Just to put in a plug for Bart's actual scholarly publications (e.g. the
1996 _Orthodox Corruption of Scripture_) which are a bit more useful for,
well, scholarship. But you have to pay academic book prices for them, alas.
And on related topics, there's Adam Gopnik's essay in this week's New
Yorker ("What Did Jesus Do?"), with the superb sentence beginning "Ehrman
is one of those best-selling authors like Richard Dawkins and Robert Ludlum
and Peter Mayle...."
Beth
"
At 03:29 PM 5/21/2010, you wrote:
>Yes, indeed. For a popular but scholary grounded take on the text, Bart
>Ehrman's books are excellent. More sophisticated is Robin Lane Fox's
>Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible.
>
>
>
>
>On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 2:27 PM, JD Fleming
><<mailto:[log in to unmask]>[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>A hermeneutic perspective: let's note that the concept of the original
>text, expressing terminal intensions, is much more mercurial than it at
>first appears. In the last analysis, it is a transcendent (or
>metaphysical) concept -- which is precisely why it was so hermeneutically
>and culturally powerful when it began systematically to be deployed in
>Reformation biblical exegesis and philology. Against the idea of the Word
>as the Church understood it, the Reformers brought the idea of _the Word
>as it was first spoken_. An intoxicating banner. Yet anybody who has ever
>spoken a word (that is, anybody) can attest that doing so _puts something
>in play_, rather than terminating playing.
>
>In other words, to think of the original text as the place where
>interpretation stops is, arguably, to think something both erroneous and
>interminable. For it will always be possible to draw closer to, or suppose
>that it is possible to draw closer to, the posited transcendence. Very
>good on this dialectic in late-period Protestantism are the essays by
>Mandelbrote, Keene, and Snobelen in Hessayon and Keene (eds), _Scripture
>and Scholarship in Early-Modern England_ (Ashgate, 2006). And in the wider
>world, just think of the extraordinary interpretative authoritarianism of
>"originalist" constitutional jurisprudence, which is empowered by the idea
>of the original intension _precisely because the latter is not really
>available_.
>
>What's the alternative? A long and difficult inquiry begins from that
>question. But I think it's an inquiry worth opening ourselves to; and I
>think it will have something to do with the recognition that the judgment
>of rightness or fittingness -- of having understood -- that somebody like
>the KJV parishioner has had is not necessarily or neatly outflanked by the
>method of originalist historicism.
>
>JD Fleming
>
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Helen Vincent" <<mailto:[log in to unmask]>[log in to unmask]>
>To: <mailto:[log in to unmask]>[log in to unmask]
>Sent: Friday, May 21, 2010 1:12:43 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
>Subject: Re: CFP The King James Bible
>
>
>I have come across people who seem in all honesty incapable of
>understanding what 'the KJB is a *translation*, we need to look at the
>original text' means. They simply refer to the book they have in their
>hands and say 'but it says here...'. Sometimes showing them an actual
>Greek or Hebrew testament helps change their minds, because they have
>often never seen one and have no real conception of the Bible as anything
>other than the fixed text they have heard and read all their lives.
>
>Helen
>
>
>Helen Vincent
>Senior Curator
>Rare Book Collections
>
>Tel: +44 (0) 131 623 3894
>Fax: +44 (0) 131 623 3888
>Email: <mailto:[log in to unmask]>[log in to unmask]
>
>National Library of Scotland
>George IV Bridge
>Edinburgh
>EH1 1EW
>Scotland
>
>
>
>
>
>
>From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List
>[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Peter Herman
>Sent: 21 May 2010 00:16
>To: <mailto:[log in to unmask]>[log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: CFP The King James Bible
>
>
>Anne, that's what happens with sensible people. I meant what happens when
>those who burn any and all translations of the Bible other than the KJV
>are confronted with a difference between what's in the KJV and the
>original language.
>
>pch
>
>
>On 5/20/10 3:16 PM, "Anne Prescott" <
><mailto:[log in to unmask]>[log in to unmask] > wrote:
>
>
>
>Seriously, Peter, and I hope I'm not misreading you, what happened in
>later years was either a set of new translations (The Anchor Bible, e.g.)
>or a King James revised according to some better Hebrew and Greek
>scholarship so that you get the "Revised Standard Version" that many of us
>have in church. Some discrepancies may be too hard to resolve--e.g., "the
>valley of the shadow of death," I read somewhere, just says "shadow,"
>although I could be mistaken. So just to say "what happens" is later
>revised editions after even more years of Hebrew scholarship. Often the
>rhythms aren't as good and the wording can grate on a traditionalist ear,
>but there is more accuracy. Even Congregationalists and Presbyterians,
>nowadays, use modernized and emended translations--at least in the
>northeast of the USA. Nobody I know complains about the content, only the
>tin ear of the translators. It may be different in more fundamentalist
>circles, but in my part of the States using the revised version(s) is
>standard and the Hebrew comes first. Then there's the 1928 prayerbook
>etc., but that's another story. Anne.
>PS: pity my poor grandfather, K. Lake, who as I recall translated Paul for
>the Loeb (I think--I know he did some Loeb Church Fathers). Think of the
>competition!
>
>On May 20, 2010, at 5:22 PM, Peter Herman wrote:
>
>
>
>I'm serious about this question: what happens (assuming someone on this
>list knows) if there is a contradiction between the KJV and the original
>original, i.e., the Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek? pch
>
>
>On 5/20/10 2:19 PM, "Ryan Paul" <
><mailto:[log in to unmask]>[log in to unmask] <x-msg:
>//428/<mailto:[log in to unmask]>[log in to unmask] > > wrote:
>
>
>
>Re: KJV-centrism.
>
>I read an article (in a New York Review of Books-style publication) that
>had a number of quotes from some American fundamentalists about the KJV. I
>wish I could find it, but there were numerous statements that the KJ
>translation is the true word of God, to be consulted as the definitive
>edition, and that if there exist contradictions between it and original
>texts, then the original texts are wrong.
>
>On Thu, May 20, 2010 at 2:12 PM, Hannibal Hamlin <
><mailto:[log in to unmask]>[log in to unmask] <x-msg:
>//428/<mailto:[log in to unmask]>[log in to unmask] > > wrote:
>
>
>Hi Anne (an all -- to clarify),
>
>Yes, there is one at York in July, but it will be strictly 17th c., while
>the OSU one ranges from the Reformation to the contemporary. I talked to
>Kevin Killeen (organizer at York) while at the Folger, and I don't think
>we'll be treading on each others' toes too much. Of course, we'll be only
>two of scads of KJV events that year. I might give a plug to the site of
>the British 2011 Trust.
><http://www.2011trust.org/>http://www.2011trust.org/ Quite impressive, and
>where else to see Richard Dawkins reading The Song of Songs!!
>There is a lively (or deadly) KJV-only movement in the US, which seems a
>bizarre offshoot of fundamentalism. A colleague sent me a clipping about
>an evangelical church that hosts an annual book burning -- of Bibles!
>Apparently all translations other than KJV are consigned to the flames.
>Truly weird.
>
>Hope you're well.
>
>Hannibal
>
>
>On Thu, May 20, 2010 at 4:41 PM, anne prescott <
><mailto:[log in to unmask]>[log in to unmask] <x-msg:
>//428/<mailto:[log in to unmask]>[log in to unmask] > > wrote:
>
>
>Hi, Hannibal. Isn't there also a KJV conference in Britain later in 2011?
>No reason not to have two, of course. As I think I've mentioned before,
>several of my students referred on their exams or papers to the "Hebrew
>translation." A colleague suggests that they think "translation" means
>"version," but it took me aback anyway. And apparently some Americans do
>believe the KJV is the original. Anyway, the conference sounds terrific. Anne.
>
>On May 20, 2010, at 3:48 PM, Hannibal Hamlin wrote:
>
>
>
>[Apologies for cross-posting]
>KJV Conference CFP
>Conference Name: "The King James Bible and Its Cultural Afterlife"
>
>Date and Location: May 5-7, 2011, at The Ohio State University (Columbus, OH).
>
>Contact: <mailto:[log in to unmask]>[log in to unmask] <x-msg:
>//428/<mailto:[log in to unmask]>[log in to unmask] > <
>mailto:[log in to unmask] > , see also
><http://kingjamesbible.osu.edu/>http://kingjamesbible.osu.edu <
>http://kingjamesbible.osu.edu/ > <
><http://kingjamesbible.osu.edu/>http://kingjamesbible.osu.edu/ > .
>The English Department at The Ohio State University will host an
>international conference in 2011 on the 400th anniversary of the
>publication of the King James (or Authorized) Version of the Bible. Held
>in Columbus, Ohio from May 5-7, 2011 , the conference will focus on the
>making of the KJV in the context of Reformation Bible translation and
>printing as well as on the KJV's long literary and cultural influence from
>Milton and Bunyan to Faulkner, Woolf, and Toni Morrison. Events will
>include plenary lectures and discussions, scholarly panels, and readings
>by contemporary writers. An accompanying exhibit will be mounted by the
>Rare Books and Manuscripts Library.
>
>Unlike traditional conference panels in which each participant delivers
>his or her entire paper at the conference, these seminars will focus on
>guided roundtable discussions of the issues raised in a group of 8-12
>position papers. To that end, participants must submit materials well in
>advance of the conference , so seminar leaders can read them, formulate
>discussion questions, and circulate the papers and questions to
>participants. Individual seminar leaders will determine more precise
>schedules and seminar requirements, once enrollments have been reviewed
>and approved.
>
>Possible seminar topics include (but are not limited to) the Bible and
>particular authors/works (Milton, Melville, Morrison, et al), the Bible
>and periods or genres (e.g., Reformation, 19 th century, 20th century,
>African-American Lit, American literature, postcolonial studies), the
>Bible and narrative/poetic style, biblical allusion, and the Bible in
>popular culture (film, graphic versions, music).
>
>Please submit questions or project titles & statements of interest to
><mailto:[log in to unmask]>[log in to unmask] <x-msg:
>//428/<mailto:[log in to unmask]>[log in to unmask] > <
>mailto:[log in to unmask] > by July 1, 2010 .
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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><http://www.nls.uk/>www.nls.uk
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>--
>James Dougal Fleming
>Associate Professor
>Department of English
>Simon Fraser University
>
>"to see what is questionable"
>
>
>
>
>--
>Hannibal Hamlin
>Associate Professor of English
>Editor, Reformation
>Organizer, The King James Bible and its Cultural Afterlife
><http://kingjamesbible.osu.edu/>http://kingjamesbible.osu.edu/
>The Ohio State University
>164 West 17th Ave., 421 Denney Hall
>Columbus, OH 43210-1340
><http:[log in to unmask]>[log in to unmask]
><mailto:[log in to unmask]>[log in to unmask]
********************************************************************
Beth Quitslund
Associate Professor
Department of English
Ohio University
Athens, OH 45701
email: [log in to unmask]
phone: (740) 593-2829
FAX: (740) 593-2818
