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Essential Text Translation?

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Today I read "When the King Saved God" in the latest issue of Vanity Fair in which Christopher Hitchens, himself an unbeliever, argues that the King James translation of the Bible is essential to our American cultural literacy. Beyond this, he even asserts that this translation must surge ahead of the ever-burgeoning tide of lesser, more trendy texts to come along due to its timeless poetry and authoritative interpretations. While he highlights some of the infamously biased word choices of the great English translation, he maintains that it should still be considered the essential version of the Christian Bible.

This begs the question of the Dialogue: Do you think there can or should be an essential translation of the Christian (or other religious) text, by which all others are measured?
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TheGreatDialogue said…
...I am agreed that the KJV was and is important as part of western cultural tradition and language forms...but I think we have benefited mightily from newer [post KJV] translations [some of the KJV suffers from dependence on previous translations that later one do not]. For myself, I prefer the New KJV --but I find much value in the NIV and other versions...These are essential for non-Bible scholars in that they can learn much meaning from merely comparing translations, verse alongside verse...it helps open the scriptures to the layman....
May 8, 2011 at 12:26 PM
mtspace said…
I agree with Hitchins on several counts. The KJB has weight. It's language and tone have influenced Anglophone culture greatly. Based on the specific examples he gives I am sure I would find its tone more to my liking than something like the more Calvinist Geneva Bible. That it was able to achieve this tone is testament to the times and processes that created it.

The act of translation was a nod by Catholic King James in the direction of people - mostly Protestants - who wished for a Bible in the vernacular. It was an attempt to stem the flow of blood and treasure that was frequently wasted when Catholics and Protestants fought for power in England. (And it was therefore and attempt to gain some measure of support from England's Protestants...) It was meant to be a document that drew both parties together and it therefore drew on points of view both Catholic and Protestant. It is remarkable that a work that is essentially the output of a committee with differing viewpoints manages to wax poetic so often.

I'm not sure Hitchins was comparing the KJB with other, more recent translations. I just don't think that was the purpose of his piece. I do think he is arguing that the specifics of a translation can matter in how we perceive the message. And that frequently the translation does not match the intent of the writer in the original language.

I must say I got a bit of a grin out his take on the Ten Commandments. I'm not sure all of them bore the same weight as the best of the original ten; but they were amusing.
May 9, 2011 at 11:51 AM
mtspace said…
Er... I think Hitchins believes that the proliferation of versions must be confusing. That it creates a kind of "Babel" that is potentially destructive.

As much as I agree that there is great merit in having shared cultural ideas and expressions of those ideas, I think that such a Babel results only when we are too narrow in our interpretation of the message. If the message of Christ is too fragile to survive fifty translations, it is not a very robust message, is it?

The Babel Hitchins worries about only happens when we fail to perceive the forest due to our obsession with the cell structure of the pine needles. I'm sure if we all turn into needle specialists we'll find ourselves at a point in history like James'.
May 9, 2011 at 12:17 PM
TheGreatDialogue said…
...I SO Prefer the Macro-Forest to the Micro-Forest!
:)
May 10, 2011 at 9:43 AM
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