Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Awohili AT aol.com]

By the way, you may be interested in a different opinion on the KJV voiced  
by Bible translator Robert Alter, in his _The Five Books of Moses_ (Norton,  
2004):
 
"One might have expected that this recent flurry of translation activity,  
informed by the newly focused awareness of the meanings of biblical Hebrew,  
would have produced at least some English versions that would be both vividly 
 
precise and closer to the feel of the original than any of the older  
translations.  Instead, the modern English versions...have placed readers  at 
a 
grotesque distance from the distinctive literary experience of the Bible in  
its 
original language.  As a consequence, the King James Version,  as Gerald 
Hammond, 
an eminent British authority on Bible translations, has  convincingly argued, 
remains the closest approach for English readers to the  original -- despite 
its frequent and at times embarrassing  inaccuracies, despite its archaisms, 
and 
despite its insistent substitution of  Renaissance English tonalities and 
rhythms for biblical ones." -- Introduction,  xvii  (My emphasis)
 
It would seem that Alter does not agree that the KJV represents "bad  
English."  And I would argue that the NWT presents a much 'closer approach  
in 
English to the original'  than does the KJV.
 
Solomon Landers
 
In a message dated 11/18/2005 9:15:59 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
K0434995 AT kingston.ac.uk writes:

>The King James Version was my first Bible, and the Bible that is  imprinted 
>on my mind.  It's full of archaic English and  terms difficult to  
understand. 
>Does that make it "bad  English"?

In a word, Yes!