Online talk review*: God’s Secretaries: The Making of the King James Version

[lethargic_man]

* Or, at least, vaguely related ramble. :o)

If anyone has an hour to fill, here is an amusing and erudite talk on God’s Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible.

Obviously, the speaker is a historian and knows more than I, but I did find myself disagreeing with him in a few places. For a start, I was surprised to see he looked up to James I as an intellectual. The impression I'd got of James was that he was a boor whose complete lack of empathy with the Elizabethan court was exemplified by his beheading of Sir Walter Raleigh, and whose lack of religious tolerance (compared to Elizabeth, who had pursued it, having seen England torn apart by religious warfare during her sister's reign) was exemplified by his persecution of the crypto-Jewish community, and surge in public burnings for witchcraft.

I also disagree with him about what is desired in a translation of the Bible. Sometimes, majesty is indeed what is called for, and the KJV is indeed preeminent in its beauty of language. But, far from the Bible's being about the irruption of the Other into people's lives justifying the use of language inserting a distance between the reader and what they are reading about, I would say that the Bible is often about ordinary people, and, outside of the prophetic books generally uses ordinary language, and should therefore be translated accordingly.

Of course, this rule is subject to context: where the Bible is to be considered as an ancient document, for example. (In my story of the showdown between the prophet Elijah and King Ahab I deliberately went for a more archaic style where Elijah quoted the Pentateuch (pace Wellhausen et al.—my story (tacitly) presupposed that at least some of the material in the Torah was already ancient by the time of Elijah).)

The curious thing is that this approach of mine to translation of a reversal of the opinion I held twenty years ago: when the Singer's Prayer Book Committee was then soliciting opinions in updating the translation to a modern one for the centenary edition of the Singer's Prayer Book, I was opposed to it, preferring the KJVness of the old translation.

I still like it, actually; I just don't hold that it's always appropriate.

Comments

[grumpyolddog.livejournal.com]

I don't think there's much remaining doubt that James was certainly as or nearly as intelligent as Elizabeth although certainly far more puritan in his views. This does not necessarily make him a boor; it does mean he was notably intolerant on certain subjects and would withdraw from conversation.

However, he spent a great deal of time studying Henry II's work on English Law and reformed many of the more absurd ones personally.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

Well, I did start by saying the speaker knew more than me. Me, I just know what I'm told :o), so thanks for broadening my knowledge^*.

* Subject to the normal disclaimers about not believing everything you read on the Net of a Thousand Lies, etc.^†

† Not that I'm saying I don't trust you, mind; just that I don't know you from Adam^‡ Aside from that I'm more confident you exist, and are still alive...

‡ Though, looking at your f-list, I have my suspicions. :o)

[grumpyolddog.livejournal.com]

I once bought you a coke on a Saturday.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

Well, that narrows it down. ;^b Do you think I can remember all the people who bought me a coke on a Saturday? Actually, I probably should, as (a) I don't like coke (it was probably lemonade), and (b) I tended to avoid such situations, as, being an impoverished and excessively thrifty student,^* I felt the need to pay back all debts, no matter how small, and did not like the expenditure. Anyhow, bellinghman is the only person I can recall doing me that favour.

If I once turned up on your doorstep unintentionally unannounced, waving a picture of a hedgehog and saying "Excuse me, sir, but do you recognise this animal?", then you're who I think you are. And if not, then hopefully that incident was sufficiently obscure that I'm unlikely to offend by mistaken identity. :o)

* Well, perhaps not excessively: it got me through a four-year Ph.D. on a three-year grant.

[grumpyolddog.livejournal.com]

Bang on with the hedgehog, although many details of that encounter are sadly lost to the ramblings of my memory.

The coke was in a field near a place called Woolpit. I remember being uncharitable to the The Eternally Harrassed One when he wondered why. There was no lemonade.