First off, I said Old King James Version, noting the 'old' and it's a hell of alot older then 400 years, all the "the's" are "thy" and stuff
And as far as homosexuality, I will look it up. Im just going to go back to my basic logic. Sex basicly originates from the way a woman get's pregnant, but now we have like condemns and stuff, and it's for pleasure, which was of course not the original intent. So, from that, you don't get a baby from two men freaking each other, so obviously it's wrong..
Um. Excuse me? Old King James Version? Do you even know anything about your Bible and your religion? I mean, really, Alias, that is just...learn about your religion, my God. There is no such thing as the "Old" King James Version.
The King James Version is a Protestant Bible that originated when King James took Tyndale and Wycliffe's translations and made the first Early Modern English translation of the Bible in complete. Though the Church of England - the first Protestant church - was started through less than savoury means (read: King Henry VIII wanting a divorce), one of the main redeeming principles was that the average person did not have to go through a priest in order to "commune" with God and know God's word (the Bible). Before King James Version, there were no Bibles available to the PUBLIC at all, and in Easy-To-Read Modern English. This is what was revolutionary about the KJV. Henry had a Bible, called the Great Bible, as well...which wasn't open to the public, though it was in English...I just know that it was a mishmash of Tyndale and the Vulgate (Catholic Bible) and Luther's German translation, and not really a formal edition.
The Book of Common Prayer, the psalms, found in Protestant churches doesn't come from the KJV, actually. It comes from the Great Bible. So there you go.
But remember, the Protestant religion was created with King Henry VIII created the Church of England so that he could get a divorce and didn't have to go through the Catholic Church's power. That isn't to say the idea didn't exist before - that was what Wycliffe, Tyndale and Luther were all about, but Henry was the only one who had the power and the "need" to start up his own Church. King James I had his version translated and published in 1611. That makes it 394 years old.
The "thee" and "thy" doesn't have anything to do with how old something is. That is called formal English, and it it was used still up into the early 20th century for extremely formal things, normally religious. It of course lost popularity. It wasn't even normally spoken word in King James's time. Even Shakespeare, who lived before King James, used formal English sparingly.
Ye Olde English is from the Middle Ages, the Dark Ages, Chauncey's time. Most people could not, without any schooling, read Ye Olde English these days, because it is so far removed from our own English.
And there were never any true Ye Olde English versions of the Bible. There were...incomplete translations and more of a general "gist" writing. However it wasn't banned by the Church at the time, as it was later.
Wycliffe made a translation (in the 14th century), actually, but he was labelled a heretic by the Church and burned, and all his books burned as well. Now, some versions survived, which Tyndale and later King James used, but they were not accessible to most people, and the point of the KJV was that it was a pubically accessible Bible, which had never been done before.
As for your logic regarding homosexuality...do not get me wrong, that is sound logic as to why homosexuality would be regarded poorly in a dying community, as often were the ancient Hebrews, always on the move, it seemed.
But homosexuality has not always been regarded as a "sin", even in Hebrew and Christian lands. And you must remember...the two societies to which Western Civilization owes the most regarding politics, philosophy, great works of Art and Logic...the Greeks and the Roman Republic...were blatant homosexuals. It was not regarded as a relationship any different than heterosexual relationships, except for the fact that you needed one of the later to produce an heir.
The other society we owe to...the British Empire...guess what all the scholars and leaders in the Court and Parliament read and still read? The Greek
logos and the Roman politics. =P
Clearly neither were detremental to either society. The Greeks in Athens, responsible for
demokratia, only closed its schools of thought when it fell to the Byzantine Empire (ie Holy Roman Empire in the 6th century AD). Roman Republic eventually became the Roman Empire, which ruled the known world, and then the Holy Roman Empire, which lived its life trying to recapture old glory. Both are tremendously responsible for our way of life today, and don't let anyone tell you anything differently.
Edited by Casilla, 06 October 2005 - 08:30 PM.