Friday 23 July 2010

My ineradicable prejudice in favour of the King James Bible

Just to note the fact (and it does seem to be a fact of my psychology) that I regard the King James version (KJV) of the Bible as being the true, inspired, correct English version of the Bible - as much superior to all the other 'translations' of the Bible as is Shakespeare to Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare.

And I'm afraid that I regard other people who disagree with me on this question with about as much empathy as I would regard somebody who claimed that Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare was just as good as, or better than, the original.

And while the Book of Common Prayer comes a close second to the KJV; in the one place where the two books overlap - the Psalms - the KVJ is as much better than the BCP as J.R.R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is better than C.S. Lewis's Narnia books. Both are good; but the difference is qualitative.

(Although of course the BCP version of the Psalms - by Miles Coverdale - historically preceded the KJV, so the analogy is inexact.)

That the Anglican Church abandoned universal usage of the BCP and KJV I regard as an abandonment of its own reality - the BCP/ KJV *was* the Church of England - and what remained after their excision is a hollow bureaucratic simulacrum.

4 comments:

dearieme said...

But "King james Version" is so American - we surely called it the Authorised Version?

Bruce Charlton said...

@dearieme - actually most of my commenters are American...

Well, maybe not.

Touche!

Syd said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Stephen said...

I think of the 90% that comes from Tyndale as being the source of the inspiration.