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How the King James Bible changed the world
baylor.edu ^

Posted on 09/09/2014 7:52:23 AM PDT by RoosterRedux

In 1611, the new British state headed by King James I issued its translation of the complete Bible, "newly translated out of the original tongues, and with the former translations diligently compared and revised. By His Majesty's special command. Appointed to be read in churches." The book gave English-speaking Christians a common standard through which they could express their faith. Soon, the spread of printing technology meant that this translation above all became the definitive Bible that believers kept in their houses, and before too long, carried in their pockets.

*snip*

Even thinkers not sympathetic to the Bible's message still praise its language. Famous skeptic H. L. Mencken found in the King James "a mine of lordly and incomparable poetry, at once the most stirring and the most touching ever heard of."

*snip*

No serious study of literature in English can neglect the impact of the 1611 Bible, and that is equally true for any century from the 17th through the 20th. All the great canonical authors are immersed in that Bible, even (or especially) those who reject its fundamental religious message. To put it ironically, the Bible they reject is the 1611 version, which created the literary air we breathe. The King James language informs and inspires American literature, from Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne through Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner. It has its special power in African American tradition, from Frederick Douglass through Alice Walker.

(Excerpt) Read more at baylor.edu ...


TOPICS: History
KEYWORDS: bible; kingjamesbible
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To: Salvation
Nevertheless, Luther changed the Bible (took out words and added words) so the King James is incomplete and inaccurate.

You need to take a break from your reactionary attack- Prots-at-any-cost-of-credibility posting. Luther did not translated the KJV, nor was it a translation of his work, though it was one one of many that would be consulted, including the Catholic Rheims bible.

Nor does it add "alone" to Rm. 3:28 as Luther did (and come Catholic writers as well), while it is more of a word for word type translation, versus "dynamic equivalence" like your NAB.

Moreover, it places most words supplied by translators hoping to better provide the meaning in italics so that you know, unlike most other Bibles, including Catholic ones.

In addition, it has been abundantly documented, including here, that Luther was not a maverick in excluding the apocrypha as Scripture proper, as their inclusion as such was debated down thru the centuries and right into Trent, and that the Prot canon has ancient testimony.

Now tell me if you agree with your bishop's choice of the NAB.

81 posted on 09/10/2014 5:41:46 AM PDT by daniel1212 (Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)
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To: daniel1212; Dr. Sivana; Mr Rogers; redleghunter; Springfield Reformer
“for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.” (Galatians 3:21)

Of course. I don't think that any of among us would want to be thought of as Pelagians!
82 posted on 09/10/2014 6:35:37 AM PDT by Dr. Sivana ("If you're litigating against nuns, you've probably done something wrong."-Ted Cruz)
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To: boatbums
Is this a "we hate Luther" week? "Cuz it sure seemed that y'all liked him last week when he talked about Mary.

So you've noticed the Luther Pivot™ too? I just haven't quite determined how it's triggered. Alternate weeks, full moon? There must be some sort of rationale because it's synchronized. Maybe it's more organic, like a flock of birds or a school of fish. One does it and the rest fall in line out of habit.

83 posted on 09/10/2014 6:44:11 AM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: Dr. Sivana; daniel1212

Or even semipelagians!


84 posted on 09/10/2014 6:44:22 AM PDT by Springfield Reformer (Winston Churchill: No Peace Till Victory!)
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To: daniel1212

As anyone who has been taught and learned another language knows, transliteration can be quite the mistake. Transliterating the German for “the bird flew out of the tree” into English would end up along the lines of “the flyer flew off the tree,” which makes little sense. Words are sort of “cognitive buckets” of concept and meaning that vary from one language to the next, and those “buckets” don’t always contain the same thing or things. That is the reason a Concordance is included in those eeevviiilll “Prot” Bibles. Shades of meaning can be sought out and attained by studying a given passage in the original language. Attaining a more accurate understanding conveyed by original language was the motivation behind those eeevviiilll “Prot” Bibles, because the stilted Latin transliteration had warped or even concealed the actual meaning(s) contained in scripture, and this got even worse taking the Latin translation and transliterating it into yet another language. This overweening attachment to Latin led to problems. Jerome’s efforts were I believe sincere, other than being forced to include the Apocrypha when he really didn’t think they belonged. But anchoring scripture to Latin unnaturally changed the meaning, and so Luther and others sought to get back to the original in order to avoid this.


85 posted on 09/10/2014 7:03:51 AM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: Dr. Sivana; daniel1212

“St. Thomas Moore’s pointed speech certainly had less solipsisteic reasoning behind them. It is how the epithets are employed, and the lack of foundation for them that makes it petty compared to a St. Thomas Moore.”

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So it is OK for a Catholic to be a horse’s butt, and even to torture and execute Protestants, but it is not OK for a Protestant to be a horse’s butt who does not kill Catholics!

When More wrote that Tyndale was no longer a “heretic swollen with pride”, but had become “a beast discharging filthy foam of blasphemies out of his brutish beastly mouth “- a “railing ribald” - a “drowsy drudge that has drunken deep in the devil’s dregs” and so on...saintly Sir Thomas More was just being “pointed”, eh?

Marius wrote in his biography of More: “To stand before a man at an inquisition, knowing that he will rejoice when we die, knowing that he will commit us to the stake and its horrors without a moment’s hesitation or remorse if we do not satisfy him, is not an experience much less cruel because our inquisitor does not whip us or rack us or shout at us. . . More believed that they (Protestants) should be exterminated, and while he was in office he did everything in his power to bring that extermination to pass.”

But Luther was rotten because he called Catholic bishops names....hmmmm...


86 posted on 09/10/2014 7:09:28 AM PDT by Mr Rogers
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To: Dr. Sivana

” If it were just to make for better German, Germans wouldn’t have to lean on it for a radically different theology...

Every year, when the reading turns to 2nd Corinthians, and the term “bowels” is used in a way unfamiliar to most modern Americans, our priest explains what is meant. That is preferred to changing the word to something that might be more in tune with modern idiom, but NOT what God inspired the Sacred writer to write.”

They did not “lean on it” - that we are saved by faith and not by working is excruciatingly obvious to anyone who reads the New Testament, and reasonably obvious to anyone who reads the Old.

Nor is the goal of a Bible translation to create something that you must go to the priest to understand. As Tyndale pointed out, if you have the scripture translated, you can judge the priest, instead of “leaning on” the priest.

The Jews were commanded to know God’s Word themselves, so why would it be wrong for Christians to have access?

Your arguments against Bible translations were made for hundreds of years by the Catholic Church, but it eventually broke down and allowed commoners to read the scripture - although it prefers translations that twist the meanings of words like “repent”.

You are selling what no one is buying, not even the Catholic Church anymore - that commoners are not smart enough or godly enough to read God’s word in their own tongue.

Why is this a bad translation of 2 Cor 6:

“We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians; our heart is wide open. 12 You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections. 13 In return (I speak as to children) widen your hearts also.”

Instead of:

“Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own bowels.”

Do you know nothing of the duty of a translator? Why is it the Catholic Church now agrees with translating it: “ You are not constrained by us; you are constrained by your own affections”?


87 posted on 09/10/2014 7:21:54 AM PDT by Mr Rogers
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To: RegulatorCountry; metmom; boatbums; caww; presently no screen name; aMorePerfectUnion; wmfights; ...
So you've noticed the Luther Pivot™ too? I just haven't quite determined how it's triggered. Alternate weeks, full moon? There must be some sort of rationale because it's synchronized. Maybe it's more organic, like a flock of birds or a school of fish. One does it and the rest fall in line out of habit.

Either in invoking him as a pope in being the first to exclude the Apocrypha as being Scripture proper from an indisputable canon, (wrong ), or in supporting Cath. devoting to Mary, etc.

88 posted on 09/10/2014 7:36:57 AM PDT by daniel1212 (Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)
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To: Mr Rogers

Good job! Thx for your input on this thread.


89 posted on 09/10/2014 7:41:42 AM PDT by RoosterRedux
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To: Mr Rogers
But Luther was rotten because he called Catholic bishops names....hmmmm...

Next will be Luther's exasperated vituperation against Jews, who provoked his spirit so that he ended up speaking rashly and wrongly with his pen, resulting in harsh treatment, as if popes did not to such and worse at times.

90 posted on 09/10/2014 7:48:43 AM PDT by daniel1212 (Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)
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To: Mr Rogers
They did not “lean on it” - that we are saved by faith and not by working is excruciatingly obvious to anyone who reads the New Testament, and reasonably obvious to anyone who reads the Old.

If it were so excruciatingly obvious to anyone who read the NT, Martin Luther would not have had to go to such lengths defend his addition.

Nor is the goal of a Bible translation to create something that you must go to the priest to understand.

Oh, a priest, theologians, Church fathers, Church doctors, Holy Saints, and much much more. God's Word is something men can spend a lifetime studying, and still not begin to exhaust. It is quite a contrast with those four page pamphlets that have a little paragraph on the back, that if you say it and mean it, your salvation is assured. Heck, if that's all you need, you don't really need a Bible at all. (I am not accusing you of buying that particular approach)


91 posted on 09/10/2014 7:49:04 AM PDT by Dr. Sivana ("If you're litigating against nuns, you've probably done something wrong."-Ted Cruz)
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To: Mr Rogers; redgolum; Salvation
It has long been acknowledged that the translators of BOTH the KJV and the D-R used Tyndale as a guide to supplement Greek and Hebrew texts and the Vulgate.

The D-R in its original form was not that highly regarded as direct translation from Latin to English were often awkward. So, when Bishop Challoner revised the D-R, he relied heavily upon the KJV and today the two texts are remarkably similar.

It also needed to be noted that the translators of both Bibles were contemporaries and nearly all were educated at Oxford or Cambridge (where many remained as professors) during the same time frame. Debates between Catholic and Protestant scholars during this period, so there is every reason to believe that the translators were acquainted with each other (keep in mind that conversion of both Catholics and Protestants, notably Edmund Campion, was not uncommon). When the situation for Catholic scholars in England became more difficult, English Catholics established their college at Douai; however, this was perfectly modeled after Oxford and Cambridge and it is nearly a certainty that both sides continued to be familiar with the others teachings.

Archbishop Bancroft (the overseer of the KJV) was a staunch anti-Calvinist who believed strongly in the authority of bishops. The KJV translators were tasked with advocating the divine right of kings, but Bancroft also insured that the authority of the church was included and in this regard the 1611 KJV is far more "Catholic" than modern Protestantism (the original printing included not only the Apocrypha, but also a table of Psalms for matins and a calender of Holy Days). Had Bancroft lived another decade or so, the Anglican Church might have been much different as it seems that what he was basically trying to imitate Eastern Orthodoxy.

92 posted on 09/10/2014 7:55:54 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: daniel1212

There must be something of value in a religious outlook so hated, yet still here after all before it has fallen.


93 posted on 09/10/2014 8:05:41 AM PDT by onedoug
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To: Mr Rogers
Nor is the goal of a Bible translation to create something that you must go to the priest to understand. As Tyndale pointed out, if you have the scripture translated, you can judge the priest, instead of “leaning on” the priest.

But but but, that could lead to the idea that the historical magisterium, as the steward of Scripture could be wrong!. Which (for Rome) is simply untenable, as it is upon the premise of the assured veracity of Rome that the RCs has assurance of Truth.

Catholic doctrine, as authoritatively proposed by the Church, should be held as the supreme law; for, seeing that the same God is the author both of the Sacred Books and of the doctrine committed to the Church....it follows that all interpretation is foolish and false which...is opposed to the doctrine of the Church. (Providentissimus Deus; http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_18111893_providentissimus-deus_en.html)

It follows that the Church is essentially an unequal society, that is, a society comprising two categories of per sons, the Pastors and the flock...the one duty of the multitude is to allow themselves to be led, and, like a docile flock, to follow the Pastors. - VEHEMENTER NOS, an Encyclical of Pope Pius X promulgated on February 11, 1906.

..in all cases the immediate motive in the mind of a Catholic for his reception of them is, not that they are proved to him by Reason or by History, but because Revelation has declared them by means of that high ecclesiastical Magisterium which is their legitimate exponent.” — John Henry Newman, “A Letter Addressed to the Duke of Norfolk on Occasion of Mr. Gladstone's Recent Expostulation.” 8. The Vatican Council lhttp://www.newmanreader.org/works/anglicans/volume2/gladstone/section8.html

“All that we do [as must be patent enough now] is to submit our judgment and conform our beliefs to the authority Almighty God has set up on earth to teach us; this, and nothing else.” “He is as sure of a truth when declared by the Catholic Church as he would be if he saw Jesus Christ standing before him and heard Him declaring it with His Own Divine lips.” —“Henry G. Graham, "What Faith Really Means", (Nihil Obstat:C. SCHUT, S. T.D., Censor Deputatus, Imprimatur: EDM. CANONICUS SURMONT, D.D.,Vicarius Generalis. WESTMONASTERII, Die 30 Septembris, 1914 ) ]

The mere fact that the Church teaches the doctrine of the Assumption as definitely true is a guarantee that it is true. ” — Karl Keating, Catholicism and Fundamentalism (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1988), p. 275.[http://www.catholic.com/tracts/immaculate-conception-and-assumption]

94 posted on 09/10/2014 8:10:54 AM PDT by daniel1212 (Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)
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To: Campion
Good point.

The cannon of Scripture as recognized by the Church today differs from that recognized in antiquity.

95 posted on 09/10/2014 8:19:26 AM PDT by Mr. Lucky
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To: Campion
Talk about believing propaganda! You honestly believe all that about the Albigenses huh? Amazing. The only thing they were guilty of was preaching the pure unadulterated Word of God and people were getting saved. The Catholic church couldn't stand it and made up those things you accused them of to justify killing them.

And if you honestly believe that Fox's Book of Martyrs is propaganda then you must also believe that the Catholic church wasn't responsible for the Inquisition huh?

I know Catholics who know the truth about the Inquisition and laugh at how the Protestant church has been duped into believing otherwise.

96 posted on 09/10/2014 8:50:50 AM PDT by ducttape45
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To: Dr. Sivana

There were more than a few words put in the Vulgate that were not their in the Greek or Aramaic.

Google “Moses’s Horns”. In old Catholic icons, it pictures Moses with horns coming down from the mountain. That was a slip of Jerome, the more modern translations read it as his face shown.


97 posted on 09/10/2014 11:50:39 AM PDT by redgolum ("God is dead" -- Nietzsche. "Nietzsche is dead" -- God.)
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To: wagglebee

I actually have read both of them in parallel (using a program called ESword).

They are very, very similar. I prefer the KJV for one reason. It was the version my grandpa read the Christmas story out of.

Overall, my personal favorite is the RSV with Apocrypha.


98 posted on 09/10/2014 11:54:14 AM PDT by redgolum ("God is dead" -- Nietzsche. "Nietzsche is dead" -- God.)
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To: wagglebee
However, though spreading Christianity was often the stated goal, the British were typically more motivated by power and profit.

Were they any more motivated by power and profit than the Spanish, French, or Portuguese? I think not. All played lip service to the spread of Christianity. All vigorously pursued profit.

The Mayflower Compact is always worthy of consideration, as they were greatly motivated by religious liberty. They brought the Geneva Bible to America.

99 posted on 09/10/2014 11:58:46 AM PDT by Kandy Atz ("Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want for bread.")
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To: redgolum
I believe that most of the English-speaking world have an affection for the KJV because it's the most familiar. That's what was quoted in the literature we read in school, that's what quoted in movies, etc.

There are a few exceptions. The Lord's Prayer as most of us recite it is actually from Tyndale's translation which was then used in the Book of Common Prayer (nearly all Bibles, including KJV, D-R and RSV use debts and debtors instead of trespasses and trespass against us) and when 1 Corinthians 13 is read at weddings, it is typically from the RSV.

100 posted on 09/10/2014 12:16:41 PM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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