Crossway sent me Leland Ryken’s new book, The Legacy of the King James Bible, which I’m reading with interest. If you’ve read this blog long, you know that I’m a fan of the KJV. Though I have several translations, I could do without any of them other than my two favorites: the KJV and the English Standard Version (ESV). That’s not to say that the others aren’t good. I just don’t prefer them.
(Read the reasons why I prefer the KJV here.)
Though Ryken says, “I do not believe that the King James is the best translation for a reader today,” he goes to great lengths to show its merits. He might not think it’s the best, but he’s certainly an advocate.
One of the most obvious strengths of the KJV that Ryken discusses is its literary excellence. Its being a “literary masterpiece” was an accident: “The translators did not think of themselves as producing a literary Bible. Their primary aim was to produce an accurate translation of the original Bible.” Accident or not, it is the greatest work in English literature. In the preface of the 1881 English Revised Version, the revisers say:
We have had to study this great Version carefully and minutely, line by line; and the longer we have been engaged upon it the more we have learned to admire its simplicity, its dignity, its power, its happy turns of expression, its general accuracy, and…the music of its cadences, and the felicities of its rhythm.
The NIV is probably the most popular translation today. Though it is not a literary translation, it’s a lot closer than most new dynamic equivalents. Still, it falls far short of the beauty of the KJV. Consider:
“Hear my cry, O God; attend unto my prayer. From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For thou hast been a shelter for me, and a strong tower from the enemy,” Psalm 61:1-3, KJV.
“Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer. From the ends of the earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the foe,” NIV.
“God, listen to me shout, bend an ear to my prayer. When I’m far from anywhere, down to my last gasp, I call out, “Guide me up High Rock Mountain!” The Message.
The NIV still sounds poetic, though not nearly as much as the KJV. As for the Message, yikes!
For the last several years, I’ve done most of my Bible reading from the ESV. This year, though, in honor of its 400th anniversary, I’m revisiting the KJV. Why don’t you give it a try? If you like reading the works of Jonathan Edwards, Charles Spurgeon, Martin Lloyd-Jones, or Billy Graham, then you might like reading their Bible.
If that’s too much to ask, and especially if you usually read a “dynamic equivalent,” at least try a version that was translated in the tradition of the King James, such as the ESV or the NKJV.
Comments are open for this post.