Interesting article….
It should remind some of the Religious Conservatives- who won’t listen anyway- that there are multiple interpretations and translations of the Bible…
I think some of the other versions simplify things too much and take away the mystery…
None have the poetry of the King James Version.
As a work of literature, it’s magnificent.
I’ve actually read that version cover to cover…
You may pick yourselves up off the floor now…
Most of the Bible translations crowding American bookstores lack the KJV’s gravitas and spiritual substance, Jeffrey said, and their sheer variety fractures Christian unity.
The need for the KJV itself was prompted by a related situation, Jeffrey argues in a forthcoming book, “The King James Bible and the World It Made.”
In King James’ England, the Bishops’ Bible, favored by Anglicans, prevailed in churches, while the Puritan-preferred Geneva Bible was read in homes. Dissonances between the two versions sowed theological doubts and divisions. Hoping to paper over those divides (and supersede the anti-monarchical Geneva Bible) King James seized on the idea of a new, unifying Bible.
“One could be forgiven for thinking that a similar case for a common Bible in English is far stronger now than it was then,” Jeffrey writes.
Jeffrey and other scholars acknowledged, though, that such a task would be difficult.
“Another translation could be created, but it would never have the cultural uniqueness and authority that the KJV had,” said Timothy Larsen, a Wheaton scholar and author of a book about the KJV’s influence on the Victorian era. “Too many choices would have to be made.”
Bible translation is inherently theological, Larsen said, and getting contemporary Christian camps on the same page, so to speak, would be next to impossible.
As a result, Bible use is more democratic today, with no one translation wearing the crown, which some experts say is a good thing.
“The variety of ways in which the Bible allows for different translations demonstrates that it is a living, amazingly enduring document,” said Kristin Swenson, a religious studies scholar at Virginia Commonwealth University.
via King James Version Is The Only Bible With Power To Unite.
Lost in the 21st Century 