Masscult and Midcult_ Essays Against the American Grain - Dwight MacDonald [90]
The chief motive behind R.S.V., however, was stylistic rather than scholarly. The Revisers felt, correctly, that the 1885 English revision and the 1901 American version were “literal, word-for-word translations” that “sacrificed much of the beauty and power of the earlier version.” They therefore set out to produce a version that would, on the one hand, “combine accuracy with the simplicity, directness, and spiritual power of K.J.V.” and, on the other, be more readable for the American public of today. In pursuing this aim, they have made numerous departures from K.J.V. in ways that seem to me legitimate, and many, many more in ways that do not. Let us begin with the former.
There are, first, the changes in translation. Being no specialist on the subject, I can only assume that where R.S.V. differs in meaning from K.J.V., the translation has been improved. (Considering the immense advances in archeology, philology, and other sciences since 1611, this is a reasonable assumption.) I am also willing to accept the Revisers’ assurance that no changes have been made for doctrinal reasons. Two changes are of special importance. The Roman Catholic Church has long used John 10:16, as rendered in K.J.V., to support its claim to being the only true church: “Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold...and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.” R.S.V. alters this to “And I have other sheep, that are not of this fold....So there shall be one flock, one shepherd.” The K.J.V. version was influenced by the Catholic Vulgate, which translates two different Greek words as “fold.” According to the R.S.V. translators, however, the true meaning is that, while there is more than one fold (or church), there is only one flock (the Christians in general). The revision that has raised the greatest doctrinal ruckus is the change in Isaiah 7:14 from “Behold, a virgin shall conceive” to “Behold, a young woman shall conceive.” The verse is important as a prophecy of Christ’s birth. The publishers of R.S.V. have pointed out that scholars now agree that the Hebrew word almah, used in Isaiah 7:14, means simply “young woman,” while the Greek word parthenos, used in the New Testament account of Christ’s birth, means “virgin,” by no means a synonym.
The great majority of the translating changes, while often important, are of little or no doctrinal significance. When K.J.V. has Pilate say of Jesus, “Nothing worthy of death is done unto Him,” the sense clearly demands R.S.V.’s “has been done by Him.” The “unto” may well have been a misprint, just as the “at” in K.J.V.’s “strain at a gnat” is undoubtedly a misprint for “out.” (The early editions of K.J.V. were full of printer’s errors. One was known as “the Wicked Bible” because the printer dropped the “not” out of the Seventh Commandment, producing “Thou shalt commit adultery.” In another, the 119th Psalm’s “Princes have persecuted me without a cause” became, appositely, “Printers have, etc.”) Another famous K.J.V. phrase, “Thou madst him [man] a little lower than the angels,” (Hebrews 2:7) is now revised to “Thou didst make him for a little while lower than the angels.” In I John 4:19, K.J.V. has “We love Him [God] because He first loved us,” but the Revisers, finding no “Him” in the Greek, render it “We love, because He first loved us.” Often the old meanings are painful to give up, but accuracy, of course, must come first. In “For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul,” the last word is now rendered as “life,