tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1447996151440578956.post2182742010819845001..comments2024-03-18T04:50:28.589-07:00Comments on Grace's Mosaic Moments: Ranting on SubtletiesGracehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04040441084648426091noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1447996151440578956.post-55090439447610279492019-05-05T13:38:14.533-07:002019-05-05T13:38:14.533-07:00That's why I never read "modern" ver...That's why I never read "modern" versions of the Bible. Good old King James still works for me.Gracehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04040441084648426091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1447996151440578956.post-92061569521510729682019-05-05T03:48:49.037-07:002019-05-05T03:48:49.037-07:00Oh, you have hit a hot button with me. I loathe bo...Oh, you have hit a hot button with me. I loathe books, movies, TV shows, you name it -- there are multitudinous examples everywhere -- that get the flavor of an era wrong. I find it especially true in children's fiction, where it often seems to be deliberate.<br /><br />As just one particularly egregious example, there's a TV show (which we found via Netflix; I don't know if it's still current) that I initially fell in love with, called "Murdoch Mysteries." I could easily swallow the premise: a young Canadian detective in the late 1800's who, being interested in science, has made all sorts of discoveries and inventions (such as fingerprinting) to aid his investigations -- well before such tools were actually available to the police. All well and good, a very clever gimmick. I had no problem with suspension of disbelief for that. However, it was an entirely different story with the characters. Oh, they were lovable enough, but their attitudes and dialogue were cut right out of the 21st century, dressed up in turn-of-the-twentieth-century fashion, and plunked down in Toronto over 100 years ago. Can you imagine a supposedly devout Catholic of that era thinking it no problem to marry a divorced woman? Or using the term "I'm sorry for your loss" to a murder victim's spouse? Much as I cared for the characters and enjoyed the stories, we dumped Murdoch a few seasons in, because those sorts of things just kept getting worse.<br /><br />It's not only fiction that's a problem. I'm in the middle of reading the Bible from beginning to end, using the version called "The Message." For the first time since I started reading through the Bible once each year, I have found it a hard slog. Sometimes there's an interesting spin, possibly insight, on a familiar passage, but the poetry is completely gone from the text, and the modern (or even slightly dated) expressions are like fingernails on a blackboard. (Hmmm. I guess that's another dated expression.) But worst of all is that the modern colloquial language strips the Bible of any sense that those were real, historical events and people in a particular time, place, and culture. That's an even greater loss than the poetry.Linda Wightman (SursumCorda)https://www.blogger.com/profile/05743407414054956783noreply@blogger.com