No, he means Hebrew. Only a few pages of the bible were originally written in Aramaic.
Just to be clear then, you have read it? You’ve read the Old Testament and the New Testament in the King James Version? Pretty much all of it?
Anyone else a fan of the New King James? I like it because you’re not stumbling over trying to figure out thee, though, thine, but a lot of the style, and should I say majesty, is preserved. I grew up with the NIV and it always seemed dull and watered down.
The NIV is okay, but the joys of the KJV are more than worth the slow down.
I have read the Bible five times, mostly in the New World Translation (Jehovah’s witnesses), but with the King James Version and the New English Bible (1970) alongside to compare readings; and I even use a translation into Esperanto. I have since acquired translations in Spanish and Russian as well, and an interlinear rendering of the New Testament.
Hebrew is quite terse compared to English; the 23rd Psalm, for example, is in four words in Hebrew.
Imagine what it must have been like to translate the Bible into Chinese! :eek:
“The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want” is 4 words in Hebrew. Not the entire 23rd Pslam
one verb can express a lot more than one English verb (and you can infer the subject from the verb without having to write it), and they don’t have to use the verb to be. other than that it’s not much more “terse” than English
I stand corrected. I miswrote that… :o
mdcastle I’ve looked at the NKJV, it doesn’t quite do it for me. maybe it’s just that I’ve read enough of the KJV, Shakespeare etc. that I’m comfortable with the Elizabethan Pronouns and verb endings.
Incidentally, it isn’t just the vocab and syntax than sets the KJV apart from most ‘modern’ versions, it’s also the textual sources. the KJV is based on the Textus Receptus, while (say) the NRSV is based on the oldest possible sources. I prefer the TR, which is another reason I like the KJV.
Yes, but I’ve read it was written in language that was archaic even in its time, being largely and consciously based on far earlier translations as well as on the original-language texts the translation committee studied.
Perhaps the “simplicity and rigor” of the KJV is caused by that of Hebrew poetry and literature.
Well, there’s your problem. The Bible is not a novel.
I think it works better spoken aloud. But KJV has contributed more idioms to the English language than anyone else, even Shakespeare. But it helps to have a more modern translation handy.
When I read the Bible to actually understand or take meaning from it, I use a contemporary translation (any of which benefit from the 400 years of biblical scholarship since the KJV was started).
But for sheer poetry and beauty of language the KJV cannot be beat.
My two cents:
Non-fiction. Historically significant, yes. Many man-hours spent putting it together, yes.
I have read all of it, and some parts of it multiple times, especially the Gospels.
No,it’s really not.
It’s more a series of anecdotes,exaggerations and inaccuracies bound together in the same volume which itself is in desperate need of an editor. The four contradictory Gospel recitations of the Cruxificion and the Resurrection alone make it clear that either large portions of the original text have been omitted or the Bible’s many transcribers simply have little with which to work and simply compile what they have.
It’s basically a few good stories combined with a great deal of filler material.
Just noting for those of you interested in the Bible as literature, you should check out this ongoing discussion here. It has been very interesting to read.
I think the value your place on that ‘400 years of biblical scholarship’ is going to largely depend on your own ideological predispositions.
If you believe that the Received Text is more reliable and accurate than the older manuscripts (as for example the Eastern Orthodox do), then of course the KJV is going to seem superior to the NRSV (which is why the Orthodox do, in fact, use the KJV).
Fair enough. But it’s not just that modern translations use older manuscripts; we also have many *more *manuscripts available than the KJV editors did, which allows greater confidence in detecting corruptions to the inherited texts. Not to mention that much of the English used in the KJV is archaic itself and requires additional translation to be understandable to the modern reader who is not fluent in Jacobean English.
It even has the modern twist of alternate versions for the reader to interactively decide which he likes better. Way ahead of its time. 
Whether or not the King James Bible is “a great work of literature,” there’s no denying that the LOLCats Bible is.