Here are a few Christian based sites on the authorized King James version for anyone who cares to check it out. Don’t know if they would be of any interest to non Christians.
http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/kjvdefns.htm
I’m not sure why it had been, but I can see where it might need to go there:
From the jesus-is-lord page:
Well, first there is the silly exaggeration about “Greek manuscripts galore.” There are a limited number of manuscripts dating to the fourth century with some fragments from the prior centuries. They are nearly all in close agreement, with the differences in text easily explainable according to copyist errors.
Then there is the nonsense about “corrupted” Catholic manuscripts which is simply a lie (based on extrapolating some differences in the Vulgate back to the Greek and that a couple of the Greek texts include some of the Apocrypha–not that they change any words in the text accepted by all Christians).
I suppose God might not leave us “in the dark with an ‘imperfect’ translation,” but why should anyone believe that the KJV happened to be it? As for the popularity of English (in 2002–certainly not in 1611), that is merely appealing to the emotions of the audience.
From the icr site:
I doubt that the author of this piece actually knows the level of scholarship that has gone into recent translations. I would never disparage the translators of the KJV, but claiming that they could not be equalled requires more than assertion.
As to the notion that the KJV beat out its competitors on its own merits, having a monoploy position in the market does tend to boost one’s sales.
The icr author’s statements regarding the Textus Vaticanus and Textus Sinaiticus can be most charitably described as misguided.
(A more forthright description would be that he is simply lying, fabricating some comments and exaggerating others.)
I won’t bother discussing the av1611 site. It is just silly.
Thank you, Jabba, for elaborating upon the Wyclif translation. I was reading through the thread prepared to do so if no one else did.
However, I must nitpick with regard to why the Wycliff translation did not become widespread and traditional. It is certainly true that Wyclif and his few collaboraters did not have the resources available to them that were available to the scholars working under King James’ patronage…however…
The primary reasons the Wyclif bible did not become widespread are that 1. It was developed and published before the invention of printing press. 2. The Catholic Church had the unfortunate habit of burning any copy it could find. And, 3. they also burned alive many of the people that were caught with copies.
The CC had the idea at the time that allowing the Bible to be published in the local vernacular would allow people to interpret for themselves and perhaps, therefore, loosen the hold of the CC on their minds…and purses.
Along came the Reformation and, some 90 years later, the English had the freedom to translate and publish without fear of personal conflagration. The KJV “took off.” 
PerrinsAxe, the King James Version is in Modern English.
Not Old.
Not Middle.
Heh. Ol’ Jack T. Chick argues that the KJV translation is not merely divinely inspired, but that all other translations of the Bible are the work of Satan:
All others?
Does that include translations into spanish, modern greek, hindi etc etc?
Are there translations into other languages that are also inspired or is the old Modern English ‘God’s own language’?
What are the criteria for establishing whether a translation is inspired?
Verily, I say unto thee: ‘This whole debate is silly.’
Governor Miriam “Ma” Ferguson (of Texas, of course) when challenged on the issue of permitting Spanish-speaking students to use their own language bibles in school held up the KJV and announced, “If the King’s English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it’s good enough for the children of Texas!”
(Obviously, this pre-dated the various Supreme Court rulings with which most of us are familiar.)
The language used by Shakespeare, Marlowe, Spenser, and the KJV is properly known as Early Modern English. It was used from around 1500 until around 1750 (those are arbitrary cutoff dates, because the language was changing very gradually before and after those times). Actual Old English was used from the 5th century until about 1100.
You want to see the New Testament in real Old English? Here is Mark 12:1 in Old English…
Now if the pastor in your church is using this translation, I agree, you should report him to the synod. 
Compare the above with the same verse in the KJV…
Now compare that with the same passage in the modern Modern English of the New Revised Standard Version…
All right, which of these do you think the KJV language is closer to? Old English or modern Modern English?
Further reading: The Old English Bible
English versions of the Bible
Georgetown’s Old English Pages
The Governor Ferguson quotation is disputed. No one, as far as I know, has found a contemporary reference to her saying it.
yeeeesh, guys!
Relax a bit. Clearly, PerrinsAxe is not familiar with the terminology used to describe the history and development of the English language. (And I do hope that, in the spirit of the Straght Dope, PA does read and absorb the information presented.) However, it is fairly clear that the intention of the OP was to wonder about “old sounding” (to his/her ears) English.
Presenting the information is great.
Presenting the information as a rebuttal to casually used phrases somewht misses the point.
Not only that, but that quotation was a jab at provincials that has been common since before Ferguson’s time.
UnuMondo
Apparently, there are still people who say “If the KJV was good enough for granny, it’s good enough for me.”
http://www.catholic.com/library/Bible_Translations_Guide.asp
(under "What is the Best Bible?)
It’s a little comical. Ones “granny” believed a host of things everyone knows now to be false/unlikely/lies/misunderstanding.
One of the frustrating aspects of “defending the faith” (e.g., when you’ve been ambushed at a party or at work) is answering misquoted, out-of-context statements from a version of the Bible which represented so-so scholarship in the first place.
It nice that people appreciate poetic language, but that isn’t nearly good enough reason to keep the KJV around.
I wrote:
… to which Latro replied:
Hmmm … I believe Jack Chick is silent on the issue of Biblical translations into languages other than English. However, I’ll bet you he believes that the U.S.A. is God’s Chosen Country. (I can just see Chick arguing that God most loves the U.S. because God’s chosen spokesman, Pat Robertson, lives here. 
) For all I know, Chick also believes that every other language’s translations of the Bible suffers from the same “Satanic influences” that have tainted every English translation of the Bible other than the KJV.
There was an article on Jack Chick’s website a while back where he said that the only Spanish translation free of Satan’s influence is the Reina translation. He must be going for that ever growing Latino market :rolleyes:
My aunt OTOH, a member of a Pentecostal offshoot, does belief that the KJV translation is the only inspired one, the Hebrew and the Greek are now “out of date”, and consequently only English speakers will be saved.
UnuMondo
UnuMondo:
Does your aunt also believe that everyone born before the KJV was written is in Hell now?
PerrinsAxe, if you’re still around, please memorize this terminology:
Old English: 450 to 1000, A.D.
Middle English: 1100 to 1500, A.D.
Early Modern English: 1500 to 1750, A.D.
Modern English: 1750 A.D. to the present
If you express your questions in the proper terminology, you won’t be harassed by the regulars here.
I don’t want to ask her, because doing so will simply invoke another long barrage of nonsense, but I assume that people born before the KJV had the Hebrew and Greek which weren’t yet “out of date.” Of course, who could read the Bible back then anyway.
UnuMondo
I wouldn’t ask her either. Not if she evokes that kind of reaction.
A point – without barraging – the problem is NOT that the language is old fashioned. People read Shakespeare and don’t complain too much about that same language. The problem is that it’s WRONG in many places, and in many ways. Wasn’t right then, isn’t right now.
The KJV translators were excellent, but misunderstood many words. This wasn’t the Internet – people’s learning was largely limited to their university’s library, and what other people told them. Imagine a library with a total of a couple thousand books. (Most of which we’d consider unreliable, today.) That was a BIG library in 1611!
That would be also known commonly as the Reina-Valera version, a translation directed by Casiodoro de la Reina and Cipriano de Valera assembled between 1569 and 1602 with most of the work done … surprise, surprise, surprise … in Elizabethan England. That is, probably with the aid of many of the same scholars using the same references (heck, it was finished BEFORE the KJV!).
Thing is, virtually all the Spanish-speaking world was officially Catholic for at least 3 more centuries after that, so there was no tradition of the R-V being an “authorized” or “standard” version; and by the time the countries opened up to other denominations, modern scriptural translation had been well established even among the RCC. It was, though, for many, many years, the only complete Protestant Spanish Bible there was, and its link to the KJV’s milieu makes for a great deal of acceptance among conservative Spanish-speaking Protestant congregations.
Interestingly, the modern RCC has no trouble with the faithful reading the 1909 and 1960 Reina-Valera editions (equivalent of the RSV or NKJV?) for personal use. And most of the mainstream Protestant churches use them. This has led some would-be “Juan Chick” types to claim that these are “corrupted” versions and even that the RCC gets a royalty. One has gone even further (off the deep end, I say) and decided that what we need is a translation from the English KJV into Spanish :rolleyes:
BTW, I saw my first translated-into-Spanish Chick Tract back in the late 1970s here in San Juan, so we can’t say he has been behind the curve…
Skip has a good point here. The language of myth (religion is a type of myth) is poetry; the language of the secular world is prose. Translations which try and say it in everyday language therefore are breaking the rule.