scribe had thought it improper for Philip
to baptize the Ethiopian eunuch without a confession of faith,
Hence, he supplied the deficiency. The King James Version was based
on this corrupted text. Once I was comparing the version of the
Great Commandments as given in a modern hymnal with the true Greek
text and I was shocked at the inaccuracies. While the substance was
the same, within four verses there were four important deviations
from the correct text. Then I realized that the hymnal had used the
version of King James rather than the American Standard Version. A
slight textual change may be siqnificant as in 2 Corinthians 5: 14.
There the Received Text called for the translation. "If one died for
all then were all dead". But Paul did not think that there was
anything hypothetical about the representative death of Christ. The
apostle wrote, as the American Standard Version translates. "One
died for all".
A second need for the revision lay in the fact that many words used
in the King
James Version had become obsolete or had changed their meaning, What
modern reader would imagine that the "carriages " which Paul took
tip on his trip to Jerusalem were in fact "baqgage" (Acts 21 - 15)?
Or, when Paul beheld the "devotions" of the Athenians, that it
was "the objects of your worship" (Acts 17 : 23). He would hardly
know that "scrip" meant a "wallet" or "bag" (Mark 6 : 8) unless he
consulted his dictionary. Certainly a schoolboy would be forgiven
some perplexity if he should remember the date of the invention of
the compass and then read in the description of Paul's sea
voyage, "We fetched a compass" (Acts 28 : 13), "Made a circuit" is
more intelligible even if it is not particularly nautical. He could
probably guess the meaning of some words. When he read in Matthew
13: 21 of the seed which did not have root that it "dureth for a
while" he in might understand that as -endureth-, Or when I Peter 3 -
11 said, "Seek peace and ensue it", he might think the
word "pursue" instead. But in other
the reader would have an entirely false certainty. Flow, could he
know that the "nephews" of certain widows in I Timothy 5 , 4 were in
fact their "grandchildren"? He would assume that Mark was perfectly
clear in speaking of -tbe coasts of Tyre and !Sidon", for these
cities stood on the Mediterranean. But, as a matter of fact, the
word was used as a synonym for "borders" (Mark 7:24,31).
A great many words have changed their meaning in the last three
hundred years. We still use the word "let", but that does not help
us understand that "he who now letteth" really means "one that
restraineth" now (2 Thess. 2 : 7). Unless a reader remembers his
Latin he is likely to be misled by the words, "We which... remain
unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep
(I Thess. 4 - 15). Since we use "prevent" for "hinder", the revisers
wisely substituted "precede". Many people have charged Jesus with
qiving impractical advice when he said. "Take no thought for your
life" (Matthew 6 - 25). They welcomed the revision which read, "Be
not anxious", But that was exactly what the word "thought" meant to
our Elizabethan forefathers. We may speak of a "charger", but we
think of a prancing horse rather than a "platter" on which the head
of John the Baptist might be laid (Mark 6 - 25). We may use the
adjective "lively", but never when what we mean is "living" (I Peter
2 : 4-5). We may refer to a man's "conversation", but we never mean
by that his "conduct" (James 3 : 13) : yet that is the way the word
was used over and over again in the King James Version. No matter
what kind of "room" we eat in, we would never refer to higher and
lower rooms at a dinner table (Luke 14 .7-10). We know what
an "estate" is, but that does not help us to see how "chief estates"
could be invited to a birthday supper (Mark 6: 21). The Revised
Versions of 1881 and 1901 put all of these passages into words which
we use today.
It was in the use of prepositions that the King James Version was
most misleading.The famous "strain at a gnat' (Matthew 23 - 24) was
simply a misprint for "strain out a gnat", but the misprint was not
corrected. In some cases the reader might guess what the passage
really means. He may recognize that "Make to yourselves friends of
the mammon of unrighteousness" means in fact "by means of the mammon
of unrighteousness (Luke 16 : 9). When Jesus says. "against the day
of my burying hath she kept this", the meaning is "for the day"
(John 12 : 7), Other cases are probably too absurd to be misleading,
Pilate could not possibly have said about Jesus, "Nothing worthy of
death is done unto him" (Luke 23 : 15), It must mean "done by him",
as the revisers made it. But the average reader was left totally in
the dark when Pats] was made to write, "I know nothing by myself" (I
Cor. 4 - 4). The apostle certainly believed that he owed everythinq
to Christ, but what he actually wrote here was. "I know nothing
against myself". Among the significant points obscured by the King
James use of prepositions was the distinction between source and
mediation. In the prologue of John they said of the Word, "All
things were made by him" (I : 3). The American revisers properly
corrected it to "through him". The same change was made in I
Corinthians 8 - 6 where Christ is called the mediator rather than
the absolute source of creation.
Actual mistranslations are numerous, Paul did not write to the
Thessalonians, "Abstain from all appearance of evil" (I Thess,
5 :22). He meant that they should keep from "every form of evil."
When the Pharisee was made to say in the parable of Jesus, "I give
tithes of all that I possess", this ascribed to Jesus a
misconception of the law of the tithe. It was not on property but on
income. Hence the revisers properly wrote, "All that I get" (Luke
18 : 12). In I Timothy 6 : 5 the subject was mistaken for the
predicate. "Supposing that gain is godliness" had to be corrected
to "supposinq that godliness is, a way of gain". What Herod did with
John the Baptist when be put him in prison was not to "observe him"
but "keep him safe- (Mark 6 :20).
Some wrong translations were due to the influence of the Latin
Vulgate, In Luke 23 : 33 the 1611 Bible kept the word "Calvary",
which had been used since Tyndale for "the place which is called The
Skull", The Latin word for skull was calvaria. There is no reason
for its use in the English translation o***reek book. The mistake
in John 10:16 has a pertinent bearing on the question of Christian
unity. The King James Version reads, "Other sheep I have, which are
not of this fold... and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd",
But in the Greek there are two different words. both of which are
translated here fold". as in the Vulgate, What the gospel says is
that there are sheep who do not belong to this fold, but that all
belong to one flock.
For its own time the 1611 version did not contain many mistakes in
Enqlish grammar. But our usage in the gender of pronouns has become
entirely different. Any student who turned in a composition with
such sentences as "salt has lost his savour", (Matthew 5 - 13),
or "my messenger. .. which shall prepare thy way" (Mark I : 2),
would have his work blue-penciled rather severely. "Cherubims"
(Hebrews 9 :5) is a false plural, for the Hebrew word "cherubim" is
itself the plural of cherub. When they wrote in Hebrews 5 :
8 "though he were a Son", it was a false use of the subjunctive for
any period of our lanquaqe. Since there is nothing hypothetical
involved, the revisers properly made it read "though he was a Son".
Probably the most notorious grammatical slip was in the story of
Peter's confession. They must have been thinking in Greek, where the
subject of an infinitive is in the accusative case, when they
wrote, "Whom do men say that I am". (Mark 8 : 27). Naturally the
revisers restored it to English syntax with the nominative "who".
The King James Version introduced many distinctions which have no
basis in the original, In their famous preface, the translators
affirmed that they did not feel bound to a single rendering for the
same word. It is true that a translator must consider the
differences of context, and give attention to the literary
possibilities of the language in which he is writing. A Greek verb
like katargeo must be rendered in English in a wide variety of ways,
but when Paul deliberately used it three times in the same paragraph
with the same meaning they were not justified in using three
different expressions (I Cor. 13 : 8-10). What was to be gained by
calling the same Old Testament character by three different names,
Jeremiah, Jeremias, and Jeremy? The result of this carelessness or
freedom (whichever we prefer to call it) is that, the King James
Version gives an inaccurate picture of the underlying Greek text,
For instance, in Acts 17:11 are told that Paul was brought to the
Areopagus. Then in 17 : 22 he stands "in the midst of Mars' Hill".
How is the reader to know that both translate the same Greek word
and are really alternative possibilities as to its meaning? It was
most unfortunate that in I Corinthians 13 and a few other places
they forsook the Anglo-Saxon word "love" for the Latin "charity" as
a translation for agape. Tyndale, Cranmer, and the Geneva Bible had
all been uniform in their use of "love". If Paul used one and the
same word, why should not we?
In the Synoptic Gospels, where the parallels are so important, the
King James Version does not give any indication of the literary
dependence revealed by the Greek text.
Matthew 18 - 33 reads, "Shouldest not thou also have compassion on
thy fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee?" Why should the same
Greek word be "compassion" in one half of the sentence and "pity" in
the other? The revisers chose "mercy" in both cases. In Matthew
20,20 the King James Version reads. "Then came to him the mother of
Zebedee's children with her sons**. Zebedee may have had daughters
as well as sons, but the Greek word is "son" in each case.
On the other hand, the translators of the King James Version
obliterated many distinctions which are in the Greek, They
used "bell" indiscriminately for "Hades" (Matt, II : 23) and for -
Gehenna" (Matt. 5: 22). One meant the abode of the dead. the other,
a place of punishment. But how could the English reader know which
Greek word stood in any individual passage? The revisers of 1881
were very careful at this point, Again, the King James Version used
the word "beast" both for the four "living creatures" who stood
round about the throne singing praises to God (Rev. 4:6) and for the
diabolical monsters who were the opponents of God and his servants
(Rev. II :7: 13 - I). In the original, entirely different words are
used and the, revisers made this clear. To mention one more point,
the distinctions in Greek tenses were often not observed, even when
it was important for the meaning.
Two illustrations will suffice of the anachronisms which slipped
into the King James Version. The resurrection of Jesus is central in
the New
Testament, but that does not mean that apostolic Christianity had a
festival which they called "Easter" (Acts 12 : 4) Our Easter may be
close to the Jewish Passover, but that is hardly a justification for
translating the latter word as "Easter' , . It seemed perfectly
natural in
Elizabethan England that a woman should light a candle and sweep
the house to find a lost coin (Luke 15:8). But in first-century
Palestine
it was a little lamp which gave light to the room. The more exact
knowledge of the revisers made possible these corrections.
Examples might be extended almost indefinitely. but enough have been
given to indicate why so many changes were made by the revisers. In
their desire to remove inaccuracies, they may be accused of having
dropped into other pitfalls. A later chapter will deal with what
they failed to do and some of the points on which their judgment
proved faulty, But no one can, successfully deny that the English
Revised Version, and the American Standard Version provided the most
faithful and accurate translation of the New Testament which had yet
been produced. An advance to a more perfect translation could only
begin by building on their achievements.
LAST, I wish to make a comment. The King James Bible was an excellent translation in its day, but many thousands of manuscripts and parts of ancient manuscripts have been uncovered/found since then and our understanding of Koine Greek has improved since then very much. Also, the KJB was influenced by the biases of the day, and also contained some unauthorized additions in violation of Revelation 22:18-19.
Your Friend in Christ Iris89