The Good Book

[WilliamThirteen]

hello dear friends,

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

did a search before this post but came up empty handed so i thought i'd ask the esteemed brethren. Anyone know which version of the Bible the Old Goat grew up with?  Did the Plymouth Brethren have their own special version or did they use whatever was lying about? (see what i did there?)

Love is the law, love under will.

warm regards,
William

[Markus]

I'm fairly certain it was the KJV. Can't remember where I read that, but it must've been Kazcynski or Churton. Certainly, Old Crow's English reflects this influence.

Markus

[WilliamThirteen]

thanks Markus - I'll check them when I get a chance and report back. Or if anyone has an electronic version which they can more easily search, that'd be a 'blessing'.

[belmurru]

It was the King James Version, aka Authorized Version. Crowley writes in the Confessions, describing the beliefs of the Plymouth Brethren -

"The Bible, authorized version, was literally true, having been dictated by the Holy Ghost himself to scribes incapable of even clerical errors. King James' translators enjoyed an equal immunity. It was considered unusual— and therefore in doubtful taste—to appeal to the original texts. All other versions were regarded as inferior; the Revised Version in particular savoured of heresy. John Nelson Darby, the founder of the Plymouth Brethren, being a very famous biblical scholar, had been invited to sit on the committee and had refused on the ground that some of the other scholars were atheists."

(Chapter 1 (Symonds and Grant (Hill and Wang, 1969) ed., page 38)

[WilliamThirteen]

thanks for the quick work belmurru. I knew I had seen a reference somewhere.  The KJV is quite a resilient beast!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorized_King_James_Version

[belmurru]

thanks for the quick work belmurru. I knew I had seen a reference somewhere.  The KJV is quite a resilient beast!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorized_King_James_Version

It is, and very beautiful language as well.

By the way, I think that "authorized version" in that quote should be capitalized - Authorized Version. Symonds and Grant don't do it, but could anyone with the first, Mandrake Press, edition of the first two volumes of the Confessions tell me if it is capitalized there? If Crowley had seen the proofs and approved them himself, I would guess that he would have capitalized this alternate title for the KJV.

[chuck]

By the way, I think that "authorized version" in that quote should be capitalized - Authorized Version. Symonds and Grant don't do it, but could anyone with the first, Mandrake Press, edition of the first two volumes of the Confessions tell me if it is capitalized there? If Crowley had seen the proofs and approved them himself, I would guess that he would have capitalized this alternate title for the KJV.
[/quote]


93
It is not:

"The Bible, authorised version, was literally true, having been dictated by the Holy Ghost himself to scribes incapable of even clerical errors."

Confessions, Vol 1, pages 12 - 13

93 93/93
Chuck

[WilliamThirteen]

guess AC's scribes weren't quite as competent as those of the Holy Ghost!

[belmurru]

93
It is not:

"The Bible, authorised version, was literally true, having been dictated by the Holy Ghost himself to scribes incapable of even clerical errors."

Confessions, Vol 1, pages 12 - 13

93 93/93
Chuck

Thanks very much Chuck!

[belmurru]

guess AC's scribes weren't quite as competent as those of the Holy Ghost!

Yes, it appears so. The abbreviations for the King James Version are AV (Authorized Version) and KJV (obviously - usually followed by "1611" in evangelical circles, although the 1611 printing itself had many typographical errors that were later corrected). Unless "Authorized Version" wasn't as common then as it is today, I think it must be a case of the transcriber/typesetter not being familiar with the conventions.

[MichaelStaley]

Unless "Authorized Version" wasn't as common then as it is today, I think it must be a case of the transcriber/typesetter not being familiar with the conventions.

Given that Crowley would likely have seen proofs, it's perhaps more likely that he didn't regard it as of much importance.

[belmurru]

Given that Crowley would likely have seen proofs, it's perhaps more likely that he didn't regard it as of much importance.

Yep, that's possible too. I've scanned a few other places, like the Preface to The World's Tragedy, but I didn't find the term there.

Just a bit of trivia, that's all. It annoyed me, so I wondered if Crowley were such a stickler as well.

[Satan'sAdvocaat]

There was a Revised Version of the KJV published in the late 19th century between 1881-1894, and according to the Wikipedia entry this was "the only officially authorized and recognised version of the KJV".

But there is little doubt that AC was brought up on the original 1611 KJV and continued to refer to that.  The translation actually leaves a lot to be desired, particularly the Hebrew of the OT.  Not sure how familiar AC was with that, but he certainly had familiarity with the Greek text of the NT, but which Greek text that might have been I knoweth not.

[belmurru]

There was a Revised Version of the KJV published in the late 19th century between 1881-1894, and according to the Wikipedia entry this was "the only officially authorized and recognised version of the KJV".

But there is little doubt that AC was brought up on the original 1611 KJV and continued to refer to that.  The translation actually leaves a lot to be desired, particularly the Hebrew of the OT.  Not sure how familiar AC was with that, but he certainly had familiarity with the Greek text of the NT, but which Greek text that might have been I knoweth not.

There is no room for even a little doubt, since Crowley mentions the Revised Version specifically. According to him, to the Plymouth Brethren the Revised Version "savoured of heresy". This is from the quote a few posts back from the Confessions (important part in bold) -

"The Bible, authorized version, was literally true, having been dictated by the Holy Ghost himself to scribes incapable of even clerical errors. King James' translators enjoyed an equal immunity. It was considered unusual— and therefore in doubtful taste—to appeal to the original texts. All other versions were regarded as inferior; the Revised Version in particular savoured of heresy. John Nelson Darby, the founder of the Plymouth Brethren, being a very famous biblical scholar, had been invited to sit on the committee and had refused on the ground that some of the other scholars were atheists."

(Chapter 1 (Symonds and Grant (Hill and Wang, 1969) ed., page 38)

[Satan'sAdvocaat]

Completely agree, belmurru, checked 'The Confessions' last night and that full quotation from Chapter 1 says it all, I was going to copy it in myself, with a further reference to round things off:

"The result was immediately apparent. A girl of the village, three miles away, asked me to employ her as my secretary. I had had no intention of doing any literary work; but as soon as I set eyes on her I recognized that she had been sent for a purpose, for she exactly resembled the aforesaid toad. I therefore engaged her to come out every morning an take dictation. I had with me a copy of Bernard Shaw's Androcles and the Lion and bethought myself that I would criticize the preface. THE ALMOST UNPARALLELED KNOWLEDGE OF THE TEXT OF THE BIBLE WHICH I HAD ACQUIRED IN EARLY CHILDHOOD was shocked by Shaw's outrageously arbitrary selection of the texts that sustained his argument. His ignorance of Asiatic life and thought had led him into the most grotesque misapprehensions. I set out to criticize his essay, section by section; but the work grew under my hand, and in three weeks or so, I had produced a formidable treatise of some forty-five thousand words."

Chapter 82, page 888 - suitably enough - in my old Bantam pb.