...Prose by Another Name Wouldn’t Read the Same
Hitchens is a lover of English prose; he overcomes his dislike of religion when he writes a brilliant panegyric on the English Bible (the authorised King James’s version which, as Hitchens points out, was largely based on the brilliant work of Tyndale — not the grubby editions that are now popping up!).
Ironic, of ourselves, since the KJV is the version that is also the darling of the fulminating fundamentalists. It's also well known in scholarly circles as just about the least accurate and most poorly translated English language version ever made.
ReplyDeleteI think that depends on the scholars, Art. Years ago, I translated a bit of the New Testament from Greek into English and I found myself echoing the Confraternity edition that I had grown up with (that was the Catholic version based on Douay-Rheims— on which the KJV is in turn based — done by Jesuits). You can't always trust scholars, who often have as much of an agenda as the hierarchy. Sometimes you have to see for your self. More interesting, perhaps, is what might have been meant in the original original. Presuming that Jesus was speaking Aramaic at the Last Supper, the words of the Consecration, "This is my body, this is my blood" would have been understood as "This is myself." (I live around the corner from a Maronite church, where the Mass is celebrated in Aramaic.)
ReplyDeleteI should have added that Douay-Rheims, if memory serves also took note of Tyndale. I actually a course in this while a grad student at Penn.
ReplyDeleteWell, in the books I've read about this, even scholars who might otherwise disagree on emphasis or interpretation all seem to agree that the problem was in KJV's remoteness from the source texts. The more layers of translation you go through the more likely errors accrue. Comparing KJV to the Greek, etc., sources, there are many serious examples of linguistic drift, and so those who use the Bible as part of their justification for their social programs are quite frequently wrongheaded.
ReplyDeleteRegardless of whatever bias a certain scholar might bring to his or her work, translation errors aren't really in dispute.
"… those who use the Bible as part of their justification for their social programs are quite frequently wrongheaded. "
ReplyDeleteNo lie there!