: Re: What English version of the bible should I quote from? Say I want to quote from the bible in something I'm writing (think the famous passage in Pulp Fiction). What bible version should I quote

@Shelley992

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KJV: "Thou shalt not kill." A modern-language, accurate translation would be "You won't kill."

For better or worse, KJV has been the major first (Early) Modern English bible translation of influence and its impact on literature and thinking is immense.

If young people want to make up mock commandments, they cast them in horribly ungrammatical simulations of Early Modern English corresponding to KJV language.

So quoting KJV gives you an ambitus that is these days actually associated with biblical language more so than with Shakespeare or other sort-of contemporary writings.

In contrast, if you tell the people of today something like "Ealle gesceafta, heofonas and englas, sunnan and monan, steorran and eorðan, ealle nytenu and fugelas, sǽ and ealle fixas, and ealle gesceafta God gesceop and geworhte on six dagum; and on ðam seofoðan dæge hé geendode his weorc, and geswac ða and gehalgode þone seofoðan dæg, forðan ðe hé on ðam dæge his weorc geendode." they probably won't have any biblical associations and will not be able to create even horribly wrong mockups of the same.

By the way, that one is actually Old English. Early Modern English most English speakers can deal with well enough at least when reading or listening (with modern pronunciation). Middle English (like Chaucer) is already sort-of tricky (the following quote concerns religious matters but is not exactly biblical):

Hold up thy tayl, thou sathanas!--quod he;
--shewe forth thyn ers, and lat the frere se
Where is the nest of freres in this place!--
And er that half a furlong wey of space,
Right so as bees out swarmen from an hyve,
Out of the develes ers ther gonne dryve
Twenty thousand freres on a route,
And thurghout helle swarmed al aboute,
And comen agayn as faste as they may gon,
And in his ers they crepten everychon.
He clapte his tayl agayn and lay ful stille.

I would not recommend quoting this to a congregation, by the way. Particularly not in modern translation. It talks about a special place in hell reserved to priests.

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