Truly (good Christian Reader) we never thought from the beginning, that we should need to make a new Translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one, (for then the imputation of Sixtus had been true in some sort, that our people had been fed with gall of Dragons instead of wine, with whey instead of milk) but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principal good one, not justly to be excepted against; that hath been our endeavor, that our mark.
Preface to the KJV
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In 1769 the Oxford University Press published an edition of the King James version in which many small changes were made. These changes were of five kinds: 1. Greater and more regular use of italics; 2. minor changes in the text; 3. the adoption of modern spelling; 4. changes in the marginal notes and references; and, 5. correction of printers' errors. This edition soon came to be known as "The Oxford Standard" edition, because it was widely accepted as a standard text by commentators and other publishers. The editions of the King James version published in our century generally reproduce this Oxford edition of 1769, with or without the marginal notes. The following information is given so that the reader may gain an accurate impression of how far the modern editions differ from the original King James version of 1611.
Changes in the KJV
• • •
The Chairman of the American Company of New Testament Revisers, President Woolsey, D. D., LL.D., thus summarizes these defects: "Our translators of the seventeenth century, in a great many instances, misunderstood the sense. To make this as evident as it may be made we should need to write a volume .... The main deficiency in our translation proceeds from want of exact knowledge of the Hebrew and Greek languages. Not only is the sense wholly misapprehended in a number of instances—as could scarcely fail of being the case—but a perception of the finer rules of grammar and interpretation was wanting. In the use of the article, of the tenses and modes of verbs, and of participles, and in a great variety of other instances, the modern scholar by his revisions can repair and beautify the building reared by the older scholars. Thus, while no book can be written more fitted in style and expression to do its work, more truly English, more harmonious, more simply majestic, than our Authorized Version; new revisers of the text and the version may hope by their salutary changes—to contribute to its preservation, in essentially the same form which it has always had, for generations yet to come."
Defects of the KJV
(The above citations are available at Michael Marlowe's
Bible Research.)
I found it odd that it was only after I started treating religious studies as something that deserved to be taken seriously that I found out the KJV fetish was bogus. On the one hand, it's
almost surprising that the least-educated Biblical views in American society (often called "fundamentalist" in a derogatory sense) use the most convoluted English-language expression of the Bible possible. To the other, if you're going to bite off more than you can chew, do so with grandeur.
I'm so embarrassed, though. While I was looking up the above pages, I hopped over to look up a page that I had forgotten about, at the same site, dealing with the NASB, which is my paper-copy Bible for research. I use various translations online, but mostly RSV. I've been confusing the histories of the NASB and the RSV. Whoops.
The problem, though, can be expressed by looking at the NASB and RSV:
From the same website:
As its name implies, the New American Standard Bible is a revision of the American Standard Version (1901). It was produced by a company of conservative scholars who wished to provide a literal and conservative revision of the ASV, as an alternative to the Revised Standard Version (1952), which had proven to be unacceptable to conservative churches. Although the NASB revisers were influenced by the RSV's interpretation in many places, overall the NASB is a good deal more literal than the RSV, and thus it preserves the highly literal character that had made the American Standard Version so useful as a translation for close study. Also unlike the RSV, the NASB deliberately interprets the Old Testament from a Christian standpoint, in harmony with the New Testament.
On The New American Standard Bible
• • •
The RSV Old Testament was not well received outside of liberal circles, chiefly because the translators often deliberately rendered Old Testament passages in such a way that they were contrary to the interpretations given in the New Testament. This was done on the principle that the Old Testament ought to be interpreted only in reference to its own historical (Jewish) context. Christian interpretations, including those of the New Testament writers, are therefore deliberately excluded as "anachronistic." But this, as conservative critics perceived, practically amounted to a denial of the truth of the New Testament. As the conservative scholar R. Laird Harris wrote,
It is a curious study to check the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, a monument of higher critical scholarship, and note how every important Old Testament passage purporting to predict directly the coming of Christ has been altered so as to remove this possibility ... It is almost impossible to escape the conclusion that the admittedly higher critical bias of the translators has operated in all of these places. The translations given are by no means necessary from the Hebrew and in some cases ... are in clear violation of the Hebrew."
The verse most often mentioned by conservatives was Isaiah 7:14, in which the RSV translators rendered the Hebrew word almah as "young woman" instead of "virgin." While this was not a case of a clear violation of the Hebrew (the word must be interpreted according to its context), it was by no means necessary. And there were many other instances of the same problem, which revealed a pattern of systematic contradiction of the New Testament interpretations of Old Testament passages. For example, in Genesis 22:18 the RSV renders an ambiguous sentence as "by your descendents shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves" contrary to the interpretation given by the Apostle Paul in Galatians 3:8 and 3:16. The objections of conservatives were not merely captious criticisms concerning the meaning of a word here and there; the controversy was about whether or not a version of the Old Testament which ignores and contradicts the New Testament in so many places has any right to be received as the standard Bible of American churches. At any rate, the rejection of the RSV by evangelicals had serious consequences for the future of the version. At the time that it was replaced by the New Revised Standard Version in 1990, the RSV was one of the least popular versions in America, having only about 5 percent of the market share in Bibles.
On The Revised Standard Version
It would seem that the accuracy, on the one hand, and the gravity of variation, to the other, are the stuff of interpersonal politics. For instance, whether the RSV actually violates Hebrew seems a gray area, although there is certainly an argument to be had regarding stylistic updates for modern vernacular. However, perhaps conversely, the KJV suffers for being archaic. (
cf "Defects" discussion of "forthwith" and "by and by".) Flip a coin.
More telling is the issue of contention between the RSV and NASB: Should the Old Testament contradict the New? (
cf. On "The Revised Standard Version")
To go full circle on this digression, the New Revised Standard Version, which replaced the RSV, which in turn held only 5% marketshare at best when it was replaced, is less literal than the oft-lamented RSV, but more literal than the NIV (
cf. On the "New Revised Standard Version").
And yet the NRSV is a further step away:
The deliberately non-Christian interpretation of the Old Testament which made the RSV unacceptable to conservatives is continued in this revision. In fact the most notorious verse of the RSV, Isaiah 7:14, in the NRSV is moved even further away from its connection with the New Testament. The RSV had rendered it "a young woman shall conceive" (future); but the NRSV has "the young woman is with child" (present), which effectively prevents the Christological interpretation (and there is no footnote to inform the reader that the RSV's "shall conceive" is a possibility).
On the New Revised Standard Version
In short, it seems there's much debate to be had about whether or not the Old Testament should be treated in its own historical context, or presumed to be a natural precursor for the New Testament. By the former, variation and even contradiction between the two scriptures is acceptable, and even expected. By the latter, though, it is problematic.
Curiously, the question plays to accommodate that same bloc of Christians I mentioned earlier. It is an issue of simplification: some Christians presume that there must necessarily be complete harmony between the testaments, and that presumption is simply unacceptable.
For centuries, many Christians have looked past the arrhythmia of the Old Testament, the ministry of Christ, and the Pauline evangelization. Much of the problem comes from trying to manage the detail of discordant testaments that are supposed to be in complete agreement. The authors of the Old Testament didn't write as part of the Christian experience, the Jews of Christ's day obviously rejected the ministry, and today's Jews don't recognize that continuity else they would be Christians. We have
no reason at all to expect complete harmony between Hebrew and Christian testaments. Only the Christians have a stake in establishing that continuity.
It's hard to find mention of the presumption in the King James Version; such a presumption does not seem to be an issue until the 20th century. Perhaps I'm wrong, but it seems the issue only came up after someone dared consider the Old Testament in its own context.
Generally speaking, I consider the presumption that the Old and New Testaments must necessarily be in harmony a strike against any given Biblical consideration that might require it. If virgins and forthwith are important enough contextual considerations to argue about, what of the fundamental presuppositions to which a translation is expected to agree?
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Notes:
