Comment by chrismorgan
Comment by chrismorgan 14 hours ago
Among those that read and study the Bible:
A hundred years ago, everyone used the King James Version of the Bible.¹ Poorly though it reflected the common language², it was a shared experience, and things like memorisation and making and recognising scriptural allusions were straightforward, because everyone used the same words. Now, a wide variety of Bible translations are in common use, some more accurate than the KJV, some more loose paraphrases, all more understandable. There are some big advantages in this variety and modernity—but we have lost something. The shared experience had a virtue of its own, quite a significant one.
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¹ OK, by a hundred years ago the RV and ASV were used in some areas, but it was mostly as a distant extra to the KJV, not replacing it.
² I understand that some of it was already becoming archaic, or at least overly formal, when it was published, such as thee/thou (singular you). The fact is, it was “appointed to be read in Churches”, and they wanted it to sound impressive. Compare it with Tyndale’s translation almost a hundred years earlier, and Tyndale’s generally reads much more easily—because Tyndale wanted uneducated people to be able to understand the Bible.³
³ “And sone after Maister Tyndall happened to be in the companie of a learned man, and in communing and disputing with him, drove him to that issue that the learned manne sayde, we were better be without Gods lawe, then the Popes: Maister Tyndall hearing that, answered hym, I defie the Pope and all his lawes, and sayde, if God spare my lyfe ere many yeares, I wyl cause a boye that dryveth the plough, shall knowe more of the scripture then thou doest.” — John Foxe, Actes and Monuments (1563), page 570.
The Catholic Church had similar tradeoffs with Latin, though I suspect the language and style were less motivated by majesty (though bias of use by the educated might have entered early — I am ignorant of the history). The New Testament Koine (Common) Greek was similarly a lingua franca. When the once common language is no longer broadly used, the language can become a class-oriented separating factor.
Even more recent translations seem to retain significant similarity in a lot of "famous" texts (e.g., the Beatitudes — people also seem to use the archaic pronunciation of "blessed" as two syllables), presumably to ease acceptance of the change. This hints that some commonality is preserved. (Some words are also jargon, so not modernizing the word is more reasonable.)
Story outlines and concepts can also be preserved even though the "poetry" of earlier versions is lost in translation. Yet as contexts change even concepts may be less understandable and shared; "go to the ant thou sluggard" may be unclear not merely from language but from unfamiliarity with concepts. Aesop's "The Ant and the Grasshopper" has lasted thousands of years, but is not a fundamentally human metaphor and even the human concepts diligence and foresight can have different cultural tones.
"A sluggard is someone who does not work hard." "Oh, you mean someone who works smarter not harder?" "No. It means someone who does not accomplish much." "Oh, you mean someone who is burnt out?" "No. It means someone who chooses not to do things that are profitable." "Oh, you mean someone who has recognized the futility of striving for accomplishments and has learned to be content with a simple life?" "No!"