Monday, October 19, 2009

king james version

i'm not sure why that translation of the bible got to be the one that so many people think is the original.

when i lived in chicago, i was riding the bus home one day and one of those crazy bus people sat down next to me. the crazy bus person was ranting about religion. they all seem to eventually if you listen to them long enough. anyway, this crazy bus person's beef was that they were coming out with all these new versions of the bible that were different from king james. some other passenger made the mistake of trying to engage the guy, saying something about how there were multiple translations of the bible, the crazy man flipped out. apparently the crazy bus person thought the bible was originally written in english and that king james was that original version.

the reason why i'm bringing up the parable of the crazy bus person is this: sometimes i wonder whether the crazy bus person is any more misinformed about bible versions than a lot of other people in the u.s. they may not be the crazy ranting-in-public type, but the idea that the king james version of the bible is the real bible seems to be fairly widespread.