12 March 2006

Hear ye! Hear ye!

It's all Vicar's fault. He bought it first, and I thought it looked really neat. Now I have my own copy and I honestly don't think I'll ever use anything else for my Bible: The Holy Bible 1611 Edition King James Version.

This remarkable publication of Hendrickson Publishing contains a photographic reprint of that classic 1611 translation. And it is THE WHOLE Bible - the Apocrpyha is included. There are table of readings (noting the major festivals and saint days of the year - for example, today is St. Gregory's Day) for Matins and Vespers. There are marginal notes when the scholars couldn't quite agree on the best rendering of the original into English. There are the delightfully unpredictable spellings - Psalm 58:4: "Their poison is like the poyson of a serpent; they are like the deafe adder that stoppeth her eare." Two different spelling of poison in the self-same verse!

If you are an English language buff, this version is a must. You can get your copy from Christian Book Distributors. You won't regret it!

[I should add that many Lutherans in America today are utterly unaware that until the adoption of English, no Bible published by CPH lacked the Apocrpha - it was because the Americans had dropped it from the KJV by then that the Lutherans allowed it to disappear, which is a crying shame. I think especially of something like Wisdom 2!]

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've been told that somewhere in there "ask" is spelled "aks" as the word is often used in inner city, American English today.

Chaz said...

Guilty. But I'm not penitent. ;-)

Anonymous said...

Ever since seminary I have utterly refused to purchase any Bible lacking the Apocrypha. It is a total rip off to buy some hacked up Protestant Bahble. I once even explained this in one of my "bible studies." I brought in several different editions of German Bibles published by CPH from the 19th and 20th centuries, all of which contained the Apocrypha.

Why do we Lutherans feel a need to ape whatever the fruitcake Protestants around us are doing?

Fr. Cota

William Weedon said...

I have the hardback. Very nicely done though. Good stitching, it appears, and good paper.