Why The English Of The King James Bible Is Better Than That Of All The Modern Versions.
First, the KJB is precise in the use of the old pronouns in the second person, and that is necessary for a literal and accurate translation.
Modern
translations can never match it.
Nominative Objective
Possessive
Case
Case
Case
Present Day English
1stperson
s.
I
me
my(mine)
1stperson
pl.
we
us
our(ours)
2ndperson
s.
you
you
your(yours)
2ndperson
pl.
you
you
your(yours)
3rdperson
s.
he, she
him, her
his, hers
3rdperson
pl.
they
them
theirs
KJB
English differs in 2nd person pronouns.
2ndperson
s.
thou
thee
thy(thine)
2ndperson
pl.
ye
you
your(yours)
Thee, thou, and thine when used in
prayer and worship are Biblical and far more reverent. Thee, thou, and ye are precise in
meaning. In John 3:7 we read: "Marvel not that I said unto
thee, ye must be born again." When he said thee
Jesus was speaking to one person, Nicodemus, but then by
saying ye he meant that all of us, plural, must be
saved.
Today "you"
may be both singular and plural,
nominative or objective, and modern translations cannot make the
meaning of John 3:7 unmistakably clear.
In the 10 commandments "Thou" is used, and so each individual
personally falls under the commandment, not the aggregate of all
persons. John
Second,
the KJB is easier to
memorize because of
frequent poetic rhythms
in its syntax or construction of sentences.
We can illustrate these rhythms by underlining accented
syllables.
Trochaic rhythm,
accent on the first syllable of two.
Psalm
34:13
Keep thy / tongue
from / e-vil, and
thy / lips from / speak-ing
/ guile
NASV
Keep your tongue from evil, And your
lips from speaking deceit. Note that deceit has two syllables
with the accent on the second and so ruins the rhythm when
substituted for guile.
Psalm
100:1 Make a / joy-ful
/ noise un / to the /
Lord / all ye lands. Serve the / Lord
with / glad-ness: / come be / fore his /
pres-ence / with sing /
ing
NASV
Shout joyfully to the Lord Come before him with joyful singing;
the rhythm of both lines is ruined.
Hymns
Breth-ren
/
we
have /
met
to /
wor-ship
And
a / dore
the / Lord our / God
Come
thou / fount of / ev-ry
/ bless-ing
Tune
my / heart to / sing thy / grace
Iambic
rhythm,
accent on the second syllable of two.
Genesis 2:7 And
man / be-came
/ a liv /
ing
soul NASV has being, with
two syllables, for soul.
Psalm
73:2 But as / for me / my feet / were al
/ most gone; / my steps / had well / nigh
slipped
Psalm
136:9 the moon / and stars / to rule / by
night
Isaiah
52:1 A-wake / a-wake / put on / thy
strength
NASV
Awake, awake, Clothe yourself in your strength; the rhythm is
lost.
Matthew
John
NASV
For God did not send the Son into the
world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved
through Him. The rhythm is lost in both lines.
Hymns
A-maz /
ing
grace / how sweet / the sound /
That
saved / a wretch / like
me
How
sweet / the name / of Je
/ sus sounds
In
a / be-lieve /
ers ear
Both
these last hymns are common meter. That means 8 syllables in the
1st line and 6 in the 2nd, 8 in the 3rd,
6 in the 4th, and so on.
The late Dr. B. R. Lakin, great
preacher and orator, used to tell of his mother sitting
on the porch churning butter, singing these old songs. How could
she do it? Because they were so easy to memorize, having regular
iambic or trochaic structure and divided into stanzas just as
the Bible is divided into verses.
Sonnets of John Milton and William Shakespeare are all iambic
pentameter, with 10 syllables or 5
feet per line, and so are easily learned.
Anapestic rhythm,
accent on the third of three syllables.
Psalm
23:6
I will dwell / in the house / of the
Lord / for e-ver
Psalm
116:15 Precious / in the sight / of the Lord / is
the death / of his
saints
NASV
Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His godly
ones; godly ones puts three syllables
in place of one, saints.
Hymns
Are you
washed
/ in the
blood
/ in the
soul
/ cleans-ing
blood
/
of the
Lamb
Ho-ow
firm / a
foun
da /
tion ye saints / of the
Lord
i-is
laid / for your faith / in his ex / cell-ent
word
Dactylic rhythm,
accent on the first of three syllables.
Isaiah
Hymn
Mo-ment by / mo-ment
I'm / kept in his / love /
Mo-ment
by / mo-ment I've / light
from a / bove
Cretic
rhythm,
accent on the first and third of three syllables.
James
NASV
quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; anger has two
syllables as opposed to one in wrath. The
alliteration of the
s words, swift, slow, and slow is lost by substituting
quick.
Hymn
Sil-ent
night / Ho-ly
night / all is calm / all is
bright
God made us to be creatures of rhythm and orderly structure,
fearfully and wonderfully made. There is the rhythm of night and
day, sleeping and waking. Our breath is regular at a rate of 16
breaths per minute. Our hearts beat about 70 times per minute.
Even our brain waves show rhythmic patterns. So order and
structure must be expected in our Bible.
Contemporary music has no meter or regular rhythm with a fixed
number of syllables per line.
It is poorly done, slothful poetry,
through
composed
instead of
strophic; that is, of
one piece and not divided into stanzas. The words do not fit the
music properly. You easily recognize it by counting syllables
per line. And you can also see that there is a direct relation
between the poor poetry of contemporary worship and the poor
rhythms of the new versions of the Bible.
The stanzas of the old hymns of Isaac Watts serve the same
purpose as verse divisions in the KJB. Modern versions are
divided into paragraphs. Verse numbers are submerged in the
paragraphs, not clearly shown at the left margin.
Anyone who has listened to children saying Bible verses in
unison on a church bus or in Sunday school has noticed the
rhythmic, singsong quality of their speech. I have heard it
often in chapel programs done by elementary Christian school
students. This rhythm is important for memorization both in
children and in adults.
Why do we need to memorize? To hide
the word in our hearts for spiritual warfare.
In the wilderness in Matthew 4 the Lord defeated the devil three
times by the use of quotations from Deuteronomy, telling the
devil "it is written." Of course he had no trouble quoting these
scriptures. We must be ready to do the same, but our small minds
need a Bible that is easily memorized and recalled.
Third,
the KJB is closer to the
Greek text because it keeps the inflected verb endings that
are seen in Greek. Inflection simply means a turning or bending.
Hebrew and Greek are inflectional languages, much more so than
modern English. Hebrew is more inflectional than Greek. Biblical
English should also be as inflectional as possible if we are to
have a literal translation and one that shows the most
respect for Hebrew and Greek. Inflection makes a language
more compact, with shorter sentences, and we see shorter
sentences in the KJB.
Inflected verb endings,
nominative case singular
English
Greek
I say
lego
Thou
sayest
legeis
He
saith
legei
I
loose
luo
Thou
loosest
lueis
He looseth
luei
I
honor
timao
Thou
honorest
timaeis
He honoreth
timaei
I give
didomi
Thou givest
didos
He
giveth
didosi
The s sound predominates in the ending of
sayest, and the letter sigma or s is there in Greek;
the i sound is heard in saith and
giveth and iota or i is at the end in Greek. The KJB keeps the
inflective similarity between Greek and English verb endings.
Inflection makes the pronoun and the verb conform to and fit
with each other.
Inflected verb endings make a great contribution to the rhythm
and beauty of the KJB. Remember John 21:3:
Si-mon / Pe-ter
sa-ith /
un-to / them. It is trochaic. John 21:5 is
iambic: Then Je /
sus
sa /
ith
un / to them.
Without the inflected verb ending that gives us saith in place
of said, and without the Biblical word unto, that rhythm and
beauty are lost.
Hearing is by far the most important means of acquiring language
and speech. Infants are more sensitive to trochaic rhythm and
use rhythm in the speech that they hear to learn to speak
themselves.
Rhythm in the speech of the mother and father helps an
infant acquire syntax, from hearing that rhythm. Syntax is the
combination of syllables and words into sentences to express
thought.
In 30 years of pediatric practice I have never seen a 4 year old
say the alphabet, the basis of all phonics and reading
and Bible knowledge, without first singing it to the
simple trochaic rhythm of "Twinkle, twinkle little star," with 7
syllables in every line. How important, for children and
adults, are the rhythms in the KJB which make it so easy to
memorize!
James
H. Sightler, M.D.
Sightler Publications
