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 Post subject: Olde English terms
PostPosted: Sun Oct 16, 2011 7:00 pm 
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Name of your church: Formally;Water of Life Ministries under the Baptist Union; hardly anyone in the church knows that. It's in the biggest little town in Oz.
Why do some people prefer to use non-current terms for talking about Christian things?

Examples are:
God-breathed rather than inspired
rightly dividing rather than correctly handling or accurately handling

Non-exclusive possibilities that come to mind are
  • because of the KJV legacy
  • an association of an obscure meaning with mystery (of God)
  • a desire to have a sacred terms reserved in some way for believers
  • they sound more reverent or spiritual
  • a reflection of a worldview that sees the world divided into the sacred and profane.

My preference is always to use plain modern English and it always strikes me when I hear people move from everyday language into a religious language.

Do you do this? And if so is it for any of the listed reasons or another?

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 Post subject: Re: Olde English terms
PostPosted: Sun Oct 16, 2011 7:26 pm 
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I think part of the reason is a sort of tribalism--like technical people have their own jargon and each generation has its own slang.

But, like you, I think it is far better to be understood by whomever I am speaking to. If I run into one of the merry wives, I will try my hand at Old English, for their convenience, but otherwise I will abstain.


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 Post subject: Re: Olde English terms
PostPosted: Sun Oct 16, 2011 7:48 pm 
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Location: california (land of happy cows)
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If I learned a piece of scripture from the KJV bible, then that's what I tend to quote to myself, and to others. I really like the 23rd Psalm, for example, in the King James version. For me, it's a matter of personal preference and familiarity. I don't always care for more contemporary and modern bible translations, and they are not what I experienced in my earlier years.

Then again, I do have a B.A. in English, and I eschew slang and endeavor to articulate properly whenever possible to avoid obfuscation.

(grin) :mrgreen:

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 Post subject: Re: Olde English terms
PostPosted: Sun Oct 16, 2011 8:01 pm 
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John, I think all of your proposed reasons factor in.

Some Christians I know use thou forms when they pray (at least publicly). On the one hand, it's archaic and tends to obscure the relational aspect of prayer (that God is a real person to whom one is speaking). On the other hand, it's kind of cool to have an entire pronoun and verbal form reserved exclusively for addressing God. Kind of a Romans 14:6 issue.

Btw, I don't think 'rightly dividing' is an archaism. I think it's just KJV's erroneously literal rendering of a Greek verb they apparently didn't quite understand.


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 Post subject: Re: Olde English terms
PostPosted: Sun Oct 16, 2011 8:04 pm 
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I just love the term "God-breathed," by the way. :)

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 Post subject: Re: Olde English terms
PostPosted: Sun Oct 16, 2011 8:21 pm 
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Name of your church: Formally;Water of Life Ministries under the Baptist Union; hardly anyone in the church knows that. It's in the biggest little town in Oz.
Jargon is OK within your club or professional group; but outside it is a method of excluding those present by obfuscation :wink: which would not be Rom 14:6.

For me, using Thou and similar terms always brings to mind the Yorkshire variation of English such as heard in All Creatures Great and Small. I can't bring myself to use it in The Lord's Prayer. In Yorkshire it certainly would not have been reserved for God, nor In DH Lawrence's Nottinghamshire where I lived for a while. Mellors uses it when addressing Lady Chatterly in Lady Chatterly's Lover.

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 Post subject: Re: Olde English terms
PostPosted: Sun Oct 16, 2011 11:20 pm 
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The only time I use "thou" is when singing "Be Thou my vision ..."

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 Post subject: Re: Olde English terms
PostPosted: Sun Oct 16, 2011 11:29 pm 
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Molly,

You know what one I miss the most?
"Thus"


"Spake" was pretty cool too.

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 Post subject: Re: Olde English terms
PostPosted: Sun Oct 16, 2011 11:50 pm 
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I have no issue with those terms. What bothers me more than that type of thing is when someone flaunts their knowledge of Greek or Hebrew like when someone is taking about the bible and randomly inserts the original word and leaves out the English word. I find it to be self-edifying.


John Chaplin wrote:
Why do some people prefer to use non-current terms for talking about Christian things?

Examples are:
God-breathed rather than inspired
rightly dividing rather than correctly handling or accurately handling

Non-exclusive possibilities that come to mind are
  • because of the KJV legacy
  • an association of an obscure meaning with mystery (of God)
  • a desire to have a sacred terms reserved in some way for believers
  • they sound more reverent or spiritual
  • a reflection of a worldview that sees the world divided into the sacred and profane.

My preference is always to use plain modern English and it always strikes me when I hear people move from everyday language into a religious language.

Do you do this? And if so is it for any of the listed reasons or another?

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All scripture KJV unless otherwise stated.


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 Post subject: Re: Olde English terms
PostPosted: Tue Oct 18, 2011 6:52 am 
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Joined: Sat Nov 05, 2005 12:50 pm
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Location: Charlotte, MI
Faith: Christian
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Name of your church: New Life Fellowhip
Studying old English and old literature is interesting but I realize that there are many words which are outdated. For example, the KJV has words with an old English basis and these words are obsolete and some mean totally different things in our language today. In the "Interpreter's Bible Dictionary," vol. K-Q, pp. 584-588 are pages which list obsolete terms. I believe to communicate the truth of scripture we should use 2 and 3 syllable Anglo-Saxon words, in other words simple English.

I have studied Old and Middle English but I do like modern versions of literature.


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