Why did the KJV translators use marginal note showing alternate translation possibilities?

Question

If the English of the KJV is inspired of God, there would be no alternates!

Answer 1

I never heard about the KJV translators claiming to be inspired by God. If they gave alternate translations, they were being very responsible in highlighting the fact that ANY translation ( of the bible or any other work) involves a certain degree of interpretation on the part of the translator.

The Bible has been translated from hebrew and greek into virtually every other language in the world. It seems an act of hubris for english speakers to think that they posess a translation that is more inspired than others.

In fact, the KJV translators made some intentional mistranslations to honor their King. Hence, all the iakov 's in the New Testament Greek ( for the name that we call Jacob in English) got translated as "James". (In the Spanish New Testament, the apostles we call James are called Iago (Spanish for Jacob), not Jaime, which would be the Spanish word for James. "Saint James" is Santiago in Spanish, literally Saint Jacob.Much more faithful to the Greek than KJV)

Another example: the Greek speaks of magi coming from the East. "Magi" is the Greek plural of magus, as in Simon Magus from Acts. The word is difficult to translate into a single English word, but it means something like a mix of "wise man" and "medicine man". It does NOT mean "King", but the KJV translators decided to honor their sovereign by making these visitors from the East, who represent Gentile believers, into kings.

The very first translation of the New Testament from Greek was Jerome's Latin Vulgate in about 400 AD. He also wrote an extensive commentary on his translation, recognizing that all translations are interpretive.

Answer 2

I don't think the translators were thinking that their English text was inspired. I guess that they were trying to be as honest as possible with their readers, and that's why they gave alternate translation possibilities. As a translator, I would say that religious texts are the hardest to translate because one has to be careful to express all the different possibilities of meanings. Oftentimes it's necessary for the reader to be aware of all these possibilities because all of them together might give the reader another "meaning", I mean, a feeling, an impression. That's why Muslims agree that any translation of the Quran is just a human explanation according to the translator. The Holy text is only the Quran is Arabic, and the translations are there to explain it to non-Arabs.

Peace/salaam.

Answer 3

you write
CKJV !
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