KJV 400th anniversary news
October 29, 2011
Some news regarding the KJV 400th anniversary publications:
- The publication of the Norton Critical Edition English Bible King James Version (which I previously reported on here) edited by Herbert Marks and Gerald Hammond-Austin Busch has been pushed back to March 15, 2012. (Since the KJV is considered by tradition to have been published on May 2, 1611, this is still within the anniversary year.)
- Alan Levensen (Oklahoma) has published a somewhat regrettable essay entitled “Ambivalencies: Jews and the King James Version.” The essay largely repeats the facts recited by Leonard Greenspoon (Creighton) in his Jewish Study Bible essay about Jewish influences on the King James Version translation, but then notes that despite the KJV’s influence, it is ultimately not a Jewish translation. Levensen appears to conflate the KJV with the Revised Version (1885) and the American Standard Version (1901); he does not realize the old JPS translation of the Bible was a direct adaptation of the Revised Version.
- Some excellent books have appeared recently in honor of the King James Version. I hope to have time to review them in the future, but in the meanwhile, let me mention two commendable monographs:
- Robert Alter, Pen of Iron: American Prose and the King James Bible
- David Norton, The King James Bible: Short History from Tyndale to Today
- Hannibal Hamlin and Norman Jones, The King James Bible after 400 Years: Literary, Linguistic, and Cultural Influences
- David Lyle Jeffrey, The King James Bible and the World It Made
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