In the beginning ...
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,1445195,00.html
EL Doctorow compares versions of the Book of Genesis, and finds that
God steals the show
Saturday March 26, 2005
The Guardian
The King James version of the Bible, an early 17th-century translation,
seems, by its now venerable diction, to have added a degree of poetic
lustre to the ancient tales, genealogies, and covenantal events of the
original. It is the version preachers quote from who believe in the
divinity of the text.
Certainly in the case of Genesis 1-4, in which the world is formed and
populated and Adam and Eve are sent from the Garden, there could be no
more appropriate language than the English of Shakespeare's time. The
King James does not suffer at all from what is inconsistent or
self-contradictory in the text any more than do the cryptic ancient
Hebrew and erring Greek from which it is derived. Once you assume
poetically divine authorship, only your understanding is imperfect.
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