DMcFadden
Puritanboard Commissioner
The KJV was archaic (at least in some grammatical forms) when it was translated. To say that it was in the "vulgar" language did not imply that it was in any way dumbed down. The translators were intent on being FAITHFUL to the original. This included appeals that went beyond the prosaic since a huge percentage of the Bible is cast in poetic form.
Ryken does a very persuasive job (in my opinion) showing that some of the plain speech "readable" versions skew the Bible inaccurately by the very fact that they remove language INTENDED to appeal to the emotions as well as to communicate. By making the criterion getting from point A to point B in the simplest way possible, they actually MISTRANSLATE the word. Going from "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" to "God made everything" is only OK if you conclude that the original intent was to communicate at a minimalistic level a very circumcribed packet of cognitive information.
I doubt that ANY of the English Bibles available today are too "unreadable" to be understood by the average person. The questions should relate to two issues: choice of text and translation philosophy. After many years of using pretty much all of the "readable" translations (the church even gave me the Good News Bible in leather as an ordination present 34 years ago!), I am persuaded by Ryken's call for an essentially literal translation. Besides, the Bible was intended to be read aloud and exposited before anyone thought of using it for wide-spread personal use. I'm looking for a translation that is a faithful translation and that "reads well" in the pulpit (e.g., ESV, KJV, NKJV).
Ryken does a very persuasive job (in my opinion) showing that some of the plain speech "readable" versions skew the Bible inaccurately by the very fact that they remove language INTENDED to appeal to the emotions as well as to communicate. By making the criterion getting from point A to point B in the simplest way possible, they actually MISTRANSLATE the word. Going from "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" to "God made everything" is only OK if you conclude that the original intent was to communicate at a minimalistic level a very circumcribed packet of cognitive information.
I doubt that ANY of the English Bibles available today are too "unreadable" to be understood by the average person. The questions should relate to two issues: choice of text and translation philosophy. After many years of using pretty much all of the "readable" translations (the church even gave me the Good News Bible in leather as an ordination present 34 years ago!), I am persuaded by Ryken's call for an essentially literal translation. Besides, the Bible was intended to be read aloud and exposited before anyone thought of using it for wide-spread personal use. I'm looking for a translation that is a faithful translation and that "reads well" in the pulpit (e.g., ESV, KJV, NKJV).