This is a snippet from a two-part post available at the links below. People love the KJV. Most people anyway. Worth reading for both those that do and those not so enamored.
(OrthoCuban) - Orthodoxy in the USA and Canada has an English conundrum. No, I am not talking about the country of England. I am talking about the language used. At least two of our jurisdictions argue that the only proper version of English to use in prayer and worship is 18th-19th-century English. No earlier or later English may be used. How did a part of Orthodoxy arrive at such a conclusion?
The Bible’s King James Version (KJV) is partly responsible for our odd conclusion. But it is not even the original 1611 publication of the KJV. Instead, the later editions of the 18th and very early 19th centuries are what have influenced modern English-speaking Orthodoxy in the USA and Canada. One need only go to the website of the Antiochian Archdiocese of Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines to see that formal modern English is used in their worship, not a revised version of Elizabethan English.1 Nevertheless, the KJV and revised Elizabethan language used for worship continue in this continent.2 As a side note, I went to the website for the Antiochian Archdiocese of Santiago and All Chile to find that the Liturgy is in Modern Latin American Castilian, not in either Modern Continental Castilian Spanish or Early Modern Castilian Spanish.3
An early translation of Orthodox liturgical tradition into English was published in England in 1900.4 Revised Elizabethan English was still the norm at the time of its translation in the late 19th century. The American Standard Version and the English Standard Version of the Bible had yet to be published at the time the translation was made. Sadly, The Ferial Menaion was a poor translation. The then Archimandrite Kallistos and Mother Mary comment that “the resulting English version is so eccentric in style–and at times altogether grotesque and ludicrous–that it cannot decently be used in public worship.”5
Even in 1969, translating the Bible into Modern English had barely begun. The American Standard Version of 1901 still used revised Elizabethan language. The Revised Standard Version was the first popular Bible written in Modern English. The date of the full Bible was 1952, and its publication triggered arguments and accusations. It was published by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. The ASV had received a certain degree of acceptance. However, the RSV triggered the split between the KJV supporters and Modern Language supporters.
The RSV was accused of being a modernist liberal translation and, among fundamentalists, a translation deliberately attempting to corrupt God’s Word. “The Revised Standard Version is the forerunner of the English Standard Version. Both of these versions are standards of corruption.”6 Even the New King James Version is rejected. “The instances in which the NKJV breaks with the original KJV by substituting wording identical to that of corrupted modern Bible versions are too numerous to be considered coincidence.”7 Oddly enough, this means that the Orthodox Study Bible is also considered corrupt since the New Testament is the NKJV...
Complete article here.
Posts
The only difference between the original 1611 and the later revisions in question is spelling and punctuation. There is no substantive difference.
ReplyDeleteThe idea that the Festal Menaion by Metropolitan Kallistos and Mother Mary is poor translation is a new one. Most people consider it to be a very good translation. The Triodion they did, with the same style, is the standard one in use, and only recently has an alternative translation of the full Triodion been made available... and it is hardly replacing it.
I agree that their Triodian is a good translation. But the author is simply quoting the translators opinion in their forward.
DeleteWhile you are correct that no substantive change has been made to the KJV. The 18th Century KJV text changes include significant updates based on evolution of the English language. For example, SONNE to SON, YOU to YE, AMONGST to AMONG. I think the authors point against KJV as the rational for rejecting modernization of language stands.
Perhaps due to reading this on my phone, and my eyesight not being what it was, I misread his comments on the Ferial Menaion as being about the Festal Menaion. The problem with Orloff's translations was not that they were in Elizabethan English... the problem was he was not a native English speaker.
ReplyDeleteThe later editions of the KJV were focused on updating the spelling, and also eliminating errors that had crept into various publications of the text. They were not attempting to correct the KJV, they were simply trying to produce a standard edition of it. Sonne vs. Son is a spelling difference. Both amongst and among are still found in the KJV. Both You and Ye are found in he KJV, depending on the grammar of the sentence. If you can point me to a some specific verses that were revised, I would like to see it. I have a reproduction of the original 1611 text, and whenever I have compared them with the later more standard editions, the differences I have seen have never been more than spelling differences.
Thanks for clarifying Father. Learned something new
DeleteThe whole bible translation discussion here is a red herring. The liturgical form of English was well established with the 1549 Book of Common Prayer, six decades before the KJV, and has remained reasonably consistent since then. And it was never the contemporary spoken style of English. Malory's Morte d'Arthur, completed in 1470, reads more like modern English than the KJV from 1611.
ReplyDeleteEnglish has always used a distinct form for liturgy. That's one of the many things that make English an especially rich language. We have so many different styles in which we can speak or write, each with its own connotations and appropriate context. Consider how African-American women have two or more very different forms of English they speak depending on context. Here in South Carolina, the black folks converse with each other in a dialect unintelligible to me, but in church they use the King's English so correctly that even the sermon has thee's and thou's. Meanwhile, lawyers submitting official court documents write in a form of English even more archaic than the KJV. None of these forms of English are wrong or old-fashioned. They're each the correct current form for their context.
In my opinion, anyone who liturgizes in vernacular English is simply not using the fullness of the English language correctly.
What about the English Standard Version? It is an Evangelical (conservative Protestant) revision of the Revised Standard Version. While the American publisher did not include the Old Testament Deuterocanonicals (all of which the Greek Church regards as canonical) in their edition, their British counterpart did. The Catholic Church in India adopted it (including only the Deuterocanonicals accepted by Latin/Roman Catholics as canonical) with some changes in the text. The Catholic Church in Great Britain also adopted the same edition as that for Catholic in India. The Anglican Church in North America (a group of conservative breakways from the “mainstream – i.e., liberal – Episcopal Church in America and the Anglican Church of Canada) include the all of the Deuterocanonicals (adding “Apocrypha” to the title) in its pew edition of the Bible, because they are read at morning and evening prayer (Mattins and Evensong) not regarded as “canonical” or “inspired” but for “historical interest”. IMHO: The Orthodox should consider adopting the English Standard Version as some Catholics have.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that the ESV is based on a "critical" edition of the New Testament Greek text which is at odds with the texts used by the Orthodox Church. For example, John 5:4 is reduced to a footnote, and that verse plays a fairly crucial roll in the passage which we read on the Sunday of the Paralytic, and you will find zero Fathers who comment on this text that do not touch on that verse.
DeleteI have to agree with the example of John 5:4 that Fr. John cites as a shortcoming in the ESV Bible. I do not have a copy of the Indian ESV edition (which is not available online). The British edition is still in preparation, although I think that John 5:4 will be a footnote in that. The American Catholic "New American Bible, Revised Edition" (NABRE) says of that verse in a footnote:
ReplyDeleteToward the end of the second century in the West and among the fourth-century Greek Fathers, an additional verse was known: “For [from time to time] an angel of the Lord used to come down into the pool; and the water was stirred up, so the first one to get in [after the stirring of the water] was healed of whatever disease afflicted him.” The angel was a popular explanation of the turbulence and the healing powers attributed to it. This verse is missing from all early Greek manuscripts and the earliest versions, including the original Vulgate. Its vocabulary is markedly non-Johannine.
Nonetheless, an Orthodox version of the ESV could "correct" whatever texts did not conform to Orthodox text, as the publisher of the ESV with the OT Deuterocanonicals allowed the Catholic Church in India and soon forthcoming from the United Kingdom to change.