To honor the 400th anniversary of the King James Authorized Version of the Bible, the Bath Festival will celebrate by having round the clock readers over five days.
This version was King James' reaction to the Geneva Bible and others which did not support the monarchy (some of the margin notes promoted civil disobedience to a king when the scriptures suggested a contrary action to the king’s decree) and involved originally 54, but in actual fact, only 47 completed the translation.
The mandate was to create a readable version.
Translators interpolated and sought to enhance the reading experience by varying word selections when the original texts used the same word repetitively.
There is a lyrical quality to the KJV that has stood the test of time. Hence, despite the archaic way of writing, people will quote from it more often than contemporary versions.
E.g. Psalm 23:1 “The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want,” reads more lyrically than saying, “The Lord is my shepherd and he makes certain I don’t need anything.”
It is not known for certain, but it is suspected that the lyrical quality and unity of style throughout the 66 books came from a single editor, who polished the final version.
Once again, it points to the importance of a great editor.
