Call me a nerd, but for me, there’s just something special about a verse like: “And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” (John 1:5, KJV).
It’s also significant (to me, anyway) that in the King James Version, in John 3:15, it talks about those believing in Jesus will have “eternal” life, but in the very next verse, the famous one, it talks about those same people having “everlasting” life. Yes, maybe “eternal” and “everlasting” are synonymous, but when speaking Chapter 3 consecutively as a whole, the different words create a magnificent kind of build in the thought.
The King James Version was published in 1611, which was toward the end of the Early Modern English period (roughly 1475-1650). At that time, our language as we know it was young, energetic, growing, changing, unbounded by many rules and restrictions: like a young adolescent set free to explore a new beach, or like a young colt learning just how fast he can run. Shakespeare was writing at that time.
In fact, 1611 is generally regarded as the year THE TEMPEST was first played by Shakespeare’s company. It’s a period of time that a language can experience only once.
All of us are young for only one brief period of time. Just as it is thrilling to watch a bunch of gifted teenagers playing soccer with abandon just for the pure joy of it, it is thrilling to voice God’s Word in this glorious translation, unbounded by rules of syntax and grammar (about which my computer reminds me with squiggly lines under words and phrases).
So please join us on New Year’s Eve to experience the Gospel of John and Revelation, voiced in the KJV in honor of its 400th anniversary!! John begins at 7 PM; Revelation (augmented by music selections based on the text and Pat Marvenko Smith’s artwork) at 9.30 PM. Come hear how fun it is for a nerd like me to say “a thousand two hundred and threescore days” instead of “1,260 days.” J (Revelation 12:6)