The Holy Bible, in the Authorized Version (KJV)

I will attempt to list some books that have meant much to me in the sidebar of the Music Box, and describe them here; as they are added, they may be found by the label "books" in the sidebar. I have already written of the Book of Common Prayer; now, the Bible.

--------
"Oh, how I love your law!
all the day long it is in my mind." (Psalm 119:97)

Psalm 119 is, if anything, too short. One hundred and seventy-six verses, from Aleph to Taw, cannot begin to tell the wonders of the law, or more broadly speaking, the word of God. I say one of the eight-verse stanzas each day with the Midday Office, besides its appearance in the normal round of Matins and Evensong. I always delight in this Psalm, all the more with each passing month. This delight is a microcosm of my delight in the larger story, the Old and New Testaments (and the Apocrypha) in their grand sweep from the Beginning to the End. The Bible is an untidy collection of writings, contradicting itself repeatedly. It is full of bizarre and seemingly trivial detail, as I recounted in my essay on Leviticus. It has moments of the most profound beauty, and the utmost darkness and terror. There are stories of heroic deeds, of military victories (and defeats). There are tales of abject failure, of apostasy, of betrayal. There are moments when in the darkness, light shines, a light which cannot be quenched. There is poetry, songs that have endured for millennia. It contains the wisdom of the ages, the holy Law of the LORD, the words and teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And it is, from beginning to end, true. These words have been tried in the fire and have not been found wanting.

I must quote at length from J.R.R. Tolkien's essay "On Fairy-Stories," wherein he alludes to the Biblical record as a special kind of Story:

"I would venture to say that approaching the Christian Story from this direction . . . the Gospels [and I would add, all of Scripture] contain a fairystory, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories. They contain many marvels— artistic, beautiful, and moving: "mythical" in their perfect, self-contained significance; and among the marvels is the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe [a "happy ending," though the word conveys more than that, as Tolkien explains in the essay]. But this story has entered History and the primary world. . . . The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man's history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy. It has pre-eminently the "inner consistency of reality." There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many sceptical men have accepted as true on its own merits. For the Art of it has the supremely convincing tone of Primary Art, that is, of Creation. To reject it leads either to sadness or to wrath.

"It is not difficult to imagine the peculiar excitement and joy that one would feel, if any specially beautiful fairy-story were found to be "primarily" true, its narrative to be history, without thereby necessarily losing the mythical or allegorical significance that it had possessed. It is not difficult, for one is not called upon to try and conceive anything of a quality unknown. The joy would have exactly the same quality, if not the same degree, as the joy which the "turn" in a fairy-story gives: such joy has the very taste of primary truth. (Otherwise its name would not be joy.) It looks forward (or backward: the direction in this regard is unimportant) to the Great Eucatastrophe. The Christian joy, the Gloria, is of the same kind; but it is preeminently (infinitely, if our capacity were not finite) high and joyous. But this story is supreme; and it is true. Art has been verified. God is the Lord, of angels, and of men— of elves. Legend and History have met and fused."

----------

Biblical translation requires at least two skills. It requires knowledge of the original languages: Hebrew and Aramaic, Greek. And it require knowledge of the target language. It is in this latter skill that the modern translations -- anything later than the "old" Revised Standard Version -- fall short. The scholars who composed the NRSV, the NIV, the NEB, the Jerusalem Bible, and similar versions probably know the old languages at least as well as the seventeenth century scholars of the AV. They certainly have better source documents, though I am not aware of any differences of content between the AV and the new versions that amount to more than trivialities. But they do not know English as well as William Tyndale, Lancelot Andrewes, and the others whose work is in the pages of the AV. The modern translators may have a clear idea of what the original language says, but too often they cannot find the English words and grammar to express it precisely and poetically.

Samuel Johnson, from the Preface to his Dictionary:

"I have studiously endeavored to collect examples and authorities from the writers before the restoration, whose works I regard as the wells of English undefiled, as the pure sources of genuine diction. . . . From the authors which rose in the time of Elizabeth, a speech might be formed adequate to all the purposes of use and elegance."

I would submit that Johnson remains correct: the English from the time of Elizabeth I to the Restoration is better than that of any period since. The English of our current age, from about 1960 onward, is perhaps the most depraved of all.

Precision of language and poetics is not a small thing. It is only through language that the Scriptures communicate anything at all to us. If the language is clumsy, communication is hindered. If the language is careful and precise, and at the same time beautiful, what is read is more likely to be understood and remembered. Because it is Story, the manner of its telling is significant. The precision with which the Biblical authors tell their stories, down to the individual words, is astounding. There is hardly a detail that does not, in some way, contribute to the telling. Some of this will necessarily be lost in translation, but as much as possible of the sense of the original must be conveyed in the target language. I believe that the Authorized Version succeeds in this better than any other English translation.

Nonetheless, one can learn from the variety of approaches to the text found in the many English translations. My one study Bible is an Oxford Annotated NRSV, and it is of great value to me. I consult the New English Bible from time to time, and the "old" RSV. The Jerusalem Bible is good, too; I am less fond of the NIV, but many people prefer it. I rather like the old Phillips translation at times as something of a paraphrase.

The RSV and NRSV share one characteristic that I like very much: footnotes. When there are alternative readings for a word in various manuscripts, or alternative ways of translating a word, it often gives them in the footnote. Or one might find something like this: "Meaning of Heb. uncertain," which is indeed the case for a number of passages. I appreciate them saying so. When there are names which are meaningful for the passage, it gives their meaning: an example is at Hosea 1:4-8 and 2:22-23, where the names Jezreel, Lo-ruhamah, and Lo-ammi are the point of the passage. The KJV gives the names in chapter one when Hosea names his children, but at 2:22-23, it gives the English translation, not the names, and one misses part of the connection between these two passages. The NRSV gives the names in both places, with their translation in footnotes; this is superior.

The KJV does something that, in turn, I wish other translations would do: when there are words or short phrases which are the translators' suggestions for filling in what is implied in the original, they put them in italics. This is especially valuable in the O.T., when the Hebrew is often elliptic in comparison to English. Sometimes the translators supplied entire phrases, and one can question whether they did rightly or not; by rendering the supplied text in italics, the reader can figure it out for himself. An example of this is at I John 2:23: "Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: but he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also."


The Bible in any translation is better than any other book under the sun. It does us no good if we do not read it. But if we do, it is an unfailing guide, a "light upon [our] path" (Ps. 119:105). It is open to the simplest person; it is a fount of wisdom to the wisest and most subtle of scholars. But it remains a closed book to any who do not approach it in faith.

"Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them; that, by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting lift, which thou hast given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen." [Collect for the Sunday closest to November 16: BCP p. 184]