15.7.25

To make a good one better

The KJV, strictly speaking, is not a translation but a revision. In fact, it is a revision of a revision (Bishop’s Bible) of a revision (Great Bible) of a revision (Matthew’s Bible) of a revision (Coverdale’s Bible) of Tyndale’s translation. “A great deal of praise, therefore, that is given to it belongs to its predecessors. For the idiom and vocabulary, Tyndale deserves the greatest credit; for the melody and harmony, Coverdale; for scholarship and accuracy, the Geneva version.”1


Over the decades and even centuries, the process of review and revision has very likely eliminated gross translation errors from this line of Bibles. That is, if Tyndale made any errors, it would seem that they would have been corrected in the Coverdale, Matthew, Great, Geneva, Bishop’s, or King James Bible. How much more, then, should the RV, ASV, RSV, and ESV be perfected—or so one would think. 2


1B. Metzger, The Bible in Translation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), 76-77. D. Daniell points out that 83 percent of the KJV is from Tyndale; The Bible in English: History and Influence (New Haven: Yale, 2003), 152.

2Ray E. Clendenen and David K. Stabnow, HCSB - Bible Translation: Navigating the Horizons in Bible Translations (Nashville, TN: Holman Reference, 2013).




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To make a good one better

The KJV, strictly speaking, is not a translation but a revision. In fact, it is a revision of a revision (Bishop’s Bible) of a revision (Gre...