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One of my most vivid memories from my first days as a seminary student was of the New Testament professor who stood at the front of the lecture hall, waving a book with a red cover.  The book was the United Bible Societies’ The Greek New Testament. It is a version for serious scholars, with dense textual notes about variant manuscript traditions.

The professor was a man given to flamboyant gestures (and was also the single most important reason why I chose to become a biblical scholar.) As he waved the book, he declared:

 ”This is the New Testament.  Everything else is a translation.”

It’s true.  Every Bible published in English (or French or Spanish or Russian or Tagalog or Mandarin or any other language on the face of Earth) is a translation from manuscripts written in ancient languages, such as Greek, or Hebrew, or Latin.

If I had my way, every Bible published in any language would be required to have this warning emblazoned on the front cover. 

“Warning:  THIS IS A TRANSLATION. Use with caution and humility, because translators often miss the point.

Translators often miss the point because translation is the result of a complicated process, with so much room for errors and distortions at dozens of steps along the way.   

The first problem concerns the manuscript itself.  The finished document can never be better than the original document.  In the case of the Bible, there are a wide variety of ancient manuscripts behind various translations.  In the case of the King James Version, the translators used the best manuscripts available at the time. More recent translations are based on manuscripts that were discovered long after the King James translators did their work.

The second problem concerns the original language.  Biblical Greek and Biblical Hebrew are dead languages, which means that translators attempt to translate ancient words they may not understand.  Every once in a while, a scholar will stumble upon some ancient document that explains a mysterious word that no one quite knew how to translate.  (This is part of the problem with translations of 1 Timothy 2:12, where “authority” is used to mistranslate an extremely rare Greek word.  I’ll definitely return to this topic in a later post )

The third problem concerns the modern language. We all have heard about something being “lost in translation.” The challenge of any translation from one language to another is to convey the original intention of words in one language into the same meaning in a new language. 

Living languages are dynamic.  As I pointed out in “Is Godspeak A Biblical Language?” , the English spoken in 1611 was dramatically different from English spoken in 2008.

So the challenge is to translate words from a dead language into a dynamic living language, using the best manuscripts available, in a way that accurately conveys the sense and intention of the original words in a way that is consistent with contemporary language. This is not an easy task.
 
So, what about the “thou” language of the King James Bible, especially related to the Lord’s Prayer?

After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as [it is] in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. (Mt 6: 9-13, King James Version.)

In the King James version, God is addressed with “thou” language. After four hundred years of usage, this “thou,” “thee,” “thy,” and “thine” language is deeply imbedded in Christian usage, as conventional elements of Godspeak. 

However, in modern speech, no one uses “thou,” “thee,” “thy,” and “thine,” except in wedding ceremonies when relics of King James English remain in the exceedingly odd grammatical construction, “I thee wed.”     

My first question is: Does the Lord’s Prayer in Greek use a distinct set of pronouns for prayer?

In other words, does Biblical Greek require “Godspeak” as the language of prayer? The short answer is: No. There is only one second person singular pronoun in Greek. The Greek New Testament has no separate pronouns for God.

So, where do “thou” and “thee” come from and why are they in the King James Bible? To answer this question, we need to take a little trip into the history of English.

English and German are cognate languages. That means they share a common Old German ancestry. German has distinct pronouns for “you,” depending on whether “you” is singular or plural, and on the closeness of your relationship with the person identified as “you.”

English used to make similar distinctions. ”Thou” was the pronoun of familiarity and “ye” was the pronoun for formality. (For more, see “Thou.” ) 
 
When the King James translators got to the Lord’s Prayer, they had a translation decision to make. Even though biblical Greek does not have distinct second personal singular pronouns, King James English did.

One of the goals of the translators was to use simple, clear, contemporary English. In addition, the context of the “Lord’s Prayer” in Matthew 6:9-13 is Jesus’ instruction to his disciples.  He is teaching his disciples how to pray. The sense of the instruction is that Jesus is telling them to use simple, direct language.  

In other words, “thou” is the language of intimacy and closeness. “Ye” is the language of formality and distance. So the King James translators used “thou” language rather than the formal “ye.” This was a theological decision based on what they understood about the prayer and the particular challenge of translating that prayer into meaningful English.

What happened next?  English changed, but the words did not. No one uses “thou” in ordinary speech. What I find particular fascinating is that the only second person pronoun in contemporary English is “you,” derived from the formal “ye.” This means that “you” can refer to your closest friend and your worst enemy, and is both singular and plural. In other words, the formal “ye” has turned into the all-purpose, one-size-fits all pronoun “you” of contemporary English. 

In the process, the language of intimacy in the King James Bible of 1611 became the language of formality in the King James Bible of 2008. The common speech of ordinary people turned into the formal, stuffy, archaic language of Godspeak.

King James translators used “thou” to convey the essence of the teaching they thought Jesus intended: ”You don’t need special language to pray.”

But as English changed and the King James translation remained stuck in time, this liberating insight has been turned on its head. To many people devoted to the King James translation, prayer to God requires its own formal language.  In other words, when you pray, you must invoke God in the archaic language of Godspeak.

Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson

written by Kalinda \\ tags: 1 Timothy 2:12, Bible translation, Godspeak, Greek New Testament, Kalinda Rose Stevenson, King James Version, Lord's Prayer, thou

“Words are static.  The world is dynamic.”
Dr. Ben Mack

I am a fan of crossword puzzles.  Occasionally the New York Times Crossword will provide a clue for a “biblical” word. The correct answer will be something like “shalt” or “hath.” Although I don’t get too annoyed by clues in crossword puzzles, every time I see this, I see it as a perpetuation of the idea that the King James English is authentic biblical language in a way that ordinary English of the early 21st century is not.

Instead of calling this type of language “biblical,” I am going to call this “Godspeak.”  Godspeak is a unique and strange language, spoken only inside certain churches and used on the pages of the King James Bible. 

In other words, King James English is “Godspeak.” Along with the idea that the “Authorized” King James Version is somehow the official “Word of God,” King James English has been endowed with the idea that it is somehow the official language of God and all business dealing with God must be conducted in Godspeak.

Godspeak has its own rules of grammar and its own distinct vocabulary.   Here are the first two rules of Godspeak.

Rule #1.  When you pray, you must use a certain set of pronouns to refer to God and anything belonging to God: thou, thee, thy, thine.
So, when you pray the Lord’s Prayer, you pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.”
 
Rule #2.  You must use odd verbal constructions, such as “shalt,” “wouldst,” “doth,” “hath,” or “art.” So you pray to “Our Father who art in Heaven.”  You learn that “Thou shalt not kill”

The question I raise is this: Is Godspeak a biblical language? Certainly, Godspeak occurs throughout the King James Bible, but does that make Godspeak biblical? In fact, what the New York Times Crosswords calls “biblical” language is neither more nor less “biblical” than contemporary English.  

Let’s consider the English of the King James Version. The King James Bible was a remarkable linguistic accomplishment for many reasons. (My problems with the King James Version concern the way it is used in the contemporary church.  I stand in awe of the translation itself.)  

Among his other talents, James was a Bible scholar who worked on his own translations. When he commanded that a group of scholars create a new English translation, he had several purposes. 

He wanted to replace The Geneva Bible, which was the Bible of the Protestant Reformation, with a version that was friendlier to the Anglican Church and reinforced his authority as head of the Church of England.

He also wanted the Bible translated into common speech–the vernacular–so that ordinary people could read it.

Just in passing–this is the same motivation that led Martin Luther to translate the entire Bible into his own regional German dialect in the 1530s and in the process, set the stage for his dialect to become standard “High German.”

So, the goal of the translators was to use the common speech of the time. It was not elevated speech.  It was not fancy speech.  It was not the speech of the aristocracy.  In 1611, the King James Bible was written in the ordinary English of ordinary folks.   

(Coincidentally, Shakespeare was still writing his plays when the King James Bible was published.  Shakespeare wrote his plays from approximately 1587 to the year of his death, in 1616. Shakespeare also wrote in the common speech of his time.)   

Meanwhile, four hundred years have passed. English is a dynamic, living language.  As I recently heard Dr. Ben Mack say so succinctly, “Words are static.  The world is dynamic.”  The words on the page of King James Bible are static, but the meaning of the words has changed as the world has changed around them. 

Often, people will argue that the King James Version is so elegant, so beautiful, so refined, that putting the words into ordinary English would not sound “biblical” enough.

And that is exactly the point.  The ordinary speech of the 17th century has become a relic in the 21st.  No one uses “thou” and “shalt” in ordinary speech. This means that the ordinary speech of the King James Bible has become the elevated language of Godspeak.

Despite the fact that Godspeak occurs in the King James Bible, Godspeak is not inherently “biblical.” In the next post, I will demonstrate why using Godspeak to pray the Lord’s Prayer dramatically changes the original intention of the prayer.

Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson

written by Kalinda \\ tags: Ben Mack, biblical language, Geneva Bible, Godspeak, King James Version, Lord's Prayer, Protestant Reformation, translation of Bible