How does your Bible translate here?

Obviously this could only refer to a male. In my younger days as a cop I saw more than one intoxicated female TRY to wash a wall, without success.

If someone mentions to me about someone wetting a wall, I'd automatically know it was a male, but most likely one who was desperate, drunk, crazy, living in Paris, or any combination thereof.

Almost every later Bible simply says "male".

The KJV does the same thing...dynamic equivalency...in more than one passage.

 

2 Kings 9:8 in the 1833 revision of the KJV
by Noah Webster

For the whole house of Ahab shall perish: and I will cut off from Ahab the males, and him that is shut up and left in Israel.

In his 1833 introduction to his edition of the Bible, Noah Webster commented: "To retain such offensive language, in the popular version, is, in my view, injudicious, if not unjustifiable; for it gives occasion to unbelievers and to persons of levity, to cast contempt upon the sacred oracles, or call in question their inspiration; and this weapon is used with no inconsiderable effect. Further, many words and phrases are so offensive, especially to females, as to create a reluctance in young persons to attend Bible classes and schools, in which they are required to read passages which cannot be repeated without a blush; and containing words which, on other occasions, a child could not utter without rebuke. The effect is, to divert the mind from the matter to the language of the scriptures, and thus, in a degree, frustrate the purpose of giving instruction.
Purity of mind is a christian virtue that ought to be carefully cherished; and purity of language is one of the guards which protect this virtue"
(p. xvi).

 

The Miles Coverdale Bible (1535), The Bishops' Bible (1568), and the Geneva Bible (1587) all use the phrase "maketh water" in this verse. If the translators of these earlier editions of the Holy Scriptures used this phrase, I wonder why the KJV translators chose to use the more vulgar terminology? Is there anyone who would call the use of "pisseth" a better rendering?

 

2Ki 9:8 (Bishop's Bible):
For the whole house of Ahab shalbe destroied:
and I will cut off from Ahab, him that maketh water
against the wall, as well him that is shut vp, as him
that is left in Israel.

I expect that if the KJV translators had
special spiritual
revelation in 1611 they would have
known in the 18-21st century that the
four letter "p" word would be vulgar.

If the 1769 re-spellers of the KJV would have
looked around they would have noticed that
the "p" word was vulgar.

 

I'm not sure if 2 Kings 9:8 has the same issue of 2 Kings 18:27 and Isaiah 36:12 (which both also have "piss" in the KJV), where the KJV translators translated from the marginal note in the Masoretic text, rather than from the main text itself. This qere/kethiv pair (marginal note / main text pair) is an example of where for preservation purposes, the Hebrew scribes kept the "to be written" (the kethiv, the main text) in the main body of the text, but added the "to be read" (the qere, the marginal note), indicating that the main text in Hebrew is very vulgar, and when reading the scriptures aloud one should use the less vulgar marginal note.

It is very interesting (and ironic) that the KJV translators choose to translate from the less vulgar reading (the marginal note), and chose a word that was not really vulgar in 1611, but ended up being the more vulgar word 350 years later.

 

That are much worse verses than that one.

Ezekiel 23:20

There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses. (NIV)

She lusted after their paramours, whose flesh is like the flesh of donkeys and whose issue is like the issue of horses. (NASB)

and lusted after their lovers, whose sexual members were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of stallions. (HCSB)

For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses. (KJV)

It seems strange to react strongly to "pisseth," but think nothing of the other verses people today might find offensive.

 

Maybe God wanted the "p" word BECAUSE it would be vulgar in modern English? Given the special revelation that the translators had, who are we to judge God?

 

It has something to do with the fact He (God) obviously had some kind of special relationship with the KJV translators?

 

I guess that was off-topic. My point was simply that if you are going to get upset over the "p" word, there are a lot of other verses that should receive a dynamic translation as well. It seems very selective to me.

 

I had a Hebrew professor who took great delight in showing the class how the KJV sanitized certain vulgarities in the Hebrew Bible.

You don't want to know.

HankD

 

It has something to do with the fact He (God) obviously had some kind of special relationship with the KJV translators? </font>[/QUOTE]You mean the pedobaptist Anglicans who translated the KJV?

 

That's a new one! I have a large collection of Bibles, but I don't have one called the "Anglican Version." Does anyone know where I can buy one? Is it anything like the "Authorized Version"?

 

Fortunately, most people know better that to use those “perfectly good” old 4-letter words . (What are dirty old men doing on a Christian message board?)

 

It is the one with the frontispiece which says:

"His majesty", being a one time titular head of the Church of England,
AKA, the Anglo Catholic Church (as opposed to the Roman Catholic Church)
with their own version of the sacramental rites of baptismal regeneration and the sacrifice of the mass.

HankD

 

I have a large collection of Bibles, but I don't have one called the "Anglican Version." Does anyone know where I can buy one?
[/QUOTE]

Since all the translators of the KJV were members of the Church of England, the KJV has
been referred to as the "Anglican Version" or
"Episcopal translation."

For example, in 1828 Thomas Smith pointed out that Scottish reformer George Gillespie (1613-1648) "opposed the episcopal translation [referring to the KJV], and shewed the [Westminster] assembly, that the Greek word, by them [KJV translators' turned into 'ordination'
[Acts 14:23], was in reality, 'choosing,' and imported the suffrages of the people in electing their own officebearers" (SELECT MEMOIRS OF THE LIVES, LABOURS, AND SUFFERINGS OF THOSE PIOUS AND LEARNED ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH DIVINES, p. 631).

 

That's a new one! I have a large collection of Bibles, but I don't have one called the "Anglican Version." Does anyone know where I can buy one? Is it anything like the "Authorized Version"?



Exactly. The Southern Baptists now have their own version called the Holman Christian Standard Bible which replaced the Disciples Study Bible. So why not change the name of the AV to Anglican Version?