I don’t have any big plans this Labor Day weekend, only little ones. But luckily, the weather is supposed to be really nice.
How about you?
On the King James Version of the Bible
[NOTE: Today I was going to write about the usual political brouhaha, depressing though it is. But I found myself dragging my heels – not only because the news isn’t pleasant, but also because I had to deal with some other stuff. For example, my ex has been engaged in clearing out a storage unit he’s had since our divorce close to twenty years ago, and we have a few pieces of antique furniture there that we’re trying to unload. I already knew that antique furniture is now quite unpopular, natch. But I figure it’s worth at least something to someone. So I was getting some expert advice on what to do about that.
Then a friend called, and I was happy to talk to her for far longer than I’d planned. And when I returned to my trusty computer and put up my previous post – about poetry, sparked by something commenters said in today’s open thread – I found that I still didn’t want to write about politics today.
Then I noticed a discussion in that same open thread about the King James version of the Bible, and I remembered I’d dealt with that in an older post. So here it is again, very slightly edited. It first appeared here back in 2008.]
As a child who loved poetry, I memorized it almost without intending to. Just a few readings of a poem I liked and its cadences seemed to stick in my brain. Lines and phrases came to me at odd times and repeated themselves, the way song lyrics often do.
The best of them had a strange and hypnotic power. As I got older they took on meanings and subtleties I hadn’t understood as a child. But I had always understood the beauty of the words and the way they fit together, sound complementing sense.
The same was true of certain prayers and Bible passages—the Psalms, for instance, which I knew were also poems, although they didn’t rhyme.
Their language was archaic. I learned the King James Version, even though I didn’t know at the time that it was called that. But it was easy to understand, not hard at all. And to me, all those “thys” and “thous” and “eths” and “ests” made it seem as though the psalms came not from the olden days, but from a place beyond and outside of time.
Then I went to a service that used a revised and modernized version of the Bible. I could still recognize the prayers and psalms, but now they had a jarring pedestrian quality, almost like a Dick and Jane reader. I was still relatively young, but even then I felt the tug of nostalgia for the beautiful language of the past, despite the fact that I couldn’t articulate what was missing or why I minded so much.
Well, maybe now I can articulate it. Here’s the 23rd Psalm in the King James Version:
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.
And here’s the same 23rd Psalm in the New American Standard version, written in 1971 with the twin goals of translational accuracy and modernization of the language.
It’s not necessarily identical with the first new version I encountered. But it’s typical of versions that make changes that are relatively minimal and yet still seem to me to represent a loss, however slight, of something very beautiful that was part of what made the earlier version so compelling. Is that loss compensated for by any gain in accessibility or authenticity? You be the judge:
The LORD is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside quiet waters.
He restores my soul;
He guides me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You have anointed my head with oil;
My cup overflows.
Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
It doesn’t take too many liberties with the older version, not really. Mostly it clears out the “thous,” and substitutes the modern “you,” in addition to removing the archaic endings from the verbs. So it oughtn’t to be so bad, right? And yet, and yet … it feels so much flatter, although you may disagree.
The revisers have made a few other changes that seem to me to be gratuitous, although I imagine they have something to do with translating more literally and correctly from the original Hebrew (of which I understand only a few words, although I’ve heard it’s the very best way of all to appreciate the splendor and poetry of the work, as well as its meaning).
There are a couple of changes that jump out at me in jarring fashion. I feel something akin to a pang at the missing words and phrases, and come close to wincing at the additions.
Why oh why, in line 4 (corresponding to line 2 in the older version), are the waters described as “quiet” instead of “still?” Surely the phrases indicate close to the same thing in English, but “still” has the added virtue of conjuring up other references such as “still waters run deep,” as well as the repetitive “s” sound that harmonically resonates with the “s” at the end of the word “waters” and the one in the middle of “beside.” That’s poetry.
Then there’s the worst offense of all, at least to my ears: the omission of the word “Yea” in line 4 of the old version (it would be line 8 in the new). “Yea” was a great change of pace, a dramatic stopping point where the rhythmic variation of the unstressed and stressed syllables stood still for a moment, like a rest in music, before charging forward again. It worked as wonderful emphasis: yes, indeed; hear hear!
The substitution of “Even though” for “Yea, though” not only fails to serve this rhythmic function, it doesn’t even have the same meaning. “Yea” is an affirmation and an emphasis, underlining the thought to follow. The “even” is weak, tentative: “despite the fact that I walk through the valley … ”
I can’t imagine anyone caring quite the same way about the newer version as the older one. It’s hard to imagine anyone wanting to memorize it for the sheer beauty of it, although some of the poetry still comes through. Perhaps there’s even someone who prefers it, just as there are people who prefer frozen french fries to the real thing. But that someone isn’t me.
The changes for the sake of accuracy seem so minimal that I can’t believe they make much of a difference, although in some other parts of the Bible that may be more important. I say keep the important ones and ditch the rest.
I challenge anyone to prefer an even newer version, though, one that departs far more from King James. It’s called the Contemporary English Version, written in 1995 with the purpose of simplicity and ease of reading:
You, LORD, are my shepherd.
I will never be in need.
You let me rest in fields
of green grass.
You lead me to streams
of peaceful water,
and you refresh my life.
You are true to your name,
and you lead me
along the right paths.
I may walk through valleys
as dark as death,
but I won’t be afraid.
You are with me,
and your shepherd’s rod makes me feel safe.
You treat me to a feast,
while my enemies watch.
You honor me as your guest,
and you fill my cup
until it overflows.
Your kindness and love
will always be with me
each day of my life,
and I will live forever
in your house, LORD.
One might just as well call it the Hallmark greeting card version and be done with it. Or maybe it’s the “You Light Up My Life” version.
This version simplifies to the point of boredom. Nearly all the things that make the first (and even the second, to a certain extent) version uniquely vivid are blanded out. I have no idea why the water is now “peaceful,” for example, but it’s certainly the most dull choice of the three.
But perhaps the worst offense in the passage is totally eliminating the specificity of the image of anointing the speaker’s head with oil, substituting instead the generic and soporific (big yawn) “You honor me as your guest.” Yes, I get the reason: the meaning of the ritual, along with all its rich associations, has been lost. But I don’t think it’s that difficult to guess at in context or to teach, even for a child. For what shall it profit a religious text, if it shall gain a small modicum of enhanced comprehensibility, and lose its own power?
The King James Bible was once new and modern, I suppose, back in the early 1600s when it was first written. But there’s a reason why it’s so popular and has stood the test of time: it’s a masterpiece (and wonder of wonders, it’s a masterpiece produced by a committee).
And yet the urge to improve on the King James Version is nearly irresistible, it seems. There are no fewer than twenty other English-language versions listed at the BibleGateway site, and no doubt there are more on the way. That’s progress for you.
September 1, 1939
In an earlier post today, commenter “PA Cat” writes this:
Today marks the 84th anniversary of the German invasion of Poland that is usually considered the beginning of WWII. I went back to look at a poem by W.H. Auden associated with that date, namely “September 1, 1939.” The first stanza reads as follows:
I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.The poem is interesting for several reasons, one being its revival following 9/11. As Ian Sansom notes, ” . . . in the aftermath of 9/11, many American newspapers reprinted Auden’s poem in its entirety: it was widely circulated and discussed online and in print. It seemed prophetic, wise and relevant, almost too good to be true. This is partly because it mentions September and New York, circulating fears, and the unmentionable odour of death, all in its first stanza. It was the right poem, in the right place, for a wrong time.”
The other reason why the poem is interesting is that Auden later disowned it, stating that “The whole poem, I realized, was infected with an incurable dishonesty – and must be scrapped.” He refused to have it included in anthologies of his poetry, but readers have persisted in reviving the poem again and again. Sansom goes on to describe “September 1, 1939” as “the world’s greatest zombie poem. It won’t die – and never will – because people want it to be true. . . .
Later in the thread, commenter “IrishOtter49” asks a good question: “Why did Auden dislike his own poem?”
I recall reading about that once, and although I can’t find the essay where I found it, I located this, which is in agreement with what I recall:
… [P]erhaps Auden wouldn’t be surprised that “September 1, 1939,” a poem he essentially disowned, is one of his best remembered. Penned to mark the outbreak of World War II, the poem had a renewed profile after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Auden came to dislike “September 1, 1939,” especially its much-quoted assertion, “We must love one another or die.” The line later seemed nonsensical to him, since people must ultimately die regardless of their actions.
The line that is probably best remembered is the one Auden disliked the most, perhaps for reasons having to do with logic – we all die anyway – but I believe he also may have found it somewhat trite and pat. I’m guessing at that part. I think he was too hard on himself about this, because if the line is interpreted as referring to humanity as a whole rather than the individual, it’s dealing with something different: can humans survive without love, or will hatred take over and destroy us?
In this, the line is a bit like the famous – and often-reviled or mocked – state motto of New Hampshire, “Live Free or Die.” Yes, we die either way, free or in slavery. But the motto is saying that the speaker chooses freedom over fear of death, and is willing to die for freedom. That’s a different message than in Auden’s poem, which I’m pretty sure is not saying that we should be willing to die for love. But “or die” is a way of saying something else, even though “or” is not really a choice for humans about dying; it’s always “and.” Part of the question is also, “how we will live and how will we die, and when?” as well as “how many of us will die for lack of this precious thing?”
Auden may have had a more personal reason to dislike his poem as well, although this is just another guess on my part. Note that the poem’s narrator is placed in New York. Auden was British, but he had moved to America in 1939. From the link:
Others couldn’t help noticing that his departure coincided with the start of Britain’s ordeal in World War II. Novelist Evelyn Waugh would later claim that Auden had left “at the first squeak of an air-raid warning.”
His absence from England even came up in the British Parliament, although the government took no action against him. “In Britain,” says Carpenter, “some of those left-wing intellectuals who had supported and admired Auden during the 1930s were beginning to be shocked by his decision to remain in America.”
Auden, Carpenter concludes, “does not seem to have faced the question whether he had a moral duty to help, however trivially, in the fight against Hitler.”
“In Auden’s case,” Smith writes of Auden’s move to America, “it was probably not cowardice: Those who knew him are firm in their rejection of that charge.”
That entire era, and the controversy of his move, might not have created the most pleasant memories in Auden. At any rate, the poet doesn’t own his own poem. The world is free to make what it will of it, and the world’s verdict is that it is good.
My favorite part has never been that line. It’s the last stanza:
Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
And in the non-poetry realm, on Hitler’s invasion of Poland:
On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. To justify the action, Nazi propagandists accused Poland of persecuting ethnic Germans living in Poland. They also falsely claimed that Poland was planning, with its allies Great Britain and France, to encircle and dismember Germany. The SS, in collusion with the German military, staged a phony attack on a German radio station. The Germans falsely accused the Poles of this attack. Hitler then used the action to launch a “retaliatory” campaign against Poland.
And a couple of weeks later, the Soviets came in from the east in accord with Hitler and Stalin’s pact.
Switching back to poetry and the subject of love, Edna St. Vincent Millay has something to say on a personal level. I’ll let her have the last word:
Open thread 9/1/23
All of a sudden – September.
I noticed today, as is so often the case, …
… that my posts are all about the law as a tool of politics. So much of what goes on between left and right in this country today occurs through that mechanism. That’s why the leftist slant of law schools that really picked up steam in the 1980s and 1990s has been such an important part of the Gramscian march, really its cornerstone (yes; I know that’s a mixed metaphor).
Dershowitz: on the left’s lawfare against Trump’s lawyers
This is an important video from Dershowitz. I wish most Americans would watch it, but of course that won’t be happening. The first 20 minutes or so are especially good, but the whole thing is worth watching. Dershowitz understands the importance of the adversary system and why attacks on Trump’s lawyers are so pernicious.
In tactical and strategic terms, it doesn’t matter to the left that their cases against Trump are so weak – some of them extremely weak. The left thinks it’s in a win/win/win position, and it could very well be correct. It’s not necessary for the ;eft to ultimately win the cases to achieve their purposes. The possibilities go as follows:
(1) The judges and juries are so biased that they will convict despite the weakness of the cases. Any appeals will only occur after the election, and so even if reversals occur they will come too late to help Trump in time for the 2024 voting.
(2) Even if there are acquittals, the cases serve as a warning to everyone on the right and any lawyer who might be so bold as to defend Trump. Dershowitz explains this exceptionally well in the video.
(3) No matter what the verdicts are and whether cases win on appeal, the trials serve during an election year to stress Trump, occupy and distract him, and waste his money.
Update on one of the Trump 18: Harrison Floyd
[NOTE: Here’s my previous post on Floyd.]
Harrison Floyd, the only one of the Georgia Trump case defendants who has been jailed, has been released after five days:
The last of President Donald J. Trump’s 18 co-defendants to be released post-arraignment stepped outside the Fulton County Jail Wednesday morning and told “Bannon’s War Room” host Stephen K. Bannon why he thought he was held for five days.
“The state of Georgia, and I’m a black man. I don’t know if I can say much more,” said Harrison Floyd, the executive director of Black Voices of Trump.
Bannon asked Floyd about his charges.
“To keep it frank and simple, Fulton County fumbled the coverup, and I am aware of what transpired, and they’re trying to put pressure on me and others to make sure that the truth doesn’t come out,” he said.
“The truth always has a way of finding its way to the surface, sir, so it’s going to be; I’m looking forward to being down here and fighting the devil in Georgia,” he said.
Bannon helped raise the money to buy Floyd’s freedom and get him some decent lawyers. For those who had wondered why Trump didn’t give him the money, I read somewhere that the supposed co-conspirators are not allowed to communicate. I don’t know for sure whether that’s true, but if it is it explains the Bannon connection.
More from Floyd:
Floyd said [Fulton County DA] Willis, the daughter of a Black Panther, targeted him because he dared to step into the limelight as a black Republican and Trump supporter.
“Part of the Black culture is always voting Democrat. I went against the code, if you will, at the highest order,” Floyd said.
“The district attorney decided she wanted to send me what we call a Negro wake-up call,” he said.
“She dialed the wrong number, because it didn’t go through.”
[NOTE II: I suspect that the statement about the “devil in Georgia” is a reference to the Charlie Daniels song.]
A little memory-refresher on California propositions
Yesterday I wrote this post about three ballot initiatives in California designed to protect children and parents from the radical trans activist push in that state. In it, I observed:
What if these ballot measures pass? I have a hunch they might be invalidated by the California courts. You see, in a blue state the left has several layers of defense. Forget about Democracy™ when it doesn’t go the way the left wants it to.
It occurs to me that many readers might not know the history behind my claim. So I want to call your attention to California’s Proposition 187 and Proposition 8. Here’s some history on Proposition 187 [remarks in brackets mine]:
California Proposition 187 (also known as the Save Our State (SOS) initiative) was a 1994 ballot initiative to establish a state-run citizenship screening system and prohibit illegal immigrants from using non-emergency health care, public education, and other services in the State of California. Voters passed the proposed law at a referendum on November 8, 1994. The law was challenged in a legal suit the day after its passage, and found unconstitutional by a federal district court on November 11. In 1999, Governor Gray Davis halted state appeals of this ruling.
Passage of Proposition 187 reflected state residents’ concerns about illegal immigration into the United States. Opponents believed the law was motivated by bigotry against illegal immigrants of Hispanic or Asian origin [or claimed to believe it]; supporters maintained that their concerns were economic: that the state could not afford to provide social services for so many people who had entered the country illegally or overstayed their visas.
And we all know how California is doing now.
As for Proposition 8, it went this way:
Proposition 8, known informally as Prop 8, was a California ballot proposition and a state constitutional amendment intended to ban same-sex marriage; it passed in the November 2008 California state elections and was later overturned in court. The proposition was created by opponents of same-sex marriage in advance of the California Supreme Court’s May 2008 appeal ruling, In re Marriage Cases, which followed the short-lived 2004 same-sex weddings controversy and found the previous ban on same-sex marriage (Proposition 22, 2000) unconstitutional. Proposition 8 was ultimately ruled unconstitutional by a federal court (on different grounds) in 2010 …
Both propositions had one thing in common: it could be argued that they targeted one of the identity groups protected by the left. The first was illegal immigrants and the second was gay people. If Proposition 8 had stood, it would of course have been overruled by Obergefell. But by the time that ruling came down, Proposition 8 was no more.
The current push to protect children from medical transition, to protect the rights of parents to be told if a school is transitioning their child, and to protect women’s sports, all have the same weakness as far as the California courts are concerned: they could be argued (and almost certainly will be argued, if passed) to discriminate against an identity group protected by the left.
Open thread 8/31/23
Is Joe slated to go?
There isn’t much question that President Biden has been deteriorating lately. He also seems to be laying low more and more often, either because he needs rest or because his handlers feel that almost any exposure is too much exposure.
But there remains the question of what the Democrats are going to do about it. In the comments here, many people have told me that I am wrong in my assumption that there’s nevertheless still a good chance that Biden will be the Democrats’ 2024 nominee, mainly because there’s no one all that good to replace him (even Newsom is vulnerable), because of the how-do-we-get-rid-of-Kamala-Harris problem, and because Joe himself has tremendous ambition to run and will only leave the field kicking and screaming.
Here’s someone who seems to agree with me.
Now, don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying it’s a done deal that Biden will remain. But I think it’s more likely than not. It depends on the state of the investigations against him – the more the GOP is allowed to do in that regard and the more it is reported on fairly by the MSM (which hasn’t happened yet), the more likely it is that Joe will be ushered out, gently or harshly. It also depends on the state of his deterioration. If it becomes absolutely impossible to hide and he becomes utterly unable to function, something will have to happen. But they’ve propped him up so far, and most (perhaps even all) of the Democrats I know would vote for him even if he is unable to function, knowing that there’s a group of people behind him who would continue on the leftist path with him as some sort of figurehead.
[NOTE: For that matter, what’s up with McConnell?]
Protect Kids California launched
There’s some pushback to the gender ideology takeover in the schools, even in ultra-blue California:
Protect Kids California, a coalition of parental rights advocates and others who oppose gender ideology, filed three ballot initiatives Monday for the November 2024 ballot, aiming to circumvent the Golden State’s Legislature.
The ballot measures require schools to notify parents if their children claim to identify as transgender, prevent biological males from entering women’s spaces and sports, and forbid medical professionals from putting kids on experimental drugs or performing surgery on them to “affirm” a gender identity opposite their biological sex.
“We have legislators and institutions taking advantage of vulnerable children and busy parents,” Jonathan Zachreson, a member of the Roseville City School Board and spokesman for Protect Kids California, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview Tuesday. “It’s going to take parents, grandparents, and concerned citizens from all over to stand up to protect kids from these harmful practices.”
“We have a Legislature that does not represent the people very well,” added Zachreson, a parental rights advocate who founded Reopen California Schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. “The best polling that’s out there suggests that these initiatives would pass in California overwhelmingly.”
He cited numerous polls suggesting that more than 60% of California voters support schools notifying parents if their kids are questioning their gender identity, oppose biological males competing in women’s sports, and support restricting “sex-change” surgeries and drugs to patients over 18.
That poll information doesn’t surprise me, even in California. When I’ve brought up these issues (for example, schools routinely keeping transition a secret from parents; the effects of puberty blockers) now and then with people I know (not in California), even the die-hard Democrats are shocked at what I tell them. Sometimes they even say something like “That can’t be true!” I assure them it is, and offer to send links. Sometimes, perhaps, they read them; I really don’t know.
But not a single person has supported the agenda of the activists – especially regarding parental notice – when it is explained to them. The thing is, not a single person has known a thing about it before I mention it, and this is part of the left’s plan in shrouding what’s going on with rhetoric such as “gender affirming.”
Protect Kids California cited a June Rasmussen Reports poll finding that 68% of California voters support schools notifying parents if their child claims to identify as transgender. Even 65% of Democrats said they support parental notification.
Doesn’t surprise me in the least – even in California. And yet the vast majority of those same people will continue to send Democrats to Sacramento to make policies such as these. Go figure.
What if these ballot measures pass? I have a hunch they might be invalidated by the California courts. You see, in a blue state the left has several layers of defense. Forget about Democracy™ when it doesn’t go the way the left wants it to.
Project 2025: that vast right-wing conspiracy
Commenter “cb” linked to this AP article with a scary title that aims to frighten non-conservatives about the right’s plans if it somehow manages to win the 2024 election:
With more than a year to go before the 2024 election, a constellation of conservative organizations is preparing for a possible second White House term for Donald Trump, recruiting thousands of Americans to come to Washington on a mission to dismantle the federal government and replace it with a vision closer to his own.
“Dismantle the federal government” – insurrectionists all, right? No doubt they’re planning to do away with the Constitution and establish a Handmaid’s Tale dictatorship. And it’s about the evil Trump and his “vision,” not anything traditionally conservative. No mention, either, of the fact that the left has already taken over the federal bureaucracy and this is an attempt to reverse that takeover.
More:
With a nearly 1,000-page “Project 2025” handbook and an “army” of Americans, the idea is to have the civic infrastructure in place on Day One to commandeer, reshape and do away with what Republicans deride as the “deep state” bureaucracy, in part by firing as many as 50,000 federal workers.
Sounds reasonable to me. And these particular federal workers are not the same as the federal government itself, although they are its workers.
Further:
The unprecedented effort is being orchestrated with dozens of right-flank organizations, many new to Washington, and represents a changed approach from conservatives, who traditionally have sought to limit the federal government by cutting federal taxes and slashing federal spending.
Instead, Trump-era conservatives want to gut the “administrative state” from within, by ousting federal employees they believe are standing in the way of the president’s agenda and replacing them with like-minded officials more eager to fulfill a new executive’s approach to governing.
“Unprecedented” in the sense that conservatives previously hadn’t realized quite what they were dealing with; it’s not unprecedented in terms of the left, which has been flooding the bureaucracies for decades in an effort that picked up exponentially during the Obama administration. The right is merely trying to undo what the left has already done, and also to shrink those bureaucracies rather than grow them.
Good luck. The right has to win the election first.
By the way, the AP – which published this article – has been revealed recently as the recipient of a lot of money from left-wing foundations:
The Associated Press, the country’s top wire service, is now bankrolled in part by millions of dollars from left-wing foundations, including one founded by “1619 Project” author Nikole Hannah-Jones.
The news organization last year announced a series of “partnerships” to subsidize reporters covering climate change, race, and democracy. A review of the donor roster shows that the vast majority fund left-wing political causes, while none are supporters of conservative initiatives.
And my guess is that just about everything political – including the article I’m discussing in this post – comes under the heading of “democracy.”