A Few Words on Words

As those in the know are aware, we here at Bloody Nib Manor are Christians of the conservative type. This is not to say that we are Christians of the modern American evangelical type. We do not appreciate bad rock and praise music during the church service or the happy, clappy stuff. We do not sit around and talk about the Left Behind novels. We do not spend our time standing on street corners passing out religious tracts. We are Christians of the John Bunyan type or the later Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones type.
One thing we absolutely do not do is read the modern versions of the Bible. We do not read the RSV, the NIV, the ESV, the NKJV, the Living Bible, the Good News Translation or any other translation written after 1611.
We will occasionally read the Tyndale translation or the 1599 Geneva translation in order to gain more understanding about certain passages, but the King James Version is our favored text.
We hold that the translators of the KJV, Tyndale and the translators of the Geneva Bible had a much more comfortable knowledge or Greek and Hebrew, and were much better educated men, than are the translators of the modern versions. Many of those men learned Greek and/or Hebrew in their childhoods, while almost all the translators of the modern versions learned those languages in college. Also, the earlier translators were immersed in religious and classical learning; they lived, in a sense, a bubble and ignored the wider world while the modern translators are of the world and seek to please the world so their work will be well-paid.
Also, the KJV reads much better than do the later versions. The KJV is majestic and yet simple. And, probably more than any other work the KJV made then modern English language (not the contemporary English language, which is an awful mess). Shakespeare comes a close second. If this writer were asked to suggest a text to use to teach the English language to a non-English speaker he would suggest the KJV. Aside from the "thees" and "thous", the text will teach a form of English much better than the average native English speaker uses.
But to get to the point, this year is the 400th anniversary of the KJV. Here is an Anglican priest (an evangelical) who appreciates the KJV for both it's teaching and its language. In the little video on the right side of the page he manages to make a rap type thing of over one hundred common sayings that are from the KJV that are still in use. And he does it all in less than 3 minutes:
The King's English