KJV preference myself.
I love the King Jimmy (KJV) as I grew up on it. I believe that familiarity with it gave me an advantage when it came to reading and watching Shakespeare when I got to jr. high and high school. I've even listened extensively in the past to this recording of the Bible by Alexander Scourby, and it is excellent.
This year I'm listening to the Bible in the New Living Translation (NLT) and find the contemporary English of it refreshing. While I appreciate having memorized many passages according to the KJV, I do prefer that people read a Bible version that they can understand. I don't think language should be a barrier to understanding God's Word, and for some, the "THEEs and THOUs" of the 17th-century English of "the Authorized Version" can be off-putting. God and His Word is for today, and today we speak modern English. You don't still talk like the Pilgrims do (unless, perhaps, you are Amish or Mennonite, and I'm not certain they do, or if that's just a stereotype).
Someone said "The best version of the Bible is the one that you will read." The best version is actually the original language versions, but I find some truth in this saying, since most people don't read Greek and Hebrew. And, if you're not big on reading, listen to the Bible. "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."
https://fountain.fm/episode/rAdIHvQGMt5exOyfW4rT
#Bible #Christian #bookstr
Discussion
Hey, we're all just pilgrims here, right? 😄
I had same experience with reading it. It helped my reading, reading comprehension and I still find comfort in reading it vs others because of the nostalgia and age of the language
The "age of the language" is interesting and quaint. What bothers me though, would be people not reading the Bible because of archaic language that they don't relate to well. The Bible was written in the everyday speech of the people. So in my opinion, it probably makes the most sense to engage the scripture in your own everyday language. When the KJV was translated in 1611 that was then the everyday English of the people. Today it's not. Today, the KJV is the 17th-Century English Version, you could call it. The KJV itself was a modernization on the earlier English versions of the Bible that were around at the time, such as the Geneva Bible and The Bishop's bible, etc.
There are also other reasons to prefer newer translations over the KJV, such as their being based on earlier manuscripts, but one also has to be careful that their modern version hasn't imbibed "modern" values that are contrary to the original intent of the scripture.
Agreed. I just enjoy it. The language has a feel to it that resonates with me being an old book written in an old language interpreted from older writing from an old land and old people. Has different feel to it that way to me. Not sure if that makes sense or not.